Nick @internic@social.cleverlibre.org

RIP Borat

Really proud of Signal, of this piece, and so happy to help lead an organization willing to be honest about what others hide: the incredible cost of developing consumer tech, and why it’s so hard (but rewarding!) to build tech that doesn’t rely on monetizing surveillance.

https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/

Congratulations to MQV member Immanuel Bloch of LMU Munich – Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics for receiving this year's Stern–Gerlach Medal awarded by the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft e. V. (DPG) for his outstanding work in the field of quantum simulations with ultracold atoms in optical lattices.

https://www.dpg-physik.de/veroeffentlichungen/aktuell/2023/deutsche-physikalische-gesellschaft-verleiht-zahlreiche-physikpreise [German]

Freddie Mercury's Grandmother: I need an almond-flavoured liqueur, but I'm waiting for one of the supermarkets to do a discount.
Freddie Mercury: I see a Lidl's Amaretto offer, Nan.

The Large Hadron Collider collides protons. A good source of protons is Hydrogen, just strip the electrons off and away you go.
This little red bottle is their Hydrogen source. Not for a week or a year...that one bottle is enough for 200,000 years.

(Img: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Saintfevrier)

There's some C code in the wikipedia page for "Hilbert Curve" and I would like to propose this code be removed from the "Hilbert Curve" page and moved to the "How Not to Comment Source Code" page

"Going anywhere for the holidays?"
"Yes, upstate."
"Plane or car?"
"Oh Jesus no! Train."
"How long will that take?"
"9 hours. But my vacation starts when I get on the train, not when I get off the plane. It's much less stressful."
"You know... I can see that..."

Folks, I may have a made a convert today. Let's be real. Driving is work, and flying is torture. A train ride, might seem "long" but did you count all the time you spend getting to the airport, the security checks? The silly rules?

The #Leonids #MeteorShower is peaking this weekend.

Info:

- best viewing is after midnight local time, away from artificial lights🌠

- meteors may appear to originate in the East from the area around the constellation Leo but can appear anywhere in the sky, laying back and looking at the whole sky is good 🧭

- staying dark adapted is key, so stay off your cell phone 📵

⛈️Rainy/cloudy? Your next meteor shower is the Geminids in December so it's almost there.

@bronakins @mastodonmigration

I am disappointed that things didn't shake out as I expected.

I really hoped that the downfall of Twitter would offer positive changes. It may still, but people are flocking to Threads 🤷‍♀️

@DebErupts @Teri_Kanefield @bronakins @mastodonmigration Most people will choose perceived convenience over anything else. Bluesky is like Twitter, so people are attracted to the familiarity. Threads is part of Instagram, so it’s easy to get into if you’re already on Insta.

I’m trying out the various attempts at “Twitter replacements”, but I prefer the Fediverse because it’s open and not beholden to a tech bro.

So let me get this straight. January 6 was a bunch of peaceful tourists, who never did anything illegal, except that they were also mostly FBI and Antifa plants who broke in and violently attacked the cops and tried to stop the Congressional count which would put their favored candidate in office. Got it.

This week, the FCC said it was finally going to put a stop to SIM swapping and port-out fraud. The new rules, the commission said, “require wireless providers to adopt secure methods of authenticating a customer before redirecting a customer’s phone number to a new device or provider. The new rules require wireless providers to immediately notify customers whenever a SIM change or port-out request is made on customers’ accounts and take additional steps to protect customers from SIM swap and port-out fraud.”

But there’s no real guidance on what these secure authentication methods should be or what constitutes immediate notification. The FCC rules have instead been written to explicitly give “wireless providers the flexibility to deliver the most advanced and appropriate fraud protection measures available.” Adding to the challenge is a gaggle of carriers with low-paid and poorly trained employees and cultures steeped in apathy and carelessness.

None of this is to say that the FCC won’t ultimately create rules that will provide a meaningful check on a scam that’s reached epidemic proportions. It does mean that the problem will be extremely hard to solve.

For the time being, SIM swaps and port-out scams are a fact of life, and there’s little reason for optimism that a handful of vaguely worded requirements will make a difference. For now, the best you can do is—when possible—to ensure that accounts are protected by a PIN or verbal password and follow additional precautions provided by the Federal Trade Commission.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/11/the-fcc-says-new-rules-will-curb-sim-swapping-im-pessimistic/?comments=1&comments-page=1

Hi! I'm Jack and I'm new here as a refugee from Facebook. The sheer awfulness of the Facebook feed combined with an interesting talk by Christian Horn @globalc on Friday has brought me to Mastadon.

I'm a British guy living in Tokyo with his wife and two sons. I work as a freelance proofreader and copyeditor of academic work and other non-fiction, and I play a small role in promoting friendship between Wales and Japan as a committee member of St David's Society Japan.

Didn't realize my wireless plan capped tethering speeds, but now it makes sense. When your phone gets ~10-15 mbps and your tethered computer gets .5 or .6 consistently, you know they're screwing w/ the service you paid for.

Welp, I'm ashamed it took me this long to realize, but changing the TTL on my computer seems to have released the throttling.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/cmxp66/2019_bypass_verizon_hotspot_throttle_no_root/

Something I think about a lot lately is how physically difficult and claustrophobic being in a spacesuit and living in a space ship must be and how easily lots of people fantasize about this and are the same people who seem too stifled by masks to wear them when I sit in a cardiologist waiting room

The New York Times reports Sony has suspended its advertising on X: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twitter-x-advertisers.html

"Newly released data from the 2023 American Customer Satisfaction Index Federal Government Report indicates that Americans 'are happier with their federal government interactions than at any time since 2018.'”

https://fedscoop.com/customer-satisfaction-survey-federal-government/

I was sceptical before, but after seeing his management skills in action, I think allowing Elon to oversee the migration of Earth’s wealthiest elites to Mars is a great idea.

Paris has revealed plans for pedestrianizing the city that include creating 100 hectares of new pedestrian space by 2030 and transforming car lanes to human-friendly pathways and rain gardens.

Love this part: "walking is free, it's emission-free, it's noise-free, it's good for your health and, as we see every time we pedestrianise, it's also good for local businesses."

People-friendly cities for the win! 🚶‍♀️ 🌳 🚴‍♂️

https://www.thelocal.fr/20231117/paris-reveals-plans-to-pedestrianise-the-city

#paris #environment #urbanism #walking #ClimateChange