Eric J. Korpela @SETIEric@qoto.org

Why didn't any of the latest inflation reporting mention that corporate profits just hit a record high?

Corporate profits reached $2.08 TRILLION in the 3rd quarter.

Corporate greed is playing a role in driving up prices — and the media will hardly talk about it.

I often agree with @dandrezner

I do now, too
---
RT @dandrezner
I’m beginning to think it’s time for a Twitter sabbatical. Staying on this site right now feels like it’s enabling this kind of behavior. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/12/musk-twitter-harass-yoel-roth/
https://twitter.com/dandrezner/status/1602482073314410500

Let Me Introduce Myself-

I'm the Organizing Director for All On The Line. I focus on fair redistricting and preventing gerrymandering.

I've been advocating on the topic of veterans' health for over a decade. I am a fundraiser/volunteer with Team Rubicon, and I'm an alumni of the Veteran Organizing Institute.

I live in North Carolina with my family. I have two children, two dogs, and a wonderful wife. We enjoy nature through hikes and kayaking.

I hope you join me on my journey with Mastodon.

I would love to rebuild our community of veterans.

If you are a veteran, drop me a hello in the replies.

Maybe a hashtag would help too.

#VetsConnect

(If I don't follow you right away, just give me a day or so)

I've long said that Twitter's character limit is way too small, and I've also long seen that Fediverse and Mastodon are fine with instances having very high limits. (My current instance has over 16 times Musk's new limit, for example. We also have Markdown for text formatting)

*That being said*, Twitter is not Fediverse, where there's a history of posts of all different sizes going around. People are used to the small character limit, and are averse to anything that would change it. Going from 280 to 4000 in one go — rather than an incremental approach or even collapsing longer texts by default *à la* Octodon Social --- is going to be a culture shock to existing users.

Plus, I'm pretty sure Musk isn't going to implement Markdown anytime soon. I'm not even sure he knows what Markdown is! Why waste $8/month for 4000 characters on a desperate billionaire's dying platform when you can sign up to Qoto (or if you don't like that for some reason, a Pleroma, Misskey, or Akkoma instance) and get more characters *and* versatile text formatting for free?

https://mashable.com/article/twitter-character-limit-4000-elon-musk

When I wrote one of my first scientific papers, #fusion was decades away.
(Gleick, P.H. 1977. "The power of nuclear fusion." Yale Scientific, Volume 51. No. 5. pp. 41‑45)

Still is.

Um. A founding investor of Post.news is going to participate in #QElon’s “Twitter Files” #psyop.

This seems problematic.

People being sent death threats... DDoS on UFoI members, one LGBTQ server in good standing was blocked by 33 other instances for supporting us openly.... Yet they insist there is no problem that needs addressing, to the point they violently oppose an agreement between server admins to engage in transparency, ethics, and evidence in interinstance moderation....

These things prove that the need for the UFoI is very real.

#UFoI #UFI @ufoi

Had a tough day on Facebook. I still don’t know what you’re supposed to comment under a photo of a new baby, but I’ve learned it isn’t ‘Yikes’.

The #NDAA internet censoring provision is set for Senate consideration this week. It allow federal courts to order anyone to remove info about fed'l judges from the internet.

Let's hope Sens. Schumer, McConnell, Reed, & Inhofe pull the language. To tell your Senator to oppose section 5934, call 202-225-3121.

Our letter is here.https://s3.amazonaws.com/demandprogress/letters/Censorship_of_Federal_Judicial_Info_NDAA_2022-12-12.pdf

#congress #FirstAmendment

I don’t exactly miss the hourly emails but you’d think Raphael Warnock could at least see how I’m doing.

Someone asked me if it was worth losing a quarter million followers on Twitter by no longer posting original content.

Yes.

Besides the fact that I will never jeopardize my mental health for a social media account, it's a safety issue.

Two years ago, the FBI made an arrest after a serious threat was made against my family on Twitter. I no longer believe Twitter would assist an investigation if that occurred again.

I'm not feeding into that platform because of the hate it is fostering.

Fusion energy is always 15 years away. I remember a fusion company in Ann Arbor in the 70s.

Maybe now it will always be 14 years away.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/11/fusion-nuclear-energy-breakthrough/

#fusion

@joshuatopolsky It’s not just links to Mastodon. It happened to me just using the word mastodon in another context. My link was actually to a story about mastodon DNA being sequenced at the MIT Technology Review

If you’re wondering about Mastodon’s impact, Twitter is now automatically marking links to mastodon as “sensitive” (aka dangerous) and forcing users who get them to “appeal” the claim. In case Elon didn’t seem desperate enough for you already…

For the record, here are two recent Substack pieces I have done, on ProPublica's handling of a "lab leak" exposes.

1) Surprising sloppiness and credulity, in being rolled by GOP Senate staffers https://fallows.substack.com/p/on-that-propublica-chinese-lab-leak

2) Inexplicable refusal to accept questions on what happened https://fallows.substack.com/p/more-questions-for-propublica

Love ProPublica, but don't love this.

How do you *predominantly* access the Fediverse?

Please reshare for a wider sampling.

Feel free to add comments, of course. Just trying to get a sense of balance of interfaces to this place.

@jeffjarvis @lauren @captainslim

Note to self: start selling bumper stickers to Tesla owners that read “My next EV won’t run on hate.”

If you are on a smaller server and like to follow #hashtags, I recommend also following the same hashtag 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 via #RSS. In other words, follow (e.g.) mastodon.social/tags/[hashtag].rss in an RSS reader.

When you follow hashtags, the federated nature of Mastodon means you'll miss some qualifying posts from other instances. Tracking the same hashtag from a different instance than your home instance allows you to cast a broader net and miss fewer posts.

The sooner people stop trying to “save Twitter”, the happier they will be. It is now just a private online platform wholly owned by a billionaire who doesn’t care about losing money on it, and is using the platform to empower fascists, authoritarians, white nationalists, anti-LGBT bigots, and antisemites, under a phony veneer of “free speech”. The only reason to go back is to convince your followers to leave and rebuild on this or another platform. #twexit