ceoln @ceoln@social.cleverlibre.org

ugh, this is pretty clearly a CAPTCHA being used to tune a machine learning algorithm. these are definitely ML-generated pictures and I imagine what's going on is they are adding some noise to a query for "cake" and then asking me to tag the cake-looking stuff.

BUT! It means that it doesn't actually matter what I select. I picked a random assortment of stuff and it let me through just fine. Take THAT, training model!!

RMT slams eyewatering company profits ahead of potential cleaners' strike

Cleaning contractors operating on the transport network are raking in millions of pounds worth of profit while paying their workers poverty wages, an @RMTunion investigation has found.

RMT looked at 7 cleaning companies who operate in rail and found that they made bigger profits in 2021 than in 2019, the year before pandemic.

northwestern apples, painted by royal charles steadman, 1919

I feel like Neo walking into the Matrix for the first time. No, Dorothy landing in Oz. No, wait. Charlie walking into Wonka, Inc., only without all the arbitrary rules. HI! #introduction

I saw @mikewyantjr mention that he writes blog posts from the perspective of one of his characters. I’ve never heard of something so inspiring! I didn’t even know that sort of thing was an option. What a great way to get to know the inner workings of a character’s mind! Does anyone else do something similar?

#introduction

We are Edinburgh SFF, a community of Science Fiction and Fantasy writers.

Founded in #Edinburgh during the first #CymeraFestival, we’re a growing #discord for #writers at all stages of their journey. We provide a friendly, safe space to talk about all aspects of creative writing and publishing, with critique, research help and semi-regular IRL meet-ups.

Based in Edinburgh, #Scotland, but open to all.

#nanowrimo #writingcommunity #amwriting #sff #sciencefiction #fantasy

📈 Donations through Liberapay have jumped up a bit this week, as hundreds of you have started financially supporting the Mastodon and other Fediverse instances you have accounts on. As a result, we've reached new all-time highs: the number of accounts actively giving or receiving money through Liberapay has crossed the 10k threshold, and the weekly sum of active donations has risen above €15k.

Some black and white images of #Dublin

Now @Raspberry_Pi has its own @Mastodon instance, and because we’re committed to supporting platforms that support us, we’re putting our money where our mouth is. We have become a platinum sponsor of #Mastodon. In case you don't know Mastodon is a non-profit corporation based in Germany supported by both its sponsors and patreons. #TwitterMigration https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors

Still getting to grips with tooting… wondering if there is a special instance for companies? #AskMastodon

If you're new to Mastodon, you must be finding a bunch of alternatives to other internet services, like pixelfed or peertube. But, did you know there's an alternative to #Netflix and similar content platforms? It's a P2P (peer to peer) service, where you can see about ANY movie or series FOR FREE, even original or new productions.

It's called #torrent. And if you want to use it you can start by visiting thepiratebay.org, but that's just one of hundreds of torrent sites.

Jonathan Goldman is here! Follow him. @akjakalope

We all know that true Mastodon users follow @GoatsLive

A reminder for anyone new to mastodon who might not be happy with some of the racist and bad actors out there on other servers... Just import the fediblock list to your personal blocks and you will be safe from the vast majority of bad actors.

To the newcomers to Mastodon and the Fediverse:

When you ask to follow someone that doesn't accept followers automatically, please have your profile filled out and some posts in your feed by you. I'm not going to follow anyone that hasn't taken the time to get their feet wet and write some posts, so I can know what you're about.

This is one of my favourite wildlife photos that I've taken so far. It's a young crow from spring 2021. The crow was quite content to sit on a branch and observe their surroundings while I photographed them.

#WildlifePhotography #photography #crow #nature #wildlife #BirdPhotography

This was posted on Twitter a while ago but worth reposting here.

I am writing a book along with
Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade about Hacking Team and the history of the government spyware industry, from the late 1990s to today.

I have dreamed of this moment for a long time, and it's the culmination of years of work.

If you used to work in the industry, or you still do, or you have followed it for a while, please get in touch.

Hullo. So this is Mastodon, eh? Well, I'm here. And to celebrate, here's a photo I took yesterday in Kingston NY of Good Omens director Douglas directing An Unnamed Actor (on the other side of the glass) in Episode 2 of Good Omens Season 2 (Coming Next Summer).

In addition to a handful of election-related hashtags,

#novemberpogrome
#kristallnacht
and
#NiemalsVergessen

are all trending this morning, with good reason.

Never forget. It's good advice; it all has a certain historical recurrence vibe to it this morning as the US elections hang in the balance, the deniers line up to deny and the losers look for someone to blame.