FeedLand likes for mahu

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 22:04:35 GMT

Is this anything at all?

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 03:59:22 GMT

I'm in love with this small #macOS #app that lets you set rules around which URLs open in which browsers. It's so nice for keeping work-related links away from my default browser. https://github.com/johnste/finicky

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 03:20:51 GMT

On #macos I couldn't find a #Mastadon client I liked. So I used Chromes nifty 'make an app' feature and made the website my app. Works great! And by 'make an app' feature on macos, I mean 'More Tools -> Create a shortcut... -> check 'Open as window' and click create.

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 05:50:59 GMT

Mastodon's Founder Has a Vision to Democratize Social Media.

Vintage-Style Map of the Mandelbrot Set

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 05:49:16 GMT

Bill Tavis designed this lovely vintage-style map of the familiar fractal shape, the Mandelbrot set. He is selling a poster version of the map, starting at the very reasonable price of $24. I don’t usually highlight the price on this sort of thing, but an unauthorized seller on Amazon was selling poor-quality counterfeits of the map and even though it wasn’t his fault, Tavis offered to replace any of the crappy maps for free. Great map, and apparently a great human who made it.

I found Tavis’s map when I was searching for the creator of this similarish map that I found on Twitter (bigger here).

Anyone know who made this version? Jonny Laser made the map in the second image for VSauce (scroll down a bit). (thx, kirsten)

Tags: Bill Tavis design fractals mathematics

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 05:43:01 GMT

The redoubtable Ben Collins -- one of the best in the business - just came aboard Mastodon. You should follow him immediately. @oneunderscore__

(I'll put together a list of tech reporters and post it soon.)

Ancient grammatical puzzle solved after 2,500 years

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 05:41:58 GMT

Comments

Elmo and the Urge to Purge [UPDATE-3]

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 05:35:15 GMT

[NB: check the byline, thanks. Updates at the bottom of post. /~Rayne]

Elmo has had a bug up his ass for at least a couple days.

It seems Twitter added a warning note to all tweets which included the word “mastodon”; it made for some laughs from the archaeo-bioscience sector when it resulted in a warning attached to a tweet about ancient mastodon DNA.

It’s not the first time Twitter has been hinky about “mastodon”; Twitter users had difficulty last month during a wave of users leaving Twitter for the open social media platform Mastodon.

Then Elmo lashed out yesterday punitively removing @elonjet from Twitter, the account which tracked his personal jet.

Never mind the flight data is public record and @elonjet merely reposted that data.

Elmo also removed all accounts associated with Jack Sweeney, the teen who launched @elonjet. There was no advance notice.

There was some back and forth with reinstatement but some whining on Elmo’s part blaming Sweeney and @elonjet for some possible road rage event. No proof was offered showing a link between anything tweeted by Sweeney or his accounts and whatever transpired on the road.

Elmo did manage to dox the person he claimed threatened him in a car, violating his own Terms of Service.

But that was yesterday.

This evening Elmo purged a bunch of journalists. At least one was banned permanently with the rest receiving a suspension of their accounts.

Aaron Rupar, Substack (@atrupar) – permanent suspension

Donie O’Sullivan, CNN (@donie) – suspended

Micah Lee, The Intercept (@micahflee) – suspended [on the list]

Drew Harwell, WaPo (@drewharwell) – suspended [on the list]

Ryan Mac, NYTimes (@rmac18@twitter.com) – suspended [on the list]

Matt Binder, Mashable (@mattbinder) – suspended [on the list]

Tony Webster, independent (@webster@twitter.com) – suspended

Keith Olbermann, retired (@KeithOlbermann) – suspended

Here’s what’s particularly interesting about half of these eight known accounts: they were on a list circulated via Telegram on/around November 25 labeled “Antifa accounts and antifa follower accounts.” The intent appeared to have been brigading and purging 5000 accounts on that list from Twitter; the same list was purportedly supplied by an entity called “Right Side News” and shared with Elmo.

The list is out there somewhere; it had been shared at Pastebin. It’s not going to be shared here because the site doesn’t need the hassle.

No matter the reason Elmo’s panties were in a bunch, there’s no such formal organization called antifa. As noted several times here at this site, antifa is an ideology — anti-fascism — and yes, journalists who benefit from the First Amendment and its free speech press protections might well identify with antifascist ideology.

But every journalist has a different take on what constitutes fascism which makes it gross overreach to claim any and all journalists are members of an imaginary group called antifa let alone claim their ideological bent is antifascist. You can certainly think of a few folks who claim to be journalists whose work appears very fascist or in the service of fascists.

One might also assume that a business targeting those earmarked as antifa or sharing antifascist ideology is itself fascist.

Ken White (@Popehat) shared on Mastodon:

Remember: Twitter is Elon’s company, he has the free speech and free association right to run it pretty much however he wants and to ban people for petty narcissistic reasons.

And we have the right to laugh and point at his ridiculousness and at the free-speech pretenses of his gullible fans.

Yup. I have the right to call Elmo a hypocritical spoiled asshat.

And the third largest shareholder at Tesla has the right to say some blunt things about Elmo’s performance:

Investors and executives at Tesla have raised concerns regarding Musk’s shifted focus to Twitter. On Wednesday, Tesla’s third-largest shareholder, investor Leo KoGuan, tweeted that Musk had “abandoned Tesla” and that the company “has no working CEO.” Other prominent investors have echoed the concerns. Future Fund Managing Partner Gary Black tweeted that the market was indicating that “the $TSLA brand has been negatively impacted by the Twitter drama. Where before EV buyers were proud to drive their Teslas to their friends or show off Teslas in their driveways, now the Twitter controversy is hurting Tesla’s brand equity.”

That excerpt was from RollingStone magazine; it included this tweet by Matt Binder:

Huh. I wonder if this tweet in particular is what caused Matt’s suspension?

The RollingStone article was written by Nikki McCann Ramirez. I wonder if she had a Twitter account and if it was suspended or not, and if so was she also on the so-called “antifa list”?

Place your bets now on which journalist(s) will feel the emerald mine heir’s bitchy boot.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-1 — 10:10 P.M. ET —

Well that didn’t take very long. Steve Herman of the Voice of America was given the boot after he tweeted about the @elonjet account. Herman is a straight news guy, can’t imagine a journalist less likely to provoke anyone.

At least this heave-ho revealed Elmo’s Achilles heel.

Oh, and if you’re at Mastodon, follow Steve Herman at https://mstdn.social/@w7voa@journa.host

UPDATE-2 — 11:30 P.M. ET —

HELLO JOURNALISTS EXITING TWITTER — please do NOT attempt to join the largest Mastodon servers/instances if you are looking to create an account for the first time.

The sites are extremely busy now and performance is degraded for everyone. It will make you feel even more frustrated than you may already be, having seen fellow journalists booted off Twitter this evening.

Check this list of servers/instances for one that fits your needs. It doesn’t have to be permanent — you can switch to a different server in the future if you find one you prefer.

These three servers are more lightly loaded and dedicated to serving journalists:

https://journa.host
https://newsie.social
https://federated.press

Check each server’s About page.

Look for their moderation policy which may vary by server — what content is permitted/not permitted, how moderation works, so on.

Some servers require approval of applications, some are instant.

Note whether the server has defederated from/blocked other large or critical servers.

The three listed here for journalists are not likely to be an issue with regard to moderation, application speed, federation, but it doesn’t hurt to check up front.

Once you’ve wrapped your head around which server you want to call home for now, read this introduction-and-how-to by Electronic Frontier Foundation:

How to Make a Mastodon Account and Join the Fediverse

It’s straightforward, plenty of graphics, and will surely get your back with regard to security.

Next, find yourself a Mastodon mobile app you prefer. I don’t have a recommendation for Apple iOS but I am happy with Tusky on Android. It has a Twitter-ish feel which makes adoption easier.

I use the Mastodon native app in the browser on my desktop, don’t have any other recommendations yet for you. It’ll get you started.

Once you’ve launched an account, you need to begin changing your thinking and your work habits because Mastodon is not like Twitter.

— Set up a profile carefully, then an introductory post to pin to your page. Add 5-7 hashtags to the introduction about subjects of importance to you.

— There are no algorithms, nothing comes to you that you don’t first seek and pull.

— There is no search inside the applications which operates across the federated Mastodon universe (the Fediverse); this is intended to prevent harassment by trolls brigading. You can use Google, however, if you plot out your search terms carefully.

— Hashtags are searchable across the Fediverse, however. Use them often. However don’t sprinkle them inside text as they interfere with e-readers; append hashtags to bottom of your posts.

— They’re not tweets but posts; they used to be called “toots” but that recently changed because it annoyed too many people and it was based on a joke anyhow.

— Follow many people; boost (comparable to retweeting) anything of interest; likes are compliments to the poster.

— Quote tweets were seen as causing negative engagement by Mastodon’s progenitor and are therefore difficult to do.

This should be enough to get you started in Mastodon; it’s more than I had and I am doing pretty well. Bring friends!

UPDATE-3 — 11:00 A.M. 16-DEC-2022 —

For folks still looking to open a Mastodon account here’s a site which helps identify servers with best fit by a handful of criteria:

https://instances.social/list

I would have shared this last night but it was crashing. LOL

Do note that Mastodon servers offer many more criteria by which to sort for a new home. Some of this may be a reflection of local laws where the instance operates — pornography-free servers, for instance — or it may be a reflection of the values of the persons using that server.

Mastodon leans hard into anti-abuse and anti-discrimination policies though some servers are less firm about them. Those that stray too far and allow too much offensive material and even more offensive users may find their server defederated after other muting and blocking methods have been exhausted. In this respect Mastodon has better and moderation than Twitter since users are the frontline of moderation, blocking and reporting content and abusers.

The post Elmo and the Urge to Purge [UPDATE-3] appeared first on emptywheel.

How Jamiroquai Shot Their Iconic Virtual Insanity Video

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 03:23:47 GMT

Some 26 years after the release of the group’s groundbreaking music video for Virtual Insanity, Jamiroquai’s Jay Kay explains how the band and director Jonathan Glazer achieved such a convincing moving floor effect. The trick to getting the video made on a budget was to channel Einstein a bit in remembering that motion is relative to your frame of reference.

See also the hilarious musicless version created by Mario Wienerroither. Squeeeeeeeak. (via a whole lotta nothing)

Tags: Jamiroquai Jonathan Glazer music video

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 17:09:23 GMT

2017: The question podcasting asks.

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 17:08:47 GMT

This is a must-read piece. "Podcasts are just out there, like air. You don’t go to one place to get them; you get them from everywhere and anywhere."

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 17:06:55 GMT

Just subscribed to a possibly-short-lived feed from mastadon, and it works great:

https://mastodon.social/tags/hiddengemsformac.rss

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 02:24:24 GMT

I made the User Feeds page my home page for now.

But I can also think of new pages I can create just to be my home page.

No specific ideas yet. 🦊

Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi Set Off Debate Over Release of Twitter Files

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:51:32 GMT

A release of internal documents from Twitter set off intense debates in the intersecting worlds of media, politics and tech.

Peekaboo: Once-hidden galaxy revealed to be window into cosmic history

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:51:16 GMT

For one so young, it's oddly not into heavy metal

A nearby galaxy – dubbed Peekaboo because it has long been hidden behind a star – has finally come into view enough for NASA to discover that it's more than just a tease. It offers a glance into the early universe, despite being one of the youngest galaxies ever detected.…

The gift of Ye

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:49:54 GMT

One of the easily understood and fun activities in a sociology class is the “breaching experiment.” The purpose of the breaching experiment, introduced by late sociologist Harold Garfinkel, is to illustrate the taken-for-granted informal rules that we live by in our daily lives.

Imagine this:

You go into a store that gives free samples. There is no sign anywhere saying that samples are one per customer. Indeed, you see customers take a sample and come back a few minutes later to grab another. So you decide to stand there and eat all the samples. You may even talk with the server as you wait patiently for them to replace the ones you’ve just eaten.

What would happen in that scenario?

He’s an internationally known, independently wealthy megastar who is now spewing antisemitic rhetoric in public spaces. Whether public utterances are because he’s going through mental health issues is up for debate. Of interest here is his breaches and what his behavior means for others.

You’d get the side-eye by customers – even the same customers you just saw come back for seconds! You’d might be asked to stop eating samples, to which you could mention there’s no sign saying one per person. At some point, a manager would be called. You’d be asked to leave the store.

Why all the fuss? Who gives a damn about some free samples that are probably just overstocked items the store wants to move anyway.

Because you breached an unwritten rule governing how we interact. It feels wrong to the people who witness it. The task is to figure out what’s been breached, usually by getting people to explain why the breach feels wrong.

Kanye West, hereafter “Ye,” is a walking breaching experiment.

Ye has given us a gift. the Right frequently attacks progressives for their willingness to label many phrases and symbols as hate speech. Here is Ye doing something that, for people on the left and right, feels wrong.

If it hurts me and mine
The rapper tweeted recently a photo of a swastika inside the Star of David. The tweet was deleted, and Elon Musk – the new owner of Twitter – suspended Ye’s account. The suspension was not by way of a formal process of report and review but done ad-hoc. Musk simply chose to suspend the account. Musk said Ye “violated our rule against incitement to violence.”

So much about this did not make sense to me, initially.

For one thing, hate speech has gone up since Musk’s takeover. What makes this tweet worthy of Musk’s ordering Ye’s account suspended? What line did this tweet cross that other forms of hate speech do not? Are other images of a swastika inside the Star of David deleted from Twitter? I’d say no, as there are many copies of Ye’s tweet still on the platform.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE

More puzzling is a comment Musk made on Twitter Spaces about his decision: “I personally wanted to punch Kanye, so that was definitely inciting me to violence. That’s not cool.” Um, wait a minute!

I thought the whole “incitement to violence” justification was because the antisemitic violence was aimed at Jewish people – not Elon Musk.

It gets more confusing when we consider Musk’s handling of an equally polarizing figure, though much less famous, James Lindsay.

Lindsay popularized the phrase “OK groomer.” Before Musk’s takeover, Twitter deemed it hate speech. It links being queer to pedophilia. Lindsay’s continued use led to him being permanently banned. Musk reinstated Lindsay’s account, and Lindsay promptly continued using the phrase.

This is free speech now, I guess.

The only answer I can come to is that Musk sees hate speech not through the lens of a vulnerable group possibly being attacked because of the speech. Instead, he sees hate speech through a lens of personal grievance.

If the speech hurts him or someone he cares about, it’s hate speech. If the speech is directed elsewhere, no matter how vulnerable, it’s free speech.

Will I lose votes?
Recently Donald Trump invited Ye, along with nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes to his Mar-a-Lago estate for a pre-Thanksgiving meal.

The meeting was ripped by Republican darling and likely next Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The meeting was “not merely unacceptable, it’s just wrong,” said Netanyahu recently on “Meet the Press.”.

Some members of the GOP spoke out. “There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy,” said Mitch McConnell. “Anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, is highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States.”

Few would disagree, but my next thought was not be how dining with someone spewing hate speech impacts a person’s career advancement. That would be farther down the line after thinking about what the dinner means for the group that the speech effects. You know, actual Jews.

CLICK HERE TO LEAVE A TIP!

For Republican lawmakers, hate speech is more about what a condemnation means politically than what it means for a vulnerable group. The “credit” of disavowing hate speech must be balanced alongside the “debit” of cozying up to the GOP’s most popular VIP or not alienating similarly minded voters.

PBS asked 57 GOP lawmakers if they condemn the dinner. The response was far from universal, with a surprising number either not responding or performing some type of political calculation. Consider this grammatically incorrect but illustrative response from Senator John Thune: “Well, that’s just a bad idea on every level. I don’t know who is — who’s advising him on his staff, but I hope that whoever that person was got fired.”

The right’s understanding
The gift of Ye, if we can call it that, is showing us ways in which the right understands hate speech and the calculation that goes into condemning it.

Ye put antisemitism out in the open, forcing people to put their down dog whistles and to stop with the obfuscatory deliberations on what free speech means for democracy. They had to make a choice in context.

Ye as breach experiment shows the right seeing hate speech through an individual, egocentric lens. That’s a subversion of what hate speech should be about: recognizing the link between words and violence and the need to protect vulnerable minorities by placing boundaries on that speech.

That is not how the right sees it.

For many people on the right, the decision of condemning hate speech begins and ends with their own personal interests.

The post The gift of Ye appeared first on The Editorial Board..

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 06:24:53 GMT

Learning Rust with ChatGPT, Copilot and Advent of Code.

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 07:26:09 GMT

Eureka!

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 07:15:21 GMT

Now to figure out the easiest way to get these posts into my Drummer blog.

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 07:14:14 GMT

RSS in the Fediverse, part 2. ☘️ https://mastodon.social/@davew/109461323210289105

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 07:14:11 GMT

Howard Rheingold a pioneer of online communicaties is on FeedLand.

http://feedland.org/?username=hrheingold

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 07:08:50 GMT

RSS in the Fediverse, part 2. ☘️ https://mastodon.social/@davew/109461323210289105

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 07:04:34 GMT

Howard Rheingold a pioneer of online communicaties is on FeedLand.

http://feedland.org/?username=hrheingold

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 07:04:28 GMT

Colin likes a new FeedLand feature. 😁 https://colinwalker.blog/blog/?date=2022-12-05#p1

Blockchains, What Are They Good For?

Sat, 03 Dec 2022 19:09:48 GMT

Growing evidence says: absolutely nothing.