Brent Williams @hbw@qoto.org

Hey, this is pretty cool.

"A small group of regional/local #Mastodon admins are putting together a list of place-based instances and could use your help."

Check it out:

https://masto.town/doku.php?id=start

Drives me crazy that people are still pining away for some magic blue-light arc-reacor sci-fi energy source to save us when solar and wind are out there doing it, as we speak.

For those in the United States:

988 is a new phone number that recently went live to help people get help in a mental health crisis. Similar to 911, this line is dedicated for anyone in need of mental health assistance of any kind. It's 988.

Please boost to spread the news. Save someone's life.

#SuicideAwareness #988 #mentalhealth

https://988lifeline.org/

"Despite the fanfare, fusion power stations are still a distant dream." - @DanClery@twitter.com, who literally wrote the book on fusion energy, on today's NIF announcement https://www.science.org/content/article/historic-explosion-long-sought-fusion-breakthrough

I see no reason why Russian athletes should be able to participate in the Olympics for as long as Russia blatantly violates international law. Part of sanctions is isolation from sport. Actions have consequences. Things can change. But until they do, no Olympics for Russia.

🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/alexstubb/status/1602396290767257603

Several Mastodon instances (including Newsie) have come under cyber-attack recently by state-level actors.

If you are the admin of a Mastodon Instance that overlaps arts, human rights, civil society, journalism, or democracy and would like FREE cyber security protection from Cloudflare as part of Project Galileo please reach out as Fourth Estate is a long-time Project Galileo partner

See: https://www.cloudflare.com/galileo/

A leak from the European Data Protection Board reveals that the #EU's top #privacy regulator is about to overrule the Irish Data Protection Commission and declare #Facebook's business model illegal, banning surveillance-based #ads without explicit consent:

https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-win-personalized-ads-facebook-instagram-and-whatsapp-declared-illegal

1/

It’s estimated that one elevated light-rail Skytrain transit line in Metro Vancouver replaces between 20 & 26 lanes of freeway vehicle traffic! And then consider the amount of PARKING that it replaces, how much pollution & GHG emissions it reduces, how much public cost it avoids. #CityMakingMath #MetroVancouver #Vancouver #urbanism #transportation #PublicTransit #cities #transit

We are all stardust.

That oxygen you breath? That comes from dying massive stars, ending their light in a supernova.

The iron in your blood? Some massive stars dying, but mainly white dwarfs, the leftovers of dwarf stars like our own Sun, exploding.

The gold ring on your finger? Mostly merging neutron stars, leftovers from supernovae.

#astrodon #scicomm #astronomy

Hello: has any scientist on here abandoned Twitter for Mastodon entirely? I’m looking to speak to you for a story I’m writing

Are libraries conscious?

True, they can answer many questions and contain realistic first-person descriptions of the world.

However, they lack a coherent world-view and contain many contradictory statements.

Furthermore, some argue that the real work is done by human librarians and readers, and that libraries lack their own intent.

It's a tricky question, and the debate rages on.

It's official: France bans short haul domestic flights ✈️ in favour of train 🚆 travel 👇👇
https://buff.ly/3gVzNUR

I am now compiling a list of all servers who may have an interest in joining the United Federation of Instances.

Quite a few instances have already signed up.

Please reach out to me, all servers of any size are welcome!

This is non binding, its just to get a preliminary list. You can withdrawl at any time and dont have to go through the application process. I just want to know what servers to reach out to once we begin kicking things off.

If you are a server admin please let me know **in DM** if you have an interest and I will add you to the (for now) private list. I want to only release the list once we have enough momentum so please respond in DM only.

for those who are new to this you can read the proposal here:

https://ufoi.gitlab.io/constitution/united_federation_of_instances_proposal.pdf

You can read the early draft of the full bylaws here:

https://ufoi.gitlab.io/constitution/united_federation_of_instances_bylaws.pdf

Both of these will still undergo a lot of modification. For information on how to join the conversation see this post:

https://qoto.org/@freemo/109433298021890915

You can see the progress and conversation specifically at the official repo here:

https://gitlab.com/ufoi/constitution

#UFI #UFoI @ufoi #mastoadmin

Ever wondered what the #Idaho side of the Grand Tetons look like from over 100 miles away looking across the vast Idaho desert? Well, now you know.
#Tetons #Idaho #mountains #GrandTetonNP

Brilliant new paper by Naomi #Oreskes, concluding that "our overall situation suggests that it does not suffice for scientists simply to supply #factual #information, and leave it at that. Scientists need as well to engage actively with the recipients of that information." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43538-022-00121-1

Now seems like a good time to talk about how far-right extremists are using the Overton Window theory to force their ideas into the mainstream. The premise here is that today’s fringe ideas/beliefs can become tomorrow’s normal by shifting the boundaries of acceptable discourse. You do that by introducing people to more & more extreme ideas, so everything else seems reasonable in comparison.

eg, when “praising Hitler” becomes the comparison point, low-key bigotry suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. 1/

Yayoi Kusama, Festival of Stars, 1988