Dave T-W @davoloid@qoto.org
- Location
- Mostly London
- Pronouns (plz)
- he/him
Just another worried little citizen of this modern-day Pompeii. Techie at UCL, working on Process Automation with MS Power Platform. Scatterbrain, interested in education, languages, Space and lots of disparate things. sorry.
Keeping my space toots at @astrodad as an experiment in self-moderation :)
*Background banner is a photo Yorkshire flag in blue and white, in front of a classic bell tent, in a field of similar tents at a festival.
Joined Oct 2022
Dave T-W
boosted
"In Europe, a major concern is the fate of Twitter’s six-to-eight person team in Brussels, which worked on European policy and was the main point of contact with regulators working on upcoming legislation that could affect the entire platform. Only two people remain, say two people with knowledge of the matter.
That means Twitter has slashed its team as the European Union introduces landmark new technology rules, says Mathias Vermeulen, director of Brussels-based consultancy AWO"
Dave T-W
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New data about the growth of the #fediverse. The number of new accounts is now on average around 100k per day after the peak in November 8th of 135k new users.
Hol'up: Now I'm looking through my archive, it appears my tweets still exist, but not visible from my profile.
So tweetdelete actually makes it harder to purge. Should have known that was too easy :(
Well, after seeing the continuing collapse of birdsite thanks to Elmu and backers, it was time to #deletetwitter. I've downloaded my archive (since...
Dave T-W
boosted
I just asked my communications and IT colleagues at #Stanford to consider hosting a #Mastodon server for our University community (as MIT has already done: mastodon.mit.edu).
Such institutional sponsorships (e.g., higher ed, academic associations, etc.) seem like a compelling & sustainable equilibrium for the #TwitterMigration. I also think organizations that do so would benefit in several ways without meaningful new risks.
#OpenSource #fediverse #Twitter #EconTwitter #Economics
Dave T-W
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Looking for a #PhD? #UCL is offering 40 #scholarships for fully funded PhD positions across all disciplines, available to people from any country. Deadline Jan 13th https://www.ucl.ac.uk/scholarships/research-excellence-scholarship
I do wonder how exposed #UKresearch is to this...
Is this the end of the days of big tech companies paying #researchers to do cool stuff? I'm a bit worried because that was my #career plan 😬 #bigte...
Dave T-W
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I'm personally looking for a PhD student broadly working on #MachineLearning for #Climate or #Weather.
Some more guidance regarding an application to our group:
https://www.sml-group.cc/openings/
Dave T-W
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When I was a teenager growing up in Nairobi we used to have the long rains in late March-June, a period of really heavy rain. Torrential sometimes.
The last last few days in the UK have been a real reminder of that. Truly tropical rainfall… The UK is "rainy" these days, but in a very different way from before…
Question on #Mastodon replies and CW functionality
1) It would be nice to be able to have the option to unveil all CW once you're in a thread of replies
2) I can't work out how replies are structured. Might be used to navigating forks of a thread over there... that had it's good and bad points.
3) Is there a way to sort replies to a post by most reblogged, replied to, favourited?
Hoping #UCL might get on the case!
I little bit prouder today of my institution. MIT is hosting its own #mastodon server mastodon.mit.edu See you there soon
Dave T-W
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I little bit prouder today of my institution. MIT is hosting its own #mastodon server
mastodon.mit.edu
See you there soon
Dave T-W
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The unfortunate reality is that many tech products and services (including social media) develop trust and safety approaches in response/as a solution to harms that have occurred, not as a pre-emptive measure. There are all kinds of reasons for this, excusable and not, but it means that serious failings sometimes only emerge when a user base diversifies.
Well, after seeing the continuing collapse of birdsite thanks to Elmu and backers, it was time to #deletetwitter.
I've downloaded my archive (since January 2008!), cleared out old tweets and said goodbye.
Dave T-W
boosted
News on potential collapse of Twitter
Until now I hadn’t appreciated that were very serious structural problems at Twitter. I thought Elon would make it messy, but it would robustly continue. This below, however, is starting to make me much more concerned.
I came across to Mastodon out of curiosity, fun, sense of opportunity & respect for the concept. Now I’m thinking it’s a vital hedge for us all against serious Twitter risks, including collapse.
Dave T-W
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A ✅ has appeared in my profile. Hurrah for that. I think we have to realise that the learning curve here is steepish, but rather than be anxious about it, shouldn’t we should celebrate the adventure of slowly finding out something that was puzzling at first? Like your first week at school or in a new office building. We’ll get there and soon laugh at how confused me were at first. I hope!
Dave T-W
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piece of my dissertation in progress on prairie, fire, and people
Comment on and link to Yale history lecture re Ukraine, Germany, Holocaust, Politics.
I should have tagged this with #histodon apparently.
Note, I am not a historian, or scholar of history. I just find myself more and more interested in how we came to where we are now and the choices along the way, so we might learn to avoid the horrors of the past.
Dave T-W
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US politics
Woke up, turned on CNN, bracing for the worst and am feeling relieved on so many levels: 1. No red wave 2. The QAnon/Trump candidates have done the worst 3. DeSantis romping home means a horrible GOP primary with Trump that will tear GOP apart 4. Youngsters turned out 5. GOP donors furious and are blaming Trump 6. Abortion rights matter 7. I didn’t have to look at the Other Place once. It’s a good day. Thankful.
Dave T-W
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UKPOL Mandatory Voter ID - Latest UK Gov proposal
If you know me IRL or from Twitter, you’ll know I have strong feelings on mandatory voter ID, why it subverts the entire UK voting ethos and attempts to fix a problem that doesn’t exist (see this blog post for a long form explanation - https://glenn.pegden.com/blog/2021/05/11/why-voter-id-in-uk-elections-is-mostly-a-terrible-idea/ )
Well, it seems the latest proposals, as predicted keep the barrier as low as possible for older folk and raise it for younger ones, which is clearly an attempt to disenfranchise those less likely to vote Tory
https://bylinetimes.com/2022/11/07/voter-id-its-far-worse-than-any-us-state/
Comment on and link to Yale history lecture re Ukraine, Germany, Holocaust, Politics.
I have been following this excellent series of lectures by Yale historian Timothy Snyder. They've covered the history of Ukraine from Roman period up to now.
It's an excellent subject not just for understanding the current war, but also the complex and intertwined histories of Europe. These are typically understood through individual national curricula or stories (which are always written as current political tools), but as he has advocated, a general European history should really be taught in high schools across the continent.
This latest lecture looks at the post Holodomor period and Germany's motivation.
One really critical point to share is that (quote)
"Even in the Holocaust, or especially in the Holocaust, there is never a moment where politics ceases to matter. There's never a moment where you get into some sphere of pure evil or pure ethics or something where human experience and human calculations don't matter."
Personal choices about what works best for me can be pushed on to "Politics" as being responsible. And leading up to this lecture, that was alluded to throughout modern history - even now, and in many democratic countries. "It's ok if people suffer and die because the policy is worth pursuing. And the political decision is never wrong."
Not here yet but try following
@timothydsnyder
- Location
- Mostly London
- Pronouns (plz)
- he/him
Just another worried little citizen of this modern-day Pompeii. Techie at UCL, working on Process Automation with MS Power Platform. Scatterbrain, interested in education, languages, Space and lots of disparate things. sorry.
Keeping my space toots at @astrodad as an experiment in self-moderation :)
*Background banner is a photo Yorkshire flag in blue and white, in front of a classic bell tent, in a field of similar tents at a festival.
Joined Oct 2022
