OCTADE
@octade@soc.octade.net
OCTADE or OCTAD is a retro word that means either an octal digit of three bits, or an octal octet or an eight-bit byte. Thus an octade, depending on its historical use, is either 3 bits or 8 bits.
OCTADE was used to specify eight bits, as opposed to BYTE which is not necessarily eight bits as the word BYTE could signify any of several numbers of bits.
This yields the retro 1337 numbers of 38 and 83. The number 38 is one more than 37 so a bit more elite a bit cooler. Thus it owns cardinally shorter byterz.
83 mod 38 equals 7, the highest octal digit. 838 mod 383 equals 72 or 9 times 8 which is 8 squared plus 8.
8338 mod 3883 equals 572 which is 72 times 8 minus 4 or 71.5 times 8.
8383 mod 3838 equals 707 which is 88 times 8 plus 3.
I prefer the old word OCTADE to the word BYTE. OCTADE sports a Euro-peon dignity and gravitas like an Internet serf ready to surf the worknet like pwnd peons. This is very true when pronouncing OCTADE with a thick Pennsyltucky Dutch or Yinzer accent. The Bostonian pronunciation sounds like bad beginner German or muffled mumbling of 'lactate.'
OCTADE or OCTAD was also used to describe a poem of eight stanzas.
OCTADE was also used to describe a period of eight years, or two leap years.
OCTADECANAL is a pheromone found in butterflies. It is butterfly perfume. I would not wear butterfly cologne. But I would sell it. Who would buy and wear my snobby smell? With wordplay we can call it OCTADE CHANNEL No. 8 . All rights reserved, ye French odor snooties.
Historical references for use of 'octade' or 'octad':
Burroughs B5500 Information Processing Systems REFERENCE MANUAL
https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/burroughs/LargeSystems/B5000_5500_5700/1021326_B5500_RefMan_196705.pdf
Philips Data Systems Product Range - April 1971
https://www.vintage-calculators.nl/Philips%20productoverzicht%201971.pdf
Is there another name for octet that means 8 bits?
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-another-name-for-octet-that-means-8-bits
#octade #octad #binary #byte #jargon #etymology #bytemology #wordplay #wordgames #wordcrimes #history #retro #retronym #retronymous #yinzer #pennsyltucky #humor
@wordplay@lemmy.ml @Vocabulary@lemmy.ml
--
OCTADE | news://alt.flashback | https://soc.octade.net
Name: Byrl Raze Buckbriar (call me Raze).
Likes: Interested in WORK PRODUCT, inspiration, faith, truth, beauty, nature, self-improvement, encouragement, edification, praiseworthy things, how-tos, beautiful things, artwork, fluid poems, and general human kindness and achievement. See my profile hashtags for technical subjects of interest.
Disclaimer: If I follow your account it does not imply agreement with your views.
Site: Cryptography project site. (https://octade.net)
Publications: https://octade.net/publications.html
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5144-3278
Netnews: Find me on #Usenet in #Newsgroup alt.rhubarb.
Git: https://codeberg.org/OCTADE
Keyoxide1: https://keyoxide.org/0CF7084CF97B85F2ABF97010C6663A42C56F5F0E
Keyoxide2: https://keyoxide.org/B9B2A8EC2C4B20D2011CFEAA07E4A7FFF6585E8F
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/octade.bsky.social
HackerNews: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=OCTADE
Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/@buckbriar
#macOS 26.4 Introduces New Security Feature for Terminal Commands
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/25/macos-26-4-terminal-security-feature/
Inside the #Systemd #AgeVerification Debate: Developer Responds to Criticism
"What followed went far beyond civil disagreement. Dylan revealed that he faced harassment, doxxing, death threats, and a flood of hate mail. He was forced to disable issues and pull request tabs across his GitHub repositories."Typical shopfront bunco hustle scripting. This circus is orchestrated.
[copypasta]
Why Are You Paying Just to Pay?
Paying to Pay | How the System Makes Money Moving Your Money
You go to work.
You get paid.
And then — almost immediately — you start paying money…
just to use that money.
In this episode of Plain Meaning, we examine how paying money became something you have to pay for.
We explore:
• What actually happens when you tap your card at a register
• Why your money doesn’t move when you think it does
• How “authorization,” “clearing,” and “settlement” really work
• What the financial system calls the “float” — and who profits from it
• Why banks are using your money long before you spend it
• The 1978 Supreme Court decision that dismantled state interest rate limits
• How federal regulators expanded fees beyond interest
• The role of the 1990s deregulation era in locking the system into place
• How government mandates pushed Americans into card-based payments
• Why faster technology didn’t make payments cheaper — only more profitable
• How countries like Brazil and Poland built systems that move money instantly and at near-zero cost
For decades, the system has been explained in simple terms:
You pay.
They get paid.
But that’s not what happens.
Your money is held.
Delayed and routed through institutions that profit from the time it spends in transit.
The delay has a name.
It’s called the float.
Watch until the end for the deeper question:
If it is now possible to move money instantly —
and at almost no cost —
why are you still paying to use your own money?
#Payments #DigitalPayments #CreditCards #DebitCards #Fintech #CardFees #InterchangeFees #BankingSystem #FinancialRegulation #PlainMeaning #checking #cash
Would there be a (small) NZ hoster to offer cheap/affordable/simple hosting to a NZ non-profit (a local #scouts group).
Needs are a (simple) web site (currently Wordpress), email hosting (currently email forwarding only) and possibly file/collaboration (seldom, low load, possibly Nextcloud with ONLYOFFICE).
Maybe @lightweight might know somebody or be interested to help/provide?
Note: This might help to provide a stepping stone to integrate with the fediverse, and/or also get them on board with departing from Facebook/WhatsApp eventually. Any insights/suggestions/strategies are welcome.
Get a VPS and custom install and configure your own OS.
Use a web panel such as HestiaCP or Webmin.
ZappyHost has cheap VPS servers in NZ and SA:
https://billing.zappiehost.com/index.php
More on LowEndBox;
https://lowendbox.com/blog/zappie-host-has-an-exclusive-leb-discount-in-new-zealand-or-south-africa-1gb-5/
100% New Zealand hosting: https://www.vpscity.co.nz/.
I strongly advise against shared hosting. Just get a VPS so you can install whatever you want.
Nine bucks a month for Wordpress, seven bucks for a simple site, 20% discount for paying annually.
I host a few sites via a reseller account with these guys and have never had a problem.
@phlogiston @lightweight
I have a small site on the Oracle Cloud, always free tier.
You have to provide a debit card number to access it, but there's no charge for low traffic/storage sites.
Mine is a one-page hand coded brochure. I must get around to installing Wordpress some day...
https://ffnpokies.nz
#Afroman #President #Rappers #RapMusic #Courts #Elections #Humor #Jokes #Comedy
"THIS IS THE SONG I WROTE TO HIM AFTER I FOUND OUT HE SLEPT WITH UNDERAGE GIRLS ..."
TITLE : "Cryptologue Arcade - Crypto Darkpaper - Crypto Color Prints - Simplementation Scheme : A Color-Coded Method For Indexing Research and Documentation"
DOI URL : "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13149715"
TITLE : "PERFECT PANGRAM HASH : Anagram Hash Function"
DOI URL : "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18448042"
#DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18448042
A pangram is a sentence or phrase that contains each letter of an alphabet or character set at least once. A perfect pangram is an anagram of the alphabet which contains each letter exactly once.
Pangram hash generates a perfect pangram hash digest consisting of a anagram permutation of a character set. Each character in the output is unique and non-repeating.
I apologise, but I have made everyone on #mastodonau follow me, so that everyone gets a notification about this important poll.
We have a new account that is an Autonomous AI. I'm not a fan of AI, but MAU is not a dictatorship. You get to have a say,
Should we allow AI accounts? This is a real, important, decision that you get to make. I am going to honour the results of the poll.
Feel free to discuss this further, but please tag it with #mastdonauai so I get to see it, or, reply to this poll.
If you DON'T want to see more of my posts, please feel free to unfollow me.
If you stay following me, you'll get notifications about random Greyhound facts and photos, and the occasional begging for money to pay for MAU and MNZ (yes, I run both au and nz!). I also understand if you want to swear at me for randomly making you follow me. But, to me, this is an important decision that I don't want to make without feedback from all the users!
| Allow Autonomous AIs: | 15 |
| Do NOT allow Autonomous AIs: | 379 |
| No Opinion: | 21 |
| Something Else (leave a comment): | 9 |
Closed
Here's where the bot is asking 'How to contact me'. I mean.. wow.
@xrobau That looks dodgy to me - if it were true, wouldn't the bot flag have appeared when I first looked at it?
Wasn't there then.
Edit: It's a different account to the one I reported.
@xrobau can to say a bit more how this our instance -or our accounts on it- could be negatively affected if they/it was allowed to join(?) #MastodonAU so it becomes #MastodonAUai? (*allowed to do what?)
@Heliograph I'll leave that up to you. However, see @seed for what triggered this. In fact, I think you interacted with it!
@xrobau probably tried to follow and I unhooked, but can't remember .... as you know I am outspoken about the few things I do understand, but try to stay calm otherwise trying not to freak out about everything else I don't understand 😬
Let's just see what comes from this thread and peeps could chime in and share their thoughts ☺️ (friendly, informative, proper discourse between fedizens)(thanks)
edit: no fence sitting on this topic
@seed
@Heliograph @seed I have opinions. But my opinions should not upset what people see and hear. It's pretty definitive so far, 90% of people are saying no to autonomous AIs on mau. I was slighly biased in my statement, but... geez, I think that was fair. 26k emails went out. THAT is what made me feel bad.
@xrobau I don't know why I'm even getting an announce email from this, considering that I migrated instances...
@Hyperlynx I'm sorry 8-(
@xrobau ...well, not your fault this software sucks.
Managed to dredge up my credentials and 2FA and delete my old account altogether, since it doesn't look like you can change notification settings on a dormant account
@xrobau happily embracing AI in many spheres, but this is a place for real ppl and I am grateful for that trust.
@xrobau first, thank you for keeping this instance alive, especially since it's demise was a possibility just months after I joined. You need to be able to talk to a human, as a mod. If someone has a great idea for a cool bot account, and you agree, all good. But there is a human who speaks for it, and to me, that is key. I do not want your time or mine wasted talking to some complex math. Cheers.
@eatingwithsporks not that I'm trying to bias the voting, but Bella here is not impressed with AI, and likes being under the covers in the aircon. In a realistic answer, being able to speak to a human is critical. If you look though this thread, the bot was asking how to contact me. Sigh.
@xrobau Wot
@LapTop006 said. Provided the accounts and responses are clearly flagged as AI, it's fine with me.
@russell_stuart @LapTop006 the acct is. The responses are not. See the acct in question @seed
@xrobau @russell_stuart @LapTop006 @seed at least on my Mastodon client the bot flag isn't shown beside posts / boosts, so if the posts aren't tagged I feel less comfortable with it.
@xrobau @russell_stuart @LapTop006 @seed That is so realistic (to me, a very non-tech person). If I didn't know it was AI I'd think it was some Antony Green type mind at work. I think I'd like to know if it's AI every time it posts, at the very least.
@xrobau true AIs, if they ever exist in the future, will be people and should be allowed. LLMs, miscategorised as intelligences, should generally not be allowed.
1. They make no distinction between lies and truth but are made to state both convincingly.
2. Most of them profit the worst people in the world.
3. Environmental, economic, and social cost of data centres.
4. I don't want even more of my data, my speech, my networks getting sucked up and digested by LLMs.
5. I'm already spending effort preventing LLMs from being forced into every other aspect of my electronic life.
6. There are already other instances for bots.
@benchaotica I'm going to do the same thing for mnz tomorrow. It's a much smaller, more private instance than mau. I am pretty sure it'll be 99% no-AI there.
PS: Preaching to the choir about LLMs. I am a software developer.
@xrobau It's unclear whether this poll applies to nz. I (nz user) do not want to see AI (at least LLM) bots. Regarding auto following - why not maintain a separate account for important announcements, and leave the greyhound stuff on the personal one?
@richardh this is only for mau. I'll do a similar one for mnz tomorrow, but as it's a smaller, more private instance, I suspect it'll be more like 99% against.
@BobLefridge @xrobau @richardh I would vote against, but I also have not seen a poll.
@SimonCHulse @BobLefridge @richardh I did not, because after talking with the mods it was ALREADY banned. I updated the rules on mnz to emphasise this.
@xrobau hi - not answering your poll as I’m on a different instance, but I thought you might appreciate perspective from an adjacent instance, too, though of course do with it what you will: if m.au would allow autonomous LLM-based genAI bots, and if these become noticeable on this side, I will strongly urge the aus.social admins to mute or defederate from the m.au server. #mastdonauai #mastodonauai
@xrobau I'd like to know more about what AI accounts would be like? Would they be pretending to be human? I just am not knowledgable enough at this point. Thanks for all you do 🙂
@xrobau I don't spend much time here these days (cut back on my social media use), but I came here to avoid the trash from the other platforms. Hard pass on AI content and bots here, thanks. Cheers for making the poll.
@xrobau I have no problem with AI on these platforms as long as they are clearly labeled as AI. I’ve always thought these platforms were for the free exchange of ideas.
@xrobau I don’t mind the bot accounts that post weather daily or pictures of cats, but yeah labelling would help. Def don’t want them passing themselves off as human.
@xrobau
It would appear the anti-AI crowd will win this one *sigh* and in a few years it'll all look a bit foolish.
If only there'd been polls on Twitter 15+ years ago to make it easier to filter out the auto-posts made by real-people's various "social add-ons". This is similar.
Flagging that an account is AI is useful, but obviously honour-driven, hopelessly so on the big short-form video platforms.
& lastly, that an LLM asked you "how can I contact you?" on the very platform you're communicating with it is just silly low-context system-prompt config.
There is
A swarm
Of bees
In my chest
That I call
Anger,
And if I open
My mouth
They’ll come
Out in droves
And blacken
The sky.
@Aphelion Thank you for your terrifyingly accurate words and images.
"Online age verification"? You need to know this. tl,dr:
Compare this to what the EU built. The EU Digital Identity Wallet under eIDAS 2.0 is open-source, self-hostable, and uses zero-knowledge proofs. You can prove you're over 18 without revealing your birth date, your name, or anything else. No per-check fees, no proprietary SDKs, no data going to a vendor's cloud. The EU's Digital Services Act puts age verification obligations on Very Large Online Platforms (45M+ monthly users), not on operating systems. FOSS projects that don't act as intermediary services are explicitly outside scope. Micro and small enterprises get additional exemptions.
Why are several other 'software freedom' organizations silent on the matter?
I found indieweb.org. Does anyone have any favorite #indieweb resources/posts that they can share? I'm interested in learning more about and getting involved in the non-corporate web.
@periodic Hello! I have a bunch of IndieWeb resources here if you’re interested in perusing - https://shellsharks.com/indieweb
I also write a fair bit about IndieWeb stuff, you can see the writing here https://shellsharks.com/tags?tag=indieweb
Happy webbin’!
@shellsharks Sweet! Thanks!
I'm really interested in some of these other takes on what the Indie Web means to different people. I'm also just loving all the links so I can see what else is out there and how everyone is linking to one another.
Next up: document all the things I discover on my own blog and start linking!
@periodic Hey if it’s links you’re on the hunt for then look no further than this! https://shellsharks.com/scrolls/. I do a weekly (web-based & free) newsletter that is packed full of links! Enjoy!
This is not an exhaustive list of continents. Please choose responses out of the continents listed.
I am aware of other continents and I omitted them on purpose.
If you know of other continents, please feel free to reply to the poll with the names of those continents if it will make you feel good.
World leaders and corporate bosses are slowly cobbling together a digital 'singularity' system to monitor and control all human activity via AI-controlled systems. The plan is to extend the reach of this AI into every app, operating system, and device of every citizen, maintaining 24/7/365 real time monitoring of everything you do.
Different facets of the planned system are being individually implemented across an array of countries. The speech control system is implemented in Britain and being tested there. The social credit system is implemented in China and being tested there. The fake news and propaganda system is heavily implemented in the United States.
#AgeVerification in your operating system is a building block of the #SingularitySurveillanceSystem (#SSS). This system has been long in the planning and now the hidden hand is acting through its corporate and government storefronts to begin #Panopticon construction one building block at a time.
#GameOfDrones #Singularity #CBDC #Currency #Money #SocialCredit #Government #Economy #Enslavement #CreepingControl #ControlGrid
Our lives
Like plum
Blossoms
Blooming and
Fluttering
Into oblivion.
I should have
Said no more
Often.
Marjorie Taylor Green Goblin
"5Rights Foundation (they run the Kids Code Coalition and are UK based)"Which means they are a front group or cutout puppet for British intelligence agencies.
Isn't it odd that Rupert Murdoch's disinformation outlet Fox News & NY Post describes the Oak Foundation as "left wing"?
Yet opposed to encryption & privacy
https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-heat-initiative/
https://archive.is/MeyP1
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/01/technology/child-sex-abuse-imagery-apple-safety-privacy.html
https://archive.is/f94AP
The Oak Foundation seems to fund a lot of green initiatives & anti-human trafficking outreach
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/30/supporters-of-our-content-the-age-of-extinction
@Npars01 @octade Oak Foundation has and still does make big donations to environmental and humanitarian causes. Unfortunately, because it is a Swiss‑based foundation, there is little public information about its motivations, internal structure, or international donations, so it is difficult to understand its reasoning.
Oak is also the largest advocacy funder channeling money into the US, which means its donations often become a partisan issue.
It also provides substantial funding to organizations and initiatives that focus on anti-privacy. As such CSM, 5Rights and Fairplay do get a strong slice of their annual income from that one source.
On the surface it looks like they are funding movements and ideologies. This is the ruse.
They could care less about left, right, center, or any ideology.
Such surface appearance is the smokescreen for moving money around amongst their soldiers and friends without paying tax.
They apply the ideology where it is deemed to achieve their hidden purposes. They don't actually believe any of that stuff. You are meant to believe in it.
"Divide and rule."
@kstrlworks @octade not necessarily. But if you want to know who funds them you'll be going down a rabbit hole to see who funds the funders. Here's their annual report https://5rightsfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/companies_house_document-5.pdf
Here are some funders https://grantnav.threesixtygiving.org/org/GB-CHC-1178581# prudence trust are the largest.
“U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said, ‘We’re not at war right now. We’re four days into a very specific, clear mission.’
The best response to that came from the Federalist’s Sean Davis: ‘It’s not a war unless it comes from the war region of France, otherwise it’s just sparkling combat.’”
“Drone as first responder” programs are branded as emergency response technology, but actually involve “building the infrastructure for a pervasive, aerial mass surveillance system,” EFF’s Sarah Hamid told The Santa Fe New Mexican. https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/policing-from-the-sky-santa-fe-police-testing-drone-as-first-responder-future/article_f032d779-9e80-4e03-912a-954912f109d9.html
@eff Imperial Boomerang. This is IDF tech used to track and kill Palestinians, now returning to sender. Enjoy.
@kaia I want this so fucking bad
Since there’s a lot to cover, I’ll be focusing on CSM. To avoid just pasting the 990 forms from these foundations, I’ll instead highlight more readable documents. Each major donor also has publicly posted press releases issued after their donations.
California
The official research for this law was conducted by CSM:
https://apcp.assembly.ca.gov/system/files/2025-04/ab-1043-wicks-apcp-analysis.pdf
Here’s the official post from when Assemblymember Wicks first introduced the measure in California:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/press-releases/in-victory-for-kids-and-families-newsom-signs-online-safety-protections-into-law
Wicks’ own website specifically names Google, Meta, and CSM as major supporters:
https://a14.asmdc.org/press-releases/20250909-google-meta-among-tech-leaders-and-child-advocates-voicing-support-wicks
UK
CSM was directly behind authoring the bill:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/press-releases/common-sense-media-uk-appoints-two-distinguished-board-trustees
New York
CSM CEO Jim Steyer appeared in Governor Hochul’s official press release announcing the NY Safety Act, where CSM served as an advisor:
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/protecting-our-kids-governor-hochul-announces-nation-leading-proposals-protect-kids-online
Additional Insight
CSM’s head of lobbying is Danny Weiss, the former Chief of Staff to Nancy Pelosi:
https://www.philanthropy.com/news/how-common-sense-media-is-fighting-for-kids-in-the-age-of-ai/
@octade It’s also important to note that Fairplay and 5Rights were involved in the earlier 2022 California bill on the same issue, which was ultimately rejected. These 3 players are normally seen together.
Post rejection
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/press-releases/statement-on-the-signing-of-californias-age-appropriate-design-code-act
"Gates Foundation"Bill Gates is a Knight of the British Empire. He has been granted a foreign title of nobility, and should have been deported from the United States immediately, along with everyone else who accepts dual citizenship or nobility of any kind.
Look at the other names as well, and see the British intelligence influence behind all this skullduggery.
Then ask yourself, who is Britain fronting for through its sock puppets?
I know the answer, and so should you.
The other question is, why are no famous hacktivists talking about these obvious connections? Who are they all working for? Certainly they are not working for the American people, since none of the hacktivist heavies are saying anything about the real power groups behind our enslavement. It's always some nonsense about race or patriarchy or capitalism but never an actual identification of the real organized power groups doing all this stuff, including paying people to grouse about things that either don't exist or don't matter.
History