Nick @internic@social.cleverlibre.org

I like Mastodon. I have interesting chats here, and I quite appreciate the stuff I see in my feed - although quite a lot of it feeds my anger at the state of the world, it rarely makes me angry with the people posting, which is a huge and welcome difference from the #Xitter.

What's weird, though, is that it doesn't really fill many of roles social media platforms have previously filled in my life. Of course, that's partly because Facebook and the Xitter have pushed us away from well informed, politically charged discussion so effectively.

Mastodon is not a way for me to keep up with my friends, because not very many of them are here, and it's pretty clear that the barriers to participation are too high for that to change any time soon.

It doesn't work terribly well for keeping up with the news.

It doesn't seem like a great way of engaging in mass political discourse, because the barriers to entry and the underlying philosophy tend to filter out so many people, and because the structure largely prevents 'virality'.

It's not really a great place to share photos - it feels like that's not what it's for, and while I get some appreciation for photos, that's about it.

It's not a source of much mindless entertainment.

So that mostly just leaves interesting conversations with mostly strangers, I think? Which is valuable, and I'd been missing it. I guess I'm just slightly dismayed that I still feel pulled to participate in other social media platforms alongside this.

Nonprofit hospitals skimp on charity while CEOs reap millions, report finds

Nonprofit hospitals got $28 billion in tax breaks—which made up 44% of their net income.

https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/10/nonprofit-hospitals-skimp-on-charity-while-ceos-reap-millions-report-finds/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

@cameron since I didn't see the second thing before, i did my due diligence before boosting so pasting links here for others:
* https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/10/google-hosted-malvertising-leads-to-fake-keepass-site-that-looks-genuine/

* https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/malicious-notepad-plus-plus-google-ads-evade-detection-for-months/

Two things that happened this week:
- YouTube started banning the use of ad blockers
- Google was found serving ads with malware

Best. Birthday. Cake. Ever.

Thanks @shieladixon 🎂🥳

Forbidden love.

The adorable Venezuelan poodle moth was discovered & photographed in 2009 by Dr. Arthur Anker. It’s supposedly the only sighting of this critter, but insects are small & Earth is big. So imagine the diversity of species we haven’t found yet…

<tap tap tap> Hello? <tap tap tap> Is this thing on?

As Twitter slowly empties into all the new things, it is making it harder to know exactly how to share information or promote things I'm part of, but... Here goes....

<tap tap tap>Attention: Hangout-a-thon is November 3-5

🧵

You might be scared that black holes could suck you in, but look what I have just found in our GLOSTAR Galactic plane survey, that we conducted with the Very Large Array and the Effelsberg Telescope.

I have no idea what it is, but it looks very hungry and it's lurking in the Cygnus X region. So you better watch out!

#spooktober #astronomy #astrodon

Good morning 😂 #CatsOfMastodon #NorahNeko

Everyone thinks they know how #trust & #safety should work, but very few have actually done #ContentModeration.

@mmasnick, Randy Lubin, and Leigh Beadon developed this really fun game, exploring the difficult choices and tradeoffs involved in managing a trust and safety team.

I was immediately hooked and ended with these scores:

🛡️ #TrustAndSafetyTycoon

🏆 Won via IPO and retired from the tech world

📈 Score: 1984
📏 Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐◾️

Can you beat me? https://trustandsafety.fun/

Remember, the fact that they can confidently generate vast amounts of text doesn’t mean there’s any actual intellectual capacity inside the tech billionaire.

Official Israeli account posted on the bad site that IDF "intelligence information" showed "the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization is responsible for the failed shooting that hit the hospital"

The tweet included video of a missile shot that a NYT reporter flagged as being recorded 40 mins later, and they just edited that part out.

#israel #gaza #propaganda

https://twitter.com/RobertMackey/status/1714374889568911506

It's funny: Both Bandcamp and Patreon had the easiest and most straightforwardly long-term profitable business models imaginable: Sit between indie creatives and their fans, provide some basic services for mediation (comment sections, media posts, semi-global payment) and take enough of a cut of any payments to cover the costs and then some.

But because that business model wouldn't scale forever, they are instead being gutted, because ever _increasing_ growth is the only model capital accepts

My latest: the Religious Right is back on their bullshit, trying to get the Ten Commandments posted in public school classrooms. Watch one Texas lawmaker demolish the theocratic argument in favor of it https://skepchick.org/2023/10/texas-lawmaker-destroys-theocratic-argument-for-the-ten-commandments/

The price of Covid-19 treatment Paxlovid could rise to $2,500 next year, a 5 times increase.

This is horrible. The government keeps saying "we have the tools," but this isn't true for the people who need them most.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/health/paxlovid-price-expected-to-rise/index.html

Thirty years ago, Peter Shor discovered a fast factoring algorithm that launched the field of quantum computing. Now, another researcher has extended the algorithm in a new direction that could make it run even faster. My latest for @QuantaMagazine:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/thirty-years-later-a-speed-boost-for-quantum-factoring-20231017