Dave T-W @davoloid@qoto.org

“As we can see from the hugely perilous collectivist endeavours unfolding in Iran, it is rather harder work to refuse to wear the hijab than it is to be banned from wearing the armband… taking a yellow is arguably doable – and if it honestly isn’t, then don’t even bother... It’s an insult to those who do seriously put themselves out. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/22/england-armband-yellow-card-onelove-qatar-world-cup?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

BLOGPOST

The one big problem with House of Lords reform

Today's law and policy post

https://davidallengreen.com/2022/11/the-one-big-problem-with-house-of-lords-reform/

📢 Speaking tomorrow (23 Nov) at Imperial College London's Institute for Security Science and Technology on a panel entitled "Digital privacy and consumer #IoT systems" about our "#Gender & #IoT" (#GIoT) #TechAbuse research project.

➡️ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/152437/isst-talks-with-i-x-digital-privacy-and-consumer-iot-systems/

In German, never trust your ears:

Er ist wild = He is wild
Er isst Wild = He eats venison

Gelehrte konnten = scholars were able to
geleerte Konten = cleared accounts

Hasst du die Urzeit? = Do you hate primeval times?
Hast du die Uhrzeit? = Have you got the time?

schlechter Rasen = bad lawn
Schlächter rasen = butchers speed

Die Küste fiel = The shoreline fell
Die küsste viel = She kissed a lot

Er ist wieder willig = He's willing again
Er ist widerwillig = He's reluctant

Enjoy our language!

So should UCL - which is not on Mastodon yet, unlike several other UCLs elsewhere - set up its own Mastodon server? Discuss… (Ping @eLearningTechie @mikebooth @helenczerski@fediscience.or g )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG71CmZhXbY : MARK'S NOTCAST Ep 250 : 50 Questions. I've been doing this two years, and I've made 250 or so of these, so here's a 50 Questions stolen from somewhere else, which you probably aren't interested in! 21 November 2022.

Having a think about tech as other people. Driving to work I see “cars” or “traffic” but really it’s other people. At my desk I resent “email” but it’s other people. We say “Mastodon this” and “Twitter that” but it’s other people doing people things. Relatedly, I’m reading Derrida’s “The Foreigner Question” and thinking about @DonnaLanclos’s “How are we people to each other?” This is the urgent question as we go about being the strangers in other lives today.

He posts this, but still no mention of our situation or any attempt to have a conversation on it... shameful.. seems he looks after his own ass, his own server, but really dont give a rats ass about when it hurts other instances.

A rare photo of Schrödinger's Cat...

I am apparently no longer allowed to refer to a sysadmin as "uptime girl" and then sing "She's been living in her uptime world".

#introduction

I’m a PhD student at #UCL. Focusing on the experience of #queer people in #Georgia, my ethnographic research explores whether and how the desire for security affects and is affected by the question of where we and others belong. However, I do not assume what #security is or looks like: I let my participants tell me what having a “secure life” means and how they enact it. So, I go beyond the narrow focus on physical #safety and #violence.

#ethnography #anthropology #socialscience

So the entire German workforce were fired in the purges and they are now collectively organising a lawsuit and I don't think there's enough popcorn in the world for Elon Musk vs EU labour laws

We know how to think about platforms. We can center race, labor, fairness, equity, commons and care, but we can't be rushed into this because some wacky Space Karen needed to ruin a public common.

Title: "Change in Slope": https://xkcd.com/2701/

:snort:

The magnificent organ at Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery played today in a lunchtime recital of popular "Mighty Wurlitzer" tunes. And some Bach, too. Quite glorious.

This is a big problem for Mastodon.

Canadian journalist Erica Ifill just had her mastodon.online account suspended without explanation. She's been sharing stuff critical of Mastodon re: intersectional issues.

I get the decentralized structure and idea that each server has its own rules. But this Reddit-style moderation, where moderators with god-complexes make mysterious and arbitrary decisions, is going to cause people migrating to Mastodon to flee in droves.

https://www.presscheck.org/journalists/erica-ifill

Update on our https://datasci.social instance, day 3: We are now 33, and more people keep joining, slowly but surely. 🐌 Everything still running smoothly. #mastoadmin

We are also indexed and appear here (highlighted in light blue): https://observablehq.com/@mauforonda/what-goes-on-in-mastodon

Again, a quick and dirty analysis, but if I have no bugs then the 1% largest #Mastodon instances accounts for 84% of all users.

The top 5% accounts for 97% of all users.

We can say that the system is effectively centralizing around a few instances, and this might be a problem for the overall stability and sustainability.

@tiago @lmrocha @estebanmoro @hirokisayama @PessoaBrain @danielemarinazzo

#MastoStat #ComplexSystems