ML2 @mathlover@social.cleverlibre.org

I don’t understand why people think Mastodon is difficult. It seems pretty straightforward, and the separate servers are no biggie. I’m enjoying this fresh start here, like moving to a new apartment!

Very useful information for US-based mastodon mods https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1593819064161665024

Great article.

"Musk thinks he bought a tech company, but he’s actually bought a community of users, and that's where its value lies..."

So says Prof Paul Bernal - Professor of Information Technology Law at the University of East Anglia School of Law.

https://eastangliabylines.co.uk/why-elon-musk-the-chief-twit-is-in-trouble/

Here's something worth quote-tooting: @leo reminds us that Spotify, Audible, iHeart, et al are trying to do to podcasting what Twitter's centralization did to public discourse online. https://twit.social/@leo/109366086440250076

A lot of folk lamenting "lack of reach" on Mastodon, but apparently failing to question what their own desire for said "reach" really means. Maybe a big ol' ego reset is just what the Internet needs

I have my own (managed by masto.host) #Mastodon instance since 4 years.

On a typical day it handles 20.000 tasks (pushing new toots, synchronising, cleaning up etc).

Yesterday it went to 500.000 tasks.

And that's just one simple single-user instance. It's almost magical how the federated, distributed network of all ActivitiyPub instances managed to survive that brutal Tsunami of yesterday.

In short: We are ready for a new and better future, free from centralised gatekeepers.

Meaningful #climate action isn’t just about cooling off the planet. It will:

✔️Promote food, energy, & water security
✔️ Protect public health
✔️ Conserve biodiversity
✔️ Address ocean acidification
✔️ Promote justice & equity
✔️ Provide economic opportunities
✔️ Prevent the emergence new diseases
✔️ Foster a more sustainable & resilient future

There’s still time. 🌍 Not much.

How the story ends: Musk reinstates Trump after a 52/48 vote. Trump tweets once, the resulting outrage causes a traffic surge, which the now horribly under resourced site can't cope with, it falls over and no one is left to get it back online. Trump kills Twitter.

As the Amazing Criswell put it, we are all interested in the future, because that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.

"In 2012, computer theorist Ben Goertzel proposed what he called the “robot university student test”, arguing that an AI capable of obtaining a degree in a same ways as a human should be considered conscious.

Goertzel’s idea – an alternative to the more famous “Turing test” – might have remained a thought experiment were it not for the successes of AIs employing natural language processing (NLP): most famously, GPT-3, the language model created by the OpenAi research laboratory."

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/19/full-on-robot-writing-the-artificial-intelligence-challenge-facing-universities

The E-Book Wars - https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-publishers-ebooks-e-books-macmillan-protest-amazon-bezos details of the sad story of how publishers betrayed #libraries and readers as they went digital can be found in my #WalledCulture; free #ebook versions here - https://walledculture.org/the-book/

The people who know nothing about tech are like

“OMG why is this simple twitter app had that many employees?
1- They could have used one Microsoft Excel file for twitter database.
2- Venmo for payroll.
3- Security badges are unnecessary because the code is not a physical object, therefore you cannot steal”

#TwitterDown #Twitter

#Mastodon features that #Twitter doesn’t have:

* Temporary muting (e.g. for a day)
* Self-verified URLs in the profile
* Hiding spoilers etc. via content warnings
* URLs must start with protocols (fewer false positives, e.g. in code).
* Everyone can edit posts (in v4+).
* No ads (which doesn’t come for free = donate if you can afford it)

More obscure: I like that you can search for post URLs to “transfer” them between accounts.

Using this platform made me realise how I came to accept exposure to cruelty & hostility as part of the deal of being able to talk to you. The clicks algorithm is not necessarily our connection master. How refreshing to be reminded of that.

My boss, Matt Mullenweg, the boss of Automattic, owner of Tumblr, is looking for ex-Twitter employees for Tumblr, saying,

"we're putting on a fast track to see how they can help super-charge Tumblr. We can't absorb thousands of people, but I'd be open to hiring entire teams if they already work great together."

He's photomatt on Twitter, or look here too: https://automattic.com/work-with-us/

Boost for visibility, please? Spread the word!

#Twitter #JobFairy #Automattic #Tumblr

Hello, Mastodon

@AccordionGuy People who stan for sociopathic billionaires are… weird.

Everyone on Twitter right now:

Estragon: Well, shall we go?
Vladimir: Yes, let’s go.
(They do not move)

Dear Space Karen,
No thanks.

Owncast is proud to support the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians by offering them a hosted Owncast instance. They contacted the project discussing their streaming needs, and how the Big Tech options weren't working out for them, and they didn't have the resources to operate Owncast on their own. They asked if we could help via our donation program https://owncast.online/donated/.

I look forward to seeing their arts, sports and cultural events streaming live soon!