Mastodon Feed: Posts

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

Now Avi Loeb suggests that UAPs are 250 million year old ships built by a Permian civilization. He's wacko.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/11/27/avi-loeb-has-an-opinion/

Attachments:

• 194ebd965b7432a3.jpg (remote)

Reblogged by bcantrill ("Bryan Cantrill"):

billjings@mastodon.online ("Bill Phillips") wrote:

I guess I am just signal boosting @bcantrill now: https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2023/11/26/what-punch-cards-teach-us-about-ai-risk/

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

tilde@infosec.town ("Tilde Lowengrimm") wrote:

"Fortune favors the bold." is a common misconception. What you're actually seeing there is survivorship bias. Most adventurers don't survive the first goblin, but nobody tells stories about them.

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

Conference organisers telling us in *crystal clarity* which side they're on. Take bloody note:

https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1728177708608450705?s=20

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

shanselman@hachyderm.io ("Scott Hanselman 👸🏽🐝🌮") wrote:

This whole conference debacle is so disappointing. Speakers, when invited to a conf will say “who alls gonna be there?” I’ve my rules for participation posted on my site - including an inclusive lineup - for years. I was duped by the fake speakers also.

I remind all conf organizers that there are THOUSANDS of speakers of all walks of life, genders, ages, backgrounds. I offer 920 for you to invite to your confs http://hanselminutes.com/episodes inclusion means doing the work. So, do the work, friends.

Reblogged by collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth"):

daviddlevine@wandering.shop ("David D. Levine") wrote:

Attachments:

• david malki ! @malki If a croque madame speaks to another croque madame about something other than a croque monsieur, that's called passing the béchamel test (remote)

Reblogged by bcantrill ("Bryan Cantrill"):

matt@toot.cafe ("Matt Campbell") wrote:

@bcantrill Strongly agree. I'm firmly against attempts to slow down or stop the advancement of AI, however we define it, because it has so many good uses. In the Oxide and Friends episode on accessibility, we briefly touched on how machine learning can help in that area, as with iOS VoiceOver's Screen Recognition feature. But we do need to guard against abuses of any technology.

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

#SIlentSunday

Attachments:

• An asphalt road running through a forest that’s still green but turning yellow. The ground is covered in orange leaves. A group of people is standing next to the road, obscured by a big white umbrella.

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

Store link:

https://freshstore.co/collections/mastodon

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

I know shipping is a lot. I wanted them to offer free shipping at our cost, but we landed with the 20% discount idea instead. I know psychologically it's not the same though. May even be worse.

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

Today's the last day to get #Mastodon merch with a 20% discount. There's about 70 winter mugs left and I don't know when we will print more.

collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth") wrote:

In fairness, this is probably because a lot of the browsing I do is on Elk's "explore" tab, which surfaces the most popular posts in my server neighborhood, and of course those are unavoidably going to be the negative posts.

collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth") wrote:

When I joined Mastodon, I liked that it seemed to be free of the constant stream of outrage that colored so much of Twitter.

Lately, though, it seems like Mastodon has caught up. I'm starting to notice I feel angry and depressed and helpless when I browse my feed here, too, just like I did with Twitter

Which leads me to wonder: how much of that is my decisions? And how much is just self-sustaining rage loops seeking out the largest audiences?

No real conclusions; just a wondering observation.

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

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

@sil @phae @zachleat The foisgreymatter outbreak is real.

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

skinnylatte@hachyderm.io ("Adrianna Tan") wrote:

An op-ed written by Michael Sangiacomo of Recology (which handles San Francisco’s waste and recycling):

“Even in San Francisco, long hailed for the high percentage of waste it is able to recycle, the head of the city’s waste disposal provider has said that the system is failing.”

“The simple fact is, there is just too much plastic – and too many different types of plastics – being produced; and there exist few, if any, viable end markets for the material.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/It-is-time-to-cut-use-of-plastics-13489726.php

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

zachleat@zachleat.com ("Zach Leatherman") wrote:

being in tech sometimes feels like suffering through “what if 911 emergency phone services but as an iOS app” pitches from folks lauded as visionaries

bcantrill ("Bryan Cantrill") wrote:

What punch cards teach us about AI risk https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2023/11/26/what-punch-cards-teach-us-about-ai-risk/

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

df@hachyderm.io ("Dan Frakes") wrote:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/jpeg

Attachments:

• Cartoon with a person explaining that JPEG should be pronounced “J-feg” because the P stands for PHotographic. (remote)

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

starchy@infosec.exchange wrote:

Unbelievable Black Friday sale at my local library, any of the books I’ve been wanting to read for free and I can take it back for a new book when I’m done

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

davatron5000 ("Dave Rupert") wrote:

Take a deep breath in. Smell that? That’s the smell of pure, unadulterated, ad free, algorithm free, non-monetized digital space. That’s the stuff. Thanks for being here.

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

Chris Rufo does not do well when confronted by intelligent people.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/11/26/conservative-jerks-like-rufo-are-pushovers/

Attachments:

• Chris Rufo. Yuck. (remote)

Lyrilith@nitecrew.rip wrote:

Trying to get back up-to-date on Communion After Dark. :batpog: One of my sources for new music. :gothsparkleheart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE50x6EagkQ

#music #NowPlaying #CommunionAfterDark #MusicPodcast #WebradioShow #goth #industrial #ebm #DarkWave

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

simevidas ("Šime Vidas") wrote:

Custom Highlight API in four steps

(full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qldqyT324o)

Attachments:

• d8a281eec2256191.mp4

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

ben@werd.social ("Ben Werdmuller") wrote:

Molly White explores why effective altruism and effective accelerationism are such dangerous ideologies - selfishness disguised as higher-minded philosophies. #Technology https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/effective-obfuscation?utm_source=werd.io&utm_campaign=mastodon&utm_channel=mastodon

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

APoD@botsin.space ("Astronomy Picture of the Day") wrote:

A Dust Jet from the Surface of Comet 67P

Image Credit: ESA, Rosetta, MPS, OSIRIS; UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231126.html #APOD

Attachments:

• A dark and jagged hill is shown strewn with rocks. On the slope is a white foggy area that appears to emanate from a non-descript place on the rock face. (remote)

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

It's still possible to see Reyn's performance if you need some music for your Sunday:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1986886509?t=06h30m00s

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

Killer whales are only going to be inspired by a death metal concert.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/11/26/the-prey-proves-unable-to-read-the-mind-of-the-predator/

Attachments:

• Dead shark gnawed on by Orcas (remote)

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

amiloradovsky@stereophonic.space ("Andrew") wrote:

any opinions, which one would you pick and why

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

greytheearthling@queer.party ("Grey the earthling") wrote:

@cstanhope @requiem Recently I've found SearXNG (e.g. https://searxng.ch) surprisingly capable (with caveats).

In the list of Engines in the Settings, I switched off Google (and Brave, because no thanks cryptocurrency-homophobia man); I switched on Alexandria, Mwmbl, Wiby, Yacy, Curlie and Wikidata.

Quite often the useful results come from these engines, especially about clearly-identifiable entities (people, places, organisations, physical things; as opposed to news stories and programming syntax).

Alexandria and Mwmbl *are* general-purpose search engines, but their results feel sober, like pre-evil Google — even when a result isn't what I wanted, I can see why it came up. Yacy is just-about-federated (but isn't *really* what you want, as it's not a subjective network-of-trust like Scuttlebutt). Curlie is DMOZ, and Wikidata is also like a library.

You can use Wikipedia to provide autocomplete suggestions, which IMO is genius.

I also have Bing and DuckDuckGo switched on to fill in the gaps, and I still often fall back on DDG. SearXNG implements the same list of “bangs” as DDG but with “!!” so this is as easy as appending “!!ddg” (or “!!w” for Wikipedia etc).

For your use-case, you *could* disable all of the general-purpose engines, and just enable the structured-data library/encyclopedia–type ones.

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

jonty@chaos.social ("Jonty Wareing") wrote:

Wishmas, we need to talk about how trains work

Attachments:

• A photo of a billboard for the "Wishmas" event in London, depicting a train coming out of a tunnel shaped like a giant Christmas bauble. There are two sets of tracks coming out of the tunnel, and the train is running on both of them simultaneously. (remote)