Phil Landmeier @shuttersparks@social.cleverlibre.org

It's interesting that a completely nonprofit social media protocol with 11,000,000 users is being deemed a "failure" by some tech media pundits. But also, they make their bones by reporting on corporate drama, stock moves, creeping dark patterns, surveillance, etc.

So, actually, of course they're uninterested in a smallish, boring, mostly-just-working social media project.

The new “historical” American Girl Doll was just released and I realized I pretty much had most of the clothes in my closet already, so please forgive me for this terrifying side-by-side.

Web LLM runs the vicuna-7b Large Language Model entirely in your browser, and it’s very impressive - https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/16/web-llm/ "I think the browser is actually a really great place to run an LLM, because it provides a secure sandbox." #LLMs #ai

Donald Trump and his sons spent 4 years promising they didn't engage in international business while he was president.

They lied.

A @CREWcrew analysis of his taxes found that he made up to $160 million from international business dealings as president. https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/trump-made-up-to-160-million-from-foreign-countries-as-president/

An avalanche rolling down a mountain.

Source unknown

(Not my pic). These people vote. Make sure you do.

Russian Orthodox Church used as KGB front for decades says SBU general - Ukraine news / The New Voice of Ukraine

https://english.nv.ua/nation/russian-orthodox-church-used-as-kgb-front-for-decades-says-sbu-general-ukraine-news-50318187.html #Ukraine #UkraineRussiaWar #Russia #UkraineWarNews

Speaking of #hamradio, activating a park now #parksontheair

This is just a reminder that trains in the Netherlands have run on wind power since 2017.

If we want to, we really can have nice things:

https://www.businessinsider.com/wind-power-trains-in-netherlands-2017-6

#trains #WindPower #netherlands

If you're shocked TX Gov Abbot is planning to pardon Daniel Perry for murdering a man at a peaceful BLM march—just remember—TX is the state that sentenced a Black woman to 5 years for an uncounted ballot, but not a white male judge for deliberate voter fraud—in the same County. TX sentenced a Black kid to 10 years for punching & killing 1 person, but not an affluent white teen for getting drunk & killing 4—they had the same judge

Texas GOP has proudly chosen fascism over democracy. Believe them

#USPol The moral of the fascist discord leaker is that fascism, racism, antisemitism, and misogyny are security risks. People who are dedicated to those things will harm your organization in pursuit of their fucked-up ideology, and you should not wait for them to do so before you show them the door.

Slowly but surely journalists are finding their way to the Fediverse. These tech & digital media reporters are already active on Mastodon:

@couts — Wired

@caseynewton — Platformer

@mimsical — WSJ

@pierce — The Verge

@drewharwell — Washington Post

@harrymccracken — Fast Company

@jank0 — Lowpass

@joannastern — WSJ

@jr — Computerworld

@mathewi — Columbia Journalism Review

@stshank — CNET

@taylorlorenz — Washington Post

@willoremus — Washington Post

#FollowFriday #Journalists #Tech

imagine if every local NPR station ran its own mastodon instance & devoted it to foregrounding precisely the local issues that local NPR stations tend to be so good at covering in a way that almost no other outlet does

Incredible #flood situation going on tonight in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A thunderstorm parked over the city dropping over 300 mm of rain over the course of a few hours.

In the 12 hours ending 23:00 EDT, Fort Lauderdale airport recorded 649 mm of rain.

The April average is 77 mm and the annual average is 1548 mm.

#flwx #weather #wxtooter

@fugueish
I'll start.
#MessWithTexas

Clarence Thomas not only accepted free vacations and had undisclosed financial dealings with a GOP donor, he also supported the Citizens United ruling and insisted that SCOTUS should, “invalidate mandatory disclosure and reporting requirements.”

His actions drip with corruption.

On CNN this evening, Trump's AG Bill Barr suggested that "keywords" should be scanned on social media to detect stolen intelligence materials, presumably including private groups, since the group where the current materials apparently originated was a private Discord group.

This would be a massive invasion of privacy, and also vastly ineffective for a range of fairly obvious reasons.