Brent Williams @hbw@social.cleverlibre.org

“We've arranged a society based on #science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. This combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces.”

- Carl Sagan, in his last interview to Charlie Rose https://charlierose.com/videos/9094

With Twitter's collapse, funders should start helping build up federated discourse: supporting development of better security, of moderation aids, of proposals for affordances welcoming to Black Twitter and other communities. Stop thinking top down. Start thinking emergent.

adulthood means hurting your back when you relax incorrectly

Announcement: my column for
Resolute Square, "Defense Against the Dark Arts of Communication" will start next Tuesday. Resolute Square is a new pro-democracy media company from The Lincoln Project & other friends of democracy. Subscribe: $5/mo. http://bit.ly/3AMweXQ 20% Discount Code: INSIDER20 #DADAC #Democracy #LincolnProject #ResoluteSquare

People think health data privacy is protected in the US, but Thomas Germain points out activities NOT protected by HIPAA:

Browsing Web for Health Info

Wearing Smartwatch

Using Period Tracker

Bringing Phone to Medical Clinic

Doctor Getting Subpoenas

www.consumerreports.org/health-privacy/guess-what-hipaa-isnt-a-medical-privacy-law-a2469399940/

The "P" in HIPAA is not for privacy it is for portability.

Here's a scatterplot of health spending per capita (x axis) and life expectancy (y axis) in OECD countries. The lines represent averages.

One country sits alone in the bottom right quadrant due to its much higher health spending and below-average life expectancy.

Source: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/ae3016b9-en/1/3/1/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/ae3016b9-en&_csp_=ca413da5d44587bc56446341952c275e&itemIGO=oecd&itemContentType=book

Optimist: The glass is ½ full.
Pessimist: The glass is ½ empty.
Excel: The glass is January 2nd.

From a very brief London wander this week, an autumnal scene in Clerkenwell.

#photography #london #shotonpixel

I hope I'm stating the obvious here, but... yes, of course Mastodon had strong social norms that created a positive community that folks here really appreciated. Because until quite recently, this was a small, relatively homogeneous group of people. Once that is no longer the case, conflict and norm breakdowns are inevitable because different types of people and different communities do not have the same idea of what appropriate norms are.

Time to vaccine, by disease:
Scientists did an amazing job responding to COVID!
https://imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2021/12/Journey-covid-19-vaccine-Stanley.htm

Thought I’d share my favorite quote today. Cohen was a genius.

If Mariah Carey sees her shadow tomorrow that means 6 more weeks of Christmas music.

Just published
@ScienceMagazine

A universal influenza mRNA vaccine effective against all 20 lineages of influenza A and B, protective in experimental models
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm0271

The turkeys can still be prosecuted at the state level.

#lawfedi #law @law

First light on Llyn Pardarn Nth Wales . U.K.

Lichens, fungi, and moss in a rainbow of colours on a small fir branch, maybe a cm across.
#lichen #LichenSubscribe #fungi #Mosstodon #macro

50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR TWITTER

You just pin your last tweet, Pete,
Request your archive, Clive,
You don’t need a blue tick, Vic,
Just get yourself free.

Hop on the tusk, Gus,
You don’t need to delete much,
Except your DMs, Jen,
And get yourself free.

Use Debirdify, Di,
Provide some alt tags, Mags,
Add a content warning, Tim,
To post sensitively.

Remember to boost, Ruth
You don't need to deny truth,
Just drop off the perch, Dirk,
And get yourself free.
#VerseThurday #TwitterMigration #FediTips

Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" was published #OTD in 1859.

Today is Thanksgiving in the US, so I hope everyone takes a moment to thank Darwin for spelling out the general process by which certain saurischian dinosaurs became, over many millions of years, delicious and small enough to fit on our plates.
🦖 → 🦃