Gustavo Ogasawara @gojonnes@social.cleverlibre.org

mood of the day

Stockholm
#ShowYourStripes
https://showyourstripes.info/

Our new paper is finally out. We demonstrate that air quality samplers are quietly collecting eDNA and may have been measuring terrestrial biodiversity for decades. We are very excited about this new project. There are literally thousands of these stations in networks all over the world filtering the air every day, every week... this could be game changing for efforts to track the planet's biodiversity. #eDNA #environmentalDNA #biodiversity https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982223005158?dgcid=author

🌱 Photo Vouchers Proposed as an Alternative to Traditional Herbarium Specimens
https://botany.one/2023/06/photo-vouchers-proposed-as-an-alternative-to-traditional-herbarium-specimens/
#Botany #PlantScience

Climate change: Sudden heat increase in seas around UK and Ireland.

Some of the most intense marine heat increases on Earth have developed in seas around the UK and Ireland, the European Space Agency (Esa) says.

Water temperatures are as much as 3 to 4C above the average for this time of year in some areas.

#climate #climatechange #climatecrisis
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65948544

Apparently Meta has been contacting some instance admins about their plans for the fediverse. I am not sure whether to be happy or sad, but they didn’t contact me.

I am seeing a rift emerging in the fediverse that is a bit reminiscent of my own CISA episode back in November of 2022. At the time, the people who objected fell into two overlapping camps:

ACABs that couldn’t see past CISA’s placement in the DHS and simply object to the concept of any law enforcement affiliated person being on the fedi (NB: there are a LOT of them here and they’re all over the fediverse)

Instance admins that wanted to protect their constituents from the surveillance that comes along with DHS.

While the context is materially different, the Meta situation seems to come down on similar lines: conceptual rejection of Meta because of who Meta is; and a concern for the privacy of one’s fedi-data.

Regarding the former point, I think it is fundamental to the fediverse for people and instances to be able to pick who they want to participate with, almost for whatever reason. If there are people who really dislike bald guys, I’m one to block. The latter reason is more problematic. As with the DHS situation, Meta creating an account or an instance is really not an effective way to conduct a surveillance operation (either to send people to jail or to show them ads) - not on an infrastructure that has oodles of open APIs that make it far easier to collect data using direct connections vs creating an instance.

Said another way, the lack of a branded Meta or CISA account or instance is not an indication that such data extraction isn’t happening. We generally wouldn’t know if it were.

I’ve heard the “embrace/extend/extinguish” accusation about every 6 months in the 7+ years I’ve been here. The company that bought Pawoo was going to take over the fediverse. Medium was going to be installing paywalls and feeding ads across the fediverse. Vivaldi and Mozilla were going to bring so much trash into our timelines that we should just preemptively block them.

If I, or any instance admin, finds that Meta or any other company is surreptitiously collecting data from our instances, we will take action. I will highlight that suspending instances and accounts won’t be very effective here - we would have to implement firewall level blocks, assuming we can identify where they are coming from. And I doubt it will be coming from a branded instance. Sadly, even this is trivial to work around if they connect to a relay or set up an account on an instance that doesn’t isn’t blocked. The major concern, of course, is that your fedi data is linked to a record they maintain about you in their own databases, and then use your content to help tailor ads as you visit other parts of the internet.

If we identify that an instance is behaving badly, of course they are going to get suspended, just as happens today. But be aware that this only prevents YOU from seeing THEIR content. If Meta does set up an instance and start spamming out ads, that is exactly what will happen.

In the mean time, if you want to block Meta owned domains and instances who aren’t blocking Meta owned domains and instances who are not blocking instances who are not blocking meta owned domains, that’s ok.

For me, I am going to wait until I know more to make a decision.

"Rien n'est si important à l'homme que son état ; rien ne lui est si redoutable que l'éternité."

Blaise Pascal was born #OTD in 1623. Like his contemporary René Descartes, Pascal was also a pioneer in the natural and applied sciences. Pascal wrote in defense of the scientific method and produced several controversial results. via @Wikipedia

Books by Blaise Pascal at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/7913

#books #literature

Não é sobre Linux vs. Windows, é sobre nosso direito à autodeterminação, privacidade, segurança digital e controle dos nossos dados. Vote na enquete para colocar esse projeto entre os 5 escolhidos para determinar as prioridades do governo federal - >

https://brasilparticipativo.presidencia.gov.br/processes/programas/f/2/proposals/1411

#introduction

I am a professional nature photographer on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. I offer photo tours and workshops to photographers of all levels. I have been published in magazines and I am the author of two photo books. I sell fine art prints too.
Bears are my favourite subjects to photograph.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KivQVm_zvm0&t=7s

My website: https://www.catherinebabault.com/

#photographer #NaturePhotography #WildlifePhotography #VancouverIsland #BritishColumbia #VancouverIslandWildlife

Thin Lizzzy took to a rowboat to take a look at #Bangor before their 1974 gig – now a #mural in the town

https://extramuralactivity.com/2023/06/17/the-boys-are-back-in-town/

18/06 - 15h
Ato pelo clima
Em frente ao Masp
São Paulo - SP

This #FollowFriday, try following the #introduction post to meet some new people!

Hello hello #fediverse.

I'm not new here but found a new home at synthwave.social so thought I'd do a quick re-#intro.

I'm a UK based #bass player and #writer (that sometimes paints) into #philosophy #space #science #music and most things as long as they aren't braindead bullshit conservative right wing dogshit 😄

I also like hashtags apparently. It's #followbackfriday so hit me with a follow and I'll follow you back.

🌱 Curious about plants? Let’s have a word (or two… hundred and fifty)
https://botany.one/2023/06/curious-about-plants-lets-have-a-word-or-two-hundred-and-fifty/
#Botany #PlantScience

#FlowerFriday: The unopened #bud of the #flower of the #Albizia julibrissin, or Persian silk #tree, or #mimosa tree.
The tree is native to regions of #Asia ranging from Iran, to Azerbaijan, to the Korean peninsula.
It is considered an invasive species in the southern United States, whose climate allows it to thrive.
The tree is still planted ornamentally.
This bud is visibly wet from an earlier rainstorm.
#FlowersOfMastodon, #Flower, #AlbiziaJulibrissin, #SilkTree, #Tree, #FloweringTree, #FlowerBud, #Photograph, #Photography, #Photo

decoberta musical de hoje: https://sorashima.bandcamp.com/

Giant leaves on T. zebrina 'Deep Purple'! In the right conditions I find this cultivar gets bigger leaves than any other zebrina.

#plants #houseplants #tradescantia @plants @houseplants