Brian Beach @bwbeach@social.cleverlibre.org

The most secure data is the data you don't have.

STUFF TO READ: Twitter’s Former Head of Trust and Safety Finally Breaks Her Silence | WIRED

Interesting interview, not least because reading between the lines of stuff like “getting a semi-effective multi-account detection algorithm in place took years. Years.” — and I know from life experience that part of the reason that’s hard is that REGULATORS HATE COOKIES AND THINK THAT ALL “TRACKING” DEVICE COOKIES ARE FOR ADVERTISING

Sigh.

I consistently had conversations with people … because people would go into trust and safety because they care, right? You don’t go into trust and safety because you’re like, “I enjoy getting praised for my work.” You really have to want to get into the weird, human, messy issues where sometimes both parties are at fault, sometimes neither party’s at fault, and you still have to navigate all of those.

https://www.wired.com/story/del-harvey-twitter-trust-and-safety-breaks-her-silence/

#delHarvey #trustAndSafety #twitter

https://alecmuffett.com/article/108431

On this is … this is one of the strangest solo projects I've ever seen. "Volumetric Display using an Acoustically Trapped Particle". Dude has two speakers facing each other, they emit a wave that contains enough force a light foam bead is forced to levitate in the air between them, then by varying it he can move it around, and by changing the light of an LED shining on it he can give it color. He can draw basic 3D shapes and persistence of vision makes them appear real. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCC1C5KIeUA

The annual Thanksgiving tradition has obscured the historical reality of Native American genocide: dispossession from their lands, efforts to destroy their cultures, and the slaughter of their communities.

It is important to remember this past as we celebrate with our families and bear witness to current struggles against genocide and imperialism. Around the world, Indigenous people are continuing to resist and refuse to be erased.

Resources:

Harvard Library American Indigenous Studies Resource List: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/american-indigenous-studies

Land Back Movement: https://landback.org/

Find out whose land you are on: https://native-land.ca/

(I am on the Tongva land: https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/tongva-gabrieleno/)

Defend the Weelaunee Forest (stolen Muscogee land): https://stopcop.city/

#indigenous #resistance #landback #native #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth #thanksgiving #thanksgiving2024 #maddenthanksgiving #turkey #turkeyday #feast #thanks #genocide

It amazes—and alarms—me how much hatred some people express toward Joe Biden. You can disagree with his politics and worldview, but any normal person paying attention can grasp his empathy and decency. That hate is the outgrowth of propaganda.

Apparently I’m a ‘menace’ to walk around with in other towns because I keep assuming I have the right of way. I’m used to streets where cars are allowed, but they must yield to pedestrians and cyclists. So I unthinkingly wander in the middle of the road in other cities too, gathering cars behind me like a pied piper until a sighing friend pulls me aside. As I stand with all the other people forced aside to let 1 driver in 1 car pass, I wonder: who’s the real menace here?

#Aarhus #LiveableCities

For my US-based friends. Thursday is Thanksgiving, traditionally celebrated with a large meal with family and friends.

Share your thanks with:
* a contribution to your local food bank, for those who have limited food (Feeding America
https://www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank)
* a contribution to a local homeless shelter,
for those without a home to enjoy the holiday
https://www.hud.gov/findshelter
* a local mental health crisis group, such as suicide prevention hotlines https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/participate/

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@22 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-11-20/who-controls-openai

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the illustrious @williamfspivey to Mastodon. He’s a little short on followers at present, see if you can help him out with that. 😉

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) $7,000,000,000,000 were spent on direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuels in 2022.

Government support for fossil fuels is equivalent to just over 7% of our planet's entire economic output.

By comparison, global education spending accounts for 4.3% of all GDP.

Cutting that could prevent 1.6 million premature deaths per year and increase government revenues by $4.4 trillion.

https://www.statista.com/chart/31016/volume-of-global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-timeline/

#climatechange #fossilfuels #greed

We see on the fedi every day the results of the cancerous philosophy or racism: the lack of Black and Brown voices here because of the constant and largely unprovoked harassment and violence of white-identified people playing out their Manifest Destiny fantasies to keep this place a digital ethnostate.

We see the history of racism in action daily as we attempt to push forward.

It is critically important to recognize the origins of this behavior so it's not repeated and weaponized.

Via bikinginla.com
" From November 13th to December 3rd, 2023, Ortlieb will be offering repair services at 40 percent off the usual cost of repairs for all products out of their 5-year warranty period. The idea is, fix what you have instead of buying something new." #BikeTooter

https://www.bicycling.com/news/a45860914/ortlieb-repair-weeks/

“If you commute on an e-bike 20km a day, five days a week, your charging cost would be about $20 – annually.”

https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-280-million-electric-bikes-and-mopeds-are-cutting-demand-for-oil-far-more-than-electric-cars-213870

#ev #ClimateChange #cycling

I’ve reshared parts of this thread already, but I feel compelled to do it again from the beginning and encourage people to read it. Because this is exactly how I feel about software engineering and the importance of a liberal arts education. And if you consider how *fast* the tech sector changes, it just puts that much more weight on the need for people in the industry to have an education which doesn’t teach CS as a vocation, and *does* teach about the world and environment our systems impact. https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/110390739226017146

Serious question: there was a time, a few years back, when the Haskell-ish languages seemed poised (finally!) for a breakthrough. Some of that was due to an association between Haskell and cryptocurrency, but there was also a sense that people were *ready* for Haskell’s particular vision. (I’m thinking of, say, PureScript as an alternative to both JavaScript and Elm)

That seems to have fizzled. Have there been writeups as to why?

In college, I took a class called The Letters of Paul. I took it for two very good reasons:

1. I was (and am) named Paul.
2. The prof was (and is) cool.

I didn’t figure it was an especially practical course. It was for fun, for the challenge, for the cultural knowledge, for the pleasure of doing it.

WHAT LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION IS FOR: A THREAD

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No American should have to log into a private platform which requires to give away privacy to read official statements of Representatives or US officials — much less pay. Continued unique uses of X by state, local, & federal government is a single point of failure. Congress & White House should cross-post to alternative social networks, after negotiating terms of service for federal use that require open archives through an API & create an open archive for social media. https://e-pluribusunum.org/2019/12/20/the-us-government-should-preserve-the-social-media-history-of-officials-not-delete-them/