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Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
owa ("Open Web Advocacy") wrote:

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
owa ("Open Web Advocacy") wrote:

Reblogged by rmrenner ("The Old Gay Gristle Fest"):
danluu ("Dan Luu") wrote:

Attachments:

• Google search results for "forums killed by vertical scope" Vertical Scope … forum killers : r/4x4 - Reddithttps://www.reddit.com › comments › vertical_scope_f... Jul 22, 2020 — Vertical Scope kills forums communities they buy. They have killed JKO and Pirate4x4 and countless other non-4x4 forums. We've lost touch with ... A lot of those niche forums were already being killed by ...https://news.ycombinator.com › item Jun 28, 2021 — A lot of those niche forums were already being killed by VerticalScope and InternetBrands. It's a lot of what lead to Reddit's popularity in ... People also search for what does verticalscope do verticalscope wiki verticalscope inc paypal IRIXNetwork - IRIX Network Forumshttp://forums.irixnet.org › thread-3430 Mar 3, 2022 — VerticalScope is killing forums. Kind of a serious business here but if you're not familiar with the company it's a Canadian Media company ... Verticalscope| Off-Topic Discussion forum |https://grassrootsmotorsports.com › verticalscope › page1 Dec 15, 2021 — Normally they didn't let the forums get overrun by spammers (although that happened once or twice), but would sometimes change the rules enough ... 25 posts · I'd read about these guys before, and forgotten all about them until yesterday when it was announced ... People also search for what does verticalscope do verticalscope wiki verticalscope inc paypal banned from 4 VerticalScope forums - AR15.COMhttps://www.ar15.com › forums › general › banned-fro... Jan 12,...
• mbg0001: Their model is to sell the forum user data on the data exchange platforms like DataLogix (now part of Oracle). The idea is that participation in a specialty forum is a huge signal of intent and interest, which is highly valuable to marketers. Even more valuable, if it ties to PII like emails or phone #'s. To VerticalScope, the value is the user database; that's what gives them the reach on the marketing platforms. They don't particularly care about the content of the forum, or forum as an ongoing concern. Scout was another company that was making that play, but thankfully they folded into 247 Sports and got out of that business. wm69: Yeah the guy who set up one of the "replacement forums" is a retired tech nerd, and it wasn't until he set up the new board that he filled us in on all of the shady ass stuff that VS does with user info. At first I thought he was a bit paranoid, but then after talking to the owner of a small Jeep forum and hearing of the strong arm tactics they used on him to try to make him sell, I realized just how fucking scummy they are. It sucks because the forums are a much better way to search for "how to" and help on mechanical stuff than anywhere else, and VS has bought up and pretty much killed of a ton of the old forums. It doesn't cost much at all for a forum either. I'm a mod on one and our total avg monthly cost is about $150. That will grow as our content and members grow, but when you look at what VS is bringing in via a...
• I was a vendor on MR2OC, as was my employer (separately), when Verticalscope bought the forum. We hung out for a while and watched VS do their damnedest to take down everything that made that forum special and replace it with everything that generated ad revenue, all the while telling us how much they just loved everything about the forum and how they really wanted to keep everything just as they found it. They'd do something dumb, like inserting viglink keyword links into our posts, and then tell us, gee, gosh, whoops, we sure didn't mean for that to happen, fellas, and I'll make sure my technical team takes care of that right away. Riiiiight. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Annual sponsorship bills came due. VS graciously offered existing vendors special "preferred rates" that were something like six or eight times what we were paying the previous owner. When I declined, one of a series of sales reps did a sort of "let me talk to the manager" used-car shuffle and came back with rates that were only nominally less ludicrous. I again declined and quietly walked away from the forum. It seemed like as good a time as any for the old Irish exit. Summary: Verticalscope bad. ... hybridmomentspass: I didnt know about the ad rates, that freaking sucks that's how they do things. Now there are no vendors on there...well, yes, there is one (that I know of) - some LED company that will spam about 4 threads every few months/holidays. I know there are people who sell things that ...
• Over the past 7 years, Threadloom has provided enterprise-grade Search and Newsletter services to over 2,000 forums. Threadloom Search was the first forum search engine with threaded results, image search, spell correction, and more, resulting in over 40% click-through rates. Threadloom Newsletter was the first service to automate content curation, sender verification, spam trap navigation, GDPR management, and more. Since acquiring Threadloom last year, our parent company VerticalScope has fully supported our commitment to the forum community. During this time, our team has maintained Threadloom services while contributing to new efforts. Over time, however, it's become clear that we will soon be unable to deliver the quality of service and innovation we initially committed to. As a result, the Threadloom team has made the difficult decision to retire our services. On November 2, 2022, we will turn down all Threadloom services, including Search, Newsletter, List Builder, Insights, Primary Login, and Primary Explorer, and delete all customer data within 30 days of this date. We recommend that customers backup their site and database prior to uninstalling our add-ons, in order to mitigate any potential data loss. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at support@threadloom.com. On behalf of the entire team, thank you for your support. It has been a privilege to serve and help grow your communities. Paul

kornel ("Kornel") wrote:

But wait, there's more!

The big high-power DC #chargers may not be the chargers themselves either. EV business calls them "dispensers", and they might only be a terminal for an even bigger charger and battery installation nearby.

But they're not a simple wire this time. For example, DC charging cables are often *liquid-cooled*.

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
cabanier@arvr.social ("Rik Cabanier") wrote:

Attachments:

• 9078c46fd8903883.mp4 (remote)

kornel ("Kornel") wrote:

It's an interesting engineering trade-off. On one hand every EV is carrying an extra several kg of charger hardware at all times.

OTOH slow chargers are (or should be) cheap and easy to install anywhere. Electrically it's not more complicated than a power outlet or a light. Every lamp post could be an AC EV charger.

kornel ("Kornel") wrote:

Did you know that home #EV (AC) chargers contain no charging hardware?

All the complicated parts are in the car. The wall-mounted box is just a fuse and a blinkenlight.

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
froomkin@journa.host ("Dan Froomkin/presswatchers.org") wrote:

xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:

Some of the bots I run on here:
- @pomological posts old paintings of fruits and nuts from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection
- @oldroadside posts slide photographs from the Margolies collection in the Library of Congress
- @choochoobot posts emoji trainscapes, featuring real moon phase and weather data from NYC
- @whit_whal posts parts of Moby Dick that do not contain a particular symbol

xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:

Nice article from Motherboard about the Twitter API fiasco and its effect on bots. I spoke with Chloe for this and @pomological makes a cameo: https://www.vice.com/en/article/4axzzd/twitters-latest-chaotic-move-will-kill-the-sites-best-bots-account-owners-say

Reblogged by teller ("Siim Teller"):
zilmer@justtact.com ("Priidu Zilmer") wrote:

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

There's no sharper lens on the "tech journalists only write for rich people" thing than the furor over CNET's bot-plagarism scandal.

Many (rightly) excoriating Red Ventures for being shitty to readers are the same folks that put nothing on the line for reader as they breathlessly regurgitated whatever tosh Qualcomm and MediaTek bleated about over-priced, under-performing mobile SoCs and let Google off the hook over software updates.

But bad content is coming for *them*? Hoooooboy.

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
caseynewton ("Casey Newton") wrote:

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
eleventy@fosstodon.org ("Eleventy 🎈 v2.0.0-beta.3") wrote:

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

Experimenting with new, simpler, smaller, more efficient spider cages.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/78140150

Attachments:

• Spider cages! (remote)

Reblogged by technomancy@icosahedron.website ("tech? no! man, see..."):
ieure@retro.social ("Apex Redditor") wrote:

xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:

one mastodon bot with an uncertain future is @helpingfriendlybot, which relies on live Twitter data that it reads over the API. there are alternate approaches that I will explore, but maybe that's another thing we'll lose

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

I assume they named it Apollo because it helps you spot architecture astronauts that shouldn't be let anywhere near products that matter.

bcrypt@infosec.exchange ("yan") wrote:

from the time that we reported a scam app impersonating Brave and stealing cryptocurrency, it took 16 days and escalation to multiple Google employees for Google Play to take it down. the app had been up since Dec 19(!) and had over 1k users :(. https://community.brave.com/t/brave-wallet-app-scam-on-google-store/463774

Reblogged by jeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jack_daniel ("Jack Daniel (often offline)") wrote:

Attachments:

• Ural Workhorse motorcycle with truck bed.

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
darius@friend.camp ("Darius Kazemi") wrote:

jeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

Oscar the housepanther, Guardian of the Sunshine

Attachments:

• 7d2552284520af13.png

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
sil ("Stuart Langridge") wrote:

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

I'm literally ground zero for "we should make the web competitive with apps"; it's the thing I've poured my heart and soul into for the last decade.

And from that perspective, let me just say: this doc is gibberish.

Utter nonsense.

Nothing about it is plausible because it presupposes a market problem rather than listening to what users and developers actually struggle with.

jeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

@grigs good to ‘see’ ya here, hope you are enjoying yourself

Reblogged by xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins"):
pattymo@mastodon.online ("Patrick Monahan") wrote:

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

TFW you can't recognise that the most powerful thing about the web, and what made it successful, is that it *isn't* low-level.

Attachments:

• b3f360502a587267.png (remote)

xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:

this is a fantastic little design detail on the LL Bean site

Attachments:

• "Create a Password" field with a strength indicator showing my entered password as "Wicked Strong" (remote)

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
thegibson@hackers.town ("The_Gibson :hackers_town:") wrote:

Attachments:

• a simulation of the morning of April 13th 20209 showing apophis nearing a gravitational keyhole that would bring it on in to give Earth a little kiss. (remote)

Reblogged by teller ("Siim Teller"):
sven@est.social ("sven vahar") wrote:

Attachments:

• 945ebb43c81e0ba2.jpeg (remote)