Daniel Suarez@DanielSuarez@mastodon.social
Author of high-tech / sci-fi thrillers: Daemon & Freedom™, Kill Decision, Influx, Change Agent, Delta-v & Critical Mass (Δv Book 2).
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2022
- Website
- https://daniel-suarez.com
Don't forget to boost posts so that others can see them.
This is important to keep Mastodon lively.
We are the algorithm here.
I want to make sure people know that in the U.S. a Presidential executive order is not a law. It is an internal memo from the head of the Executive to others in that branch. The President has no constitutional authority to legislate or adjudicate the law. 1/
Everyone in software have met at least one (usually many) overly confident n00b who thought he could rewrite the whole thing he didn’t understand.
Someone should send them the Joel On Software link… just unbelievable
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/
Ten thousand angry comments about an Internet-of-Things dishwasher in two days
Just finished @DanielSuarez’s short story, “Heir Apparent”. It was a great read, insightful, funny, cautionary, and a fun return to a format I haven’t enjoyed in quite a while.
No spoilers but if you are interested in the intersection of rapidly-changing technology and the impact of progress toward AI and its integration with society, you’ll probably enjoy it.
It would be a perfect episode of Black Mirror.
I helped build a government AI system. DOGE fired me, rolled the AI out to the whole agency, and implied the AI can do my job and the jobs of the others they've fired.
It can't. But, what DOGE accidentally revealed about themselves in the process is fascinating. 
New, by me:
Police in at least two U.S. states last week independently announced arrests of Chinese nationals accused of perpetrating a novel form of tap-to-pay fraud using mobile devices. Details released by authorities so far indicate the mobile wallets being used by the scammers were created through online phishing scams, and that the accused were relying on a custom Android app to relay tap-to-pay transactions from mobile devices located in China.
Asked for specifics about the mobile devices seized from the suspects, Lyon said “tap-to-pay fraud involves a group utilizing Android phones to conduct Apple Pay transactions utilizing stolen or compromised credit/debit card information,” [emphasis added].
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/arrests-in-tap-to-pay-scheme-powered-by-phishing/
I wrote last month in depth about the China-based phishing cartels behind these innovations in payment card fraud. One of them is selling an Android app which -- for $500 a month -- will let you use your phone to relay an NFC transaction halfway around the world.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/arrests-in-tap-to-pay-scheme-powered-by-phishing/
Greedy oligarchs backed Hitler for profit and got crushed. Some were jailed, some executed, all betrayed. Fascism doesn’t reward loyalty. It devours it. Today’s corporate elites cozying up to authoritarians should take note: you’re useful until you’re not, and then you’re dead weight.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/hitler-oligarchs-hugenberg-nazi/681584/?
This is the best map yet of what Antarctica looks like under the ice. Ice thickness shown at left; ice-stripped topography of the continent shown at right.
Let's hope we never get to see what an ice-free Antarctica looks like for real.
https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/new-map-of-landscape-beneath-antarctica-unveiled/ #science #nature #climate
10 Senate Democrats caved on Friday by voting to give Trump more power to dismantle the federal government.
These senators need to keep hearing from their constituents about this betrayal: https://indivisible.org/resource/tell-your-democratic-senator-youre-angry-they-caved-and-supported-republican-continuing?source=mastodon&medium=directpost
Massive #protests against #corruption, #kleptocracy and #russian interference today in #Belgrad, #Budapest and #Bucharest.
#Europe is waking up!
SERBIA
Massive Protests Erupt in Belgrade
107,000+ protesters demand accountability for Novi Sad train station collapse that killed 15.
Renovation linked to Chinese firms & ruling SNS party; officials initially denied canopy work.
30% of AI Chatbots share collected information with third parties:
See that little gray rock?
That's Deimos, the mysterious outer moon of Mars, spied yesterday as the Hera spacecraft buzzed by the Red Planet. Little Deimos is just 12km (8 miles) wide.
Such a cool shot.
https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Hera_asteroid_mission_spies_Mars_s_Deimos_moon #space #science #astronomy #photography
Here's the frame-by-frame animation: Martian moon Deimos streaking across the Red Planet as the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft looks on.
https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Hera_asteroid_mission_spies_Mars_s_Deimos_moon #space #science #art
Hey, folks? Social Security and Medicare are called "entitlements" BECAUSE you've paid into them your whole life. You're *entitled* to them. They belong to you. You hold *title* to them.
"Entitlement" ≠ "welfare." But over the last half-century, Republican propagandists have succeeded in changing the meaning of the word.