Skip to main content

Masimatutu reshared this.


Question for current Relatica testers (or potential future users): on the client side filtering do you think it would be better if the app remembered if you unhid a post/comment? #relatica #friendica #fediverse #moderation
Screenshot of the post hidden by a user made content filter.
Screenshot of the post a user toggled to be shown even though filtered.

I guess its a question about ease of implementation vs. consistency.

I would not mind reopening posts again because I would not expect to see them too often in my timeline - things are just swooshing by anyway... But I don't really use filters that much (yet?) so I am probalby not the most opinionated person in this case.
@Hank G ☑️



BookWyrm people, what is the proper way to add this book to the library on my server? I don't want to do it manually since there is already an ISBN number and I want to import it from some server based on that. Unfortunately it only seems to allow searching by ISBN with a camera to read a barcode. Add to my virtual reading list for the time being anyway :) #BookWyrm

Ankur Sinha "FranciscoD" reshared this.


Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


Some news: the great @zoeschiffer has a new book coming out in February about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. And we think you’re going to love it. https://www.platformer.news/p/ten-strategies-for-replacing-twitter
Legendary Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine called it “the definitive book on perhaps the weirdest business story of our time. A fast-paced and riveting account of a hilarious and tragic mess." And Vanity Fair’s Nick Bilton said “Zoë Schiffer’s incredibly written and astonishingly reported book about the Musk era of the world’s craziest company tells the story of a man who took the clown car, strapped a rocket to the back of it, and then slammed it into a wall at 100,000 miles an hour. You simply won’t be able to put this book down.”

reshared this

I have been loving @zoeschiffer 's reporting on Twitter. Must be challenging to write a book about a story that never seems to be "over". In the immoral words of @Horse_ebooks, "Everything happens so much."

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


A brilliant, timely LSE blog by @brembs

“…the Fediverse’ provides tools and technologies that are ideally suited to bring scholarly societies out of their digital caves and into the 21st century.”

“The root of their names contains their essential function, as described in 1660 for one of the first such societies, the Royal Society:

“Their first purpose was no more, then onely the satisfaction of breathing a freer air, and of conversing in quiet one with another, without being ingag’d in the passions, and madness of that dismal Age”.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2023/11/30/the-fediverse-is-an-opportunity-learned-societies-cant-ignore/
#academia #research #academicchatter #socialmedia


Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


Know somebody who insists women’s soccer is boring?

When researchers disguised the gender of players in game highlight reels, viewers judged female players to be just as entertaining and skilled as male players.

https://theconversation.com/we-blurred-the-gender-of-soccer-players-and-had-people-rate-their-performances-with-surprising-results-213837

#Sports #GenderEquality #WomensSports

reshared this

unfortunately that is just an inferior version of New Coke versus Classic Coke. In blind taste tests, New Coke was vastly superior and yet nobody bought it.
I prefer women's soccer to men's. IMO the women are more competitive with each other, while men are much quicker to take a dive.


I'm sorry but this is brilliant. #JohnTravolta #disco #santa
Apology accepted! :XD:

echopapa ☑️ reshared this.


This analysis of why Rhythm Nation caused a resonance failure on hard drives is amazing. Lots of music history and some computer history too. #history #music #computer #JanetJackson #MusicHistory

Ben Grimace reshared this.


The latest beta of the Relatica mobile and desktop Friendica client, version 0.9.0, has just been released. Along with a slew of small bug fixes and tweaks this release now has a mechanism for viewing, filtering, and exporting the log events generated by the software. This will help users interact with developers (well me right now) in diagnosing problems on their system. This release also has the long requested feature of opening up tag searches on the user's home server not the remote server when they are clicked on. This is available for Apple and Google stores for those in the test program (ping me if you want access) and should have approval in the next 24 hours. Direct downloads for Android, Linux, and Windows are available from the install page. #relatica #friendica #fediverse
@Hank G ☑️ looks very nice! Thank you very much! :-)
Thanks! There is a Matrix room that a bunch of users is in if you need interactive help etc. The link is listed on the main page.



Reading the coverage of the Elon Musk interview it seemed pretty cringe. Watching the really short clip was even more cringe. Watching the extended clip? JFC. If it wasn't clear we were in an Emperor's New Clothes situation with him before it is now. If I didn't have complete and utter contempt for him I'd probably feel sorry for him. #ElonMusk #Twitter #BillionairesShouldNotExist https://nitter.net/BGrueskin/status/1730011597702127818#m
ans there is still a bunch of people staying on twitter because they say it's not that bad... He is the cringe version of Lex Luthor.
Yeah he fancies himself the real life Tony Stark when he's the real life Lex Luthor but with better hair and more uneven temperament.
What's "peak cringe" is that there are even some German newspapers that defend him and say that this is the right move against the "woke mentality".

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


When we get news like we got this evening, I’m reminded of Voltaire: “To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”

reshared this


too many names reshared this.


I just discovered this project for a new network card for Mac SE and SE/30 machines. I love that people do this sort of work because it is way outside my wheelhouse. #RetroComputing #apple #ClassicMac https://github.com/rhalkyard/SEthernet
I have used IRC with it and 8 Mhz Mac Classic. It doesn't get much better than that. Or slower :-)
All I've used to date in my own vintage hardware is a FloppyEMU. I've thought about trying these BlueSCSI or comparable products for HD replacement.

oh what did I miss

Edit: nm, yes I saw

This entry was edited (1 day ago)

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


The OpenAI story isn’t over just yet: my thoughts on the past week’s event, plus a few morsels of new reporting. https://www.platformer.news/p/the-openai-saga-isnt-over-just-yet
Still: it feels too early to declare the story over. The soon-to-be-former members of OpenAI’s board will speak eventually: to investigators, the public, or both. Squads of investigative reporters are now digging into Altman’s sprawling web of investments. 

It is quite possible that a few years from now, the events of this month will be a footnote in the history of OpenAI’s ascent. But with a new board arriving and an investigation about to begin, I wouldn’t be surprised if this story didn’t have another twist or two in store.

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.

succinct take: some of the founders thought they were still working for a non-profit after receiving a few $B in funding. Sam new better.

If like to know why no one is talking about the abuse allegations against Sam Altman by Annie Altman, his younger sister.

https://www.themarysue.com/annie-altmans-abuse-allegations-against-openais-sam-altman-highlight-the-need-to-prioritize-humanity-over-tech/


Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


hi today I'd like to tell you all about Avi Loeb, Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University, who was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 Nobelitis 😢 https://skepchick.org/2023/11/avi-loeb-the-harvard-physicist-who-thinks-its-always-aliens/
So — at which Stage do you see Greta Thunberg?
The expression on Jill Tarter's face at the moment Skeletor starts speaking here is priceless. I'm sure he gets that look a lot.
A screencap of a Zoom call among many SETI and planetary scientists which is cropped down to Jill Tarter and Avi Loeb. She looks as lf one of her PhD students has just claimed her dog ate her thesis. Avi Loeb looks like Skeletor explaining his plan to finally get He Man.

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


Rebecca Watson does a great job taking Avi Loeb apart. Unfortunately, he'll just disregard anything anyone says, because they're all "toxic critics".

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/11/29/hes-done-rebecca-watson-takes-on-avi-loeb/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD8EiH3wpTM

reshared this

Once someone starts responding to criticism by comparing himself to Galileo, I don't think there's anywhere to go but downhill.

"Cheech & Chongs's new CBD gummies"

Yes! Where do I get them?

Seriously, after listening to Loeb's unhinged rant complete with a pointless and inapt analogy, I cannot see anyone respecting him INSIDE his discipline any more.

I noted the men in the conference call were having a hard time suppressing smiles the more unhinged he got. The women mostly looked horrified as he scolded the foremost expert in the field, a woman.

Loeb is a really sad case of a scientist gone bad.

This entry was edited (1 day ago)


Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


The Washington Post Editorial Board makes a false equivalence: Feminism is like Andrew Tate. You just have to compromise on the views of the person you marry.

Fuck that.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/11/28/whatever-happened-to-compatibility-and-love/

Andrew Tate in a garbage can
why would the lefty-liberal washington post be normalizing a guy like tate?
well, also it seems telling that this worrying "opinion" gender gap only shows up in WHITE Gen Zers, and yet it never occurs to them that white Gen Z women could just...not date white Gen Z asshole men? I mean, it's a possibility? Talk about an editorial board bathing in white supremacist patriarchy, sheesh.

Trump wants to militarize and deploy the so-called administrative state against Americans, not dismantle it.

Republican ideologues who rant about destroying the administrative state want its power transferred to private institutions and corporations who are not accountable to the democratic process.

"A measure of a functional society is that bureaucracy should be boring!...

The fact that the constitution requires public employees to take an oath to the constitution itself, rather than to the President, should be an obscure piece of Founding Fathers trivia rather than a consideration in thinking about how the next President will rule."
~@donmoyn
https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/what-i-wrote-in-the-new-york-times

#Trump #MAGA #GOP #Republican #Corruption #Authoritarianism #Fascism #Politics #USPol #USA

Text from article:
Trump’s planned assault on the administrative feels like a topic that is simultaneously a) enormously important, and b) not well understood. I know a lot of smart people who are very concerned about Trump, but are unaware of the risks to the administrative state, or unfamiliar with Schedule F.

Which is perfectly understandable! A measure of a functional society is that bureaucracy should be boring! It should not be a task of citizens to understand how Schedule F political appointees are different from Schedule A, B, C, D, or E. The fact that the constitution requires public employees to take an oath to the constitution itself, rather than to the President, should be an obscure piece of Founding Fathers trivia rather than a consideration in thinking about how the next President will rule. You should not have to understand the role of General Counsels, or how our democracy hinges on the willingness of the Supreme Court to go along with novel legal theories like the unitary executive.

But all this stuff matters now. It really does.


Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


“OpenAI’s Custom Chatbots Are Leaking Their Secrets | WIRED UK”

So, as you might guess, I think generative models are both less functional than claimed and harmful where they are functional.

But I also specifically distrust OpenAI and Microsoft as companies. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/openai-custom-chatbots-gpts-prompt-injection-attacks

reshared this

I’d be hard-pressed to think of two companies whose security practices I trust less than Microsoft and OpenAI, or organisations whose design sensibilities look more opposed to mine.
obviously, you've never worked for a Berlin startup.
NEVER. Create an agent online then feed it your internal data.

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


Nobody should use Instagram. Or Facebook. This turns my stomach.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/meta-instagram-video-algorithm-children-adult-sexual-content-72874155

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.

@negative12dollarbill The Wall Street Journal found that Instagram's algorithm, especially in its Reels feature, recommended sexually suggestive content to adults following young influencers. This included both adult and child-related posts alongside major brands' ads. Meta, Instagram's parent company, emphasized its safety tools, but concerns remain about inappropriate content juxtaposed with reputable ads. Companies like Disney and Match Group expressed dissatisfaction and took action.

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


There used to be a myth that toxicity in social media was due to recommendation algorithms optimizing for ad views. This was obviously mistaken to anyone who actually worked on these products but now we have multiple proof points.

It turns out asking users to pay instead of showing them big brand ads actually did nothing to stop apps like Substack and Twitter/X from being home to white supremacy and antisemitism. In fact, it encouraged it. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/substack-extremism-nazi-white-supremacy-newsletters/676156/



I think that may be an artifact of how Friendica reshares a Diaspora post to non-Diaspora networks.


Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


My visit to the Ctrl+Alt Museum retrocomputing museum in Pavia, Italy, blew my mind. Why? The hundreds of photos I took speak for themselves, go see them now.

Opened a year and a half ago, the museum is a new and little known geeky gem packed with all sorts of vintage computing hardware and stuff. It's run by a non profit group of passionate collectors, enthusiasts, and makers who also do outreach and education activities.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/A6HF2Tv1Q4asX4Ks5

#retrocomputing #retrogaming #museum

reshared this

They indeed have lots of Italian machines. Including the (blatant) Apple II+ clone appropriately named Lemon II.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
Yes, that's one I hadn't heard of before; I knew of the Pear II and there's mention of a Banana as well on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_clones 🙂

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


"Not the absence of regulation, but its pervasiveness, made the mid-20th-century U.S. telephone network the envy of the world," writes Richard John for the Atlantic.

We need similar industry-aiding oversight of 21st century communications. Restoring the FCC's Title II authority over broadband access services is a start.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/tech-regulation-bell-system/676110/

This entry was edited (3 days ago)

reshared this


Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


The New York Public Library Presents an Archive of 860,000 Historical Images: Download Medieval Manuscripts, Japanese Prints, William Blake Illustrations https://www.openculture.com/2023/11/the-new-york-public-library-presents-an-archive-of-860000-historical-images.html

reshared this

well there goes anything I’d hoped to accomplish today.

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


Building a NetBSD ramdisk kernel

When I used OpenBSD, I was a big fan of bsd.rd: a kernel that includes a root file system with an installer and a few tools. When I invariably did something bad to my root file system, I could use that to repair things. bsd.rd is also helpful for OS updates. And there is only a single file involved.

On NetBSD however, there is usually no netbsd.rd kernel installed, or

https://www.osnews.com/story/137929/building-a-netbsd-ramdisk-kernel/

#NetBSD

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


... then you are part of a minority clinging to an absurd date format.

@cstross


Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


Truly, the only remaining benefit of ex-Twitter, is watching Elon Musk get up every morning and step on a rake that hits him directly in the face.

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/11/27/elons-censorial-lawsuit-against-media-matters-inspiring-many-more-people-to-find-extwitter-ads-on-awful-content/

@pch I almost want to create a new Twitter account to participate in the fun.

Almost.

Luckily I can just envision the rake doing the damage thus never having to wade into the sewer. #FuckElonMusk
This entry was edited (2 days ago)

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


Instead I’m looking at old planes and spacecraft
This entry was edited (3 days ago)

Augier (fr & en) ☭🏴 reshared this.

I enjoyed the exhibition a lot. There is another one at the Smithsonian at the National Mall but I guess you know that…
I love that museum. I could just stare at some of those planes, like the Blackbird, for a long long time.
@Hank G ☑️ @Scott Andrews There’s one in Duxford. Always amazes me how “Fred in a Shed” it looks up close and personal.
@hankg the X-Men must be very small to fit inside

Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


reshared this

Hey! It worked for Jane Austen.
Plus, they haven't used all the 90's TV personalities yet!!
@MaryAliciaZiff Let's see....it's Christmas, boy meets girl........
I see this story is from a year ago, so I presume "close" is measured in decades? 😄


Jeff the Alien reshared this.


I only just now saw and read XKCD’s disclaimer on best browser, platforms, and resolution etc. I should have expected no less :) #humor #GeekHumor #DevHumor
xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS
at a screen resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad blockers, disable high-heat drying, and remove your device
from Airplane Mode and set it to Boat Mode. For security reasons, please leave caps lock on while browsing.
Have you read any of Randall Munroe's (XKCD creator) books? I recommend Thing Explainer. An entire book of random things being explained the XKCD way.
No I haven’t. I’ll look into that :)
All those year following xkcd, and I never noticed that. Thank's for the hint.


Hank G ☑️ reshared this.


Now Avi Loeb suggests that UAPs are 250 million year old ships built by a Permian civilization. He's wacko.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/11/27/avi-loeb-has-an-opinion/

reshared this

It is so grating that he has any credibility with anyone but the media and the usual suspects keep him in the news stream. SMH

“And if I had a slice of ham I could have a ham sandwich if I also had some bread.”

This may replace my now go to favorite “if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle” retort to ludicrously speculative what ifs.