As promised, here is an interview with @ryanleesipes from #Thunderbird, on the whole #Mozilla and #Firefox terms of use situation.

We talk about why this had to happen, how Thunderbird will handle their own Terms of Use, what's happening at Mozilla, and what's changing.

youtube.com/watch?v=ctg5QzSt5t…

Open Source underpins almost 90% of the software used around the world today, but very little of the money used for public procurement reaches Open Source developers. opensource.org/blog/overcoming… #OpenSource

Over 110,000 Medieval Manuscripts May Have Been Copied by Women medievalists.net/2025/03/11000… #medieval #medievalmanuscripts #medievalwomen

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A 1912 metamorphic toy celebrates the escape of suffragist Christabel Pankhurst to France to avoid arrest. When you pull the tab, she vanishes and two police detectives crash into each other. rylandscollections.com/2025/03…

404 Media has obtained a list of 200+ sites monitored by a contractor for ICE (Amazon, Apple Music, BabyCenter, Bluesky, Facebook, Github, GoFundMe, etc.). They can “pull a target individual’s publicly available data” from these sites “all at once”. 404media.co/the-200-sites-an-i…

Check this out..

@mirlo is killing it right now, and working hard to do the important (but un-shiny) work of making a site for #Musicians that anyone can host **inexpensively**

This is the endgame for the #Fediverse - thousands of indie sites, not mega instances - but it’ll take this kind of work to pull it off.

Good job, guys. I’m super jealous of you rn.

mirlo.space/post/222

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in reply to il fabbro

Two different projects, but yes. I believe #Mirlo is working on Federation: github.com/funmusicplace/mirlo…

Today, we celebrate Mirlo 🎉

My project, #Bandwagon federates with ActivityPub, but is still missing other important features that Mirlo supports (like paid album sales)

The good thing is that we’re all converging on a similar point, and that will be a huge win for indie artists and labels everywhere.

@ilfabbro @mirlo

Bluesky To Sell Your Content To AI Data Miners

So it begins. Hidden in Jay Graber's recent charm offensive is this innocuously framed initiative: Bluesky is weighing a proposal that gives users consent over how their data is used for AI (techcrunch.com/2025/03/10/blue…)

Not so fast.

1) Shows they are planning on doing content deals with AI companies.
2) Seems like it is Opt-out vs. Opt-in (see below).
3) It is just a voluntary robots.txt file

h/t @Lydie tech.lgbt/@Lydie/1141490233448…

more...

#Bluesky

This entry was edited (11 months ago)

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“The goal is to cast vaccines into the shadows. That has deadly consequences.”

Legislators are bent on dismantling our vaccine safety net even as this deadly disease sees a frightening resurgence in our state. texasobserver.org/measles-outb…

#politics #USpol #Texas #measles #antivax #vaccines #health #healthcare #news #TXlege #Republicans

A bug in a recent Windows 11 update is causing some USB printers to produce random, programming-related text. pcmag.com/news/is-your-printer…

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How one’s hand configuration affects the sound of clapping
Faster clapping yields lower-frequency sounds, as does cupping one's hands while clapping.
arstechnica.com/science/2025/0…
in reply to Ars Technica

Right at the end is the scary part:

"It might even be possible one day to identify someone based on their distinctive claps and use it as a kind of acoustic login for electronic devices."

More surveillance - AI to be used to review footage of every concert, theatrical performance etc. ever, and produce a massive database linking you to the sounds of your hand claps.
Then you can be tracked by the sound you make whenever your flat hand contacts something 🤯😱

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ACH has confirmed reports that DOGE is at the NEH. Chair Shelly C. Lowe has been replaced by Acting Chair Michael McDonald. ACH remains committed to a diverse, inclusive, and supportive DH. To engage in advocacy efforts: secretary@ach.org. Read our statement of support for NEH: buff.ly/bQeRaGw

Meeting Leah was a real highlight for me at WorkbenchCon a couple weeks ago. We carried those logs across the hotel singing the log song. I’m very grateful for such a fun shoutout and a great log reveal. #woodworking instagram.com/reel/DHGeul5gxY6…

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Today's Low Quality Ad is for this Leather Hole Punch Tool. I carry mine everywhere. You never know when someone's leather jacket will get wrapped around their face, and they'll be in need of a hero to punch an air hole into it so they don't suffocate.
amazon.com/dp/B08VN7W1JR?ref=t…

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Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Firing the refs doesn't end the game; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2025/03/12/epi…

#Pluralistic

1/

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Let me tell you how I became a proud science denier, and how it saved my life.

--

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/03/12/epi…

1/

in reply to Cory Doctorow

I don't think this science denial. A big part of science is rigorous debate of the evidence. If you have evidence to the contrary, whether it's "anecdotal" lived experience or published data, then not blindly trusting established narrative *is* science. Dissenting views and contradictions are more valuable to the scientific process than confirmations* because it's evidence of some misunderstanding that can be used to push science as a whole forward.

*Of course you need some confirmations, and the replication crisis is a whole separate issue that leads to mistrust in science

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In case you weren’t paying attention, most of the people that understand economics told you that Trump was going to be a disaster. Only those that were part of the cult told you otherwise. So now you are going to act surprised because you voted for a felon, a bigot, a con man, and a dolt.

fastcompany.com/91294460/trump…

#Economics

A true story: at one point Microsoft was selling four entirely unrelated products all pronounced "link". Microsoft Link, Linq, Lynq and Lync.

You'd think whoever let that happen would have lost their job, but years later as we were struggling to fix a Teams interop problem in Firefox, we discovered that the real problem was that MS had _two unrelated products called Microsoft Teams_ who never talked to each other.

Well good news everyone, that guy got promoted:

theverge.com/news/627483/micro…

This entry was edited (11 months ago)

Axon’s Draft One, which produces AI-generated police reports, purports to cut in half the amount of time officers spend writing police reports. But a recent police agency’s decision to discontinue use of the software and a new scientific study cast doubt on those assertions. eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/anch…

Protect Net Plurality! 🦾

Broad brush duties under the UK Online Safety Act threaten any website with possible penalties.

Small, safe sites can't shoulder this burden. We'll see the lights going out on blogs, Fedi instances and forums from 17 March with a devastating impact for online communities.

The Fediverse is under attack!

We must #SaveOurSites 🌐

openrightsgroup.org/blog/save-…

#netplurality #onlinesafety #onlinesafetyact #ukpolitics #ukpol #mastodon #fediverse #activitypub

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in reply to Open Rights Group

Are blogs exempt?

While Ofcom suggests they are, the UK Online Safety Act is far from certain.

The result is that small scale, non-commercial blogs will simply shutter the window.

This will push users from safely moderated sites onto services like Facebook and X – the fountainhead of online harms.

#SaveOurSites 🌐

#netplurality #onlinesafety #onlinesafetyact #ukpolitics #ukpol

in reply to Open Rights Group

The UK government must tighten up the definitions and exemptions in the Online Safety Act to avoid the loss of safe spaces online.

The Secretary of State has the power to change the categorisation of sites NOW.

⏰ Write to your MP to exempt small and harmless sites BEFORE 17 March ⬇️

#SaveOurSites 🌐

action.openrightsgroup.org/sav…

#netplurality #onlinesafetyact #onlinesafety #ukpolitics #ukpol

This entry was edited (11 months ago)
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

Deadly Headshot

@vintagebuses
Online speech went the moment the law was passed. Mastodon is the least safe from the law too, as there's no big lobbyist to help us. I'm starting to think if they're going to make us criminals just for talking to each other (the law talks about groupchats and email too), we might be better off just accepting it and talking via Tor anyway, sadly...
@openrightsgroup

Here's the second installment of my Paramilitary Leaks series. How you can set up your computer to read through the leaked militia chats yourself micahflee.com/step-by-step-gui…

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Trump has been asking #Ukraine for mineral rights in exchange for aid, but extracting those minerals will require new infrastructure, new roads, more processing technology, investment, technical expertise, and, above all, an end to Russia’s invasion.
buff.ly/5IQacBx

[ It's decided, OPNsense is currently installing over pfSense! ]

So my Intel N100 quad core with 16Gb ram and a 256GB NVME drive and 4 x 2.5Gb ethernet ports has arrived with pfSense preinstalled but I'm thinking I'd be better off with #OPNsense installed instead?
Am I right as this is going to be my main router / firewall ? Feel free to comment and thank you.
No I'm not using #OpenWRT anymore sorry.
#FreeBSD #IntelNUC #RunBSD

This entry was edited (11 months ago)

Migrants detained in Panama expressed fear of returning to their countries.

“They will execute me without hesitation,” one texted.

“I am LGBT. My country harass these people. I cannot live a normal life in my country,” said another.

propublica.org/article/trump-d…

#News #Panama #Trump #Immigration #Migrants #Asylum #Aid

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