Pinback
Pinback's JournalAbdullah Ibrahim, 1934-1991
Abdullah Ibrahim, quiet giant of the jazz piano, has died at 91
- June 15, 2026 - Martin Johnson, NPR
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/15/846195598/abdullah-ibrahim-south-africa-obituary
"Abdullah passed away peacefully with South Africa and its people in his heart," his partner, Marina Umari, said in a statement. "His love for his country never wavered, no matter where in the world he found himself."
In an extraordinarily accomplished career that spanned eight decades, Ibrahim helped bring bebop stylings to South Africa, and he bonded with Duke Ellington, who produced one of his early, influential recordings. In his later years, he became an idol and an inspiration to new generations of jazz pianists.
- more at link above
Abdullah Ibrahim is one of my heroes, and I've loved his music for many years. I was fortunate to see him play live several times over the years in different configurations, joining other audience members who found his performances inspiring and deeply moving. (At one of his concerts in San Francisco a few years ago, I sat in a sold-out hall with a few hundred other lucky souls. People were sniffling and quietly weeping throughout the audience, and there were many red, moist eyes (including mine and my wife's!) at intermission.
This one gets me every time - "The Mountain," here with his band Ekaya:
Likewise "The Wedding":
Here's a piece representing his joyous side: "African Marketplace"
"How Improvisation Saved My Life":
See also DUer enough's post in Music Appreciation: https://www.democraticunderground.com/1034164456
Shenandoah - Avanti Guitar Trio
Luis Perdomo: Almost Like Being In Love
Telecom companies are required to let you port your number
as a general rule. If they’re giving you the runaround, you should let them know that you can file a complaint with the FCC, and they can be fined. Even now, they’re federally required to let you keep your number.
You need to go to the new provider first to set up an account and tell them you want to keep your number. Don’t cancel with your old (current) carrier first, or you could risk being without service for a period and also losing your number.
For more information:
- How To Switch Phone Carriers: 9 Easy Steps (tips from consumer finance expert Clark Howard’s team) - https://clark.com/technology/switch-cell-phone-need-to-know/
- Porting: Keeping Your Phone Number When You Change Providers (FCC) - https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/porting-keeping-your-phone-number-when-you-change-providers
- Enabling legislation (Telecommunications Act of 1996) -
https://workinggroup.numberportability.com/sites/workinggroup/files/2022-09/fcc96286_WzUY2cg.pdf
This is fantastic, thanks.
And I mean not just the “Homer Oddity” video, though that is definitely fantastic, too. I love the idea of throwing random monkey wrenches into the gears of AI. The intellectual property theft these scumbags have perpetrated over the past few years is one of the biggest crimes of this crime-infested era.
I’ve been practicing my own small version of this off and on for years, giving out fake information whenever possible, using a zillion different email addresses and names for online accounts, etc.
There’s a good book on the subject of evasion and deception to disrupt surveillance (a slightly different, but allied endeavor) that came out 10 years ago Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest (by Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum, MIT Press. Link: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262529860/obfuscation/ )
Here’s one of the many excellent passages in this book:
In 2012, Kevin Ludlow, a developer and an entrepreneur, addressed a familiar obfuscation problem: What is the best way to hide data from Facebook?? The short answer is that there is no good way to remove data, and wholesale withdrawal from social networks isn't a realistic possibility for many users.
Ludlow's answer is by now a familiar one.
"Rather than trying to hide information from Facebook," Ludlow wrote," it may be possible simply to overwhelm it with too much information." Ludlow's experiment (which he called "Bayesian flooding," after a form of statistical analysis) entailed entering hundreds of life events into his Facebook Timeline over the course of months--events that added up to a life worthy of a three-volume novel. He got married and divorced, fought cancer (twice), broke numerous bones, fathered children, lived all over the world, explored a dozen religions, and fought for a slew of foreign militaries.
Ludlow didn't expect anyone to fall for these stories; rather, he aimed to produce a less targeted personal experience of Facebook through the inaccurate guesses to which the advertising now responds, and as an act of protest against the manipulation and "coercive psychological tricks" embedded both in the advertising itself and in the site mechanisms that provoke or sway users to enter more information than they may intend to enter. In fact, the sheer implausibility of Ludlow's Timeline life as a globe-trotting, caddish mystic-mercenary with incredibly bad luck acts as a kind of filter: no human reader, and certainly no friend or acquaintance of Ludlow's, would assume that all of it was true, but the analysis that drives the advertising has no way of making such distinctions.
Who's Really Watching What Smartglasses See?
Featured Story: Think Twice Before Buying or Using Meta’s Ray-Bans- By Thorin Klosowski, Electronic Frontier Foundation, March 10, 2026
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/think-twice-buying-or-using-metas-ray-bans
Before you strap a dashcam to your face and sprint out into the world filming everything and everyone in your life, there are some civil liberties and privacy concerns to consider before buying or using a pair.
You’re likely not the only one who can see (and hear) your footage
The photos and videos you record with most smartglasses will likely be stored online at some point in the process. On Meta’s offerings, unless you are livestreaming, media you capture when you press the camera button is kept on the glasses until you import them onto your phone, but media is imported automatically by default into the Meta AI mobile app, which is required to set up the glasses.
You can't use any AI features locally on the glasses. So anytime you use AI features, like when you say, “Hey Meta, start recording,” the footage is fed to Meta. You can use the glasses without the Meta AI app entirely, but considering you can’t easily download footage from the glasses to your phone without it, most people will likely use the app.
Some videos are fed to Meta for AI training, and we know at least in some cases that those videos go through human review. An investigation by Swedish newspapers found that workers were reviewing and annotating camera footage, which includes all sorts of sensitive videos, including nudity, sex, and going to the bathroom. Meta claimed to the BBC that this is in accordance with its terms of use, all in the name of AI training, which states:
In some cases, Meta will review your interactions with AIs, including the content of your conversations with or messages to AIs, and this review may be automated or manual (human).
This all means that Meta and their third-party contractors will have access to at least some of what you record, and it’s very hard as a user to know where footage goes, who will have access to it, and what they will do with it. When you save footage to your phone’s camera roll, which is where the Meta AI app stores content, that might also be sent to Apple or Google’s servers, depending on your settings. Employees at these companies can then possibly access that media, and it could be shared with law enforcement.
The recorded audio from conversations with Meta AI are also saved by default, and if you don’t like that, tough luck, unless you go in and manually delete them every time you say something.
Much more at link: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/think-twice-buying-or-using-metas-ray-bans
Also see: "Meta sued over AI smart glasses’ privacy concerns, after workers reviewed nudity, sex, and other footage" - by Sarah Perez, TechCrunch, March 5, 2026: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/05/meta-sued-over-ai-smartglasses-privacy-concerns-after-workers-reviewed-nudity-sex-and-other-footage/
Nice!
When I met my future wife, her cat immediately wanted me dead, hopefully in a painful and slow manner. Every time I tried to pet her she'd hiss, claw my forearm, and bite my hand. Mind you, I'm a lifelong cat lover and something of a "cat whisperer," so this was an epic failure of human-feline domestic tranquility.
But I kept trying, and very gradually, over a period of months, she eventually, grudgingly at first, came to accept me. We ultimately became BFFs, and it was so rewarding! We finally reached such a rapport that not only could I snuggle and smooch her, but she'd let me rotate her s-l-o-w-l-y around on the linoleum kitchen floor by pushing on the back of her neck as she lay on her side, purring loudly. When we did this I'd exclaim, "Wheeee!" and she loved it.
This kitty was a full-figured girl, so when she got to where she anticipated this fun little ritual every time I came home, as soon as I entered the kitchen she'd buckle her legs and collapse with a mild thud onto the linoleum, and then it was Wheeee-time again!
She lived to a ripe old age in the double digits, and I got to enjoy many of those years with her. She was a beautiful orange-and-white cat with long hair and green eyes. She must have been Irish, because she sure had a temper when things weren't going her way! But when they were, oh, what a sweetie.
Georgia state senators restart quest for hand-marked paper ballots
GOP voting proposal calls for hand-counted audits, limits on in-person early voting options.By Caleb Groves, AJC, Mar. 3, 2026
https://tinyurl.com/462p56bt
OR
https://editions.ajc.com/shortcode/AJC412/edition/74cc9a48-242c-5ba5-d2f4-6610acecc4e9
A sweeping proposal passed by the Senate Ethics Committee on Monday would require switching to preprinted, handmarked paper ballots scanned by machines, end county- and municipality-wide in-person early voting, and overhaul how the state conducts election audits. It’s unclear how much the dramatic changes would cost to implement.
Backed by Senate Republican leaders, it reaffirms the position of influential senators to switch to paper ballots, although the House has taken no action on another Senate paper ballot proposal already in the House.
Georgia officials have until July to stop counting votes with QR codes. Lawmakers have until the end of the legislative session next month to figure out how to comply with the deadline.
-- SNIP --
Georgians will vote in the May primaries with countywide early voting and touch-screens. But come the November general election, voters would use paper ballots bubbled in by hand and be limited to one assigned early voting site if Senate Bill 568 passes.
- More at link above
Sounds more like "Start the Steal 2026" to me. Limiting voting to one day only, in person, with hand-marked paper ballots would make it much harder for people to vote, take much longer to tabulate and verify the votes, introduce more opportunities for errors and disruptions, and of course make it much easier for ICE and CBP goons to intimidate voters.
How to disable Apple Intelligence
If you want to disable Apple Intelligence on MacOS and iOS devices, here's how:
Disable Apple Intelligence in MacOS
- Click the Apple menu.
- Select System Settings
- Navigate to “Apple Intelligence & Siri” in the sidebar.
- Flip the Apple Intelligence toggle to Off.
- That’s it—until the next update.
The process is quick, but the catch lies in its impermanence. Each OS update...can quietly reactivate it. Users on X have grumbled about this, with one suggesting it’s worth bookmarking the steps as a post-update ritual.
- Source: Apple Magazine, March 30, 2025 - "How to Disable Apple Intelligence—and Why You Might Need to Do It Repeatedly"
Disable Apple Intelligence in iOS (iPhone and iPad)
- Open Settings, scroll to “Apple Intelligence & Siri.”
- At the top, you’ll see a toggle for Apple Intelligence. Switch it off, then confirm by tapping “Turn Off.”
- Done—for now..
See also:
- "How to turn off Apple Intelligence on Mac" - MacPaw Blog: https://macpaw.com/how-to/turn-off-apple-intelligence
- "How to turn off Apple Intelligence — and why you need to keep turning it off" - Apple Insider: https://appleinsider.com/inside/apple-intelligence/tips/how-to-turn-off-apple-intelligence----and-keep-turning-it-off
The Unwanted: "Out on the Western Plain"
Recorded live in an Irish pub in Sligo, this is a great rendition of a classic Huddie Ledbetter (aka “Leadbelly”) composition. The musicians here are: Seamie O’Dowd, violin and lead vocal; Cathy Jordan, guitar and vocal; and Rick Epping, harmonicas.
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