Mastodon Feed: Posts

Reblogged by jwz:

kissane@mas.to ("Erin Kissane") wrote:

I was going to post something else this week, but the structural inability of global corporations to govern platforms seems inescapably relevant.

https://www.wrecka.ge/bad-shape/

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

barnoid@mastodon.me.uk ("Barney Livingston") wrote:

At #emfcamp I was tasked with sticking together the slides for the lightning talks for ease of speaker changeover. One of the talks had about 150 slides, that's 1 every 2 seconds for a 5 minute talk! Surely a mistake, I thought.

I've just seen the result and it's great, high density, stuff:
https://media.ccc.de/v/emf2024-548-lightning-talks-saturday
http://benguin.co.uk/roads/

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

evacide@hachyderm.io wrote:

404 Media continues to do the Lord's work. And furthermore, the data broker industry must be destroyed.

https://www.404media.co/candy-crush-tinder-myfitnesspal-see-the-thousands-of-apps-hijacked-to-spy-on-your-location/

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

aram@aoir.social ("Aram Sinnreich") wrote:

Happy 12th birthday to the defining visual artwork of this era.

Attachments:

• The classic KC GREEN six-panel cartoon of a dog in a fire saying "this is fine" and then melting (remote)

jwz wrote:

Onion vs. Hard Times: FIGHT!
"Gavin Newsom Spotted Dining At Smoldering Remains Of Nobu", "Biden Takes Immediate Action On Los Angeles Wildfires By Sending New Weapons Package to Israel."
https://jwz.org/b/ykf9

Attachments:

• Screenshot

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

weatherwest ("Daniel Swain") wrote:

This increase in atmospheric "thirst" is actually caused by same underlying thermodynamic process driving increases in precip intensity w/warming. In new paper, coincidentally published today, we introduce analogy of the "Expanding Atmospheric Sponge." https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-024-00624-z

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

weatherwest ("Daniel Swain") wrote:

With #ClimateChange, we see warming but also widespread increases in atmospheric "thirstiness" (i.e., evaporative demand/vapor pressure deficit). A warmer, thirstier atmosphere means (potentially) drier, more flammable vegetation in absence of compensating precip increases.

Attachments:

• Figure from Swain et al. 2025. Caption reads: Saturation vapour pressure (solid black line), absolute humidity (dot-dashed black line; assuming 40% relative humidity (RH)) and vapour pressure deficit (VPD) (dashed red line; the difference between saturation and actual vapour pressures, assuming 40% RH) as a function of realistic Earth surface air temperatures. A nonlinear (exponential) increase in the VPD will result from a linear increase in temperature even under the assumption of constant RH.

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

weatherwest ("Daniel Swain") wrote:

What is the primary link between #ClimateChange and wildfire, both in CA specifically and more broadly globally? Vegetation moisture, and therefore its flammability (which includes propensity to ignition, combustion intensity, rates of spread, and etc.). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01224-1

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

jaseg@chaos.social wrote:

TIL that you can just watch cosmic rays hit the Superkamiokande experiment's giant (30m diameter) water tank 1000m below the Japanese alps in real time online:

https://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/realtimemonitor/

#science #physics

Attachments:

• A screenshot of a data visualization of a single event captured by super-kamiokande. The detectors cover the full cylindrical surface of the device, and there are two shells of detectors, the inner shell, and the more sparse outer shell. The detectors of the inner shell are plotted in the middle of the picture, and the outer shell smaller in one corner. Each of the roughly 10000 detectors is colored by incident photon energy, painting a picture of a clipped cone. (remote)

Reblogged by jwz:

jwz wrote:

@jasonkoebler "Shock and disillusionment amongst employees of Leopards Eating Faces LLC".

Reblogged by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):

mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io ("mekka okereke :verified:") wrote:

@aud @thisismissem @esk @dma

Facts.

The above post is much deeper and more profound than it might seem.

I want people to read it again, and really understand it.

When an Open Source or volunteer based initiative offers a similar service to a VC backed startup or publicly traded company, the odds can seem insurmountable, because the VC backed company budgets are astronomical. But... their budgets also include the need to both generate profit, and to grow at an exponential rate.

Customer acquisition is *usually* very expensive. But if you don't also have that same need to generate profit, or grow at an exponential rate, then you can operate at a similar quality, for a fraction of the cost.

"🤷🏻‍♀️ Meh. I don't care about hypergrowth, and I don't care about making a billion dollars." Is ironically, a devastatingly powerful *competitive* statement. It kills giants.

But you have to believe that all this is true, to fully unlock your mind to then believe that you can create something of similar quality. Because if you don't truly believe this, then you instead tell yourself things like, "I don't deserve good UX in my product, because I don't have $200MM in funding." This is self-defeating excuse making.

Mastodon is a unique "business" in that its customer acquisition cost is effectively negative.🙂🙃

Because the most successful Mastodon marketing campaigns, are negative "customer attrition campaigns🤡" paid for and run by their competitors, that drive away their own customers, like Sonic losing his rings. They pay good money to drive their own customers to BlueSky and Mastodon.🤦🏿‍♂️

Reblogged by jwz:

virtualbri@mastodon.online ("Brian Tatosky") wrote:

@jasonkoebler

Attachments:

• Donald Glover, from one of his standup shows, saying "Good." (remote)

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

GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social ("Kevin Beaumont") wrote:

Looking back at it, maybe Myspace Tom was a good friend after all, given he sold the company and just went travelling with his money instead of trying to overthrow democracy.

Attachments:

• 4ed4bea2999954a5.jpeg (remote)

Reblogged by keul@fosstodon.org ("Luca Fabbri"):

scott@carfree.city ("scott f") wrote:

The SoCal fires are utterly terrifying, but I agree with @debcha that "there’s no, 'it’s too late, its over' for anthropogenic climate change. Every molecule of CO2 that doesn’t go into the atmosphere makes a difference. Preventing 0.1 degree of warming makes a difference. Every bit of climate resilience we build together makes a difference."

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

owa ("Open Web Advocacy") wrote:

OWA's 2024 in Review! A huge and special thank-you to all of our volunteers and donors.

We can't wait to see what we can do together in 2025!

https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/owa-2024-review/

Attachments:

• 2024 in Review We review everything for OWA in 2024 and what’s coming up! The whole team would like to thank everyone who joined us by volunteering or donating to fight for the future of the web! With big steps in 2024, we can’t wait to see what we can do together in 2025!

Reblogged by jwz:

mergesort@macaw.social ("Joe Fabisevich :verified:") wrote:

Starting to read an article only to discover it was generated by AI is now called being slopped in the face. Sorry I do not make the rules.

Reblogged by jwz:

garrettmurray ("Garrett Murray") wrote:

In light of the awful fires and air quality in Los Angeles, I've made Breathable free and app will remain free permanently. I charged for the app prior only so I could donate the proceeds to climate change charities, but paying Apple 15% for that privilege is silly. https://breathable.app

Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):

thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange ("The Nexus of Privacy") wrote:

And from @juliaangwin.com's newsletter:

"This week, Mark Zuckerberg revealed his true colors in what can only be described as a pledge of allegiance to incoming president Donald Trump. In a video message, he declared that Meta was abandoning fact-checking and dialing back on content moderation — a clear capitulation to right wing demands for less “censorship” of their speech that was often found to be in violation of Meta’s prohibitions against hate speech and incitement to violence.

As I wrote in my latest New York Times Opinion piece (gift link), the billionaire Facebook founders’ actions show us what it looks like when a mature company stops innovating on its products and instead seeks to maintain its market power through political influence."

https://buttondown.com/JuliaAngwin/archive/heavy-lies-mark-zuckerbergs-crown/

And here's her gift link to the NYTimes article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/opinion/mark-zuckerberg-trump-meta-lobbying.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk4.bvEF.EXfKAyCs6FzR&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&utm_source=JuliaAngwin&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=heavy-lies-mark-zuckerbergs-crown

(Julia Angwin's also at @Julia, but is more active on Bluesky)

#meta #FediPact

Reblogged by jwz:

jplebreton ("JP") wrote:

@MLNow "two different waymos were causing huge traffic jams so a cop had to drunk-drive one of them away" is an amazing portent for our extremely wealthy new mayor's tenure

Attachments:

• screenshot from article: Just after 7 p.m., another Waymo stalled at Washington Street and Grant Avenue, in front of Buddha Lounge. A couple of police officers assessed the situation. One officer gained entry to the vehicle and sat in the Waymo’s driver’s seat. He inspected the dashboard for a moment, and nodded in response to questions from colleagues, including “Are you able to drive?” and “Are you sure?” The officer then drove the vehicle away.

Reblogged by jwz:

augieray ("Augie Ray") wrote:

😂 😂 😂 😡

Attachments:

• Fake "The Vertlartnic" headline: CDC And WHO Issue Urgent Warning To People In Areas Of Wildfires To Wash Hands To Avoid Inhaling Toxic Wildfire Smoke

Reblogged by jwz:

cobweb@corteximplant.com ("Cobweb 💿") wrote:

I’d like to send a special “fuck you buddy” to all the boomers that told me “oh you’ll get more conservative as you get older, once you get some money”

I don’t know what world those people live in, but every day since probably 1989 everything I have seen in the world has only convinced me more and more that capitalism is a disease that is destroying lives and the planet.

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

Morning Coding Report

Attachments:

• 731834b65c828802.mp4 (remote)

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

any more, “a successful morning of coding” is defined as: “I only completely broke it twice, I seem to have fixed what I broke both times, and I may have successfully simplified one overly-complex constructor without breaking anything else”.🙄

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

Whispers through dry trees,
Flames flicker, hungry and wild,
Change dances with force.

h/t https://arghstudios.com:50433/

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOTOS (Short Film)
Even the most well-meaning Americans have a terrible blind spot when it comes to Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans, and a legacy of US policy that has cause a lot of harm.

The best way to help Puerto Ricans achieve self determination is to learn your history, and understand how US policy negatively affects the island today.

This short firm by Bad Bunny doesn’t address everything, but it’s a good start. https://youtu.be/gLSzEYVDads?si=4C_VbosaZo42fthP

Attachments:

• A frog eating a pastry. Yeah, that's what I mean!&10;You hardly see that anymore.

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

okay, that compiled and ran momentarily and then died spectacularly and without emitting a single error message.

Hmph. that's not how it is supposed to work, Ollie...

Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):

nazgul@infosec.exchange ("Kee Hinckley") wrote:

Mexican President trolls Trump over his wanting to rename the Gulf of Mexico.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLPH3d-WkHg

rust@social.rust-lang.org ("Rust Language") wrote:

Rust 1.84.0 has been released!🌈🦀✨

This release includes Cargo's new MSRV aware resolver, a new trait solver for checking coherence, new pointer provenance APIs and docs, integer square root methods, and more!

Check out the blog post and release notes: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2025/01/09/Rust-1.84.0.html

Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):

alexandrageese@bonn.social ("Alexandra Geese") wrote:

Meloni‘s 1,5 bln deal with SpaceX hands over Italian government, defence and military communication to an unpredictable proto-fascist individual member of a future US government threatening Ukraine. European security is at stake! Where‘s the outcry?
https://www.corriere.it/economia/finanza/25_gennaio_05/l-italia-in-trattative-per-un-accordo-dal-valore-di-1-5-miliardi-con-space-x-di-elon-musk-68f3fb90-816f-499c-8e81-428585c6dxlk.shtml

Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):

linuxgal@techhub.social ("🌈 ☯️Teresita🐧👭") wrote:

#Healthcare #UY

Attachments:

• f0a6d7eeb7f8dbd9.jpg (remote)