sabotabby | Reading

Posted by jwz

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/mozilla-has-1-4-billion-dollars-that-they-are-spending-on-some-ai-bullshit/

That's billion with a B. So if you held out hope that filling out surveys or shitposting through it might turn this ship around, no. That much money has an event horizon.

Mozilla is cooked.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/mozilla-has-1-4-billion-dollars-that-they-are-spending-on-some-ai-bullshit/

https://jwz.org/b/yk2n

jwz_blog_feed

Posted by jwz

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/re-implementing-patreon/

https://jwz.org/b/yk2l

Dear Lazyweb,

Do you have experience implementing recurring payments using authorize.net? Specifically, I'm interested in gotchas with replaying CIM tokens; best practices for retrying declines; dealing with expired cards, changed addresses, etc. Email me.

IMPORTANT: If you have never created a "createCustomerProfileFromTransactionRequest" XML node, this question is not for you.

I am not soliciting advice about what third party intermediary company I should pay rent to, and I don't ever want to hear the word Stripe.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/re-implementing-patreon/

https://jwz.org/b/yk2l

pivot_to_ai_feed

Posted by David Gerard

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/29/pivot-to-ai-in-portuguese-at-manual-do-usuario/

https://pivot-to-ai.com/?p=6996

Rodrigo Ghedin at the Brazilian tech blog Manual do Usuário is running translations of Pivot to AI into Portuguese!

The first is a translation of “If users notice your software, you’re already a loser” — “Se os usuários reparam em seu software, você já perdeu”. [Manual do Usuário]

We hope to make this a regular thing.

Send the link to your Portuguese-speaking friends!

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/29/pivot-to-ai-in-portuguese-at-manual-do-usuario/

https://pivot-to-ai.com/?p=6996

conuly

and every day when E leaves she bolts up to my room and burrows under my covers for a few hours until she feels prepared to cope with the day.

******************************

( Read more... )

gwydion

* I'm posting a partial again and early because of time critical Action Items.

* "No work, no school, no shopping: What to know about the Jan. 30 general strike:" https://www.advocate.com/politics/general-strike-nationwide-anti-ice

* "Israel demolishes UNRWA offices for Palestinian refugees in east Jerusalem:" https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israel-demolishes-unrwa-offices-for-palestinian-refugees-in-east-jerusalem

* "UNRWA Commissioner-General: The burning of UNRWA’s headquarters is an unprecedented attack on the United Nations:" https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/unrwa-commissioner-general-burning-unrwa%E2%80%99s-headquarters-unprecedented-attack

How to Help:
Revive Gaza's farmland: https://apnature.org/en/gaza
PCRF: https://www.pcrf.net/
HEAL Palestine: https://www.healpalestine.org/
The Sameer Project: https://linktr.ee/thesameerproject
Gaza Soup Kitchen: https://gazasoupkitchen.org/

******

* "Threat of US-Iran war escalates as Trump warns time running out for deal:" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/28/trump-threat-us-iran-war-armada-nuclear-programme

* "Why the Next “No Kings” Could Be the Biggest One Yet:" https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/no-kings-protests-minneapolis-march-28/

* "Health insurance costs are up. Women and LGBTQ+ people are paying the price:" https://www.advocate.com/health/health-insurance-costs-women-lgbtq

* "Senate moves toward Thursday shutdown vote:" https://www.semafor.com/article/01/27/2026/senate-moves-toward-thursday-shutdown-vote

* "Partial shutdown seems increasingly likely as Democrats demand ICE changes:" https://apnews.com/article/government-partial-shutdown-ice-funding-homeland-security-35abc94e6579e701f03d9c18ca5a7c44

* "In only a few minutes, you can make history with Farmworkers:" https://foodjustice.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1&id=453&cid=23246&cs=e08eae05e5f533c437ac7580b4fdfe62_1769629088_168

* "Two Republican senators call for Kristi Noem to resign as DHS secretary:" https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/thom-tillis-lisa-murkowski-call-kristi-noem-resign-dhs-secretary-rcna256233

Please call to thank them and ask them to support impeachment.

Please contact your Congress Critters in general in support of Impeachment.

* Our until Midterms is to survive, to build grassroots resistance, to do all in our power to slow the republican Christo-fascist agenda, and to prepare for 2026 in case there is still Democracy.

"Take action with Indivisible:" https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/

Trump 2.0 Indivisible Guide. https://indivisible.org/resource/guide

If you can't safely contact them in person, here are some other options for contacting your Congress Critters:

Five Calls to your critters: https://5calls.org/

Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resist.bot/

And another: https://faxzero.com/fax_senate.php

Snail Mail Campaigns: https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3622760.html

"Congress. gov:" https://www.congress.gov/

White house (Possibly Dangerous): https://www.whitehouse.gov/

ACLU advice for writing to your Critters: https://www.aclu.org/writing-your-elected-representatives

This tracks legislation: https://www.govtrack.us/

"The Public Comment Process (+ how to write effective public comments):" https://www.tumblr.com/gwydionmisha/781844516804149248?source=share

"Swing Left:" https://swingleft.org/

Run for Something: https://runforsomething.net/

"Vote Smart:" https://justfacts.votesmart.org/

Protests: "50501 Events:" https://www.fiftyfifty.one/events

"ICE Raids Toolkit: Defend Against ICE Raids and Community Arrests:" https://www.immigrantdefenseproject.org/raids-toolkit/

Contains a raid tip hotline amoung other things. "Know Your Rights
LEARN HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY:" https://wearecasa.org/know-your-rights/

* "Minnesota House gains 2 DFL members after special election wins restore tie:" https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/27/specials-elections-for-minnesota-house-district-47a-and-64a-favor-dfl-could-restore-tie

* "LGBTQ+ ally Amy Klobuchar launches strong bid for Minnesota governor:" https://www.advocate.com/politics/election/amy-klobushar-minnesota-governor-campaign

* "New High of 45% in U.S. Identify as Political Independents:" https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx

* "Gov. Mikie Sherrill - Affordability and Protection for New Jersey | The Daily Show:"

( Embed: )

* "Rep. Ilhan Omar rushed by man on stage and sprayed with liquid at town hall event:" https://www.npr.org/2026/01/27/g-s1-107625/ilhan-omar-sprayed-town-hall

It turned out to be apple cider vinegar. This could have been so much worse.

* "Omar says Trump's 'hateful rhetoric' causes threats against her to 'skyrocket':" https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/man-charges-rep-ilhan-omar-town-hall/story?id=129618409

* "Ilhan Omar speaks out after town hall attack: ‘I am not one to be intimidated’:" https://www.ms.now/all-in/watch/ilhan-omar-speaks-out-after-town-hall-attack-i-am-not-one-to-be-intimidated-2484052547540

* "Lawmakers condemn ‘disgusting’ attack on Ilhan Omar at Minneapolis town hall:" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/28/ilhan-omar-attack-condemned

* "Trans Girl Scouts On Cookie List Sell 71,000 Boxes Of Cookies And Growing:" https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trans-girl-scouts-on-cookie-list

* "NYC asks for 'patience' clearing snow. For the elderly and disabled, it’s a problem now.:" https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-asks-for-patience-clearing-snow-for-the-elderly-and-disabled-its-a-problem-now

* So the last week or two I've been harassed twice a day by a caller I was suspecting of being an insurance company pretending to be Medicare. They usually do this scam November - December, but I'm pretty good at spotting insurance companies doing this and they were being the right sort of subtle shady. Problem is, sometimes medicare doesn't bother properly stating who they are and why they are calling either, which means I couldn't block them without verifying and they kept talking over me or trying to forward me every time I tried to ask questions, which again suggested insurance company scammers, as they are technically legitimate companies, so they'd rather deflect, lie by omission, stonewall questions, and use carefully scripted deceptive phrasing than out right lying like regular scammers. Sigh.

So they call every day at too early in the morning and again in the afternoon or early evening. Sometimes, they'd hit right as I was leaving for, say, the dentist as they did on Monday or when I was on my way to the bathroom or too sleepy to fight. Sometimes they'd talk over me and or try to transfer.

The air quality's been bad whenever it's not raining. We think there must be a substrata burn somewhere and when there isn't enough airflow it pools in our little valley. I'm a lung patient and the air quality situation is just exhausting and makes everything harder including sleep.

It took ages to get to sleep and I was just slipping into REM when the assholes called again. Headachey and exhausted I snapped "Identify yourself" in the teacher command voice I used to use to stop middle school boys in their tracks in Spring, and it must have hit the caller right in the hind brain, because she instinctively obeyed. Some fucking insurance company I never heard of, which may or may not exist. I gave the do not call schpiel and hung up before she had time to recover.

At which point I realized I'd forgotten the call blocker code again, something that never could have happened before Biden improved the spam call situation in the US. I used to be limited to 20 blocked numbers, which I would cycle through as one of them was a time share auto-dialler bank with 15 or so numbers and the police Union charity scam had 8-12 at various points, plus the fireman scam, plus the your computer is hacker scam, plus the IRS is sending you to prison scam, plus the cancer charity scam, plus the burglars in your neighborhood scam, plus assorted Social Security and Medicare phishers, etc., etc..

Thanks to Biden I only need to block a number every couple of months and I'm no longer capped on how many scammers I can block at once.

So I try a few I think might be it. They aren't, which means bathroom trip then looking it up on line. By the time I blocked Asshole Archer Insurance Scammers I am very awake and angry, so they successfully stole about an hour and a half of sleep.

A few hours later I wake up to the smell of something burning. Not charcoal or wood fire, but the bad one you get when something with wiring is on fire. Fuck! So I'm up fast. I shut off the strip that run the air filter and fan. The smell is filling the room. Nothing is visibly on fire, but still. The smell is strongest by the fan, but it could also be leaking in from outside. I check the office space heater, which I know is unplugged, but the smell is barely there in the main area, so fan or outside. I poke my head outside and the air at ground level is a dingy yellow brown and the smell is Brutal. So either something big burning far away or something smaller, very, very close. I hope no one is hurt.

So no fan to sleep with, which added to smoke in my room makes me exhausted and hung over feeling. Plus everything hurts. It hurts so, so much, and even after lung treatment I'm snails' pace and not breathing well. Bonus: I had to lend Squirrel my sinus clearing thingie and the second one is now missing, so I can't even drain my sinuses. (It was an emergency. They got corn stuck up there. I have trained them to ask me first if they need a tool or have an non-ER grade medical situation, because I usually have a solution in a drawer somewhere). Squirrel, after recovering from the self waterboarding horror that is manual drainage: Wow! This feels amazing!

I gave myself a day off from physio, and I'm still struggling not to cry and/or throw up if I have to stand or move around more than a minute.

Today would be a great day not to be allergic to my emergency pain meds. Ugh.

* Squirrel's results came back, and it's way worse than previously thought. They have three rotator cuff tears, one quite large, plus that locked shoulder thing and some shoulder joint deterioration. All physio has stopped because everything is so fragile. They are going for a consult and we expect surgery for rotator cuff repair. Let us hope it is not even more dire.

If they hadn't paid out of pocket for a second opinion, they would be even more fucked right now. So very fucked.

I am worried about what happens when they are fully laid up after surgery, but that is likely a February or March problem.

Some of their back pay came, as it is work related and the hospital stopped fighting compensation. This is good as things were getting pretty desperate.

In other news, While sorting out call blocking from Asshole Archer Insurance, I found a missed call from last Friday with yet more Surprise Emergency paperwork. Luckily, it was some of the same documentation from Monday plus a thing from the special folder I keep handy for things like this. (The only time since it's institution 16ish years ago that I haven't known where the folder was to the inch was when it was boxed for the Great Living room/Office Migration.)

I still had to drag myself out into rush hour traffic Wednesday morning as it needed to be delivered before month's end and sooner is better than later. I used the tiny half secret satellite office I usually do so the delivery it's self took about 5 minutes total in the office including buzzing for reception, pleasantries and xeroxing, but the getting there was extra because not only rush hour, but a lane of the highway was closed and I couldn't get off at the ramp just before the sign. Stop and go to the next off just before the closure. Sigh. Back was fine of course, as south usually is in the morning.

Then I made a sandwich, did lungs, Checked a couple things online, closed things down for sleep, and bathed. Livia was not best pleased as she had wanted me to go to bed instead of doing bureaucracy, but I don't fuck around with threats against the benefits that only barely keep us afloat as it is. She was even more distressed by me not coming right to bed, but while the air was much improved, I don't want to carry allergens to bed in my hair.

This ate nearly all the Wednesday spoons, but I did eventually force the Wednesday physio with looooong rests. I was very lucky New Millennial was here to feed me. I don't have much special vegetarian soup cups left, and I definitely don't want soup cups and crackers twice in one day, it is bad for morale. (I am having soup cups for second meal). I already burned through the emergency bars, because physio plus all the other things besetting me really are using all the spoons every day on the regular.

I am worried because car tax didn't come. After all there was no warning on the other stuff this week. I should go in person, I know, I know. Not this week though. I really need there to be No More Things this week. Phone bureaucracy is piling up and I am exhausted.

Anyway, here is hoping they can schedule squirrel's shoulder surgery soon and that it is just a cuff repair and not a nightmare replacement situation like mine. They are enough older than me, that odds are recovery would be even worse. shudder It probably isn't, but you see how our shoulder luck has been, and how fast the Squirrel situation escalated.

* "Bothersome Bows:" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ttRlQb5XO2Q

* "Mycenaean Mythos:" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-d8n5sJmkRA

* "Senatorial Sitcoms:" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BJaFl6745fU

* "Silly Vikings:" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PktcR_dKm0U

* "Knaveish Kings:" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XyqLFcvCn6g

* "Avaricious Avocados:" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bVp91_q7F3o

* "Gruesome German Tales:" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Fv23VA-RyXw

* "Tolkien Treatise:" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YuBPjU3LVI8

* "Kind-hearted Kids 5 (friends):" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0S8LRSXC_mU

* "Kind-hearted Kids 6 (Playdates):" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qcWmsLMsuD8

* "Signs You're A Doctor In A Midcentury Novel:" https://www.thechatner.com/p/signs-youre-a-doctor-in-a-midcentury?publication_id=5&post_id=185883677&isFreemail=true&r=ykw2&triedRedirect=true

*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.

The help links are at the bottom under the cut.

* "When the Feds Come to Your City: Standing Up to ICE :" https://crimethinc.com/2025/12/03/when-the-feds-come-to-your-city-standing-up-to-ice-a-guide-from-chicago-organizers

* "Swing Left:" https://swingleft.org/

* Contains link to trans girl sales pages. "Trans Girl Scouts On Cookie List Sell 71,000 Boxes Of Cookies And Growing:" https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trans-girl-scouts-on-cookie-list

( More )

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: hopeful

chickenfeet

https://operaramblings.blog/2026/01/29/stellar-singing-in-rigoletto-revival/

glitteryv posting in

recthething

Every Thursday, we have a community post, just like this one, where you can drop a rec or five in the comments.

This works great if you only have one rec and don't want to make a whole post for it, or if you don't have a DW account, or if you're shy. ;)

(But don't forget: you can deffo make posts of your own seven days a week. ;D!)

So what cool other fanvids/kinds of fanworks/fics/fanart/podfics/fancrafts/other kinds of fanworks have we discovered this week? Drop it in the comments below. Anon comment is enabled.

BTW, AI fanworks are not eligible for reccing at recthething. If you aware that a fanwork is AI-generated, please do not rec it here.

rydra_wong

And I am still buzzing and I am so so so proud of myself and I need to talk about it and I only know two people who know what it means.

If anyone has 80 seconds, I rec watching Symbalily's first encounter with Artorias the Abysswalker:

Watch on YouTube

Like O&S, this is one of the most iconic fights in the entire Dark Souls series. But I would say it's as much of a difficulty spike again relative to them as they are to the game before them.

Context: Artorias is the great legendary hero you've been hearing about all through the base game. But now he's been defeated by the Abyss, with his left arm shattered (his sword arm, so he's fighting you by swinging a sword with his off hand) and his mind mostly gone.

(There is meta to be meta-ed about FromSoft's long line of incredibly badass disabled characters; I don't know if it's necessarily #unproblematic #goodrepresentation, given that so many of them are trying to kill you and it's often being used to evoke ruin and tragedy, but it's not nothing either. Adaptive king Artorias.)

The way he howls and shakes reminds me of nothing so much as the Tumblr story about the rabid raccoon. It's eerie and wrong and awful.

He is incredibly aggressive and incredibly fast, and if you start chipping his health down he draws on the Abyss to power himself up further in a way that rapidly makes his hits unblockable (at least for most builds), so you can only try, desperately, to dodge. And he can and will one-hit kill you, and then do front flips on your corpse.

I think I had to level my brain up to do this fight. Holy shit.

I have been IMMERSED over the last few days, learning his patterns and rhythms, and now I feel weirdly close to Artorias and emotional about it. More than any of the other bosses so far, Artorias feels like fighting a person. I gave his soul to an old friend of his to take care of. Sleep well, dude.

rinue

My face is still mildly distorted from last week's gum graft - green-yellow bruising, puffy jaw, unevenly flattened smile. It irritates me more than it might otherwise, because it's on the left side of my face, which is the side that looks like me. I can't say it's my "good" side, exactly; neither side is bad, and the right side is probably prettier. But it's my left profile I identify as myself when I look in the mirror. The other side, not really.

I'm left-eye dominant, so it may fundamentally be that when I look at my profile in the mirror with my left eye, I have an easier (more comfortable) time processing what I see (left side of my face). I look at photos binocularly, and don't have the same alienation from my right profile in photos.

All of this has made me wonder whether other people's preferred self-profiles align with eye dominance.

Current Mood: curious

lynnenne

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: determined

jwz_blog_feed

Posted by jwz

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/alcatraz-coyote/

https://jwz.org/b/yk2i

Coyote who swam to Alcatraz gets much fatter on prison island diet:

It's a 1.25-mile journey from Aquatic Park through frigid, current-swept waters to reach the tourist attraction. [...]
Aidan Moore, who works for Alcatraz City Cruises, said the coyote has been holed up near the parade grounds, where birds frequently nest. Bird carcasses have recently been found around the island, Moore said.
"He's certainly much fatter than when he arrived," said Moore. "We don't know how long he's going to be a resident here, because if he interferes with the nesting birds he might get relocated to the mainland." [...]
Kessler and a UC Berkeley researcher said the coyote likely left the mainland due to territorial pressure from the city's approximately 20 coyote family groups, each of which defends its turf against outsiders. With limited options for dispersing young coyotes -- about 30 are killed by cars in San Francisco each year -- this one apparently decided to strike out across the water.
Christopher Schell, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley who studies how carnivores adapt to urban environments, said coyotes rarely display this type of swimming endurance, but it's not unprecedented. He recalled reports of coyotes swimming up to three miles to islands from Seattle and Tacoma, Washington.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/alcatraz-coyote/

https://jwz.org/b/yk2i

jwz_blog_feed

Posted by jwz

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/patreon-is-lying-again-and-blaming-apple-again/

https://jwz.org/b/yk2f

Once again, Patreon is going to strong-arm all of us into "charge at the moment of sign-up" instead of "charge on the first of the month." They have wanted this for years, and once again they are saying that Apple has given them cover to demand it.

Here's what I wrote when they tried to pull this shit a year and a half ago and then chickened out:

Patreon has two billing models, monthly (bills on the first of the month, or whenever they get around to it) and daily (charges you the moment you sign up.)

For several years now, they have been trying really hard to get creators to switch to daily billing whether they like it or not, with a series of intrusive nags and dark patterns. E.g., the "Settings" tab always has an "unread" alert on it reminding me that I have not made the "recommended" change.

Now they're going to force everyone to switch, and they're blaming Apple for it. And, to be clear, fuck Apple, but also fuck Patreon, this is their choice and it's going to mean that I can no longer use their service.

Here's a support request I just sent them, again, after clicking 15 levels deep into their FAQ before finding the thing that might contact a human. Since the email alerting me of this change came from a "noreply" address because of course it did.

Feel free to send your own:

Subject: Subscription billing is unacceptable
You recently sent mail saying that you're going to force me to switch from monthly billing to subscription billing.
Subscription billing is unacceptable for my Patreon. It does not work.
I sell monthly memberships to a physical nightclub. The memberships begin on the first of the month. I fulfill and mail the physical membership cards on the first of the month. If you make me switch to daily billing, that means I will have to do merch fulfillment on a daily basis instead, and I simply cannot do that.
If you force me to switch from a monthly cycle to a daily cycle I will have no choice but to stop using Patreon.
To be clear: I do not give a shit about the iOS app. Not one fractional fuck is given. If the solution to this problem is that people cannot sign up for, or access, my Patreon from the iOS app, that is 100% acceptable to me.
I know for a fact that none -- zero, 0% -- of my patrons have signed up using the iOS app. I know this because I had to warn them away from it, due to the 30% Apple Tax, and all of them complied. All of them. The iOS app is utterly meaningless to me and to my patrons.
(Also you are blaming this on Apple's bullying, which is simply not credible. You've been nagging me to change to subscription billing for years, with the little red error icon appearing everywhere. This is your decision. You are transparently using Apple as an excuse.)
I said this same thing to you a year and a half ago, the last time you tried to pull this nonsense. Second verse, same as the first.

Last time, support replied that they "completely get why this change would be upsetting" and "will bring my feedback to the team." Uh huh.

Update: This time, support just replied with "more information about to convert my account", because obviously any reading of the above would indicate that I am "confused" about it.

Patreon's absolutely awful level of service and support has been a huge problem for quite some time, but I am really not looking forward to having to figure out how to implement recurring monthly billing on my own.

Patreon, YOU HAD ONE JOB.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/patreon-is-lying-again-and-blaming-apple-again/

https://jwz.org/b/yk2f

dewline

...and am keeping busy.

I used to do long-form writing reasonably well.

Current Mood: sleepy

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: shook

pivot_to_ai_feed

Posted by David Gerard

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/28/moltbot-clawdbot-an-expensive-and-insecure-ai-agent-that-doesnt-work/

https://pivot-to-ai.com/?p=6986

The hot new AI personal assistant is Moltbot, formerly Clawdbot — until Anthropic sent them an angry message about trademarks. [Moltbot]

You give Moltbot full access to your digital life — your chats, your social media, your email — and you tell it to go and do things for you. You can save so much time! Sometimes, Moltbot even does the things!

Moltbot is also a good way to spend $300 a day with Anthropic. Also, it’s a security disaster. Also, it doesn’t work.

Peter Steinberger did a successful startup a few years ago called PSPDFKit, now called Nutrient. He did nothing for a few years. Then Steinberger got his spark back! Yeah, he came down with a case of AI. [TechCrunch, 2021; blog post]

Steinberger spent a few months vibe-coding Moltbot and put it live in November 2025. But it really took off just this past weekend. [Star History]

Steinberger calls Moltbot “The AI that actually does things.” That translates to: it can do anything on your computer that you can. Complete access. For a chatbot that fails a lot.

As Pivot to AI regulars know, AI agents literally cannot be secured against prompt injection. Because chatbots can’t tell data from instructions. Especially when a project is — like Moltbot — a pile of vibe coded slop.

The default Moltbot installation exposes it to the open internet. And any message someone sends you — email or chat — is read by the bot and can be used to prompt-inject you.

Steinberger himself messed up when he renamed everything from Clawdbot to Moltbot and a bunch of cryptocurrency scammers swooped in and stole his GitHub name — though he got it back. Steinberger disclaims everything crypto. [BeinCrypto; Twitter]

What’s a typical way to use Moltbot? The README file on GitHub starts with an example conversation, where the chatbot gets casually racist about Morocco. This is the particular conversation Steinberger chose to introduce his project. If you think that’s a normal sort of conversation to advertise a project with, you’re the audience for Moltbot. [GitHub, archive]

AI bros love Moltbot, and they excuse all its failures and the huge daily Anthropic bill as minor speedbumps. It’ll be fantastic in the fabulous future! You need to give an insecure lying chatbot the power to run and ruin your whole online life. It’ll work right next model.

Video — Podcast

It’s pledge week at Pivot to AI! If you enjoyed this post, and our other posts, please do put $5 into the Patreon. It helps us keep Pivot coming out daily. Thank you all.

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/28/moltbot-clawdbot-an-expensive-and-insecure-ai-agent-that-doesnt-work/

https://pivot-to-ai.com/?p=6986

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6963 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 17 secrets from Secret Submission Post #994.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

sovay

In the midst of this week, we are in a block of doctor's appointments, but following this afternoon's I climbed up to the railings behind the Salem Street Burying Ground and hung over them with my camera, an operation which still put me in snow to mid-calf. Its winter-drifted gravestones date from the late seventeenth through the late nineteenth centuries, with one modern interpolation for the unmarked, enslaved dead. I should go back for their slate-carved winged skulls in spring.

The current sunset is one of those violet riots, but at the time of this photo, the clouds above the fan of trees were just starting to flush gilt-grey. That attenuated stretch of the Mystic that always looks more like an industrial canal than a river was a glaucous freeze at its margins and flat-skimmed snow down its center. I cannot believe I never encountered Socalled's Ghettoblaster (2006) until its twentieth anniversary. Then again, only forty years after the fact did it occur to me that I would have accepted The Last Battle (1956) much more readily if Lewis had made it Ragnarök instead of Revelations.

Current Music: Mitski, "Where's My Phone?"

lydamorehouse

The Portland Frog riding the Minnesota Loon carrying the progressive queer flag towards the resistance by Freddie Schwager

Image: The Portland Frog riding the Minnesota Loon carrying the progressive queer flag and the MN state flag shield, flying towards the resistance by Freddie Schwager.

Yesterday was very busy for me.

I got a text from MONARCA in the late morning that there were 20 heavily armed iCE agents attempting to gain access to the Dorothy Day facility in downtown Saint Paul. I hopped in my car and headed out, but, as seems to be typical of me, I arrived fifteen minutes too late. I talked with a witness and he told me that the staff locked the doors and demanded a warrant. ICE was forced to leave without abducting anyone. I was joking to a friend that they should send me out to every one of these calls because every one I have ever arrived at, it has either been a false alarm or, as in this case, the ICE agents left empty-handed. I am, apparently, some kind of anti-ICE luck charm. ;-)

So, even though, for me, it wasn't a confrontation, I was still really keyed up afterwards. So, I basically just went directly to my Food Communists and spent three hours packing up groceries for folks sheltering in place/in hiding. The nice thing about my Food Communists is that they are also a homeless/unhoused warming shelter and so they have free meals. I can't forget to eat if I'm at ZCC because someone will tell me to sit and eat at some point, which is good.

Then, at 6 pm yesterday, I signed up for a legal observer training with COPAL. I'll be honest with you all? I have only ever kind of been half-assed trained in this. I was signed up with MONARCA, but I missed the actual training session, and have been relying on notes taken by a friend. So, this seemed like a really good opportunity to get the whole deal. I'd also attended that national training via the ACLU the night before, and, given that my brain is a soupy seive right now, I figure the more times I hear how it's done, the better.

The Observer trainers were expecting 150 people so I walked over. Despite the temperatures, the church sponsoring this event is only five or six blocks away. The place was packed. They actually had Constitutional Observers outside on ICE watch because... I guess because we no longer trust those jackbooted thugs not to terrorize people just trying to learn how to protect their neighbors.

A couple of funny things about the training. First, Minnesotans are still entirely Minnesotan.

The person running the training tried to get us all to introduce ourselves to our seat mates by asking us to ask a stranger "why they were here." Literally the people I sat by in the pew, were like, "I don't even know where else I would be? I am literally worried about our actual neighbor," I was like, "I know. It's kind of a weird question because the answer is: fascism?? Also, why would we sit by and let our neighbors get kidnapped when fifty of us show up to help someone get out of a ditch?" So, that was both good and very awkward because it was clear that a couple of guys just wanted to shrug because Minnesotan men are like "eh? 'Cuz it's the right place to be??"

Second, the trainer kept trying to get us more engaged by having people "popcorn" (which I guess just means shout out as the spirit moves you??) some of the slides and this was... so very Minnesotan. You could tell people hated being asked to do this, but we were all there because we were willing to get out of our comfort zones so people just FORCED themselves to speak up. It was kind of hilarious because the, like "OMG, FINE I WILL SPEAK WITHOUT RAISING MY HAND THIS IS SO PAINFUL I WILL DIE IF I ACCIDENTALLY TALK OVER SOMEONE" was palpable in the air?

But, it was a good meeting and I am now signed up on COPAL as well as MONARCA.

I woke up really sore from all the physical work at the Food Commies, so I have declared today a mental and phsyical rest from the revolution.

Have I read anything? Just the training manual for the constitutional observers. It's been rough!

minoanmiss

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jwz_blog_feed - Mozilla has 1.4 BILLION dollars that they are spending on some AI bullshit.
jwz_blog_feed - Re-implementing Patreon
pivot_to_ai_feed - Pivot to AI in Portuguese at Manual do Usuário
conuly - Moonpie is not a fan of CUNY/SUNY having started up again
gwydion - 1/27/26 - 1/29/26 "No work, no school, no shopping!"
minoanmiss - "What do you wish You'd Known When You First Started Managing?"
chickenfeet - Stellar singing in Rigoletto revival at the COC
glitteryv in recthething - Community Recs Post!
rydra_wong - Yesterday I beat ARTORIAS
rinue - profiles in profiles
lynnenne - Boycott the billionaires.
jwz_blog_feed - Alcatraz Coyote
jwz_blog_feed - Patreon is lying again, and blaming Apple, again.
dewline - Still Here...
minoanmiss - Streets of Minneapolis
pivot_to_ai_feed - Moltbot/Clawdbot: an expensive and insecure AI agent that doesn’t work
case in fandomsecrets - [ SECRET POST #6963 ]
sovay - I'll stay out until my mind is like a clear glass
lydamorehouse - A Busy Day in the Revolution
minoanmiss - a few chunks of ICE

So much for the tolerant left

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