Nick @internic@social.cleverlibre.org

"The DOJ's Antitrust Division has fewer people enforcing anti-monopoly laws in a $24 trillion economy than the Smithsonian Museum has security guards."

—Matt Stoller (via @pluralistic )

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/08/permanent-overlords/#republicans-want-to-defund-the-police

Excited to announce the Critical Perspectives on the Metascience Reform Movement Symposium on March 7, 2024! Dive into discussions on the evolving social dynamics shaping research processes and the impact of open science practices.

This symposium is a unique opportunity to collaborate, share insights, and contribute to shaping the future landscape of scientific inquiry. Register for free now to secure your spot. https://bit.ly/499ti6F

#OpenScience #Metascience #Research

New, by @Sarahp: A fake app that was masquerading as password manager LastPass on the App Store has been removed, whether by Apple or the fake app’s developer is yet unclear — Apple has not commented.

"That such an obviously fake app got through Apple’s App Review process is a bad look for the tech giant, which has been arguing against new regulations, like the EU’s Digital Markets Act, by claiming these laws would compromise customer safety and privacy."

More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/08/a-fake-app-masquerading-as-password-manager-lastpass-just-got-pulled-from-the-app-store/

If a relatively obscure company with cyber mercenary ties can succeed in keeping its name out of the public discourse with strategic lawsuits, it sets a dangerous precedent for other larger companies such as Dark Matter or NSO Group to do the same. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/eff-helps-news-organizations-resist-legal-bullying-cyber-mercenary-group

New: Without clear standards, people facing dangerous or biased AI can’t get problems fixed or seek justice. That's why CAT Lab (via Cornell) is joining the US AI Safety Institute.

As pioneers in community/citizen science of our digital environments, CAT lab has a decade of experience designing scientific methods that anyone can use to understand our digital environments. At NIST, we will advocate for standards that actually work for people in the public interest.

https://citizensandtech.org/2024/02/cat-lab-cornell-join-the-u-s-ai-safety-institute-consortium/

Hahahahaha. Good. @MichaelEMann should have gotten more than $1 million but this is a good victory for climate science.

Listening to Wil Wheaton read @pluralistic's Red Team Blues was a delight.

Such a rare treat to read a techno-thriller written by someone who not only knows, but actually CARES about the "tech" in the tech-uh-no :)

I hope some day the Fediverse finds it in its collective heart to invite him back, even if he did say some dumb ass things :) I think he belongs here.

In today's Bad Astronomy Newsletter: a) a VERY cool pic of the Martian moon Phobos photobombing Deimos, and 2) a story of Phaethon and the Geminid meteor shower.

Also, I'm testing the paywall, so *everyone* should be able to read the first story.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/phobosbombing-deimos-duel-phaethons

Today I'd like to discuss the Biden administration rigging the Super Bowl in favor of a midwestern team with a racist name whose owner has given tens of thousands of dollars to Trump Republicans who deny Biden won the 2020 election https://skepchick.org/2024/02/a-word-about-the-taylor-swift-super-bowl-conspiracy-theory/

How is it 2024 and reviewers still question the importance of reporting a comprehensive demographics table in research papers? Like, I understand it's a lot of space devoted to tables, but also don't you want to know who this work does/doesn't generalize to?

"Being able to say, 'wherever you get your podcasts' is a radical statement. Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that's not owned by any one company, that can't be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience." - @anildash

Powerful to think of this in the context of messaging too.

https://www.anildash.com//2024/02/06/wherever-you-get-podcasts/

I opened up a new Firefox tab, and who should I see but my old friend @drskyskull!
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-surprisingly-complicated-physics-of-why-cats-always-land-on-their-feet

@danhon We have a standards group at the W3C working hard on building new features for ActivityPub. Mastodon is an important part, but there are people from lots of different projects working there. It's OK if you don't see that. I'd also like to see more interesting and diverse applications built on top of ActivityPub.

So apparently the term "patch" in software development comes from punch cards.

"Small corrections to the programmed sequence could be done by patching over portions of the paper tape and re-punching the holes in that section."

https://chsi.harvard.edu/harvard-ibm-mark-1-language

#til #computers #development #language #history

Dress code.

For the record, dear #Mastodon users, #Bluesky is NOT Jack Dorsey's pet project, nor does he even post there. He's too busy high-fiving his cryptobros on Nostr, a protocol that's ironically many times better than ATProto/Bsky but will probably never take off, so long as it is littered with cryptocurrency nonsense and remains devoid of anything even remotely educational or newsworthy. Nostr doesn't need your email or phone number. Too bad all that people ever do on Nostr is talk about crypto. 😩

We're still trying to close up the gap in digital subscriptions caused by Amazon shuttering their subscription program last year. If you are a former Amazon subscriber looking to sign back up or someone joining for the first time, your options can be found here:

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/

(We were unable to contact former subscribers because Amazon wouldn't tell us who they were. It made quite a mess for a lot of magazines.)

There are multiple American journalists imprisoned in Russia for carrying out the real job of being a journalist. And while they are wrongfully detained on decades long prison sentences, Tucker Carlson offers The Kremlin to interview Vladimir Putin, ask the questions Putin wants to hear, and branding this as “journalism” to the American people.

And Elon Musk is hosting it, trying to make money on Putin’s propaganda.

I really hope these two shameless grifters experience a serious case of karma.

Posted by a colleague - and it hits the spot:

At long last, the Thunderbird blog now has a "Share To Mastodon" button!

A hearty round of applause and eternal thanks to @micah, @oopsallnaps, and @devmount for making it happen 💙

#Mastodon #Community #OpenSource