CNN — Gary Shapley, whom President Donald Trump named acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service earlier this week, will no longer serve in the role, according to a White House official and a source briefed on the matter.
The question “What is a woman?” has haunted politics on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean for a decade. In Britain, where I live, Prime Minister Keir Starmer
The decision by Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs to resume capital punishment aligns with a larger trend of death penalty states hiding key details about executions.
Precious little Doctor Who could be found with this, though. Precious little Doc Martin, too. I've found a Yankee substitute for the Brit-flavoured time traveler, and that's Alfred Hitchcock. I haven't heard a jail referred to as a stir in friggin' AGES, and I heard that in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents just last night.
Sick of paying for streaming services? These films and TV series are free
From real-life stories to new comedies, ditch that $20-per-month streaming service and let us introduce to you the best of film and TV you can watch right now without paying a cent.
@George Takei 🏳️🌈🖖🏽 Another "masterstroke" was the Abraham Accords, which was the first of his accomplishments that got shot down but by his best buddy, Netanyahu.
That muddled post doesn't make any sense at all. Not only did he not "warp speed" vaccines, but if he had it wouldn't have been an "economic masterstroke". The vaccines were more about public health, and saving lives.
Even if he were responsible for warp speed, he was responsible for destroying the group in charge of pandemic preparedness so he opened the door to catastrophe, and once out of office he egged on the lunatics fighting the efforts to contain the disease. He could have saved thousands of lives but he chose instead to make it ten times worse, and the next pandemic will be nearly impossible to stop because of the damage he has done in the name of cruelty, narcissism and spite.
How a Sydney scientist became enamoured with the ‘Ferraris of the crustacean world’ – and discovered a new shrimp species
Prof Shane Ahyong discovered ‘brutish’ mantis shrimp so unusual it needed its own new genusGet our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcastWhen Prof Shane Ahyong was seven, his mum came home with a bag of prawns from the fish shop – but one of...
The Cold War, spanning from the end of World War II to the early 1990s, was marked by ideological, military, and political tensions between the Western bloc, led by the United States, and the Eastern bloc, spearheaded by the Soviet Union.
done, but still seeing some timeouts .. debugging an issue with the nginx configuration towards the streaming server.
I think the auto config is adding the streaming server as endpoint on port 3000 even though it's on 4000. it should be transient, nginx automatically tries a different node so it shouldn't cause problems on the frontend ... but let me know if it does.
welp, sorry for the brief downtime, but hey everything should be Really Actually Fixed This Time ™️ (no really I checked the config and logs and there are no more errors)
Norman Lear’s final completed project “Clean Slate” has been canceled at Prime Video after one season, the series’ stars Laverne Cox and George Wallace and
Close to Moscow but aiming to join the EU, Aleksandar Vucic appointed Duro Macut, a doctor with no political experience, as prime minister. Meanwhile, students blockaded the Radio-Television Serbia headquarters, demanding more impartial coverage.
when a dictator is threatened, they often begin imperialist ambitions for the "circle the wagons" effect that changes the topic and makes people reflexively support the dictator
And the Serbians didn't learn the essential insight: One of common human's properties is greed and instead of getting worked up about corruption in politics one have to get rid of (corrupt...?) politicians and learn, that there's nothing us citizens can't do, what currently only politicians do: Self-responsibility beats external responsibility (=cowardness!) _ a l w a y s _ !
Yes, and it's still a Federal crime to transport a kidnap victim across state lines. That charge may not be levied in this administration, but might be in the next. It remains to be seen is Trump's pardon shield will hold up, but in any case individuals may be prosecuted and convicted with a permanent record against employment .
I remember from reading the Gulag archipelago the centrality of "arrest ", both the term and the experience. I think it's worth considering whether you are "arrested" in an abduction, or if there is another word for the taking.🍸🐈
we mustn't lose sight of the fact that these kidnap victims are real people with real lives. The administration wants the public to believe these are non-people.
I made a printable (preferably not on a color laser printer) poster to try and connect with people offline that might not be paying as much attention to the anxiety rectangle.
CNN — Gary Shapley, whom President Donald Trump named acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service earlier this week, will no longer serve in the
Since a few new and interesting people decided to follow me, I went back and looked at the #introduction I wrote years ago to see if there was any need for an addendum. Well, boy howdy, there sure is. I mentioned a few things in passing that if I expand upon, may help folks understand why my feed will always be politics heavy, but to start, the short version is, 'been there, lived that, damned near died because of it," so I get why some people would just rather not. Me? It's what I do. 1/x
Let's start with my father, because so many things get tied to our fathers, right? Mom gets credit for babying me, giving me money for doing chores, siding with me when he got pissed, but it was #journalist Dad and #journalism professor Dad that proofread my notes, was the first one to ever asked me not only what I thought about something, but introduced me to the all importan question, "so what makes you think that's true?" 2/x
And it's dear old Dad who insisted I go to college, and was royally pissed when I "wasted" his money by dropping out - twice - and never graduating. All I wanted to be back then was a DJ, but wouldn't you know it, that meant "Broadcast Journalism," and the privilege of taking one of my father's courses, History of Mass Communication. Still, I forget all that for years, and really did start out doing on air-announcing (& disco at nights) 3x
I don't know why people felt I needed to write. I did, but how in hell it became part of the job is just a cosmic thing. See. Radio announcers spent half the day on air, the other half writing and producing commercials, PSAs, cutting station promos, etc.
So I picked that up no sweat and next thing you know, I'm writing and producing for a TV station, and then for an ad agency and then . . . wait, what?
How'd I go from an ad agency to working for the Nebraska Dept. of Environmental Control. Well, during a period of non-employment, I'd sent dot-matrix, Apple II generated resumes to any employer with an opening I thought I could handle. I totally forgot about that one until I got a call one day.
And so there I am in Lincoln, putting together multi-projector slide shows and givng presentations across the state about unlicensed open dumps and . . . 5x
one day Grams (Everybody called Dennis Grams, the department's Director, Grams) says there's this meeting he needs to go to and he wants me to come along, "because I think this is something you need to make sure the public knows about."
So we hop in a plane, fly down to Atlanta and I learn about the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact and how siting critera was narrowing things down and how much land in Nebraska was under consideration and . . . 6x
Hell, they didn't even have all their data on a single set of maps for me to work with, so I got a graphics firm to work them up and published what I knew, and kept publishing as the land area narrowed and kept publishing as the reporters started calling and started giving interviews all over the state and then they up and did it. 7x
Nebraska got picked and despite all I and others did to try and get people to pay attention before it ever happened, I got a lot of "you guys were hiding this all from us. You are scum. The fix is in!"
Now the selection of a state was supposed to result in a communications transition. Instead of the regulatory agency talking about the project, the developer was to do it and . . . you guessed it 8x
I did the revolving door thing. In a day went from a Public Information Officer III, to Manager of External Affairs for USEcology on The Central Interstate Low-Level Radoactive Waste Project, and took on all that entailed - and also began drinking even more heavily because, you know people were calling my home to yell at me, and farmers were pulling their jackets back in public meetings so I'd see the sidearms and . . .
BTW, I can talk about all this now, but for years, I was a train wreck. 9x
@Doreen32128 It was and I'm glad too. It's hardly top of mind anymore. I may have just grown out of the mess in my head that came from it, but yes, I'm happy it really is behind me now.
Key developments on April 18: U.S. proposes leaving occupied areas under Russian control, easing sanctions, Bloomberg reports'You're fools' — US may 'take a pass' on Ukraine-Russia talks if either side stalls, Trump says'Not our war' — US may drop Ru…
"HUGE PROTESTS are the most impt thing we can do right now. As MLK said: “there's no noise as powerful as the sound of marching feet of a determined people.”
I’m talking🚨numbers so large they shock ppl -friend & foe & media alike.
I know it can feel overwhelming.
The lawlessness & extremism & corruption—the cruelty—all feeling like they’re accelerating week after week.
we need to stop framing these as protests. We are not protesting American government. We are trying to protect it. These are Protective Actions. We need to protect the Constitution from this coup, from unbridled fascism. Words matter. Framing this as protection puts this movement into a place where it can not be vilified by conservative media or discounted as anti American which is exactly the narrative the orange man will try to enforce next week with the insurrection act.
Americans can now live the American militant Hollywood movies they adore. Otherwise put, we have been desensitized to military measures and equipment in none war times, on home soil, directed at peaceful civilians.
February 1993: Štrpci, Bosnia. Paramilitaries stop a passenger train and arrest civilians. Of the 500 or so passengers, only one man puts up resistance. This film tells the true story of the man who would not remain silent.
the posting is titled, "the _new_ America". I'm amazed by the speed with which this sort of behaviour began. This suggests to me that it's not "new": it's just encouraged now (q.v. the Zimbardo prison experiments).
Such a grand room, however: -They are using the same 1950s card table my parents had. -The furniture is lined up against the walls as though awaiting a firing squad.
They probably shuffled the stuff for sale into a closely watched space. Really good stuff goes to an auction house, leftovers go to a yard sale or donation.
To be fair, any radio pirate's choice of this band is also limited by its propagation issues during certain parts of the day. They'd do better with a Chicken Band transceiver further up in frequency. Sure there are daily propagation issues with that too, but it would still be an improvement.
April 18, 2025 Techno Taras interceptor drones. Photo credits: Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation The Ukrainian military uses the Techno Taras interceptor drone to shoot down Russian reconnaissance …
United States President Donald Trump will walk away from Russia-Ukraine peace talks within days unless there are clear signs a deal can be done, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says.
Regrets: Actors who sold AI avatars stuck in Black Mirror-esque dystopia Is $1,000 worth being the AI face of obvious scams? Rueful actors say no. arstechnica.com/ai/2025/04/reg…
A team of German scientists have developed tattoos that change color according to the body's levels of glucose, albumin an pH levels. This would allow patients with chronic diseases keep track of their health without having to take constant blood samples. Cr: Science Acumen
(“Maam why did you come to the ER today?” “My tattoo turned yellow.”😉 Very cool though)
very interesting! But tattoos that “change colour” to track health biomarkers? Skin isn’t a petri dish. Glucose ≠ predictable. Albumin is a stretch. And colour shifts on melanin-rich skin? Practically invisible. Tech needs to see all shades to be truly revolutionary.
The top section shows a person wearing nitrile gloves holding a tattoo in their right hand and applying green ink to white skin. The right side of that section shows three tattoo stars organized on a curve from the bottom left to the top right. The left star is smallest and has a light blue color to it. The middle star shows a dark green color and is slightly larger than the first star. The right star is light green and is the largest star.
The bottom section shows columns of colored dots on skin in differing colors. The top line is marked "pH" with colors ranging from a goldenrod to a deep blue, the middle is marged "Glucose" and ranges from a very light green to a forest green, and the bottom is marked "Albumin" and ranges from white to a light blue.
The paper was published in 2019 (link below). I can't find any record of human trials or the concept going into production.
I doubt that the one-size-fits-all approach would be terribly effective. As I diabetic I take 7 readings a day and the results determine my insulin dosage. Five coloured blobs doesn't have that precision.
Well, as a matter of fact, there's been, for example active glucose meters since quite a bunch of years now. They lack of a problem of desynchronisation. They say your glucose levels about 20 minutes ago because they are not in contact with your aorta, so they are problematic in some situations. This meters dig about a centimeter in your skin, so I could imagine a tatoo half a milimeter inside your skin will have an even bigger deviation. So... Are they really useful?
I am glad they are even working on it. The implications are fascinating. I even get to tease my tattoo artist friends they are now part of healthcare. ❤️
I happen to know a little bit about this stuff from my previous job.
The problem with this tech is the glucose change signal comes to the skin layer the tattoo accesses way too slowly to be useful to diabetics. Blood pricks are still the only useful standard unfortunately.
I recommend the book: The Pursuit of Noninvasive Glucose: "Hunting the Deceitful Turkey"
Continuous glucose monitors (like the one my type 1 diabetic wife has) work well enough. The much more difficult problem is keeping the blood sugar level in range; even with an insulin pump it is a real pain.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio now says the US is ready to “move on” from peace negotiations in Ukraine, because maybe a peace in Ukraine is not “doable”.
What a huge surprise that peace with Vladimir Putin was not possible — just like every expert on the planet said it was not.
Get ready for Trump blaming his failed peace plan on Ukrainian President Zelenskyy — I can already hear him say, “This war could have been over in 24 hours, but he never wanted peace.” 👐
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the Trump Administration could abandon its push within days, reflecting a mounting sense of frustration in the White Hous...
As DT has stressed several times, "it was Zelenskyj who started the. They never should start a war with someone 5 times bigger than yourself. And without having missiles!" oh well. The world will go under because of greed and stupidity of mankind.
US-Außenminister Marco Rubio: "die USA seien bereit, die Friedensverhandlungen in der Ukraine "aufzugeben", weil ein Frieden in der Ukraine vielleicht nicht "machbar" sei.
.... Machen Sie sich darauf gefasst, dass Trump seinen gescheiterten Friedensplan dem ukrainischen Präsidenten Zelenskyy vorwirft - ich höre ihn schon sagen:
"Dieser Krieg hätte in 24 Stunden vorbei sein können, aber er wollte nie Frieden."
K, wasn't sure if it was intentional or inadvertent. Someone asked me why I was quoting Flipboard links a while back, and after contemplating, I've made an effort to use the direct links when *quoting to avoid subjecting people that click my quote toots to unnecessary and opaque 3rd party tracking.
I hear ya. I'll just add before leaving it be is that the only difference for me was clicking the link I found and sharing the destination, instead of sharing the source. Minor thing & extra step, yes, but I'm glad it was pointed out to me.
I didn't notice it with Flipboard, since the original toot showed the direct link - but that's not what I was sharing when I quoted it, unbeknownst to me.
'We treasure the excitement and competition of the free market!' they exclaimed joyfully as they configured it to run like Stalin's Russia in private hands.
Much more often than they need to, but at least they ask.
Nuts it’s a way of wearing you down to just say yes to, let’s say, acessing your photos all of the time.
I don’t think BlueSky was necessary. They just wanted something more streamlined, less legacy cruft, that they could harvest AI training from, if you toggled towards their requests.
@benroyce @Crispius I'm not saying that anything should be made intentionally difficult or that software/services should not prioritize user friendliness and general ease of use. Even when using a service like Facebook, if one must use it, you can get a better outcome by compartmentalizing your identity with different accounts, etc. I definitely want the Fediverse to be "normie-accessible."
@freeagent @benroyce @Crispius TBH I think the claim that "fediverse is hard for normies" is overblown - in recent years I've seen a large influx of older people (my parents generation, and I'm in my 50s!) who are *not* from tech backgrounds, who have remained here.
The harsh reality is a many people avoid Fedi because there's a general expectation of good behaviour and consensus rather than conflict, and they don't like that (there's not enough drama/conflict to keep them engaged)
@freeagent @benroyce @Crispius also the "hustle culture" where someone *constantly* posts about their small business to the exclusion of everything else is highly discouraged here (and its not possible to simply delete critical replies when there are customer service issues) - although people who run ethical small business and actually interact with others on here do tend to have some success..
@vfrmedia @freeagent @benroyce @Crispius Cue the Monty Python argument sketch, but there's an extra room where someone behind the desk explains how function arguments work in python. "Oh, you didn't want that? Sorry, this is the fediverse."
@vfrmedia @freeagent @benroyce @Crispius I agree that the idea that "fediverse is hard for normies" is overblown. I have never used Twitter but was able to get on here very easily - so much so that I just don't get it when people complain about it being hard to use. I wonder if most of those who find it difficult are former twitter users and the issue isn't that it is hard but that it is just different to what they are used to.
but there are unfortunately literally millions of people who go "what do you mean, pick a server?"
and then their eyes glaze over and they go back to tik tok
so perhaps one could say that even if a step is only 1 milllimeter tall, we should sand it down so it is smooth, so even the most techphobic, utterly clueless person can easily get on
@benroyce @mistergibson @Doppelganger75 @ApAlun @freeagent @Crispius I think a lot of lefties conflate social media conflict with actual activism, and put themselves at risk doing so. I've already got a whole load of local businesses and skilled tradesmen that I boycott because they have openly posted bigoted comments on Meta - and I'm not using any sophisticated surveillance tech or tactics - rightwingers with direct access to databases could do a lot more..
@benroyce @ApAlun @vfrmedia @freeagent @Crispius Ok, I do see your point. We are a little tech-heavy here. My thinking was that one of the things that makes the fediverse special is the clever people. I could go to Facebook for the others.
@benroyce @Doppelganger75 @ApAlun @vfrmedia @freeagent @Crispius The kinds of intelligence we tend to celebrate as a culture are the kinds of intelligence useful to oligarchs. If you can't easily put a dollar figure on a certain kind of intelligence, it's just not valued much at all.
One of the foundational pillars of the entire Ivy League business-school theory of bottom-line management is that anything you cannot assign a specific dollar value to on the balance sheet is therefore worthless. Insanely, this includes institutional knowledge and product expertise.
@benroyce @Doppelganger75 @ApAlun @vfrmedia @freeagent @Crispius Went back to facebook few weeks ago to see what It's nowadays. What an "usine à gaz /heavy kludge" it has become in the parameters. Like twitter too if I recall correctly. Mastodon is simpler in my opinion.
i spend most of my allotment of "you morons!" pointed at nonvoters
don't worry about the word. it may be a cultural difference between us here though: i'm from new york, the swears flow freely, so it doesn't bother me that much
I'd consider myself a normie and the fediverse is not really more difficult to use. In some branches it is difficult to find a server, but the mircroblogging branches are easy access.
I think X, Meta and Co.made ppl forget that socializing (irl or online) requires individual effort and that corporate social media with algorithms is not in core socializing but advertising with sprinkles of "content" to fill in gaps
@benroyce @freeagent @Crispius I'm a normie. I followed George Takei over in 2022. I like it here. Do I understand the tech posts? No. But I boost them. It's just a lot nicer here, without the Nazis. Even the Fediverse Chick is good for a laugh.
#fediverseChick and i DMed and we started a romance. she wanted me to buy some bitcoin and send it to her and i did. i haven't heard from her since but i feel like our relationship is really blossoming
I take your assertion as an affront, sir! I am an actual, genuine @futurebird fangrrl - always stunned by her knowledge and clear exposition, charmed by her creative asides, and even shunned by her offhand dismissals. 🐜
@benroyce "Wittgenstein Eyes" was the alternative title for the first single off Primal Scream's XTRMNTR but Bobby Gillespie couldn't get through all of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in time to finish the lyrics.
@benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @BenAveling @freeagent @Crispius It's why I left my job. People who should not have power were given power and they predictably abused it. Problem was, some of these people were members of protected legal classes so they were essentially untouchable and they knew it.
@benroyce @marjolica @BenAveling @freeagent @Crispius A long time, nearly lifelong friend of mine now lives out in Chicago and he’s super organized and and ended up running the finances of the condominium HOA.
Let’s just say that many of the residents are much of the problem. A lot of people are not nice people. they’re pretty slimy.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @marjolica @BenAveling @freeagent @Crispius i mean, whether an HOA is good or bad or whatever, just the idea of organizing yourself into something where you are involved in your neighbor's business constantly on an automatically controlling and contentious level seems like a kind of nightmare to me
There is a very, very, very strong streak of the techie disdain for non-techies in the Fediverse as well. As with your HOA types they're pretty pathetic and easily managed (blocks a-firin'!) but they're definitely here.
yeah but anyone still on #twitter at this point, i have ZERO sympathy for
i can't even imagine what a cesspool of radioactive #bigotry and #plutocrat bootlicking that place is now, and i don't want to know
the further problem is that once the #crypto bros who own #bluesky do to bluesky what #musk did to twitter, which is a matter of when, not if, then they're going to have to move all over again
@benroyce @gpumoto @freeagent @Crispius Right? BlueSky is a different colored ball perched at the top of the same chute as Twitter went down.
The users are all convinced that nobody is ever going to give them that tiny shove that starts the downhill run even as it caves to Turkish government pressure.
@benroyce I left years ago and didn’t look back. I had 10k followers and I didn’t care. I’d rather have far fewer followers and overwhelmingly intelligent conversation than a ton of followers and interactions that made me seriously wonder what planet I was on. Z@gpumoto@mastodon.social @freeagent @Crispius @fedilore
@BeautifulThings Same here: over 10,000 followers. Simply purged, after leaving notice that I was to be found here. I'll have quality over quantity anytime. @benroyce @freeagent @Crispius @fedilore
@benroyce I've talked about this quite a lot, but can't really be asked to find the posts - fedi thrives so, so much when the "normies" and the "weirds" mesh together and not clash. it's wonderful to see John Doe from SkrimbleClorp Inc or whatever interacting with it/its therian enby fox without any friction or prejudice
@benroyce @freeagent @Crispius The FediVerse is like the pre-enshittification internet. I am actually learning things on this platform and am free of Russian psy-ops.
@benroyce I'm not against the concept of "user-friendly" computing. It has been a goal of all those developing programs for computers my whole life.
At the same time, there is user-friendly, and there is "handing a gun to a child" levels of ease.
If we were discussing cars rather than social networks, I would be saying that automatic transmissions are a good and fine thing that saved my knees from destruction, but automatic driving is not - one should pass a difficult test with real standards, before one is allowed to control a vehicle.
I'm not saying that a 1988-level automatic vehicle is where we should stop in terms of making driving more convenient, not at all. My kid has a car with cruise control that will slow down and keep you a safe distance from the vehicle in front of you, so you can just leave it on, even if there's traffic that's going slower than you'd otherwise prefer. I think that's a great feature and I would like to have it. Our car has lane assis
... show more
@benroyce I'm not against the concept of "user-friendly" computing. It has been a goal of all those developing programs for computers my whole life.
At the same time, there is user-friendly, and there is "handing a gun to a child" levels of ease.
If we were discussing cars rather than social networks, I would be saying that automatic transmissions are a good and fine thing that saved my knees from destruction, but automatic driving is not - one should pass a difficult test with real standards, before one is allowed to control a vehicle.
I'm not saying that a 1988-level automatic vehicle is where we should stop in terms of making driving more convenient, not at all. My kid has a car with cruise control that will slow down and keep you a safe distance from the vehicle in front of you, so you can just leave it on, even if there's traffic that's going slower than you'd otherwise prefer. I think that's a great feature and I would like to have it. Our car has lane assist that demands evidence of your hands on the wheel if it thinks you've let go. Also a great feature.
I am against self-driving cars completely, except perhaps on roads where only self-driving vehicles drive, and humans never operate nor walk.
We need to think the same way about social networking, and other forms of computing. We have made it too easy to do too many things, and basically the centre will not hold much longer out there. It's too easy to create a huge amount of chaos, with barely any skill at all, right now.
edit: We actually need to figure out how we get more people out of cars too. Rural folk, especially up here in the great white North, will be the most difficult to pry out of em.
@benroyce @jpaskaruk @freeagent @Crispius "endlessly fiddling with the transmission is an attention sink". No, it becomes second nature and you don't even think about it as you're doing it, and it gives you more control. But it does take longer to get up to speed. Well, for some more than others. 😀
Which kind of still works as an analogy.
I agree that with social media, it's helpful to make it easy from the getgo, as every obstacle causes another group to give up and go elsewhere.
Not an idiot. If you didn't have a fallback, you might've learned. 😀 I know some folk who couldn't bring themselves to stick to even learning to drive with an automatic, they just couldn't handle being on a road driving fast with other cars. Different strokes. In the same way that folk who find this place hard aren't idiots. They are just looking for a different experience. @jpaskaruk @freeagent @Crispius @fedilore
@CStamp I'm more, make people pass a few tests that indicate fundamental understanding of what they are using, before allowing them to use public-facing applications with a computer.
I think user-friendly from the get go is how we got to this point. It should be user friendly, but being a user should take some effort and understanding.
@jpaskaruk That's like expecting people to be mechanics before being allowed to drive a car. No. I remember the days in which folk needed to use line code to work on a computer and it really limited those using them. PC folk thought they were smarter than Apple people because they could program and understood code, while the Apple people were spending their time getting things done. @benroyce @freeagent @Crispius @fedilore
@CStamp No, it's like expecting people to become drivers before being allowed to drive a car in public where other people can be affected by their irresponsible and ignorant decisions.
edit: I once turned on a wardialer program with my C64. My uncle found it quickly and turned it off, and then explained prison to me, wire fraud, the deadly seriousness with which things like wardailing were treated by authorities.
I should have had to explain to a testing authority why wardialing is a black hat activity that people should not do in normal everyday life, before I had access to any such software.
But I'll agree with you on "this is how you check your oil, this is where you put your coolant, you should get new brake pads after {x} miles, your tires need this level psi, etc"
Or
"you don't say this word, you block rather than engage here, you don't stalk and harass people, you don't buy bitcoin because this post said to, this anonymous account with a pretty picture is not interested in romance, etc"
@benroyce Precisely. All I want is to know that everyone has seriously considered the possible ramifications of their actions on the world stage we now all share. Allowing people to gain massive audiences just by talking into a phone is not bringing out the best possible society.
I hated the old, gatekept world too, but at least the gatekeepers had some sense of responsibility to the society whose gates they had been given the key to.
@benroyce Ah, but that is what all those lights remind folk about. At least if you have a car with a dash & buttons. I don't know how those wacky computer screen cars work as I still drive an older car and plan to hold out for the reemergence of buttons and dials, at least as long as possible. 😀 @jpaskaruk @freeagent @Crispius @fedilore
@CStamp I would change that over to "knows how to operate a PC, do backups, understands what files and directories and modems are, can differentiate an RJ45 from an HDMI from a USB-A."
Knowing how to operate the software, and the software being crayon-easy to use and reach the entire universe, that's a problem. The fact that competent black-hat shitheads can then write scripts to abuse that access is why a Fascist runs the USA right now.
@jpaskaruk Dumbing down the education system, gerrymandering, propaganda tv allowing to portray itself as real news, one of your political parties constantly lying and @#$@ purity voters have done more damage than a person who has a ton of folders that aren't appropriately named. Not having good computer hygiene has nothing to do with being a civically-minded voter. @benroyce @freeagent @Crispius @fedilore
@CStamp We're talking about people who don't even have the concept of computer hygeine in their heads. They touch screen, screen turn on light, they talk, all need to know. thump thump
@benroyce Well, sure, but that is all exacerbated by lack of critical thinking and onslaught of propaganda, which goes back to education and what "news" shows are allowed to lie about. Red voters are either poorly educated or those exploiting the poorly educated, for the most part. @jpaskaruk @freeagent @Crispius @fedilore
@benroyce @freeagent @Crispius I’m a goddamned “normie” & the fediverse suits me better than bsky. I read comments and based on that alone, there’s way too much utter stupidity on bsky. I like having bsky as an option, but fedi is better.
@benroyce @freeagent @Crispius As a borderline-technophobe, the "Fediverse" is not as difficult as it's made out to be. What it is is badly explained.
(Oh, and many of its central claims are lies. Like "account migration".)
If there was a push toward an on ramp that wasn't filled with workers' tools littering the ground (and with its features actually work the way it's said to work!) there would be far less confusion from "normies".
I want to especially point to this line: too many techies think that the technology is an end unto itself. They think everybody is interested in just the tech.
We're not.
The tech is a tool. When it helps us, we use it. When it gets in our way we discard it.
This is why *smart* techies talk to end-users: to make sure their work isn't wasted and thrown into the bin.
@Crispius That’s fair. I think think I initially started searching for people I’d followed other places. Then, I started following tags for topics I was interested in, which led to following specific people. But, I feel like posting with tags led to people following me, which expanded my network. It felt pretty organic.
I'm not tagged, so pls tell me to bugger off if you don't want my opinion. I won't resist giving it unprompted though - I'm a cis man on the internet, after all.
> is there harm in that?
I see 2 detail-devils here: 1 "audited so they're genuinely manipulation-free" strikes me as a big task with a barrier to entry for FOSS devs & small orgs. 2 emergent bias from the set of FOSS algorithm developers being self-selecting.
There weren't enough characters for me to say, the problems I highlight likely aren't deal-breakers.
One helpful constraint, which I think your examples use, addresses a lot of problem 1, and could be done in code review for the most part is, "can you express the algorithm accurately in a short sentence?". If you can't, it's not a kosher algorithm.
Problem 2's harder IMO because I don't see how to avoid "self-selecting" in something that requires effort and is voluntary.
The next best thing is to have lots of content and tooling supporting the notion, "See a missing algorithm? Use this plugin/toolkit to write & run your own algorithm on your own account! Become a programmer! Join the ranks of those noble folk who spend hours peering myopically at glowing screens...".
I've spent the last few years writing my own algorithm, from blocks, mutes, and follows for accounts, hashtags and servers, plus filters. I could publish it. (I won't.) It is curated. What it isn't is especially informed, because I'm an amateur. But nothing stops anyone publishing more informed, less personal, lists now, if they're more expert, or can persuade people they are.
Both of them gave the illusion of being able to turn them off. Both of them lied. Facebook, even when in that mode, frequently failed to put things in that people I followed said. And both would turn off that feed on the sly after a few days.
Trumpism is the symptom of a less happy, less trusting society.
But we are far from powerless to change this.
There are several ways we can each make a difference – starting with our own minds and local communities and finishing with helping others around the world.
What gives me hope is realizing we have the potential to understand what’s going wrong in our society and do our part to improve it.
Radio Free Trumpistan
in reply to MEActNOW • •I'd say so--in one fell swoop Trump accomplishes the wet dreams of both Russia and China that they've had for decades.