New #cybersecurity roundup, in which we find it hard to exit the coal mine with all these canaries on the ground. Also, alternatives to Discord (ranked), rules for extraterrestrials, a social media rage check tool, and more: www.patreon.com/posts/cybers...

📣 Feb. 10's #ThreatModelCybersecurity: Discord alternatives, AI surgery disasters, 2026 trauma tips, & more 👩‍💻 Please share & support 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝙈𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙡 newsletters (𝘛𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 #infosec / 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 #covid) & their maker, independent journalist @violetblue.bsky.social www.patreon.com/posts/cybers... 𝟷/𝟹

I can't help thinking about Musk calling the British cave diver in Thailand "pedo guy." MAGA is always telling on itself.

Hardcore. And wearing a keffiyeh too.

Well said by Marina Hyde www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Thread. 🧵 (1/x) On the superiority of water as the primary decontaminant for tear gas and peppery spray on skin and eyes. To make it clear to people, this is a thread. Some of you are not clear on the concept. I will reply this with another post and mark it with a number in (x). And so forth. (1)

The whole world is about to watch as a country of people get forced into starvation for no reason www.reuters.com/business/ene...

so wait you're telling me a moral panic around the internet is not based on any actual scientific data but just cynical governments looking to control access to speech

In Boston ICE randomly pulled over this huge white Irish guy with a Mass drivers license, 20 years in the states, legal status, pending green card and have held him for 5 months, his citizen wife paid a $4k bond that was ignored(!) ICE forged his signature on deportation agreement, no appeal

Some people are taking the Bad Bunny show harder than others

Wow, I was just notified that The Covid Safety Handbook got an incredible BookLife Prize 2025 review and is advancing to the next round (quarter-finals)! 10 out of 10 for prose!!! Here's what they wrote: booklife.com/project/the-...

"Advice For Coping With 2026: Webworm gets a trauma & bereavement counselor to weigh in." Link: www.webworm.co/coping/

A real shame if this photo went viral again today.

Time and again the clear and obvious dangers that such provisions, which are meant to make us safer, have been highlighted. Time and again Ireland’s Government has sought to lead the EU into ignoring these warnings. - Emmet Ryan www.irishtimes.com/business/inn...

I am glad that Russian forces' ability to kill Ukrainians has been somewhat hobbled by being shut out of Starlink, but it's terrifying that one staggeringly rich, capricious, internet boiled, untrustworthy, white suprematist sociopath has the power to alter the course of whole wars

retweet if you think trans people deserve a pack of cigarettes, six passports, nine flip phones, a pistol, a set of handcuffs, plane tickets, the key to a storage locker in ulaanbaatar, and $20,000 in cash

“Triple-tap” here means the IDF bombed the journalists at the hospital and then bombed emergency responders not once but TWICE:

STOP. USING. SUBSTACK.

one of the greatest human triumphs of my lifetime is the relentless, unceasing, heroic effort by DECADES' worth of doctors and scientists to find a cure for a disease much of the world didn't take seriously for years because it predominantly affected a community they thought kinda deserved it

One of the wickedest things Wes Streeting has ever done is push politically convenient falsehoods about suicide rates amongst young trans people. We have new data from the National Child Mortality Database that exposes the truth he tried to cover up.

121 signatures to go!! 🇮🇪 If you sign right now, you will get Ireland over our threshold, to join France, Belgium, Finland, and Spain in saying we don't accept the EU complicity in a genocide. Let us be part of a true democratic Europe that says no to fascism, and yes to people power ✊

We should assume the rain over the last few weeks is the absolute baseline as a country we need to be prepared for. And we need to plan for the 526.9mm Spain recorded in 24hrs the other day. That level of rain here is both unthinkable and inevitable.

NEW: Trump's coup is almost complete. And the attack on the press is a central piece of it. Bezos's gutting of the Washington Post cannot be allowed to be just another blip in the news cycle. We are all going to have to fight for a free and independent press. open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

Every American needs to watch this:

There's actually some good news this week! First vaccine targeting SARS virus family enters human trials! Four EU orgs form international federation Long COVID Rise Up! Metformin helps prevent Long Covid! And check out that sweet neon green mask fit. Click, share! www.patreon.com/posts/covid-...

The question isn't whether people should wear high-viz/helmets. People should wear whatever makes them feel safer. Question is whether mandatory high-viz/helmets is good public policy - it's not Protected lanes, safe junction design, more cyclists, and better driver behaviour are good public policy

what if the real sex trafficking cabal was just the patriarchy we made along the way

Only 664 more people needed for us to pass our threshold. Please, please, if you haven't signed already. Don't presume others will. Sign and share 🇵🇸🙏🇵🇸🙏 #Speirgorm #Ireland #SixNations

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

Having lived in the Netherlands for 7 years - cycling close to every single day of that - what keeps cyclists safe is great cycle path design, the fact that every driver also cycled and the fact that if a car hits a cyclist the fault lies with the driver.

I guess if I ran the transport for one of the few EU countries without a rail link to the airport from the capital; without decent cycle or walking infrastructure, in a car clogged pollution nightmare, this is the kind of badly researched ill-informed nonsense I’d be expected to produce.

Money can buy happiness. If Elon Musk built a rocket and shot himself into the fucking sun that would generate massive happiness.

Skill issue.

Listen, this headline is a better endorsement of the Digital Services Act than any 1000 words I could come up with.

My latest at Dame. All of this is important. None of it is a distraction. Welcome to the wonderful world of a polycrisis where everyone is mentally and emotionally overwhelmed as our democracy experiences multiple organ failure. www.damemagazine.com/2026/02/04/a...

INBOX: Washington Post Ukraine Correspondent Lizzie Johnson announces that she has been laid off in the middle of a below-freezing war zone without power, heat, or running water.

Dear @washingtonpost.com journalists. Solidarity on a terrible day. But also: it’s an opportunity. The @theguardian.com also fucked over its journalists last year. Months later, 5 of us launched @thenerve.news - with zero £ - & it’s working! Rebuild your own media from the ground up 👊👊👊

you don't say? at some point we're going to acknowledge what every study ever on this subject has said, right? right? www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

so crazy to me that a woman asked trump if he has any words for epstein's victims and he said "you as a young woman should smile more." it will go nowhere bc republicans refuse to hold trump accountable, but it's still pretty crazy.

I keep saying to people in my life that the problem with writing in these days is that you sound absolutely off your nut for simply saying what is happening.

He literally pulled a "you should smile more" IN RESPONSE TO AN EPSTEIN QUESTION.

Fuck you Space Karen

The sheer and utter uselessness of this government and lack of interest in doing anything more than appealing to tabloid readers #speirghorm

New: Epstein’s obsession with DEF CON and his pet “personal hacker” is outed by Reddit sleuths, Pentagon demands Anthropic remove AI safeguards so they can do bad things, a paper on evaluating anti-facial recognition tools, a Vic Uni desk selfie, cats, more! Link: www.patreon.com/posts/cybers...

Latest video looking behind the headlines at authoritarian things you might have missed from the Trump administration this week youtu.be/eeHVsdn_yus

every single thing you put on or NEAR the internet will be used against you

Here's your reminder that you should subscribe to my newsletter: www.patreon.com/cw/violetblue

Sometimes I get a really good quote in. “Pointing out that AI is prone to giving ICE bad information is missing the entire point of ICE,” EFF’s @evacide told @RollingStone. “They don’t care if the information they have is good.” www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

People who may want to have children in the future should bear this in mind: tear gas can have serious consequences for female reproductive health. The data on this isn't great but I would at least recommend ensuring you have a quality respirator or mask on at all times.

Straight up undiluted Nazi stuff