Microsoft’s Bing API services (the source of DuckDuckGo’s search data) went down at approx 3am ET and has not yet returned to service. Bing, DuckDuckGo, CoPilot, ChatGPT and more are unable to use the Bing services so in turn are also not working or not working fully.

archive.ph and its mirrors like archive.today, etc. are blocked by many ISP’s DNS systems.

paywall downvote

More info on these sick assholes from a NY times piece back in December

Federal prosecutors in Montana have charged two men with illegally shooting about

3,600 birds, including bald and golden eagles, in a “killing spree” that fueled a black market for tail feathers and preyed on a symbol of the nation.

The men, Simon Paul, 42, of St. Ignatius, Mont., and Travis John Branson, 48, of Cusick, Wash., were each indicted Thursday on one count of conspiracy, 13 counts of unlawful trafficking of bald and golden eagles and one count of violating the Lacey Act, a federal law that prohibits the trafficking of illegally taken wildlife.

From January 2015 to March 2021, prosecutors said, the two men would venture out to the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana, where mountains reflect off the streams and lake that cover the land, and fire their weapons at the eagles soaring above the prairies.

“The defendants then illegally sold the eagles on the black market for significant sums of cash across the United States and elsewhere,” prosecutors said in court records.

One chart posted in court records shows that the men had sold at least one pair of bald eagle wings, four golden eagle tails and one whole golden eagle.

The purposeful hunting of eagles appeared to be a convenient business for Mr. Paul, who lived near Ronan, Mont., which is on the Flathead Indian Reservation, and acted as a “shooter” and “shipper” in the scheme, prosecutors said. Mr. Branson would travel to the reservation from Washington State.

When Mr. Branson arrived, Mr. Paul would meet him and “help kill, transport and ship bald and golden eagles for future sales on the black market,” prosecutors said.

On Dec. 17, 2020, for example, Mr. Branson sent a photo of a golden eagle tail set to a buyer, court records state. The buyer purchased the set, prosecutors said, and Mr. Branson then mailed it to Texas.

Mr. Paul and Mr. Branson appeared to have a tactic for hunting the eagles, according to court records. For example, on March 13, 2021, the men used a previously killed deer to “lure in eagles,” prosecutors said. One golden eagle was killed that day, court records state, and after the men cleaned it, they placed it, and several other golden eagles, in a vehicle to deliver later.

Prosecutors obtained messages that showed how Mr. Branson would tell buyers that he was “on a killing spree” to obtain eagle tail feathers for sales.

In another message, prosecutors said, Mr. Branson admitted that he was out “committing felonies.”

Mr. Paul and Mr. Branson could not be immediately reached for comment on Tuesday, and calls placed to phone numbers listed as belonging to them were not returned. Online court records did not list lawyers for both defendants.

If convicted on the conspiracy charge, they would each face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The rare killings of bald eagles, America’s national bird, jolted the Montana authorities, including the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case and arguing that the men were motivated by a hunger for money.

Prosecutors did not say exactly how many eagles the men killed, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Montana declined to comment.

The case came as the bald eagle, whose resurgence is considered one of the greatest conservation stories of the 21st century, faces a new threat: lead poisoning.

All but a few hundred bald eagles were presumed dead by the mid-20th century, killed off largely by the widespread use of the synthetic insecticide DDT. A ban on DDT in 1972 and conservation efforts helped the bird’s population to rebound. The bald eagle was removed from Endangered Species Act protection in 2007, and its estimated population had increased to 316,700 by 2019.

But researchers found last year that of the 1,200 eagles they tested, nearly half had been exposed repeatedly to lead, which can lead to death and slow population growth. Scientists believe that the primary source of the lead is spent ammunition from hunters, who shoot animals that the eagles then scavenge.

Wind farms have also posed a threat to eagles. In April 2022, ESI Energy, a wind energy company, pleaded guilty to killing at least 150 eagles at its wind farms and was ordered to pay $8 million in fines and restitution.

If he has no arms he can’t use arms.

Would you really hire an attorney named Dwight Schulte? I mean does Mr. Schrute think he can just change a letter or two and move from paper sales to Attorney?

GPT or one of the other Large Language Model AIs

I think this one is a custom module, it solders into a slot on the main board vertically with pads on both sides of the modules bottom edge.

https://fccid.io/2AB2Q-LA02301/Users-Manual/11-User-Manual-4810925

Edit: fixed link

I also have a VPN set up to my home network that I can connect to with my mobile devices. once connected I use the HA mobile app pathed to my local HA server IP. I don’t use HA cloud or any other cloud service. It works well for me, I obviously can’t get notification on the mobile when not connected but I have not had a need yet. If/When I’m do want notifications I would most likely explore, e-mail, e-mail to SMS, SMS API or something that won’t involve external servers. I would not want to send sensitive info via SMS but a shot alert that said there is something to look at like “HA Alert: Motion detected cam 1” or such would be fine.

deleted by creator

I just got a Filohome (tuya) dual switch and used tuya-cloud cutter put ESPHome on it. When setup with ESPhome it will still work even if HA is unreachable ok WiFi is down. I never even downloaded their app, made an account, or signed in.

Note for anyone trying to do the same, the Filohome triple switch device in tuya-cloudcutter will work to load the initial boot firmware but you need to change the yaml config when you install ESPHome. If anyone wants the yaml file let me know.

Eject the warp core!

Nice.

Nice try, scammer.

it’s a bank of them . . . fife third

Waterworld II - The soggy biscuit, staring Kevin Coaster.

“ In June 2023, the Chrome Web Store will no longer allow Manifest V2 items to be published with visibility set to Public. All existing Manifest V2 items with visibility set to Public at that time will have their visibility changed to Unlisted. In January 2024, following the expiration of the Manifest V2 enterprise policy, the Chrome Web Store will remove all remaining Manifest V2 items from the store. “

Looks like existing ones might still work until January?

FireDragon (my understanding is that FireDragon is built from LibeWolf) and LireWolf is a custom and independent version of Firefox, with the primary goals of privacy, security and user freedom. LibreWolf (and FireDragon I assume) is designed to increase protection against tracking and fingerprinting techniques, while also including a few security improvements.

I don’t use either, I use just firefox so maybe a user of FireDragon could give you more.

Edit: Take a look at Jao’s post again, he updated it with more info on FireDragon.

https://tech.co/news/google-chrome-ad-blockers-2023

Here’s the TLDR version:

• Most users (at least in my observation, in the instances and communities i’m on) on Lemmy are privacy minded, open source fans, linux enthusiasts , etc.

• Google is evil and will suck up any data they can find on you and sell it to anyone that will give them a buck. Lemmy users don’t like that. (me either)

• Google also makes a lot of money selling ads that are crafted for your likes based on the data they steal from you. Lemmy users also don’t like that (me either).

• Ad blockers will hamper some (not much) of google’s ad revenue so they don’t like them. many users use Ad Blockers ( I use an ad blocking DNS server)

• Recently Google announced that their Chrome browser would not allow ad-blockers because it’s changing the functionality that ad-blockers use (Google sucks, don’t use Google stuff)

So that is why it’s showing up an Lemmy a lot right now.