Mastodon Feed: Posts

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

Neil Gaiman flatly denies all the accusations made against him. Sure, he fucked the babysitter, but she liked it.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/15/neil-gaiman-responds/

Attachments:

• Neil Gaiman, "Call Me Master" (remote)

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

I learned my lesson: don't bother participating in local politics. The goons on the city council don't care what us little people say.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/14/i-did-my-civic-duty/

Attachments:

• A proposed park in my town that I opposed. (remote)

Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):

luna@pony.social ("luna, only carbon now") wrote:

today i learned that https://johnmastodon.org exists

Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):

c_9@mstdn.ca ("Cameron MacLeod") wrote:

Wear reflective clothing to be safer while walking near car drivers?

Just kidding, turns out we built software that ignores reflective clothing.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2025/01/10/alarming-report-shows-that-two-auto-braking-systems-cant-see-people-in-reflective-garb

Attachments:

• Screenshot of linked article headline "Alarming Report Shows that Two Auto-Braking Systems Can’t See People in Reflective Garb" and subheadline "The safety strips are useless in the eyes of automatic braking systems on two very popular car models." Below the headline is a photo of a dummy dressed all in white, with an approaching car's headlights very close. The caption of the photo reads "This guy is likely to be safe, but no so his friend in reflective garb." (remote)
• Screenshot from article showing photos of dummy wearing reflective garb being hit by a car driving at night, and a section of the article text: Pedestrians are often advised to wear reflective strips on their clothing so that car drivers can see them, but a new report says that such safety precautions are useless in the eyes of some automatic braking systems. Going, going, struck. Check out what happens to a dummy dressed in reflective strips.Photos: IIHS The worst systems were on two popular models made by Honda and Mazda. The alarming finding by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety will likely shock millions of American pedestrians ... and maybe even force change among the governmental agencies that lay the onus on them for their own safety. In the study, researchers outfitted an adult-sized dummy in black clothing, one in white clothing, one with a reflective jacket and one with a reflective strips in a configuration similar to those worn by roadway workers (though their safety gear is generally bright orange or yellow rather than black). The tests were run at 25 mph in three conditions — with no roadway lighting, with 10 lux of illumination and with the federally recommended 20 lux of illumination. Every time the test was run, no matter the lighting conditions, the Honda CR-V and the Mazda CX-5 hit the dummy with the reflective strips. And the Honda hit the dummy with the reflective jacket every time, too. (remote)

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

"… was the most downloaded free app in the U.S. Apple store on Tuesday. Over 300 million people, mostly in China, use the app, where they share short videos as well as still, text-based posts. People flocking to it said, in interviews and on the app, that they wanted to show they do not share Washington’s concerns about TikTok’s ties to China.

TikTok, which is available in more than 150 countries but not China, is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/14/business/tiktok-rednote-xiaohongshu-app.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=highlightShare

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

as usual, @laloalcaraz is spot on

http://www.gocomics.com/laloalcaraz/2025/01/14

Reblogged by jwz:

Daojoan ("JA Westenberg") wrote:

Nothing says ‘I lack conviction in my own drivel’ quite like a desperate little ‘lol’ at the end of a post.

jwz wrote:

Fascists and their dongs, amirite?

Italian soccer club Lazio has fired the man who handled the club's eagle mascot after he posted photos and videos online of his own prosthetic penis. Falconer Juan Bernabé shared the images on his private social...
https://jwz.org/b/ykgU

Attachments:

• Screenshot

jwz wrote:

I guess the amount of spam I get about e-bikes might be a positive sign, if you squint?

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

html5test@front-end.social ("Niels Leenheer") wrote:

The BarcodeDetector API is a very useful addition for our app. You can basically turn every webcam into a barcode scanner.

I made this library based on it:

https://github.com/NielsLeenheer/WebcamBarcodeScanner

Try it here:
https://point-of-sale.dev/barcode-scanner/playground/

Reblogged by jwz:

mastodonmigration@mastodon.online ("Mastodon Migration") wrote:

Initial response to @pluralistic regarding #FreeOurFeeds

Want to thank Cory Doctorow for answering questions about his support for Free Our Feeds here:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/#everybody-samba

What follows is a response in the form of a list of concerns about FOF.

Cory rightly took exception to the "scolding" tone of some of the discussion so far. It is hoped that here, at least, we can keep it focused on the substance of this issue.

So, here goes...

1/n

#FreeOurFeeds

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

noupside.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ("Renee DiResta") wrote:

Get ready for the return of “Pope Endorses Donald Trump” and other similar viral bullshit.

This is part of the redefinition of “freedom of speech” to mean “freedom from moderation,” where any limit on algorithmic boosting or virality at all is “”censorship””.

www.platformer.news/meta-ends-mi...

Meta just flipped the switch t...

Reblogged by jwz:

interesting@bookmarks.kvibber.com ("Interesting Links") wrote:

Map: How big are the LA fires? Use this tool to overlay them atop where you live
"To better understand the size of the L.A. fires, this tool lets you overlay the fire perimeters on any location in California."

#Califonia #LosAngeles #geography #PalisadesFire #EatonFire #HurstFire

Reblogged by jwz:

codinghorror@infosec.exchange ("Jeff Atwood") wrote:

I like how "remastered in HD" now means "bicubic upscaling with a sharpening filter plus some hallucinated 'AI' nonsense we've added because reasons"

Reblogged by jwz:

codinghorror@infosec.exchange ("Jeff Atwood") wrote:

We have learned literally nothing from "computer, enhance" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhF_56SxrGk

Reblogged by jwz:

PuercoPop wrote:

@waider @jwz Illuminant is the NNTP to ActivityPub gateway you can run today! https://koldfront.dk/git/illuminant/about/

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

whitequark ("✧✦✶✷Catherine✷✶✦✧") wrote:

chat, is anyone willing to sell me a PCIe Gen1/Gen2 x1/x4 analyzer (any of these specs, the more the merrier, doesn't need to go any higher) at a reasonable price?

(please boost for reach!)

Reblogged by jwz:

gleick@mas.to ("James Gleick") wrote:

If Hegseth wasn't such a gross abuser of women and alcohol, maybe there would be room to focus on his utter lack of qualifications to lead a large government department.

jwz wrote:

Apropos of nothing, I remember some guy who spent most of the 90s having people tell him that it was insane to combine a mail reader and a usenet reader into the same app, because they are completely different software platforms that serve completely different intents and have different feature sets.

Oh wait, that was me. The guy was me.

jwz wrote:

I see this thread is going to be One Of Those.

Oosp.

Attachments:

• 79f99038c6811081.mp4

jwz wrote:

Can someone explain to me how it makes any sense for Pixelfed to be a thing that has its own accounts, rather than being an ActivityPub client whose GUI just happens to be image-focused?

Reblogged by jwz:

alexwild@mastodon.online ("Alex Wild") wrote:

The trouble with Hegseth isn't that he's an abusive alcoholic, or that he's unqualified, or whatever. It's that he will use the military to kill U.S. citizens. That's why Trump wants him.

Republicans absolutely hate Americans and will not think twice about doing a Tiananmen Square.

Reblogged by jwz:

tomw ("Tom Walker") wrote:

Them: "We are launching a new publication"

Me: 😐

Them: "We intend to do journalism differently"

Me: 😐

Them: "We will be beholden to no one in our search for truth"

Me: It's a Substack isn't it?

Them: "You will be able to subscribe using the Substack platform"

Me: (closes tab)

Reblogged by jwz:

jerry@infosec.exchange ("ChatJERRYPT") wrote:

Here is an example video:

Attachments:

• f40da3d1ebf61525.mp4 (remote)

Reblogged by jwz:

jerry@infosec.exchange ("ChatJERRYPT") wrote:

Perhaps my favorite thing on TikTok is the flurry of Chinese people recording “goodbye from your Chinese spy” videos, overlayed with the song “When I see you again”

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

it's not correct, but to a first approximation you can get pretty far reading the german "bzw" as "by ze way" and i think that's beautiful

Reblogged by jwz:

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

"quisling anti-woke zuckerberg streisand-effects fediverse into increased relevance via shadowbanning pixelfed hyperlinks" sure is a sentence

Reblogged by jwz:

patrickworld@mastodon.online ("Patrick 🌎") wrote:

Man, I just wish my dad lived long enough to hear white guys telling each other to go back to Africa

Attachments:

• Split screen of bannon and musk (remote)

Reblogged by jwz:

LinuxAndYarn ("Rachel Rawlings") wrote:

@tiffanycli I think you misread The New Gilead Age

Reblogged by jwz:

tiffanycli ("Tiffany Li") wrote:

I thought the New Gilded Age was going to come with better hats