ABrockwell @aebrockwell@social.cleverlibre.org

Has anyone else who uses #Mastodon as their main social media platform noticed a far lower level of personal stress?

After several months I feel almost like I’ve moved to a much, much better neighborhood with really great neighbors.

Personally, I am still concerned with lots of socioeconomic, environmental, and other issues the world faces, but I feel far less stressed about them.

It’s just better in so many ways.

#SocialMedia #MentalHealth

Anyone who codes regularly will understand that coding is NOT “boring work”. It is engrossing. It is creative.

Having #ChatGPT do it for you is not an improvement. It is only an improvement if one doesn’t know how to code in the first place. For those folks, tread carefully!

My thoughts on “ It’s Not the End of Work. It’s the End of Boring Work”:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/22/opinion/jobs-ai-chatgpt.html

Not gonna lie gang, Elon may have accidentally created the perfect Twitter.

With the help of a single chrome extension that blocks all verified users, he has unwittingly developed a way for all the people you don't want to see to self-select into your block list.

Instantly all the nazis and right wingers and Elon fans and racists have blocked themselves on my behalf, as well as all advertisements.

Twitter is actually pretty rad now that people have shadowblocked themselves.

@Popehat

Dominion was responsible for saving Dominion
And we the people are responsible for saving democracy

@CarveHerName Katherine's own retelling of the day is fascinating https://kathrineswitzer.com/1967-boston-marathon-the-real-story/

@mcnado

Stop Treating AI Models Like People!

No, they haven’t decided to teach themselves anything, they don’t love you back, and they still aren’t even a little bit sentient.

Sasha Luccioni and I have had enough of this nonsense & discuss in a joint essay:

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/stop-treating-ai-models-like-people

Quote from article: Once the Nazis took power they banned books, outlawed drag shows and homosexuality, changed school curricula to remove mention of their atrocities in WWI, and rewrote election laws so they’d never again lose an election.

My thoughts: A whole bunch of people, myself included, started pointing out parallels between the Trump-era GOP and the Nazis well before he was elected. We were accused of employing hyperbole, and told to "give him a chance."

Well, just call me Cassandra ... because here we are.

Just. Like. I. Said. We. Would. Be.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/whats-behind-the-gops-war-against?r=1ekuyr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

"Chatbots" on company websites are basically useless and clueless, and that's nothing new.

But don't you worry, soon they will all be integrated with ChatGPT. This will not make them less useless and clueless, but they will gain the ability to authoritatively gaslight you as well!

Progress!

A real “pro-life” movement would ban assault rifles while enacting Medicare for All, paid sick leave, universal childcare, and a living wage.

Hello Fediverse! 👋

#Wikipedia :wikipedia: is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system called MediaWiki. -- or so says our Wikipedia article (https://w.wiki/W).

Follow for cool facts, behind-the-scenes details on editing processes and tips on getting started contributing!

#Introduction #FreeCulture #FreeContent #OpenKnowledge #wiki #CreativeCommons

The thing about Twitter is that it really lacks a lot of the features you'd expect from a true Mastodon replacement.

For example, there's no way to edit your toots (which they, confusingly call "tweets"—let's face it, it's a bit of a silly name that's difficult to take seriously).

"Tweets" can't be covered by a content warning. There's no way to let the poster know you like their tweet without also sharing it, and no bookmark feature.

There's no way to set up your own instance, and you're basically stuck on a single instance of Twitter. That means there's no community moderators you can reach out to to quickly resolve issues. Also, you can't de-federate instances with a lot of problematic content.

It also doesn't Integrate with other fediverse platforms, and I couldn't find the option to turn the ads off.

Really, Twitter has made a good start, but it will need to add a lot of additional features before it gets to the point where it becomes a true Mastodon replacement for most users.

#twitter #mastodon #twittermigration

👋 Hello #fediverse! I'm going into a meeting at 4ET to talk about our newsroom's social media options.

If you think our station and other NPR stations should have a Mastodon server and a broader presence in the #fediverse, pls boost this post. If you have thoughts, please reply, I want to hear them!

#compost #diy #dit #soil #degrowth #wasteLess

My wife found this one somewhere. This is why open-mindedness is the underpinning of the Scientific Method and people who lack it will never comprehend the Method. If the goal is the instant gratification of certainty and always being right, the Method will disappoint and the only recourse becomes self-delusion.

This is how geologists collect lava samples from an active volcano.

Chemical analysis of lava provides important information about activity deep inside a volcano's magma chambers.

Video credit: USGS
Source: https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/movies/movie_187.html

You folks were super enthusiastic about my posting more on Mastodon, so let's try this.

RT/boost and let's see if there's interest in a regular #Ukraine thread!

Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

For the last year, I've been tracking a notorious Russian unit known for its role in killing 100s of civilians.

This past month we published how we found them.