Mike Agg has moved @countingquoll@qoto.org

Studio Ghibli Makes 1,178 Images Free to Download from My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away & Other Beloved Animated Films

https://www.openculture.com/2020/12/studio-ghibli-makes-1178-images-free-to-download.html

How Canadians are born.
#MeanwhileInCanada

Remember friends, a dinosaur isn't just for Christmas. You should probably stop to think whether you should, even if you could.

But *if* you could, I've made this handy guide.

#dinosaurs #pets #guides #MisinformationGraphics

MacOS is pronounced like "tacos"

Smart stuff from @ezraklein about Twitter as a public square. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/11/opinion/what-twitter-can-learn-from-quakers.html

I thought you might need to see this.
#MeanwhileInCanada

May your evening be blessed by some form of potatoes

One thing I learned from being online for many years is that people can change. If someone had shitty views in the past and wants to genuinely be a better person, don't close your doors to them. Otherwise, the other side would snatch them back.

@yisraeldov @freemo @louis@emacs.ch Rather than being premature optimization, this is late in coming. You might not be aware of this, but in the absence of a central authority, self-moderating instances have joined together to build domain blocklists that are shared widely and based on nothing more than the say-so of one or two people.

While mastodon does have plenty of tools we can use to block content that we don’t want to see, many instance admins choose to really aggressively block entire instances without any due process or evidence or opportunity for counter-evidence. I’ve seen QOTO described as having “no moderation at all,” something I know to be factually false. I’ve seen entire instances blocked because of the actions of one non-admin user, which is the right of any server admin, but doesn’t bode well for federation. I’ve seen entire instances blocked not because of something anyone said or did, but because the instances were insufficiently aggressive in promising to seek out and block other bad instances. It’s mind-boggling, and scary for anyone thinking about running an instance of their own.

Primarily at this point, the UFoI is about a guarantee of due process, which is currently lacking in the fediverse. It might not cause the super-aggressive blockers to change their approach, but it will at least guarantee that smaller instances won’t be completely isolated from everyone on the whim of someone at a big server having a grumpy day.

If mastodon were as safe and friendly as you say it is, the UFoI wouldn’t exist, and the hashtag for BlackMastodon wouldn’t be filled with people saying that they’re seeing worse treatment on Mastodon than the bird site. I’m glad your personal experience has been positive, but that is not the case for everyone.

Some dude named Dave:
Wow, so you can really imagine and invent new artistic expressions, that's incredible!

Generative AI tool:
lol, nope. I'm simply synthesizing different yet familiar concepts out of the data that's been supplied to me.

Dave:
Oh OK. So in that case, when you provide me with some output, you can also explain all the data sources you used and where they came from, correct?

Generative AI tool:
I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.

Die Bronzestatue „Fearless girl“ wurde 2017 in Nee York aus Anlass des internationalen Frauentags auf der Wallstreet aufgestellt, wo sie dem berühmten Bullen Stirn bot. Kopien der Statue findet man in einigen anderen Städten, zB in Oslo, wo sie vor dem Grand Hotel steht (oder stand).
Der Hotelbesitzer hat das „furchtlose Mädchen“ jetzt gegenüber der iranischen Botschaft aufstellen lassen, und sie hält jetzt einen Hijab in ihrer Hand.

Foto: Javad Parsa/NTB/Ritzau Scanpix

"We're living through a cost of lying crisis"

From the current Private Eye

Would-be parents beware: despite their claims, “Hertility” kits can’t tell you if you’ll conceive
by Alice Howarth

Hertility's at-home fertility testing kits are at best ill-conceived, and apply undue pressure to make life-changing reproductive decisions.

https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2022/11/hertility-testing-kits-can-only-measure-hormone-levels-they-cant-tell-you-whether-youll-conceive/

#skeptic #skepticism #Criticalthinking #Hertility #Fertility #Testing

#Cats and #snow

I used to wave a shitty stick at irrational nonsense, but it seems like a lot of effort these days so I can’t generally be arsed, so I tend to just rant about the bleddy Tories instead. You could follow me anyway, you never know I might cone up with another witty Venn diagram or periodic table at some point. Worth a punt.

The flight of NASA's Artemis (purple) uses two very close encounters with the moon's gravity (green) to changes its trajectory to get back to the earth (blue.) Amazing.