Daily Tech News 24 February 2026

Top Story

Is age verification a trap? Yes. (IEEE Spectrum)

Online age verification intrinsically damages user privacy, while failing to work in both directions:
False positives are common. Platforms identify as minors adults with youthful faces, or adults who are sharing family devices, or have otherwise unusual usage. They lock accounts, sometimes for days. False negatives also persist. Teenagers learn quickly how to evade checks by borrowing IDs, cycling accounts, or using VPNs, and posting old Altered Images and Mental As Anything videos to their blogs that they've been running continuously since... 2003.
Okay, I'm maybe not so young that I need to worry about that problem.
The appeal process itself creates new privacy risks. Platforms must store biometric data, ID images, and verification logs long enough to defend their decisions to regulators. So if an adult who is tired of submitting selfies to verify their age finally uploads an ID, the system must now secure that stored ID. Each retained record becomes a potential breach target.
One more quote:
The age-verification trap is not a glitch. It is what you get when regulators treat age enforcement as mandatory and privacy as optional.
This is not an accident.
But how big is the problem really? Surely nobody is out there putting terabytes of age-verification data in unprotected databases accessible to anyone on the internet oh that just happened again. (Tech Radar)

IDMerit, an AI-powered age-verification service, had three billion user records exposed in an unprotected MongoDB database.

Hey, at least they weren't running Elasticsearch.

Tech News

Not so fast on that last story, says Technowize. (Technowize)

This was clearly the work of black-hearted Russian hackers trying to extort money from a wise and noble age verification service, says an article that reads exactly like an AI press release put out by a desperate company that has just lost control of three billion user records.

And down at the bottom of that page: ID Verification powered by IDMERIT.

Huh.

A very similar article appears at The HR Digest and again, down at the bottom: Powered by IDMERIT. Written - or "written" - by Diana Coker, whose work also features at... Technowize.
A user who just wanted to control his DJI Romo vacuum cleaner inadvertently found himself in complete control over a global army of 7000 robots. (Tom's Hardware)

And the servers at DJI that store all the user data.

Because there was no security enabled at all.

You know how you sometimes scoff at film scenarios where people don't take the most basic common-sense security measures and the thieves (or the good guys, depending) just make off with everything?

Yeah. I've stopped scoffing.
The new CEO of Microsoft Gaming - formerly in charge of AI Slop at Microsoft - says she has no tolerance for AI Slop. (Variety)

I have stopped scoffing in that one particular scenario.
Why AI can't read PDF files. (The Verge)

Because PDF is closer to an image format than a document file. All the words you read are in there, but they might be broken into individual letters depending on the precise layout of the document and the program that generated it.

Solution: Render the PDF to a proper static image format and then use OCR to read it back.

Does that actually work?

No. Well, mostly, but as is so often the case it makes the easy parts easier and the hard parts explode.
AI news app Particle listens to podcasts so you don't have to. (Tech Crunch)

I don't know. Couldn't I just... Not listen to the podcast?

Musical Interlude

Disclaimer: That song is so 80s and so Japanese it makes me want to accidentally blow up a planet.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 G'Day everyone

Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2026 04:01 AM (Ia/+0)

2 Mornin'

Posted by: Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come at February 24, 2026 04:01 AM (sAmhv)

3 As said, its Tuesday Monday

Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2026 04:04 AM (Ia/+0)

4 Morning all.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at February 24, 2026 04:08 AM (BLOW1)

5 Good day everyone

Posted by: Tuna at February 24, 2026 04:10 AM (lJ0H4)

6 I know of a surefire way to avoid blowing planets up by accident, which is to blow them up on purpose. (This has its own drawbacks.)

Posted by: SciVo at February 24, 2026 04:14 AM (Sy6m/)

7 Wow... bought a good set of Headphones a couple months back... Heavys... GREAT base.

Listening to a lot of old music... Like best of Bread... and it is so different with the headphones it is amazing.

Like... the late Beach Boys... or Jefferson Starship... or Bohemian Rapsody... so much better on a good set of headphones.

And for the record, I own a Great standard stereo, Klipsch surround speakers, Denon receiver... but the headphones? betah.

Posted by: Romeo13 at February 24, 2026 04:17 AM (mP0Kj)

8 Word.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent at February 24, 2026 04:19 AM (/HDaX)

9 I shoveled some snow yesterday and my new knee filed a strenuous objection. So good morning, tech thread hordians.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at February 24, 2026 04:26 AM (B4HY+)

10 w00t

Posted by: m at February 24, 2026 04:36 AM (+YA9H)

11 I had to extract some data from PDF files just a couple weeks ago. It was originally from a spreadsheet, but instead of being saved as .xlsx or even .csv, someone had done a "Print to PDF" operation and saved it as PDF. Can confirm that PDF isn't a text format: it's a bunch of "these letters are in this position on the page" data. If you copy and paste, text from different columns of the table end up copying next to each other with no spaces or anything between them.

I did actually find an AI tool that did a fairly reasonable job of looking at the PDF's structure and extracting the columns from the data. It made a lot of mistakes, getting some columns swapped and some rows swapped, but even fixing the mistakes it made ended up being less tedious than typing all that data in myself.

But this was an AI tool that was specifically trained on PDFs. Most tools aren't.

Posted by: Robin Munn at February 24, 2026 04:36 AM (0QQsP)

12 9 I shoveled some snow yesterday and my new knee filed a strenuous objection. So good morning, tech thread hordians.
Posted by: Huck Follywood at February 24, 2026 04:26 AM (B4HY+)

And good morning, Huck Follywood's new knee!

Posted by: m at February 24, 2026 04:39 AM (+YA9H)

13 G'morning, all!

A balmy 26.1 degrees out.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at February 24, 2026 04:40 AM (iMotb)

14 IBM dropped about 13 % yesterday, down about 25 % year to date, over fears of AI's impact on its application software business. Fairly typical for the market so far this year. Just observing.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at February 24, 2026 04:48 AM (upVZJ)

15 https://thenewneo.com
Neo has stopped by again

Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2026 04:50 AM (Ia/+0)

16
AI news app Particle listens to podcasts so you don't have to. (Tech Crunch)

I don't know. Couldn't I just... Not listen to the podcast?

Yes, you could, but this actually sounds (no pun) useful if you know from the description a podcast has info you're interested in and - like most folks - you can read text a LOT faster than you can listen to a 1 hour lecture / podcast....

Posted by: BobM at February 24, 2026 04:52 AM (6tmKi)

17 This music interlude is nice

Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2026 04:55 AM (Ia/+0)

18 PDFs are great for sending documents when you need the design and fonts to be the same without worrying about attaching the fonts and the embedded images (so great for publishing), or if it has a lot of scanned images of word processed documents. They're also great if you need to password protect a document.

Not so great for transferring actual data/words.
In those cases it's best to just send the original program's saved file, especially if fonts and text formatting don't matter, e.g., send the original .doc or .xlsx file.

Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026 04:57 AM (6ydKt)

19 PDJT gives his SOTU tonight while staring directly at John Roberts, and probably asking just what the hell is going on in the judiciary.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at February 24, 2026 04:57 AM (FgifN)

20 Between the IC cabal under Zoobama and the judges, we have a competition for which nefarious player can overthrow our Republic first.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at February 24, 2026 04:58 AM (FgifN)

21 Unexpected hero's save missing girl in Phoenix.

Sunny Sky site:

https://tinyurl.com/yj6wxh4a

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at February 24, 2026 05:01 AM (Nx5jP)

22 Lots of theatrics are going on at the SotU tonight.
Can't let Hitler2 make a speech

Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2026 05:03 AM (Ia/+0)

23 Dancing employees at Trader Joes help to calm toddler:

https://tinyurl.com/ye29jdr6

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at February 24, 2026 05:07 AM (Nx5jP)

24 Morning, Tech Peeps

Posted by: fluffy at February 24, 2026 05:09 AM (AN2gy)

25 Posted by: Huck Follywood at February 24, 2026 04:26 AM (B4HY+)

Sorry you're in pain. Hope you feel better soon.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at February 24, 2026 05:10 AM (Nx5jP)

26
g'mornin', 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at February 24, 2026 05:12 AM (tljrc)

27 Belated BOING!

Working.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at February 24, 2026 05:15 AM (VFv8R)

28 Disclaimer: That song is so 80s and so Japanese it makes me want to accidentally blow up a planet

Do we get Plastic Love tomorrow?

Posted by: fluffy at February 24, 2026 05:15 AM (AN2gy)

29 Evening and morning, late toilers and early morning chirren ("children," for those of you who've never been in the South or read Confederacy of Dunces)! 'Tis Tiu's Day again, innit?

It's not as cold here as they predicted it would be: 41 F., wind chill of 36 from a light north wind. And here I am awake earlier than I planned. No attacks from black cats this time; I just snapped awake at 3:15. Oh, well.

I skimmed over Ace's posts yesterday about the media being confuzzled about the sudden drop in crime, and about Donkey Chompers' meltdown. Delightful stuff.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 05:19 AM (wzUl9)

30 It's roller-coaster weather time here now.

Went from 80F high last Friday, where I had to turn on the A/C for the first time since October, to 31F right now with a high to 50F today.

No wonder my sinuses are can't make up their mind on coming or going.

Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026 05:21 AM (6ydKt)

31 The musical interlude reminds me a little of Sade Adu, the English singer who recorded "Smooth Operator" and all those 80's songs.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at February 24, 2026 05:22 AM (fqhxl)

32 Yesterday I finally got the paperwork on that ancient XPO pension Fidelity has been holding for me since 1987. It was only from a nine-year job, so even if it grew over the decades it was probably tiny to start with. But it's a nice bit of change. Found money, so to speak.

The furry thugs are pacing about, hoping for an early breakfast since I'm up early.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 05:23 AM (wzUl9)

33 It's roller-coaster weather time here now.

Went from 80F high last Friday, where I had to turn on the A/C for the first time since October, to 31F right now with a high to 50F today.

No wonder my sinuses are can't make up their mind on coming or going.
Posted by: SpeakingOf

Same here in Nashville lans. It's 20F right now but will be almost 70F by next Tuesday.

Posted by: Tuna at February 24, 2026 05:24 AM (lJ0H4)

34 Today its not getting any warmer than it is right now, and its below freezing

Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2026 05:26 AM (Ia/+0)

35 28 Disclaimer: That song is so 80s and so Japanese it makes me want to accidentally blow up a planet

Do we get Plastic Love tomorrow?
Posted by: fluffy

Funny you should ask that.

No.

But only because we already had that: https://ai.mee.nu/archive/2025/
daily_news_stuff_24_february_2025

Posted by: Pixy Misa at February 24, 2026 05:27 AM (BLOW1)

36 Family Gospel group sings "We Believe":

Faithpot site:

https://tinyurl.com/4jpmspd8

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at February 24, 2026 05:28 AM (PFs9e)

37 Got to get dressed and finish shoveling the driveway.

While typing this a kitteh decided I needed to sit a bit longer.

Posted by: fluffy at February 24, 2026 05:29 AM (AN2gy)

38 >>> But only because we already had that: https://ai.mee.nu/archive/2025/
daily_news_stuff_24_february_2025

Seems to be an annual tradition.

I'll have to go to YooToob.

Posted by: fluffy at February 24, 2026 05:31 AM (AN2gy)

39 Closer than been in some weeks
Have a great day horde

Posted by: Skip at February 24, 2026 05:32 AM (Ia/+0)

40 35 28 Disclaimer: That song is so 80s and so Japanese it makes me want to accidentally blow up a planet

Do we get Plastic Love tomorrow?
Posted by: fluffy

Funny you should ask that.

No.

But only because we already had that: https://ai.mee.nu/archive/2025/
daily_news_stuff_24_february_2025
Posted by: Pixy Misa

Reminds me of late 80s, early 90s soul/R&B/pop that was coming out of Britain.

Posted by: Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come at February 24, 2026 05:33 AM (sAmhv)

41 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 05:23 AM (wzUl9

I woke up too early and came downstairs to the living room. The black cat Pyncheon's approach is to first stare at me from the armchair. and then to come about two feet away on the rug and stare at me unless I get up and make him breakfast. To be far, spouse has a delayed school opening today so the cat was ready to eat over half an hour ago.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at February 24, 2026 05:33 AM (PFs9e)

42 Same here in Nashville lans. It's 20F right now but will be almost 70F by next Tuesday.

Posted by: Tuna at February 24, 2026 05:24 AM (lJ0H4)

It was a cold winter here.

And this is the first time I can remember getting snow two years in a row here.

Although it wasn't much this year, like two inches compared to six last year, it's still unusual. We typically have to wait several years to a decade in between snow storms here.

Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026 05:36 AM (6ydKt)

43 Cats can tell time better than 95% of teenagers it seems.

Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026 05:40 AM (6ydKt)

44 Same here in Nashville lans. It's 20F right now but will be almost 70F by next Tuesday.

Posted by: Tuna at February 24, 2026

***
'Bout the same here, Tuna; I'll be running the A/C again soon.

Oh, I watched the season finale of All Creatures Great and Small last night. Christmas 1945 must indeed have been a good one after all the war years, and not just in Britain. Anyway, it was charming as usual . . . and my writer's mind wonders if the show runners plan to have Siegfried eventually marry Audrey, Mrs. Hall. The terrible disappointment on her face when she sees him with the attractive Dorothy at the pub, and his remark in the previous episode, "I'll always need you, Mrs. Hall" . . . well, you have to wonder.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 05:43 AM (wzUl9)

45 Although it wasn't much this year, like two inches compared to six last year, it's still unusual. We typically have to wait several years to a decade in between snow storms here.
Posted by: SpeakingOf

This is my third winter here and it looks like we get one bad snowstorm per winter. I can live with that.

Posted by: Tuna at February 24, 2026 05:44 AM (lJ0H4)

46 Cats can tell time better than 95% of teenagers it seems.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026

***
Little gray Dagny's latest routine, if I'm up much before their breakfast time, is to sit on the sofa arm right by me. She's doing it right now. She wants petting, yes, but she's also hinting it's time for chow.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 05:45 AM (wzUl9)

47 Firefighter helps save horses that taught him to ride:

https://tinyurl.com/yxrkme7h

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at February 24, 2026 05:53 AM (rZCVI)

48 @28/fluffy: "Do we get Plastic Love tomorrow?"

Possibly, but you can have classic plastic guards (your special friends) right now! (@1:05):

https://youtu.be/-rPBgjmvE8o

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 24, 2026 05:53 AM (O7YUW)

49 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 05:43 AM (wzUl9)

I tell you tears were flowing when Siegfried had to put Mrs.Stokes goat down.

BTW, I've been thinking that the actress who plays Charlotte bears a great resemblance to Emma Thompson. I finally looked her up. Sure enough she's Emma Thompson's daughter.

Posted by: Tuna at February 24, 2026 05:54 AM (lJ0H4)

50 Greetings and good morning from the GPROMD. I took the snow day yesterday and am currently finishing off the first cup of coffee.

Posted by: NR Pax at February 24, 2026 05:55 AM (lXoJ5)

51 @47/FenelonSpoke: Without fail, you always bring stories about good people doing good things in life. Thank you.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 24, 2026 05:55 AM (O7YUW)

52 Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 24, 2026 05:55 AM (O7YUW)

I'm glad you like them . It lifts my spirits as well.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at February 24, 2026 05:58 AM (rZCVI)

53 I tell you tears were flowing when Siegfried had to put Mrs.Stokes goat down.

BTW, I've been thinking that the actress who plays Charlotte bears a great resemblance to Emma Thompson. I finally looked her up. Sure enough she's Emma Thompson's daughter.
Posted by: Tuna at February 24, 2026

***
You're right, she does look like her mother! I did not know that!

The viewer reviews of the episode on IMDb are not overwhelmingly positive, and I don't get it. I thought it was well done as usual. Sure, there were some things that *could* be called soap opera. I don't. Soap opera is more crude in its approach to using the material of life.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 06:00 AM (wzUl9)

54 The viewer reviews of the episode on IMDb are not overwhelmingly positive, and I don't get it. I thought it was well done as usual. Sure, there were some things that *could* be called soap opera. I don't. Soap opera is more crude in its approach to using the material of life.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere

I thought the whole episode was quite touching. Also,the little boy who plays Jimmy is impossibly cute. Looking forward to next season.

Posted by: Tuna at February 24, 2026 06:06 AM (lJ0H4)

55 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”

Matthew 5:11

Posted by: Marcus T at February 24, 2026 06:10 AM (rJhDk)

56 PDF is closer to an image format than a document file.

I worked with PDF a lot at my former job. Great for users, terrible for developers. That PDF was never meant to be editable always perplexed me because that's the one thing people always want to do with documents, aside from reading them.

Regardless, we had developed a PDF text editor. A customer complained that he could not edit his document. Upon analysis we discovered that, due to font licensing issues, the PDF generator that created it had rendered all the text as line-drawing commands.

Posted by: Halfhand at February 24, 2026 06:10 AM (XUxhu)

57 Portable Document Format is great . . . until it isn't.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 06:18 AM (wzUl9)

58 Psalms when you need strength:

https://tinyurl.com/4f8krthc

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at February 24, 2026 06:21 AM (rZCVI)

59 https://youtu.be/Dy_kg_CH53E

In which JayzTwoCents tries to demonstrate to his viewers the need to buy a PSU rated around 30-40% higher than your total system wattage and everything goes awry as his EVGA SFF 650W power supply running a RTX 5090 with Furmark and Cinebench going at the same time climbs up to 880W and still won't shut off.

Jay isn't the most genius/intellectual of YouTubers but his screw-ups are always entertaining.

Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026 06:24 AM (6ydKt)

60 SOTU tonight should be lit. I hope Ace puts a special thread up.

Posted by: Tuna at February 24, 2026 06:24 AM (lJ0H4)

61 A number of faculty at the university where I work have been panicking because their hand-written class notes that have been converted to PDF will not meet the Title II ADA rules for accessibility that are mandated starting at the end of April.

They have to find a way to make their notes accessible to students, which is time-consuming and extremely tedious.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 24, 2026 06:24 AM (ESVrU)

62 A number of faculty at the university where I work have been panicking because their hand-written class notes that have been converted to PDF will not meet the Title II ADA rules for accessibility that are mandated starting at the end of April.

They have to find a way to make their notes accessible to students, which is time-consuming and extremely tedious.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 24, 2026

***
I used to scan notes for one of the professors in my department to put up on the class site. Is it that the .PDFs are not searchable -- is that an ADA requirement?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 06:28 AM (wzUl9)

63 Morning, 'rons and 'ettes.

Posted by: olddog in mo at February 24, 2026 06:28 AM (bQ4nt)

64 I used to scan notes for one of the professors in my department to put up on the class site. Is it that the .PDFs are not searchable -- is that an ADA requirement?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 06:28 AM (wzUl9)
----
They need to be able to be read by a screen-reader. Handwritten notes simply aren't.

Mathematical equations and complex charts are REALLY hard to make accessible.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 24, 2026 06:34 AM (ESVrU)

65 The feline hogs have been slopped, and I've had some bacon and a scrambled egg, plus a slice of toast-and-honey. I guess I'm ready for the day.

This morning I plan to drive over to U-Haul and get some prices about picking up my furniture, storing it, and shipping it and unloading it at my destination. There are prices on their website, but it might be better to talk to the actual office if I can.

Tomorrow is SS payday, and I have groceries to buy and a certain big red Buick to feed. This once-a-month payday thing is something I did at work for many years, so I'm used to it. First week after your check arrives: "I'm rich!" Twenty-six days later: "Soup for dinner again tonight. . . ."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 06:36 AM (wzUl9)

66 They need to be able to be read by a screen-reader. Handwritten notes simply aren't.

Mathematical equations and complex charts are REALLY hard to make accessible.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 24, 2026

***
Oh, the kind of thing that reads the text aloud to the student?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 06:37 AM (wzUl9)

67 Never used one but I'd love to hear how a screen-reader reads aloud a complex mathematical formula.

You're going to need AI to get that to come out correctly.

Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026 06:43 AM (6ydKt)

68 mornin yall. I thought the idea behind PDFs is they are static and unalterable. You can still turn them into a bitmap though and run OCR on that.

Posted by: fd at February 24, 2026 06:44 AM (vFG9F)

69 Oh, the kind of thing that reads the text aloud to the student?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 06:37 AM (wzUl9)
---
Yep.

If you've ever seen a blind person use one, it's an odd experience. They can play the text at blinding speed so it's nearly impossible for a sighted person to understand it. The way the text is read is also stranger than we are used to hearing as sighted people.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 24, 2026 06:45 AM (ESVrU)

70
Happy SOTU Day!
There Will Be Nonsense.

Posted by: Don Black at February 24, 2026 06:46 AM (ZxPkt)

71 Never used one but I'd love to hear how a screen-reader reads aloud a complex mathematical formula.

You're going to need AI to get that to come out correctly.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026 06:43 AM (6ydKt)
---
You can use the accessibility tools in Word to read-aloud equations created with the Equation Editor.

Word has this odd quirk where it sometimes switches languages from English to Spanish or Portuguese at random while it's reading equations. Very weird.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 24, 2026 06:47 AM (ESVrU)

72 68 mornin yall. I thought the idea behind PDFs is they are static and unalterable. You can still turn them into a bitmap though and run OCR on that.

Posted by: fd at February 24, 2026 06:44 AM (vFG9F)

Some PDFs can be edited, especially useful for forms distributed online (our DMV has a few I've used).
I've never made an editable form with PDF but there's some kind of setting you have to enable for it.

Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026 06:49 AM (6ydKt)

73 60 SOTU tonight should be lit. I hope Ace puts a special thread up.
Posted by: Tuna

And I'm sure the enemedia is going to talk about how STUNNING and BRAVE!! the Congressman that are ditching the event are.

Don't forget at least one shot about Congresswomen dressed in white to show how oppressed they are.

Posted by: NR Pax at February 24, 2026 06:49 AM (lXoJ5)

74 Morning all.
What are the odds that one if the Dems lunatic invitees will disrupt the SOTU tonight? Pretty high I'd think

Posted by: Smell the Glove at February 24, 2026 06:52 AM (/PQmQ)

75 They need to be able to be read by a screen-reader. Handwritten notes simply aren't.

Mathematical equations and complex charts are REALLY hard to make accessible.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 24, 2026
===============
This is why God invented graduate students.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at February 24, 2026 06:52 AM (68fWW)

76 Some PDFs can be edited, especially useful for forms distributed online (our DMV has a few I've used).
I've never made an editable form with PDF but there's some kind of setting you have to enable for it.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026 06:49 AM (6ydKt)
----
Yep. You can do some pretty cool things with PDF forms if you are using Acrobat Pro or Foxit Pro.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 24, 2026 06:53 AM (ESVrU)

77 @61/"Perfessor" Squirrel: "A number of faculty at the university where I work have been panicking because their hand-written class notes that have been converted to PDF will not meet the Title II ADA rules for accessibility that are mandated starting at the end of April."

Grandfathering should apply to all notes created prior to the ADA rules' effective date, yes?

As for how to solve this in an ongoing way: Use some of the budget to hire some student touch typists to do some transcribing of all newly created classroom notes.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 24, 2026 06:54 AM (O7YUW)

78 Good morning all. I hope everyone escaped managed the storm as well possible. The high winds have finally died down here, hoping for some warm weather in the upcoming week. Be safe and careful.

Posted by: Rufus T. Firefly at February 24, 2026 06:55 AM (Q6vBp)

79 Well, that was fun.

I'll probably clear a ditch around the house in 2 or 3 weeks.

The snowpack could absorb a 1/2" of rain, but 2" would flood the basement.

Posted by: fluffy at February 24, 2026 06:55 AM (AN2gy)

80 @71/"Perfessor" Squirrel: "Word has this odd quirk where it sometimes switches languages from English to Spanish or Portuguese at random while it's reading equations. Very weird."

Perhaps it hits certain symbols in an equation and then decides, "It's all Greek to me!"

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 24, 2026 06:56 AM (O7YUW)

81 J.J. Is up.

Posted by: Tuna at February 24, 2026 07:02 AM (lJ0H4)

82 And the snow made the dogs act like absolute nuts. A lot of racing went on and they were happy.

Now a funny one was yesterday afternoon. My wife dumped some bird seed on the deck and one of the local squirrels was chowing down. The tree bunny looked up at the sounds of my wife knocking on the sliding glass door, stared right at the four greyhounds and then went back to eating.

Posted by: NR Pax at February 24, 2026 07:02 AM (lXoJ5)

83 Some PDFs can be edited, especially useful for forms distributed online (our DMV has a few I've used).
I've never made an editable form with PDF but there's some kind of setting you have to enable for it.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026

***
Early in the 2000s, part of my job was submitting textbook orders to the campus bookstore. My predecessor would fill them out, I think with a typewriter. I took the existing .PDF of the book order form and made it fillable, then sent it to the faculty for *them* to fill out. I'd keep a digital copy before I sent it on. That way, if they taught the same course with the same books a semester or a year later, I could dig out the previous order form, change the date, and send it in.

Each semester I also asked the registrar for a complete listing of all the courses in a spreadsheet. I'd read them into my Access database. Then the data could be used for my own class schedule broken down by time and day, so I knew when everybody was in class; and for file folder labels for the classes. Computers are supposed to *save* us labor, right?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 24, 2026 07:03 AM (wzUl9)

84 After reading @78: it appears I need coffee before posting.

Posted by: Rufus T. Firefly at February 24, 2026 07:04 AM (Q6vBp)

85 You can use the accessibility tools in Word to read-aloud equations created with the Equation Editor.

Word has this odd quirk where it sometimes switches languages from English to Spanish or Portuguese at random while it's reading equations. Very weird.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 24, 2026 06:47 AM (ESVrU)

Ahh, OK.

I was wondering how it would read them correctly, especially when it hits characters like Δ Σ ϴ.

That may be why, it thinks it's reading a foreign language when it gets to special characters.

Posted by: SpeakingOf at February 24, 2026 07:04 AM (6ydKt)

86 I've got a new affirmation for the day. This one I did not get off a cereal box.

Posted by: fd - I am perfect, it's the world that's all f'd up at February 24, 2026 07:08 AM (vFG9F)

87 Imagine being in Congress and thinking you're oppressed.

Say what you will for Democrat women; they know how to make it all about them all the time.

Posted by: Wally at February 24, 2026 07:20 AM (0e5Te)

88 Birdbath status?

Posted by: Just Wondering at February 24, 2026 07:36 AM (2Ez/1)

89 This new xbox head lady is already a laughingstock due to a pretty obviously faked gamertag and associated achievements, which is not helping her credibility

Posted by: heya at February 24, 2026 08:26 AM (9tikr)

90 Meta agrees to acquire up to 6GW of AMD Instinct GPUs in a deal valued at $100B+ that could see Meta own up to 10% of AMD; Meta plans to deploy 1GW in 2026

Posted by: SMOD at February 24, 2026 08:39 AM (RHGPo)

91 Anthropic says DeepSeek, MiniMax, and Moonshot violated its ToS by prompting Claude a combined 16M+ times and using distillation to train their own products

Posted by: SMOD at February 24, 2026 08:42 AM (RHGPo)

92 IBM shares closed down 13.15% after Anthropic outlined in a blog post how Claude Code can automate the exploration and analysis phases of COBOL modernization — International Business Machines stock was getting slammed Monday

Posted by: SMOD at February 24, 2026 08:43 AM (RHGPo)

93 Sock off

Posted by: stu-mick-o-sucks at February 24, 2026 09:23 AM (w9Wax)

94 28 Disclaimer: That song is so 80s and so Japanese it makes me want to accidentally blow up a planet

Do we get Plastic Love tomorrow?

Posted by: fluffy at February 24, 2026 05:15 AM (AN2gy)

I was thinking of "Baby Come Back" by Player.
It's pretty much the same tune, but different words.

Posted by: Gunslinger at February 24, 2026 10:18 AM (R2gO3)

95 30 seconds then ace.mu.nu gives an awe snap error in brave on android and a reload is necessary. Rinse, repeat. Thought you should know. Site currently unusable for me. It did this a few months ago and stopped for a few months and is now back. Since I'm complaining, how about allowing the browser let me resize the font so I can read the page without constant side to side scrolling. That used to work too.

Posted by: Ultra lurker at February 24, 2026 10:38 AM (NZypH)

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