New frustration: people on FB Marketplace posting pictures of appliances that aren't actually the same as the appliances they're selling. Listing had photos of a range with a double oven and two center burners. Actual model they're selling is an oven with a baking drawer and a single center burner. At least this time I got the model number over the phone instead of spending an hour in the car first.
I think the AI ethics work I do is often mixed in with the RAI folks but it’s becoming clear that I feel like I’m a virologist studying ways to prevent viruses from jumping into humans, not making it easier for viruses to replicate and jump ‘responsibly’
I feel like I'm willing to compare this to "corporate DEI", where genuine, honest actors are hamstrung by the system, which then optimizes for grifters who know how to sell the appearance of DEI while ensuring it remains toothless. This is definitely how "responsible AI" stuff seemed to work when I was at MSFT.
Hungary has definitely fallen into fascism. Poland seems to have crawled at least partway out from under it, at least for a little breather. Now I'm worried about Slovakia. Thing is though, throughout Europe (and much of the rest of the world) there's always an explicitly anti-immigration (and all around social conservative/authoritarian) party with locked-in double digit support levels, and efforts by non-fascist parties to build non-fascist coalitions are squeaker victories at best, in France, Britain, Sweden, Canada, seemingly everywhere. I am not optimistic about the future. Trumpism will not die with Trump. Pushing it back to the margins of the marketplace of ideas will be a long and probably dangerous slog.
I'd actually be open to the idea of AI if the technology were open source. Computers curing leukemia is an example of a chicken that hasn't hatched and perhaps should not be counted yet. Some things that they almost certainly WILL be used for include surveillance pricing, disinformation campaigns, further optimization of addictive algorithms, etc.
More Perfect Union and Consumer Reports are trying to reverse engineer the business model of #surveillancePricing. This is exactly the type of research I've been advocating as long as I've been promoting the #pubwan hashtag. This is a HIGHLY adversarial type of #data collection, and clearly getting anywhere with such a project is going to require a level of resources inconsistent with independence from deep pockets.
Meta offers EU users ad-light option in push to end investigation Facebook agrees to change "pay or consent" model after talks with European Commission. arstechnica.com/information-te…
Tiresome, lazy, and mean. If they're not blaming Immigrants it will be the Disabled and if not them then Trans People. Never the Rich. Never a sour word to the Oligarchs but us voters are "scum" That's the Labour Party in 2025
Open Food Facts is a non-profit project developed by thousands of volunteers from around the world. You can start contributing by adding a product from your kitchen with our app for iPhone or Android, and we have lots of exciting projects you can contribute to in many different ways. world.openfoodfacts.org/
Gov. Tim Walz said about Trump’s racist attack on Somali-Americans: “It is unprecedented. We have kids going to school today, and the president called them ‘garbage.’ Condemn this attack or you are complicit in it. The only thing hurting this state is Trump himself. Our kids are watching."
I condemn Trump’s racist attack on Somali-Americans. Boost this if you condemn it too. #racism #politics copy: @renewedresistance
At a fundamental level, the U.S. Constitution needs to be replaced or dramatically altered. Otherwise, even if the Democrats take back power in 2026 and 2028, we'll be back where we are now the next time the Republicans take back power. Without a constitutional respin, U.S. democracy is effectively dead. Altering the Constitution in the right way, rather than enabling the fascists to make all the _wrong_ changes, will be very difficult, but I don't see any alternative. #politics #USPol (1/2)
For example, Trump has completely corrupted the pardon power, enabling virtually boundless corruption. One way to fix that is to require pardons to be recommended by a bipartisan congressional committee, requiring a 2/3 committee majority to put a pardon on the president's desk, and leaving to the president only the power to decide whether to accept or reject the recommendation. It would be impossible to institute such a system without a constitutional amendment. (2/2)
P.S. If you're reading this thread and saying to yourself that I'm exaggerating or speaking hyperbolically or things really aren't that bad, your part of the problem. The situation we're in is what it is, it's not what you want it to be so you can keep sticking your head in the sand and pretending everything isn't collapsing. If more people realized that we'd probably be in a better place.
what else would your constitutional congress implement? My thinking: - abolish citizens united - term limits for all positions, including judges - ERA - abolish the senate, or in the absence of that, institute a system such that no senator can represent more than x-times any other - clarify that 14th amendment applies only to individuals - abolish the electoral college
@minmi Term-limiting judges has all sorts of knock-on effects, I think there are probably better solutions than that. Definitely need to do something to reform campaign finance in the wake of Citizens United. Definitely need to do something to fix disproportionate congressional representation. Definitely need to abolish the electoral college.
I agree that the document needs to be improved but on the other hand there's no point in doing that until the institutions that are supposed to be enforcing its contents are actually functioning. Nothing written in the constitution matters while the supreme court can play calvinball with it. Hand in hand with congress just shirking their duties to keep the branches of government in balance.
@smn If we wait for the institutions to be fixed before trying to fix the Constitution we will be waiting forever. The point is that we need to fix the Constitution to change the balance of power exactly because in it's current form it enables the institutions to fail to do their duty. As I said, it will be difficult. Perhaps impossible without the Union burning to the ground and then something new rising from the ashes.
Controversial opinion: Recycling is very real and works pretty well.
Sometimes it's abused for greenwashing purposes but let's keep some perspective: the problem is the greenwashing, not the recycling.
The fact that we could be recycling a lot more stuff and are choosing not to is actually way more damning, to me, than "omg recycling is just greenwashing"
People who want unregulated capitalism are idiots. The same patterns keep happening over and over again throughout history because it doesn't fucking work. Without intervention, all markets converge toward monopolies and scams. There are a chosen few who get rich and powerful by systematically degrading products and services until eventually everything is useless shit.
I've only been alive 35 years and I've seen this cycle/pattern play out multiple times. It's so fucking obvious.
The only reason competition helps is because the player doing the scams keeps changing places.
It's the same pattern over and over again:
- The dominant player becomes more concerned with profit than quality. - An underdog takes advantage of that by making quality their brand, gains market share, and eventually becomes dominant. - Once they are dominant, they leverage their market share to milk profits.
And the reason everything is so fucking expensive and also shit is because this pattern has become fractal. It's scams, rackets, and monopolies all the way down. Scams nested within scams. No one can do anything without it directly or indirectly involving multiple layers of rent-seeking parasites that each need their cut, regardless of whether they add any value.
Spotify flaunts how it tracks what each used listens to, and invites users to boast about how much Spotify knows about them. This devious scheme operates at an emotional level which most of the users don't recognize as manipulation.
If you can't yet stop Spotify from using you, at least stop yourself from promoting it.
For when the author eventually abandons it, because it was a fun weekend project he put on Github under MIT for the occasion that someone might find it helpful.
I kind of doubt so but well I tend to take quite a lot of software as temporarily not abandonware (like anything from Google and most things npm, which Rust is extremely close to).
>I kind of doubt so but I use some of the coreutils replacements (separate projects) for ls->eza, cat->bat and I think both had at least one fork happen after the original author stopped being interested in maintaining it. And I don't blame them, the projects blew up when Reddit people noticed.
>well I tend to take quite a lot of software as temporarily not abandonware (like anything from Google and most things npm, which Rust is extremely close to). I wouldn't call it abandoware, because the important ones people use usually stay, but the older versions usually become uncompilable after a year or two for both JS and Rust. There are very similar in that regard.
I don't call it temporarily not abandonware for no reason, a lot of corporate software gets dropped, sometimes in a silent fashion or otherwise a brutal one (whole repo gets yanked off), the moment someone leaves the company. And other times it's like student projects, and it gets dropped when origina dev joins a corporation.
And there's a *lot* of that stuff out there, and sadly also a lot of software these days isn't made to be maintainable, so if original dev quits, it's dead.
The Together Alliance is a new national movement of over 50 organisations - including trade unions, the Muslim Council of Britain, refugee groups, anti-war and pro-Palestinian groups, Women Against the Far Right, and many other NGOs - that formed a united front after the "Tommy Robinson" march in September, the largest far right demo in British history. It made many want to do something to fight back.
So that's what we'll be doing. We cannot ever allow our country fall to the fascists. ✊🏼
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. -- Mikhail Bakunin
'Post pending. We’re waiting on the person who wrote the original toot to give their consent.’
This shouldn’t feel so revolutionary, but it does. Slow social media. Considerate social media. Social media conversations by consent. A new feature that actually makes something better. The opposite of enshittification. Kudos to the Mastodon developers.
Ever curious which retracted papers have been most cited by other scientists? Below, we present the list of the 10 most highly cited retractions as of November 12, 2025. Readers will see some famil…
I don't necessarily even blame the folks doing it, because so many are hurting... It's hard to exercise meaningful empathy when you're scared just for yourself.
But yeah, we'll never prefigure a real mutual aid economy if all it means is "I need help from you."
> Reply to a post, set the visibility to "Private Mention", remove everyone's username from the post. Post it. Then you can click "mute conversation" on THAT post, and it silently mutes you from the conversation
That's a really smart hack. It never would have occurred to me. I'd never even noticed that you can only Mute Conversation in your own posts!
(To be fair, that might not be the case in the third-party apps I use; Moshidon, FediLab and Enafore.social)
@julian This could theoretically be solved by simply adding the conversation id to each Status object in the timeline (and likely also any other post-like object that your client is receiving), but someone familiar with the entire protocol would need to look at this change, since it might bring compatibility issues. 🤷
@julian While in general, I agree, you could implement some sort of heuristics, there is one huge difference - a NodeBB server is centralized and sees everything. With Mastodon, half of the posts in a conversation might not be visible to you, either because of being outright blocked, or the post simply not hitting your instance because of where the participants post from.
Any heuristic based on unrelated metadata would be inaccurate at best, but more often than not outright misleading.
@julian After a brief dive into the mastodon API documentation, it seems to be a protocol limitation indeed. You (or rather your client program) do not get to see the conversation ID until you join that conversation, so until then, you do not have the correct piece of information to request muting of that conversation.
jesstheunstill@infosec.exchange the inability to mute someone else's conversation seems to arbitrary. Maybe there's a technical reason behind it but there needn't be...
@julian Indeed. I started my earlier dive with AP docs, only to realize that they're too generic for what I'm looking for, and that I'm better off digging through Mastodon docs specifically to find details about timelines and conversations. :)
Apparently. I hadn't commented on your thread yet. I am curious if the mute holds over, but my first guess would be it's a client setting. I'd assume (possibly incorrectly) that the web interface is client based? I have never though to check.
I was trying to find the answer in the Mastodon user docs regarding where mutes tend to happen. I believe filters are client based, but can't tell with mutes.
I think she means muting as in "hiding a discussion that two people you are following are having for a long time and you don't care too read any of it". This wouldn't show up in your notifications, because you were never mentioned. You're not part of the conversation. It would only show up on the main timeline; which is where you want to hide it from by muting it.
I still don't understand. I am sorry. If you are annoyed by someone : you block. But if you mute, you can create more anger. A person who is muted doesn't know it.
Thank you very much. In that case, this new option is very interesting. I have one year of experience on Mastodon. I reached more than 800 followers with my old account. But I am here as an activist for Gaza. Thus, i am posting horrible things all day. I try to alternate with pictures of donkeys, birds, and flowers. But I give mostly extreme bad news. I realised very lately that more than 80% of my old followers have muted me. On top of this, I am naïve and I answer all the messages I receive. I had a breakdown when I realised my old followers muted me. I created this new account. I prefer not be followed than to be muted. I feel much better
For the last 2 problems (memes I hate, or political posts boosted too often) I just use the filter function "individual posts". Nonetheless I appreciate this tip very much and will use it for some cases in the future. 🙂
> you can mute from any post, but only in conversations you've posted in
Ah, OK, you're talking about making conversations vanish from the Home feed, rather than just your @mentions. I'm guessing our usage habits are very different. My Home feed is such a firehose I don't even notice ongoing conversations in there ; )
Pitch A mute Button for all Conversations / Threads Motivation There are conversations / threads about topics that do not interest anyone and fill your timeline. It would be great to be able to mut...
Ah yes great, make Society more differentiate than ever before. Don't listen to each other, just ignore the other humans. totally going to be alright in WW3. This is basically a how to make my bubble like if would ever be on Shitter. Comfort only for every bubble. My god when did it got to this level of ignorance to others? I know your totally going to block me for this: are your really this weak that you cant stand any confrontation? Abuse is shit and needs to be banned. but not everyone needs to cater your feelings. or there will be no more societal growth ever.
This is unhinged. While Americans struggle to afford groceries, Trump is workshopping cult names like "Trumplicans" and teasing a constitutionally forbidden third term. It's a blatant distraction from his policy failures and a dangerous flirtation with authoritarianism. 1/2
Yep and all of it is a distraction from the fact that the US has 771,000 homeless people but not one person will stand up against terrorism against homeless people
Die Stadt #Gießen hat sich mit einer versammlungsfeindlichen Demoverbotszone im Westen der Stadt durchgesetzt, wo am Samstag die neue AfD-Jugend gegründet werden soll. Durch die Entscheidung wird Protest in Hör- und Sichtweite der Rechtsradikalen deutlich erschwert.
Die Stadt Gießen hat sich mit einer versammlungsfeindlichen Demoverbotszone im gesamten Westteil der Stadt durchgesetzt, wo am Samstag der neue Jugendverband der AfD gegründet werden soll.
Update / Demoverbotszone #Gießen: Der linke Bundestagsabgeordnete Luke Hoß hat nun einen Eilantrag in Karlsruhe beim Bundesverfassungsgericht eingereicht, um doch noch eine Gegendemo in der Nähe der AfD-Veranstaltung zu ermöglichen:
Die Stadt Gießen hat sich mit einer versammlungsfeindlichen Demoverbotszone im gesamten Westteil der Stadt durchgesetzt, wo am Samstag der neue Jugendverband der AfD gegründet werden soll.
AUPE Media Release: Dual health-care system will cripple staffing levels in Alberta
Premier’s obsession with private profit will be paid in pain by Albertans
EDMONTON—Premier Smith’s plan for a dual public-private health system is doomed to fail for one simple reason: There are not enough workers, says the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE).
“There’s a shortage of health-care workers in Alberta, across Canda and around the world,” says Sandra Azocar, president of AUPE, which represents more than 60,000 health-care workers.
“Hospitals and health-care facilities are constantly running without appropriate numbers of staff. Many of them have endured temporary closures because there aren't enough workers to stay open,” she says.
The dual health-care system the provincial government proposes in the Health Statutes Amendment Act would allow physicians to practice in both private and public systems and to charge extra for private care.
“Albertans suffering while waiting for treatment will be forced to spend money they can’t afford to get the treatment they need. For those without that option, wait times will just get longer,” says Azocar.
“There is a finite number of physicians and other health-care workers. They will be pulled from the public system and into the private lane, leaving ordinary Albertans behind.”
Thanks to Smith’s ideological agenda, Albertans will face even longer wait times to get the treatment they need.
“The immense pressure already felt by front-line workers will increase as the staff shortages get worse. They’ll also be the people dealing face-to-face with angry Albertans in unnecessary pain who have waited years to get treatment,” says Azocar.
As treatments are delayed, health conditions will deteriorate. It will become more expensive to treat patients, leading to more Albertans turning up at already overcrowded Emergency Rooms.
“The premier’s obsession with corporate profit will be paid in pain by the people,” says Azocar.
She adds that the dual system is likely to face court challenges as a violation of the Canada Health Act.
“Albertans need to know if the premier will invoke the notwithstanding clause again to impose her vision of a U.S.-style system where people buy their way to the front of the line.”
I just saw an article that described "Gen Z as the first generation to grow up with the internet"
I was born in the 80's and started using email around age 5, but go off. By the time Gen Z was old enough to use the internet, it was already mostly over.
A short video to talk about the recently-discovered loss of NHS England's various Open Source policies. I'm not sure when this happened, but the last Wayback...
Another 45 FOSS projects have been selected for the #NGI0 Commons Fund. We want to thank the project teams for their contribution to a free and open internet. In a world increasingly in the grip of proprietary technologies and those who control them, we are proud to be supporting people who choose to work on the digital commons: shared digital assets that serve not the few but the many.
Come over to read what each project is working on.
Millions of people, particularly in African countries, have lost access to drug treatments, prevention and testing putting the idea of ending the Aids pandemic by 2030 out of reach
Meta allegedly buried research showing its products are harming users
https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-allegedly-buried-research-showing-its-products-are-harming-users-152236073.html
Gosh. Who'd have thought that...
"...
![What about the idea someone can get a car because of allegedly minor
conditions, such as acne? “Government data shows there are just five people
claiming enhanced mobility [of the gateway benefit, personal independence
payments] for acne,” says Laura Burnip from Scope. “The stats don’t show
co-conditions, so those people could have multiple other disabilities too.”
That means the handful of people with acne who are eligible for a Motability
car - but are not necessarily leasing one - could have, say, arthritis as well.
The British Association of Dermatologists also confirmed to me that there are
ways acne might impact mobility, including rare forms that can cause joint
pain. GB News pundits, funnily enough, aren’t medically qualified.](https://cambrian.social/photo/preview/640/1143850 "What about the idea someone can get a car because of allegedly minor
conditions, such as acne? “Government data shows there are just five people
claiming enhanced mobility [of the gateway benefit, personal independence
payments] for acne,” says Laura Burnip from Scope. “The stats don’t show
co-conditions, so those people could have multiple other disabilities too.”
That means the handful of people with acne who are eligible for a Motability
car - but are not necessarily leasing one - could have, say, arthritis as well.
The British Association of Dermatologists also confirmed to me that there are
ways acne might impact mobility, including rare forms that can cause joint
pain. GB News pundits, funnily enough, aren’t medically qualified.")
Adrianna Tan
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