Brent Williams @hbw@social.cleverlibre.org

Ursula K. Le Guin

#quotes #literature #books #imagination

As right-wing extremists are re-platformed everywhere from Twitter to Mar-a-Lago, it’s more important than ever that we hold our journalists, researchers, & others to high standards of accountability when it comes to reporting on extremism and extremists. We need journalists who will tell us the truth, not stake out a position in the middle of two unequal sides. I keep coming back to this quote about reporting on the weather, but it was missing something — so I modified it to make it complete.

5. The key part is Mastodon is part of an open protocol and not a corporation seeking to extract money from you by mining your network

Tumblr says it is going to adopt the same protocol so people on Tumblr can follow Mastodon accounts

It makes social networking more like email

@davew @Jelaniya The thing the moguls must learn is that they don't own communities. They might pave over the commons where conversations occur but they cannot own our relationships. (Similarly, news brands--I choose the word purposely--think everyone has a relationship with them; they, too, don't understand where the real value lies.)

"The most important thing about this amazing Paris transformation is how fast it happened — how fast people on bikes “appeared” — once streets were transformed.

You can’t write this off as “Paris was always this way,” because it wasn’t.

It took leadership."
@BrentToderian

#Verkehrswende #Autokorrektur @SheDrivesMobility

@craignewmark We tested that idea here, and it was fairly effective at preventing readership compared to contextual warnings, if that is the goal https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity21/presentation/kaiser

These are the 10 largest countries in the world imagined at the equator for size comparison.

They look different because a traditional Mercator map distorts countries, making them appear larger toward the poles.

You can make comparisons at https://www.thetruesize.com #world

Today’s Far Side is on topic for this place! It’s like a rerun gift from Gary Larson to us all. https://www.thefarside.com

What are clouds made of?

#linux

#Ukraine's trenches in Bakhmut
Flooded with mud, but the soldiers keep fighting
#RussianUkrainianWar

The US is the only country with more civilian guns than people
https://www.smallarmssurvey.org/database/global-firearms-holdings

“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