Tom Foale @askquantum@qoto.org

More than 30M users are expected to leave Twitter over the next 2 years as concerns mount over technical issues and the proliferation of offensive content after Musk’s $44bn takeover, according to a forecast.

The number of global monthly users is predicted to fall by nearly 4% next year and 5% next year.

#Twexit #TwitterExiles #DeleteTwitter

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/13/twitter-lose-users-elon-musk-takeover-hate-speech

BLOGPOST

Why we should cheer Owen Paterson taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights

https://davidallengreen.com/2022/11/why-we-should-cheer-owen-paterson-taking-his-case-to-the-european-court-of-human-rights/

UK Cabinet Office published PDF on its website, containing information about individuals and companies that should have been redacted.

7 days on, someone notices and tells them... but a further 10 days later, they still hadn't done anything about it

https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/cabinet-office-alerted-to-data-breach-and-fails-to-respond-for-10-days

#databreach #cybersecurity #privacy

I try to keep in mind Matt Levin of Bloomberg’s formulation about what’s happening in cryptocurrency and exchanges (paraphrased):

• A firm has a liquidity crisis if they have actually valuable assets backing their debts at some ratio but can’t readily liquidate those assets to meet their cash needs.

• A solvency crisis is when a company lacks substantial or any net assets with which to redeem debts (loan calls, etc.)

Because crypto has no underlying value, it’s all solvency.

🤦‍♀️🤯
RT @Haggis_UK: #KayBurley - Do you listen to the British people?

Robert Jenrick - I hope so, that's my job as a politician

KB - 54% say brexit was a mistake

RJ - "That's a poll... polls obviously come and go... the most important vote was the one that happened in 2016... "

#BBCBreakfast

🐦🔗: https://nitter.eu/catherinemep/status/1594613127169146880

After two years at #CISA, my term-limited appointment has expired. A necessary mission, a ton of potential, and loads of talent.
-I hope I left the role with as much as I took away
-I know there’s more to do
-I call on others to pick up the challenge
-I wish @CISAjen and her team all the best

In 2020, at the request of @Chris, I joined to help the Agency get better at understanding and engaging with companies and security researchers. Sadly, his last day came prior to my first. Even more sadly, the world was tightly in the grip of the #COVID pandemic.

I’ve worked on fun and meaningful projects and bridging the US Government to the independent security research community who can be among its greatest assets. While there’s certainly more to do, I’m proud of all we were able to accomplish together.

In my first week, I had the great honor to be drafted into the CISA COVID Task Force, alongside highly tenacious, clever, and motivated people across Gov and industry. The challenges were myriad, including our own exhaustion. Fantastic work that I hope to be able to talk more about soon.

Also in my first week I also began working to nudge CISA to do more about Ransomware, particularly targeting health institutions, elevating publicly reported events to leadership, catalyzing assessment frameworks, and building guidance. There’s a lot more still to do.

In addition, I’m especially proud to have contributed to:
-#Bad Practices: https://www.cisa.gov/BadPractices
-#Log4J Response: https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/apache-log4j-vulnerability-guidance
-Stuff off Search: https://www.cisa.gov/publication/stuff-off-search
-Expanding #Crossfeed: https://www.cisa.gov/crossfeed
-CISA CSAC TAC: https://www.cisa.gov/cisa-cybersecurity-advisory-committee

CISA has become THE trusted cybersecurity partner for US agencies, critical infrastructure, and foreign governments. With a reputation for innovation and collaboration, they’ve shown sparks of brilliance and foreshadowed what will work in the decades to come.

CISA will continue doing this by learning from feedback, building on what has worked, changing what’s lackluster, and taking bold steps to lead on cybersecurity and infrastructure security policy, strategy, and operations.

I strongly believe in the CISA mission. With their incredible potential, talent, and authorities from Congress, CISA is limited only by their willingness to be bold and ability to execute. Each passionate, bright person who allies with them can empower that. I urge you to help!

Several ways to engage with CISA.
-Cyber Innovation Fellows: https://www.cisa.gov/cyber-fellows
-Apply for a job: https://www.cisa.gov/careers
-Report issues/vulns: https://www.cisa.gov/report
-Sign up for alerts: https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDHSCISA/subscriber/new?topic_id=USDHSCISA_138
-Meet Regional Contacts: https://www.cisa.gov/contact-us

While we’ve used this Margaret Mead quote many times in #IAmTheCavalry, it also bears mention here: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

My stint at CISA was incredibly humbling, educational, and rewarding. I plan to take my time to figure out where I can make the most difference next. No matter what, I will continue to work pushing industries and governments forward.

“"You can start thinking about getting COVID as almost as an accelerant to aging. The viral infection accelerates the aging process in people"…

“All pointing to multiple human organs aging faster after COVID. The majority happening among people who were hospitalized but also some with mild COVID symptoms.”
#Covid #LongCovid #AgingOrgans #Heart #Kidney #Brain

https://abc7.com/covid-study-organs-aging-covid19-long-haul/12340914/

Referenced link: https://www.economist.com/interactive/the-world-ahead/2022/11/18/the-weather-system-that-influences-the-world
Discuss on https://discu.eu/q/https://www.economist.com/interactive/the-world-ahead/2022/11/18/the-weather-system-that-influences-the-world

Originally posted by The Economist / @TheEconomist@twitter.com: https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1594659309514002432#m

The southern Pacific Ocean has been locked in its La Niña phase for three winters running. That is unusual, and dangerous https://www.economist.com/interactive/the-world-ahead/2022/11/18/the-weather-system-that-influences-the-world

“ “The difference is likely due to a combination of stress and inflammation, arising from predisposing factors and the way this virus biologically interacts with the cardiovascular system.” 

NEW, BY ME

The UK now has an experienced king and a novice PM.

And this power imbalance at the heart of the executive may have important consequences.

How King Charles outplayed Rushi Sunak over COP27.

At Al Jazeera.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/11/21/the-uk-now-has-an-experienced-king-and-a-novice-pm

The idea of the #fediverse seems like a much more viable solution to decentralising the web than something #blockchain-based.

Our existing, standardised technologies already work. The lower learning curve makes it easy to build upon—and own.

5/6

Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement promises ‘big bang’ deregulation https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/17/jeremy-hunt-autumn-statement-deregulation?CMP=share_btn_tw That should guarantee a future crash then

Might we stop talking crypto for good now? Some of us always realised it was a con. We need no such thing, just as we do not need a central bank digital currency, unless it was designed to take private sector banks out of the personal banking market - which I would support

Deeply disappointed to note this from the Scottish Greens. I wish that one day we might have some politicians who understand economics but it seems we are a long way from doing so as yet. https://www.thenational.scot/news/23120814.not-rushing-scottish-currency-vital-winning-independence-voters/?ref=twtrec

Ha-Joon Chang is one of our best economists and he is spot on here. An economy focussed on shareholder rewards has stripped businesses of cash and failed to invest. Many pay out more than they earn. No wonder we are in a mess. The way out is more gov’t investment, not austerity.
---
RT @BBCNewsnight
"If you cut that [spending] too much you actually make it worse"

Economist Ha-Joon Chang warns against austerity, saying that Britain ha…
https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1591203593335738368

🧑‍⚕️Average salary of an NHS nurse: £33,384

💼MP basic salary: £84,144. Plus £67,505 if a Cabinet Minister.

🧑‍⚕️NHS canteen prices: £7.25 for macaroni cheese

💼House of Commons Members' Dining Room: £5.67 for a gourmet roast rump of beef dinner

🧑‍⚕️NHS parking: £25/day

💼MP travel: expensed

NHS nurses have been refused inflation-matching pay rises for 12 Tory years. It’s time to pay them properly.

#NHS #UKpolitics #nurse

Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.

- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).

- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.

- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.

- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.

- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.

- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.

- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.

- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.

- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.

- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.

- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.

- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.

- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!

- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.

- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.

I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.

Hi, this is Greta. You are welcome to follow me here, if you prefer planet earth to planet mars.

I've become somewhat fascinated by how the removal of Quote Tweet type functionality forces a behavioural change here.