Mastodon Feed
Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
melkat@nyan.lol ("melanie kat‘s writings") wrote:
Identifying Harassment
https://melkat.blog/p/identifying-harassment/
Mastodon FeedMastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
erininthemorning.com@bsky.brid.gy ("Erin Reed") wrote:
They are going to ignore court orders. If they ignore court orders, the social contract is dead and buried, the constitution is no longer in effect. It's a rubicon that cannot be uncrossed.
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
helenczerski@fediscience.org ("Helen Czerski") wrote:
It is such a delight to discover that the origin of Reuters (the huge news agency) is that in 1850 Paul Julius Reuters started a service using pigeons to carry news & stock market prices between Brussels & Aachen, until telegraph could take over. Pigeons went by train each day & then flew back.
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jwz:
ryanwatkins wrote:
@jwz and get the camera too
Attachments:
- video: Cybertruck tagged
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jwz:
ryanwatkins wrote:
@jwz “Satisfying, isn't it ?” louniki_ on twitter. Driver inside.
Attachments:
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
thetyee@mstdn.ca ("The Tyee") wrote:
Dear Elon, we’re out.
The Tyee will no longer be posting to X (formerly Twitter) and we’ve removed the X sharing buttons from our stories. Here’s why.
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
grickle@mstdn.social ("Grickle") wrote:
Poor planning. #grickledoodle #wifi #internet #starwars #deathstar #cartoon #art #drawing #funny
Mastodon Feedjsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
I love how Jon Stewart reminds us of reality, of history... The Fat Orange Child complained bitterly about the US having a very bad trade deal with our neighbors Mexico & Canada, and tried to start a trade war with them. as Stewart points out in this vid, that 'very bad trade deal' was the one The Fat Orange Child signed in 2018.
The Fat Orange Child has once again created a crisis, then convinced people he is the only one who can rescue them from that crisis.
Mastodon Feedpzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:
How does this happen? There has to be nothing but cowards in the chain of command.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/02/09/it-required-a-coward-to-be-this-petty/
Mastodon FeedBoosted by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):
brettezeleliquide@h4.io wrote:
l'art ancestral du jardin japonais d'appartement
tags : zen, une pierre à la place du coeur, peigner la girafe, exercice illégal de la profession de jardinier, #photography #cats #caturday #silentsunday #japan
Mastodon Feedjsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
walking is a slog today
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
SocraticEthics@mastodon.online ("Ukraine War Bulletins and News") wrote:
⚡️🇺🇦Total sanctions against Russia, NATO membership guarantees needed to end invasion fast – President Zelensky (more) https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3958163-total-sanctions-against-russia-security-guarantees-needed-to-end-war-fast-president.html #Ukraine #NukesForUkraine #SouthKorea #Japan #Press #Taiwan #Media #NukesOrNATO #USA #US #UK #EU #NATO #News #UnitedStates #EuropeanUnion #UnitedKingdom #russiaUkraineWar #10yrInvasionofUkraine #RussiaIsATerroristState
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jbz@indieweb.social wrote:
🎧 You Didn't Notice MP3 Is Now Free
｢ The MP3 format, once the gold standard for digital audio files, is now free. The licensing and patents on MP3 encoders have expired, meaning you can now include them in your applications without paying royalties. For software developers and audio enthusiasts, this might seem like a big deal ｣
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
sepdroid@androiddev.social ("Sepideh") wrote:
This is a website about the red cards and their potential limitations.
Mastodon Feedjsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jackcole@mstdn.social wrote:
NRA ACCIDENTALLY FORGETS TO RISE UP AGAINST TYRANNICAL GOVERNMENT
https://theshovel.com.au/2020/06/04/nra-accidentally-forgets-to-rise-up-against-tyrannical-government/
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
GottaLaff@mstdn.social ("Laffy") wrote:
Keep ‘em coming
“The city of Springfield, #Ohio, which was singled out by #Trump & #JDVance during pres campaign with false & outrageous claims about Haitian immigrants, has sued a neo-Nazi group that helped draw national attention to the small city in the first place” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/08/us/springfield-ohio-lawsuit-haitians-neo-nazis.html
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jack@mastodon.sdf.org wrote:
You remember #Apple scanning all images on your #mobile device?
If you have an #Android #phone, a new app that doesn't appear in your menu has been automatically and silently installed (or soon will be) by #Google. It is called #AndroidSystemSafetyCore and does exactly the same - scan all images on your device as well as all incoming ones (via messaging). The new spin is that it does so "to protect your #privacy".
You can uninstall this app safely via System -> Apps.
https://developers.google.com/android/binary%5Ftransparency/google1p/overview
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
bourgwick@heads.social ("jesse jarnow") wrote:
devoured the 1st issue of jay hineman's radio dies screaming on the train last night. fun features but most thrilled by an actual reviews section (& excited to go a-bandcampin' today). was relieved when i read a few that *didn't* pique my interest. https://radiodiesscreaming.com/2024/11/19/radio-dies-screaming-fanzine-1/
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
PabloMartini@climatejustice.social ("Pablo Martini (Geezer)") wrote:
We didn’t click ‘consent’ on any gambling website. So how did Facebook know where we’d been?
In an experiment, they surfed sites without making a wager or agreeing to data sharing. Their Meta feed filled up with betting ads
Revealed: gambling firms secretly sharing users’ data with Facebook without permissionA Facebook user logs into their account and is bombarded with dozens of gambling ads. The promotions for online casinos and betting sites offer free spins, “bet boosts”, discounts and bonuses.
But the person has never placed a bet or played a game on a gambling site before – let alone consented to being targeted. How can that happen?
The Observer conducted an experiment to find out how potential gambling customers are being tracked, profiled and targeted online.
To do this, they visited 150 gambling websites run by companies with licences to operate in the UK. First, they took a note of whether the website asked for consent to use data for marketing purposes. Then, without clicking to “agree” or “decline” the use of any data, they looked at the network traffic.
By doing this – and using an official Meta application called Pixel Helper – we were able to see a record of the data being shared with Facebook’s parent company, Meta.
In many cases, no data was shared. But in about a third of cases, the testing found that a tracking tool called Meta Pixel had been embedded into the website – and was being triggered automatically upon loading the webpage. This was sending a report to Facebook about which webpages they had visited, linked to a unique user ID.
In some cases, Facebook was also sent data on which buttons they had clicked, and other browsing activity. One site told Facebook when they clicked a button indicating they might place a bet on the Everton v Liverpool match scheduled for the next week. Another told Meta that they had clicked to view a promotion for 100 free spins.
At no point did they ever click to “agree” or “accept” the use of our data for marketing – or consent to it being shared. But when they logged back into Facebook a few days later, the feed was full of gambling ads.
These ads were from a range of brands – including many whose own data-sharing practices had not broken any rules. This is because once data is shared with Meta, it is ingested into its targeted ads system and is used to profile people based on the things Meta thinks they like.
That means Meta can then sell ads to companies wanting to target a particular audience – whether that is pet owners, women seeking fertility treatment, people who love Taylor Swift, or potential gambling customers.
Advertisers can also target potential new customers that Meta thinks will be interested in their brand, including “lookalike” customers who have been profiled by the social media giant as being similar to their existing customers based on things such as their demographic characteristics, interests and behaviour.
In the Observer’s testing, the Facebook user had also been profiled as someone interested in “real money gaming”, according to account records – so it’s possible that ads could have appeared as a result of targeting in this way.
The investigation raises serious questions for regulators about how they are monitoring marketing practices of this sort.
During the testing, they noticed that many of the gambling sites sharing data unlawfully had automatic opt-in consent processes that assume people are happy for their data to be shared based on the mere fact that they are using the website. One consent banner read: “We use cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you continue to use this website we assume you are OK with this.”
This appears to be in breach of data protection regulations. The ICO says consent must be both “unambiguous and affirmative”, and that relying on pre-ticked boxes or a failure to opt out is insufficient. Yet the practice is widespread.
There are also questions about the role of Meta – which profits from selling ads using data transmitted to it, even in cases where it was shared unlawfully.
They have previously written about how other organisations – such as police forces, NHS trusts and a political party – misused Meta Pixel to track website users. In some cases they shared data with Meta on sensitive things such as health problems and reporting crimes. But the barrage of gambling ads that were served on Facebook as a result of this testing was far more intense than anything we had seen before.
Heather Wardle, professor of gambling research at the University of Glasgow, said the “untamed marketing” was “hugely risky”. “If you are already experiencing difficulties from gambling, it is likely to make you gamble more,” she says.
Mastodon Feedjsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
an historic shift
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
oz1lqo@techhub.social ("Søren Kjærsgaard") wrote:
This weekend was special: yesterday the baltic countries: Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, disconnected from the Russian/Belarus 50Hz power grid, going ‘island mode’, controlling the 50Hz grid frequency themselves.
After more than a day of different stability tests, this afternoon, just before 13:00 CET, a connection to the European grid was established via Poland, so now the the three countries are in 50Hz sync with Europe.
I observed a small, undramatic, ‘burp’ in the frequency at the time of the event, and my wall socket is now in full sync with the measurement in Estonia, provided by #sympower⚡️ 😃👌🏼
#gridtech #powerdistribution #electronicsengineering #testandmeasurement
Attachments:
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
GottaLaff@mstdn.social ("Laffy") wrote:
“Elon #Musk will dispatch a DOGE [sic] team to Parkersburg, West Virginia, next week, where it will gain read-only access to the US government’s central accounting system.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-08/musk-s-doge-team-now-seeks-access-to-treasury-s-accounting-data
Mastodon Feedjsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
sometimes survival is the best revenge
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
petersuber@fediscience.org wrote:
Update. "Today we [Harvard Law School @harvard_law Library Innovation Lab @harvardlil] released our archive of data.gov on Source Cooperative. The 16TB collection includes over 311,000 datasets harvested during 2024 and 2025, a complete archive of federal public datasets linked by data.gov. It will be updated daily as new datasets are added to data.gov. This is the first release in our new data vault project to preserve and authenticate vital public datasets for academic research, policymaking, and public use."
https://lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/02/06/announcing-data-gov-archive/#DataGov #Libraries #OpenData #Preservation #Trump #USPol #USPolitics
Mastodon Feedjsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
Snowflakes gently fall,
Driveway hidden, deep and white—
Shovel, sweat, and cheer.courtesy https://arghstudios.com/
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
Just_a_fella_EU ("just_a_fella_EU 🇪🇺 🇦🇹") wrote:
Mastodon Feedjsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
There are only two difficult problems in computing: naming things, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors.
[with apologies to Phil Karlton]
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
foone@digipres.club ("Foone🏳️⚧️") wrote:
the angel wants me to insert disk #1.
man if I had a nickel for every time an angel talked to me about floppy disks...
Mastodon Feedjsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
Today in History: Alban Berg (composer and proponent of 12-tone composition of music) is born Vienna, Austria, 1885