Molly White bravely presented her talk, [Is Web3 bullshit?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGsllEF7w_g), at Web Summit 2022 in front of a crowd with what are likely many people deeply invested in Web3. She calls out the ubiquity of vaporware, the numerous grifts, and the entrenchment power behind the rhetoric while acknowledging the importance of the lofty goals which should inspire technologists.
So Ford wants to add work-hour requirements to Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Assistance Program.
Meanwhile he only ever shows up in the Legislature for 15 minutes before fucking off to his cottage or wherever.
An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a sledgehammer covered in fake blood to a European Parliament representative after the oligarch's private military company was designated a terrorist organization.
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1595518274129002497?cxt=HHwWgoDUodfataQsAAAA
Adventures of a Mathematician:
https://www.ias.edu/ideas/adventures-mathematician
(film now streaming on Amazon Prime)
Photo: Stanislaw Ulam winning at a T-Division poker game at Los Alamos (date unknown). Clockwise from lower left: Unidentified, Carson Mark, Bernd Matthias, Stan Ulam, Foster Evans, George Cowan, Nicholas Metropolis. Courtesy of Francoise Ulam.
RT @Enigma2MeVideos
@SenSchumer and the people behind the #KOSA/#kidsOnlineSafetyAct have made it clear that they don't care about kids or #LGBTQ people; they don't care how much damage this is going to do to LGBT youth by censoring valuable LGBT information and sex education resources. @EFF @ACLU https://twitter.com/evan_greer/status/1593023551820693505
I’m loving all the #BlackFriday pics and illustrations here on #BlackMastodon. So much #BlackJoy and #BlackExcellence. I appreciate y’all and the people who lurked, favorited, and boosted toots and accounts.
@mastodonusercount At our current overall #Fediverse #growth rate, we should be even with the bird site's 206 million active #users in 8 years (2030.) Here's to hoping this goes faster. #Invite your friends: https://c.im/
@rswestmoreland Ah; you don't want to use that one. Find one of the third-party ones. The actual "Mastodon" app was written in a hurry to get something out the door, and doesn't support a lot of the protocol's actual features. It's intended more as a "my first app" sort of experience. Many of the others are nicer.
Just a reminder to not buy a commercial VPN on Black Friday unless you’re a corporate IT admin buying a concentrator, or you’re trying to watch geolocked kdramas. They provide you no added security. You’re welcome! #cybersecurity
Success story for the Fender's Blue Butterfly.
Sarah Palin's recent loss in Alaska could serve as exhibit A in the case that Malcolm Turnbull and I make in @TheGuardian for ranked choice as a possible path forward to fixing America's broken electoral system: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/28/how-australias-electoral-system-allowed-voters-to-finally-impose-a-ceasefire-in-the-climate-wars
@Romaq @Pat @WhatYouMcCallit I don't have faith in the US being politically *sane*, but I also have limits as to how *insane* I expect it to get, and at what rates.
You are absolutely correct about such a dissolution having apocalyptic ramifications in the event that it occurs, but my current expectation is that, while we might have an insurgency at some point somewhere in the US, total dissolution of the US is considerably less likely, particularly after the non-appearance of a certain red wave due to anti-democracy candidates performing poorly. I'm more hopeful now than I have been in a considerable while; not pre-2016 hopeful, but certainly not despairing like I was much of 2020.
There are a lot of dark things in the world, many of which can't be contextualized. But as for the current nonsense with Fediblock and MastoAdmin, I would contextualize that by noting that the whiny instances in question who object to QOTO existing are generally run by people who are so childish as to be decidedly unrepresentative of people at large, that those instances in question are often small and even more often not fast-growing, and that at this point there is a ton of interest in federated networks and applications, with or without Gargron at the helm, so even if Mastodon fell apart or lost steam due to this (I'm admittedly not sure how likely those are) the essential idea behind it will remain very much alive.
@oklomsy My understanding is that he has done that already. Quite a bit in fact. And it's been effective in resolving issues with many, perhaps most, admins involved in this.
But since this is a very messy bit of drama, it hasn't fully helped.
@oklomsy He's currently involved in some rather stupid drama involving a certain asshole spreading nasty rumors about the qoto instance, and he's using the hashtag mostly in discussions about the hashtag.
Hot take: with so many people joining, #moderation across #Mastodon instances should get a little bit more considerate and less impulsive. Dealing with a lot of new moderation requests necessitates extra deliberation and nuance, not the necessity of an immediate, impulsive decision making just for the sake of reducing workload.
This is hard to do, I know, and so #instance #admins deserve extra support from their users especially at this time. But let's be considerate and not harsh with reports.
@EubieDrew @trinsec @obi @freemo Tried looking at the Tim Wise account on the instance and got a 502
Mathematics Ph.D. Likes hanging out with almost everyone regardless of political views or anything else.
Akkoma: @ML2