Don Thompson @guardeddon@social.cleverlibre.org

Today was ... interesting. If you followed me for the past months over on the shitbird site, you might have seen a bunch of angry German words, lots of graphs, and the occassional news paper, radio, or TV snippet with yours truely. Let me explain.

In Austria, inflation is way above the EU average. There's no end in sight. This is especially true for basic needs like energy and food.

Our government stated in May that they'd build a food price database together with the big grocery chains. But..

This thread 🤯

Using data to show how Austrian supermarkets trick consumers, and likely illegally collude between themselves

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071396799790275

The Berliner Zeitung reports on there being TWO Berlin-Stockholm trains, both well-filled: "From June to August, the [SJ] train was fully booked on every trip, he told the Berliner Zeitung. “We are chasing a huge need. The train could be twice as long..." https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-metropole/nachtzug-euronight-sj-schweden-daenemark-ausgebucht-zwischen-stockholm-und-berlin-reicht-ein-nachtzug-nicht-aus-li.388887

Use Deliveroo or Uber Eats and these are the exploitative practices you’re supporting. In London anyway… https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/sep/14/dodging-death-and-immigration-officers-12-hours-as-a-london-fast-food-rider-and-all-for-40

@TOrynski I've paid a significant price for leaving Twitter, because I'm no longer in the conversation the others in my peer group continue to have there. Whatever visibility Twitter gave me is gone.

Upside: With fewer than half the followers I had at Twitter, the genuine engagement I have here is at least 10x what it was on Musk's site.

I was a huge fan of Twitter, and hated to leave. But I had to leave. @mastodonmigration @msifry

The main controller is a custom PCB using a PIC16F877, 40-pin controller. (14kB, crap-load of I/O). It's a flash part, so I COULD pull it out and use it in something else. :-) It's also been EOL'd, and replaced with the PIC16F18115. The two vertical boards are OEM motor controller/drivers.

*Incredible* @CopernicusEU image of the day showing the effects of #StormDaniel in #Libya

https://www.copernicus.eu/en/media/image-day-gallery/storm-daniel-causes-flooding-libya

Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery

ActivityPub for WordPress released version 1.0.0 thanks to @pfefferle 🥳

Enter the fediverse with ActivityPub, broadcasting your blog to a wider audience! Attract followers, deliver updates, and receive comments from a diverse user base of ActivityPub-compliant platforms.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/

#wordpress #activitypub

"Musk is losing, too. Every day, he becomes a bigger punchline. Someday, the outsize tab he’s run trying to keep hold of Twitter will come due. I hope that when it happens, the expats of Twitter will have settled in a new place where we can watch his downfall together." Andrea Grimes, Dame Magazine
https://www.damemagazine.com/2023/09/12/when-twitter-died-so-did-independent-journalism/

A troubling policy that requires visa applicants to the U.S. to share their social media information has been upheld by a federal judge.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/federal-judge-upholds-state-department-rule-requiring-visa-applicants-disclose

We now have the following national governments with a Mastodon server:

- Germany: https://social.bund.de
- The Netherlands: https://social.overheid.nl
- Switzerland: https://social.admin.ch

As well as the EU with
- https://social.network.europa.ec

Let's hope that other countries will follow this design pattern, and all launch a fediverse server at social.[governmentwebsite].[TLD]. Following this pattern makes it immediately clear to people they are communicating with an official government account.

The Swiss Government has officially launched their Mastodon server at https://social.admin.ch/

In their official press release the Government confirms it is a trial for one year. They state that "Mastodon has several characteristics that make it fundamentally attractive for government communications", such as being beyond the control of others, as well as it being privacy friendly.

Official press release: https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-97696.html

Speaker of the Swiss Government: @gov

🎂 It's 10 years since the first public release of Node-RED!

To celebrate, join https://mastodon.me.uk/@knolleary at this
event next week, where he'll look back over the project's past, the present 3.1 release, and the future of what's to come.

https://flowfuse.com/webinars/2023/node-red-10-years/

Digital technology is easier to use thoughtlessly than it is to use carefully, responsibly and compassionately.

That’s what makes it so dangerous. Because it’s ubiquity and convenience also leaves us less time and mental energy available for thinking, caring and deciding.

I find digitech fascinating, exciting, useful, clever - but the ability to act and react in real-time without friction is not commensurate with using higher cognitive functions to mediate those actions.

Tonight we were wondering why nobody had identified the flight which caused the UK air traffic control crash so we worked it out. It was FBU (French Bee) 731 from LAX/KLAX to ORY/LFPO.

It passed two waypoints called DVL on its expanded flight plan: Devil's Lake, Wisconsin, US, and Deauville, Normandy, FR (an intermediate on airway UN859).

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/FBU731/history/20230828/0255Z/KLAX/LFPO

Credit to @marksteward and @benelsen for doing much of the legwork here.

Mastodon will be our primary social media presence from now on

For archived tweets, please see:
https://qgis.github.io/QGIS-Twitter-Archive/

We got a new microwave! The manual of this one seemingly decided, fuck it, teach the fundamentals and the rest shall follow? A+

What's in the DNA of tech journalists that makes it so hard for them to use Mastodon? I've never seen any other group run head first into so many pitfalls. It's not hard, create an account, follow as many people as possible, interact. If you want the deluxe experience ask around about the best third party app and install it.