Nick @internic@social.cleverlibre.org

this past year alone, my family has faced evacuation twice in the #canadian north. during the current evac, thousands of northerners have zero communication with their families, emergency personnel or wildfire data.

this is entirely due to the collapse of NorthwesTel's fibre network infrastructure and zero secondary systems for comms. the sub/arctic is infamous for its fragile, ancient comms architecture.

i want to change that, and i'd like help thinking out loud about potential citizen-owned/operated technologies for long-distance emergency comms.

#hamradio and #packetradio enthusiasts - could you please recommend some research resources on the following:

- legal/frequency considerations for non-voice/packet transmission specific to #Canada
- recommended hardware & software for 1000km+ transmission, tcp/ip
- examples of amateur radio clubs that have undertaken this kind of role before

if possible, please respond with links to documentation, research and/or policy papers.

my entire family has worked wildfire management since the teletype days, and i hopefully can effect some actual useful change for northerners here.

The road to success for Black female lawyers has not been easy, especially as prosecutors.

Of the roughly 2,400 elected prosecutors in the US in 2019, only 45 of them were Black women, less than 2%.

Since then, two Black women have won high profile posts: Fani Willis in Fulton County, Georgia and Letitia James in New York.

They've proven to be two of Donald Trump's nemeses -- and the targets of his attacks.
https://theconversation.com/black-female-prosecutors-like-fani-willis-face-the-unequal-burden-of-both-racist-and-sexist-attacks-200219
#BlackMastodon @blackmastodon #TrumpIndictments

"The company formerly known as Twitter has begun slowing the speed with which users can access links to the New York Times, Facebook and other news organizations and online competitors, a move that appears targeted at companies that have drawn the ire of owner Elon Musk." https://wapo.st/45vCZtS

A fun thing about most "paywalled" news sites is that their "free article" count is tied to tracking cookies and browser instances, so if you hit a paywall and then open the same page in incognito mode, or even just another browser, it will, more often than not, just let you read the thing.

just a little reminder!

The average US president has been charged with 2 felonies.

The Church of Scientology’s had a rough few years, and I’m willing to bet that they were finally getting ready to pack it in and admit that their best days are behind them.

But just as they did for the anti-vaxxers, the eugenicists and the fascists, the online wellness community is coming to save the day.

✔️masked in local grocery store to keep fellow shoppers, staff, my kids, and octogenarian in-laws (who are still COVID-free) from getting the “summer flu” (Covid) that’s going around
✔️masks required in clinic
✔️supply of RATs for patients
✔️vaccine clinic this autumn

Easy peasy

The mother of a 6-year-old who shot his teacher in #Virginia enters guilty plea to a charge of felony child neglect. https://www.dailypress.com/2023/08/15/mother-of-6-year-old-who-shot-richneck-teacher-pleads-guilty-to-child-neglect/

Watchmen
Bonus Panel Here: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/watchmen

Sign up to win my new book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125084292-a-city-on-marstw

The physicist Hans Christian Ørsted was born #OTD in 1777.

In 1820 he demonstrated an unexpected connection between electric and magnetic phenomenon, believed by many to be unrelated, initiating the development of the theory of electromagnetism.

This observation started physicists down a path they would follow for the next few hundred years.

Image: Danmarks Tekniske Museum

Montana loses fight against youth climate activists in landmark ruling

Emotional testimony leads to plaintiffs' win in first youth-led climate trial.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/montana-loses-fight-against-youth-climate-activists-in-landmark-ruling/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

The Jacuzzi temperatures in the waters around Florida have grabbed all the headlines. But the oceans around Canada are also alarmingly warm.
#Climate #oceans #ClimateChange #Canada

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/08/14/news/boiling-point-canada-warming-oceans-enter-uncharted-territory

So the Queen’s Gambit is a great TV series. And Beth Harmon is one hell of a fictional character.

But I think her real life equivalent is even more interesting.

Judit Polgar isn’t just the greatest female chess player of all time, she’s the only woman to bust into the global top 10 FIDE chess rankings and beat the world’s best.

That’s right, Judit Polgar beat Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Magnus Carlsen, and so many others. She’s beaten 11 current and former champions, in fact.

What’s further amazing is that Judit Polgar actually broke Bobby Fischer’s record of becoming the youngest grandmaster of all time. Which she accomplished at the age of 15.

She is the first girl in chess history to have won the boy’s junior world championships—and she did it twice!

Judit reached the stunning height of a 2735 ELO peak rating—an unimaginable accomplishment for most chess players.

While she was beating everyone, she took the time to write several books about chess for young girls to encourage them to start playing the game.

She’s retired now from international chess competition. But what does she do now? She is the coach of the Hungarian men’s chess team.

In 2021, she was inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame. And I can’t think of anyone more deserving. What a legend!

This week's comic: Makeover for a Takeover

#media #fascism #racism #journalism

A perfect meme!

In my case it began when I finally caught covid a year ago after which I ended up with so much brain fog that I was unable to work for several weeks and had compromised productivity for the rest of the year. Not great when you’re a freelancer. I was lucky that it cleared up after a while but it was Not Fun™ while it lasted.

Still don’t understand people who are blasé about the risk of long covid.

Substack is currently blocking Overcast.

It looks accidental, via Cloudflare misconfiguration. I'm trying to get in touch with them.

I cannot stress enough to podcast hosting companies: DO NOT HOST PODCAST FEEDS BEHIND CLOUDFLARE!

If you do, you MUST create a Cloudflare rule that changes the "Security Level" to “Essentially Off" for all feed URLs. Otherwise, if you host many feeds (especially per-member feeds), most podcast apps will be throttled or blocked from accessing them.