szescstopni @szescstopni@social.cleverlibre.org

@davep Again, it’s not about the technical details of what they can or cannot do. Can a burglar break into your house. Yes, probably. Is it something very different if you throw a party and invite the burglar in as the guest of honour? Yes, very much so.

#Russia science is on a fast-track to the times when the value of research was measured by the number of quotes from Marx, Engels and Lenin. These days Marxism-Leninism has been replaced by a rather weird… I don’t know, Biblical cryptozoology? Member of state Duma Igor Ananskikh and FSB general Igor Mironov published an article in a Russian scientific journal “Legal science: history and the presence”, 2023, № 9. Summary of the article:

Russia includes about 200 tribes and peoples. Russians in Russia are the state-forming people. Almost all the greatness of Russia was created by Russians in unity with other peoples of our Fatherland. In modern conditions, the Russian population is declining, which threatens the existence of Russia itself. The family in Russia has become an object of destruction in a hybrid war. The United States and the collective West have formulated the political goals of killing Russians. The same policy is promoted by some politicians and Russian foreign agents.

But this is only the beginning: the article then goes into a delirious mix of science fiction, religious ramblings and conspiracy theories. Here’s a short sample:

The Bible also tells about other people on planet Earth. They were not originally meant to have a family. In chapter two of the Bible, another cosmic entity, the Lord God, appears. The Lord God proceeds to “create” a new branch of human beings. To form the body of the new Man, the Lord God used the “dust of the earth,” the dead earth, from which he moulded a humanoid golem. “And the Lord God created man out of the dust of the earth, and blew into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2, 7) [99].

Then it’s getting even worse:

Thus, according to various authors and sources, there are two main kinds of people living on planet Earth: “people of the Earth”, created in the image and likeness of God; and people of two main types live on planet Earth: “people of the Earth”, created in the image and likeness of God; and people, created “from the dust of the earth” with the help of cosmic gene technology. The former, the people of God’s people, the creators, are guided by high. moral principles. Their values are: Peace, family, children, cult of woman-mother, creation, preservation of nature. The other kind, earthlings; genetically modified creatures; biological artificial intelligence. Their values: war, murder, terror, revolutions, brothels, paedophilia, cannibalism, drug addiction, destruction of the life support system the life support system of spaceship Earth, etc.

Full text: http://fonduniver.ru/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/un_2023_9_pb.pdf (page 43)

If you think it’s some fringe pseudo-science journal, it’s not:

Journal is registered by Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor). Print publication registration certificate No. ФС 77 – 40503. Journal is accredited in the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI)

On a personal note, as I was going to expeditions in Caucasus for ~20 years, the mountaineering community in Russia attracted a certain type of people: former security services, deeply paranoid, taking very seriously all kind of stories on UFO, reptilian humanoids etc. There was an ex-KGB guy obsessed with finding entrance to Shambala (later committed suicide), an ex-FSB guy who created whole UFO search organisation, an ex-OMON spetsnaz guy. The latter was obsessed with pseudo-scientific racial theories, very similar to the one described in the article. I have no idea what causes this, but in Russian security services there is a noticeable preference for pseudo-science and really fringe conspiracy theories. This article is just a tip of an iceberg.

Since XKCD’s “Types of Scientific Paper” is making the rounds again, here’s the Entomology one I made a few years ago.

#Entomology

This is how you block Threads for your account:

1. Lookup any Threads profile in your mastodon search. For example Mr. Mosseri (project lead Threads): @mosseri

2. Click the 3dots menu next to "Follow".

3. Choose "Block domain threads.net"

That's it, you are done. This hides all your posts and your profile from Threads even if your instance does not block.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #Threads #Meta #Activitypub

Your reminder: Texas power providers are not only free from sensible regulations

They are now free from having to provide Texans with power during a storm or emergency

This, while Texas passed an embedment handing Texas energy suppliers over $10 billion in public money for…whatevs

That Lone Star is a review.

⭐️

There's just a lot of people on here today saying "give facebook a chance" who do not seem to want to talk about what facebook does with the chances it's given.

I don't get this "people dress sloppily in 2023" assertion.

Every time, without fail - and I mean Every Single Time - if I have a work video call or meeting, I pick the cleaner of my two hoodies.

After the Peugeot 404 Cabriolet and Coupé, today the saloon/sedan. I couldn't locate a photo of my own - a literal case of '404 not found'. Happily Peugeot obliges with this visual gag, which is what you get if you lose your way on the company's website. Surely this is the best 404 error message out there. #Peugeot #404NotFound #WeirdCarMastodon #davidsdailycar

“Just Stop Oil activist jailed for six months for taking part in slow march | Environmental activism | The Guardian”

If these laws had been in place back in the 2000s, I’d almost certainly have a criminal record, after having been arrested at an anti-war or pro-refugee protest https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/15/just-stop-oil-activist-is-first-to-be-jailed-under-new-uk-protest-law

This is awesome. Site dedicated to #DIY toy and game repair via #3Dprinting. https://toy-rescue.com/

Bad headline: "Fediverse 'purists' reject Meta's Threads"

Good headline: "Meta's Threads fails at federation — unable to moderate abuse and hate speech"

My dad the judge taught me that it's not enough for justice to be done; it needs to be seen to be done. The world needs to see that problem is Meta.

(I recognise that we risk weeks of rising abusive behaviour before the defederation happens, and I respect the opposing arguments from people who want to prevent that.)

#Threads #fediverse

I'm about 90% sure threads won't integrate with most fedi content warning protocols which means your lewds will be visible to insta users and you can get yourself - perhaps even your whole server - blocked pretty swiftly. That's the power of hole.

For real, just post hole occasionally on the tl and threads will defederate from you first

Finishing the research for the next episode of the #solarpunkPrompts , the #solarpunk #podcast I realize that it is a really good topic for #writing an #anthology or a full-fledged #novel on.

The Tower is a residential high-rise aiming to be sustainable both technologically and socially. A mixed-use development, with a grocery shop, a community center, laundromat, library, kindergarten.

A slice of a Solarpunk city, a neighborhood in itself.

More on Friday!

#architecture #WritingPrompt

If you're wondering what this #JohnMastodonDay thing is all about, here's the tl;dr:

A year ago, somebody writing for some media thingy in the midst of the whole banning-people-for-social-media-links insanity, made a hilariously silly mistake, and wrote that #JohnMastodon, the "founder of Mastodon", got banned from .

This is obviously an error, as everyone knows Mastodon was in fact created by #JoanMastodon.

Informujemy, że nasz przedstawiciel @piotrsikora weźmie udział w pierwszym spotkaniu Ministerstwa Cyfryzacji z organizacjami pozarządowymi, społecznymi i branżowymi.

Będziemy rozmawiać o priorytetach w obszarze cyfryzacji, przedstawimy nasze doświadczenia z wykorzystania oprogramowania open-source i mediów społecznościowych pozostających poza kontrolą BigTech, czyli #Fediwersum.

Więcej:
https://www.gov.pl/web/cyfryzacja/zapraszamy-na-spotkanie-organizacje-branzowe-i-spoleczne

Czekamy na Wasze zdanie i pomysły w tych tematach, zapraszamy też osoby aktywistyczne i zaangażowane do kontaktu. Mamy nadzieję, że to pierwsze spotkanie otworzy dyskusję i doprowadzi do realnych zmian w strategii cyfryzacji Polski.

Jak wspomniał w jednym z wywiadów Minister Cyfryzacji Gawkowski:
"W Ministerstwie Cyfryzacji zdanie Big Techu będzie na ostatnim miejscu."

Trzymamy za słowo i liczymy na dialog.

My winter sports gear of choice was the chainsaw.

Bezos and Musk have it deeply wrong.
The problem isn't that we need a trillion people to have more Einsteins or Mozarts.

The problem is we don't nurture and protect the ones we have.

Stephen Jay Gould wrote: "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops".

We are half way through getting 200mm of rain (8 inches in old money) over a 30 hour deluge. This is how it started. I'll let you know when it stops.