Martin Ruskov @mapto@social.cleverlibre.org

The U.S. is averaging 2 mass shootings per day so far this year, but these figures alone don't capture the full scope of the gun violence epidemic.
https://t.co/vK37WLCrum

Amazon is crawling with travel guides written by AI -- vague, crappy, and pushed up in search results by astroturfed fake five-star reviews: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/travel/amazon-guidebooks-artificial-intelligence.html?unlocked_article_code=Gmcb6fkRXSAX7JUdbTpFyhH1lSBWBcI0RuiXgcku3gVTdQV7s_SPvl1tKw76F_txTehAmHdU0bZ3PUoPyH0h-dybeb8_bGL7UzysZynt-SFcx9yByC4wr37_65cVodjr_Z-sRcqUfioeOsUAKJpEECejhG2SlL4jPCoaBG8PFnu_YLKDXA0hkzvhrJnGuD5kw59N8Bz7T7D7UOeJXLkowJnnoB6IDt6bHn6XiBvlH--t6M_9xmGCkNlYdtiiScdbS3ebGG5C3xKkCxwacaT96yLi9NK5dx9YHwhHSPdoVJPqslvVGAwQFvpSQvDvgHZGOFxW09EeUVAHYZl6uI-aSYS0_UfYhcXjDi6J2-M1oFlpWg&smid=url-share

That's a "gift" link so you don't need to be a New York Times subscriber to read it

It's a great investigation, and highlights the real problem, which is ...

... unsurprisingly by now, Amazon seemingly does little-to-nothing to stop this

The site is just soiled top to bottom with fake crap in every category

Cities are not loud. Cars are loud.

#nyc #bikenyc #SummerStreets

Wer noch nicht mitgemacht hat - wir dürfen wählen, wie die nächsten #Banknoten aussehen werden.
Hier finden sich Infos dazu von der #EZBEuropäischeZentralbank direkt und hier geht es zur Umfrage: https://survey.ecb.europa.eu/euro-banknote-survey?lang=de

PS: Ich fände es schon sehr witzig, wenn "demnächst" Vögel auf unseren Scheinen abgebildet würden.
PPS: Die Umfrage dauert ein paar Minuten. Bringt etwas Geduld mit.

While #genAI firms are being faced with criticism for their models containing detailed personal data about individuals, and thinking of how to mitigate this, UK intelligence #SIGINT agencies (e.g. #GCHQ) are seeking powers to effectively lower their oversight in building models precisely to be able to draw unstructured data into personal data about people, claiming that AI firms can do it (whether or not legally!) but they can't https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/01/uk-intelligence-spy-agencies-relax-burdensome-laws-ai-data-bpds?CMP=share_btn_tw #IPA16

A narrative is now emerging that Elon Musk might have actually done more harm than good for the EV industry as a whole.

But it largely ignores a crucial role played by the stock market. https://t.co/VR1vgitO5B

Small-ish instance admins: how much do you pay per user per month for hosting?

Our instance (hci.social) pays around $0.30 USD per user per month. I'm curious how that compares to other similarly sized instances.

We have several thousand registered users and around 800 users per month.

#mastoadmin

The Electronic Frontier Foundation will award Alexandra Elbakyan, founder of the 'pirate' library Sci-Hub, for her efforts to provide access to scientific knowledge.

Without Sci-Hub, many academics would be unable to complete their research projects.

#EFF also highlights that Elbakyan’s work helps to challenge the current academic publishing system, where researchers are used as unpaid workhorses.

https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hubs-alexandra-elbakyan-receives-eff-award-for-providing-access-to-scientific-knowledge-230728/

#elsevier #springer #scihub

“Fundamentally speaking, if you do want to save the planet with AI, you have to consider also the environmental footprint [of AI first],” she says. “It doesn’t make sense to burn a forest and then use AI to track deforestation.”- @SashaMTL ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/01/techscape-environment-cost-ai-artificial-intelligence

This week, I went over to Bluesky and asked people who'd left Mastodon why they left, and lots of people told me. I grabbed the replies and crunched them and wrote up a summary. I think it's really interesting and often kind of wrenching.

https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt

#meta

@carnage4life Hope they fix this e-waste problem! In the meantime, @codemonkeymike has been trying to rescue some from the waste bin, install Linux, and thus give them a second life.

Hundreds of schools find out that Chromebooks expire like milk.

A software death date is baked into older Chromebooks and set to expire three to six years after their release. Despite having fully functioning hardware, an expired Chromebook will no longer receive the software updates it needs, blocking basic websites and applications from use.

A lot of schools have found themselves stuck with expensive paperweights. https://www.govtech.com/built-in-death-date-renders-school-chromebooks-useless