Nick @internic@qoto.org

"When writing about #Bluesky, I’ve seen folks mention that it’s either federated or decentralized. I’m here to tell you that it’s currently neither."

https://anderegg.ca/2024/11/15/maybe-bluesky-has-won

Half-Life 2 is currently free on Steam. They've added a big update to celebrate its 20th Anniversary with lots of bug fixes and new commentaries.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/220/HalfLife_2/

https://www.half-life.com/en/halflife2/20th

The Orange Box is also currently on sale for 90% off ($1.99)

https://store.steampowered.com/sub/469/

#GrapheneOS doesn't come with text-to-speech enabled or set up by default.

https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng is not compatible with the current Android versions and https://github.com/RHVoice/RHVoice doesn't have support for #German.

Any recommendation for me? FOSS preferred. 🤔

#Android #TTS #voice

Who wants some good news?

Last week I spoke to a middle school class about cybersecurity as a career, and AI came up. I asked if they had tried to use LLMs to do their schoolwork—they all had. But every student in the class said it didn't work. Why?

"ChatGPT is too stupid."

Kids are alright.

Vaccines are one of the most important inventions humans have ever made. Period.

I just saw @ZachWeinersmith and Kelly Weinersmith's book "A City on Mars" is on sale on kobo right now for $1.99

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-city-on-mars-1

A kinda interesting thing about the BlueSky outage for hours today is it’s supposed to be a decentralised network - but it centrally failed. Try taking down Mastodon. You can’t. It’s actually decentralised.

Apple has introduced a new security feature in iOS. While it may not be entirely new to those in IT, it functions similarly to rebooting a device to resolve issues. This feature automatically reboots iPhones after three days of inactivity if the device has not been unlocked for 72 hours. This measure helps prevent attacks, such as attempting various combinations to unlock the phone or attempting to install remote backdoors by actors. That's my guess on its purpose. More https://www.404media.co/police-freak-out-at-iphones-mysteriously-rebooting-themselves-locking-cops-out/

Hello all! I came here from the bad place a few years ago but had trouble building a network & lost interest. I’m a writer, PhD candidate & I’m into climate action, #urbanism & #auspol. I always want to see pictures of your pet.

'time is a flat circle'? what are you talking about, all circles are flat

#DifferentialGeometry

After a difficult election loss, Canadian social democratic icon Tommy Douglas would often share this quote with supporters: “I am hurt, but I am not slain. I shall lay me down and bleed a while, then rise and fight again.”

And he would follow that with “Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world.”

“Many other networks force algorithms on users that degrade their experience — like downranking posts that include links to other websites — but increase their profits. Bluesky does not impose those kinds of restrictions on users.” https://open.substack.com/pub/popularinformation/p/want-to-quit-x-heres-your-guide-to

#OnThisDay, 14 Nov 1960, Ruby Bridges goes to school.

She is the first African-American child to attend the all-white William Frantz school in Louisiana, USA. It is a symbolic act, breaking the segregation of education in the state.

Her 2022 autobiographical picture book, I Am Ruby Bridges, is in Scholastic’s ‘diverse’ collection, meaning school librarians can opt out of including them in school book fairs.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons

Oh well, I guess it had to happen eventually @dpiponi.bsky.social

I haven't used Spotify for some time now, but just came across https://www.tunemymusic.com/transfer (h/t @davidbisset), which lets me transfer/export my playlists and favorites.

Pretty neat!

https://www.tunemymusic.com/transfer

#music #spotify #playlists

The Guardian is no longer posting on X due to "the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/13/why-the-guardian-is-no-longer-posting-on-x

Are Alternate Timelines Real? Quantum Physics Explains
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-alternate-timelines-real-quantum-physics-explains/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Scientific American @scientific-american-SciAm

Today was New Laser Day in my lab! Setting up my first ultraviolet laser system, and it's already more complicated than all the infrared lasers I've used for my PhD project combined xD
And water-cooling is voodoo...

Today, one of the graduate students I was mentoring asked me what target audience to have in mind when writing their first research paper, which combined ideas from two different mathematical fields - for instance, how much detail to spell out for a lemma which would be basic and well known to experts in one of the fields, but not the other. After discussing some hypothetical readers with strengths in one field but not the other, the framework that seemed to generate a "lightbulb" moment in the student's head was the suggestion to take as the model reader a version of the student's past self from about twelve months ago when first learning the subject, and to try to write to specifically address any confusions that the student had that could have had been resolved if only there was a text that had explained these basic points clearly. It was clear that the student had several such points come to mind immediately, and almost instantly had a much clearer plan for how to write the paper.

FOIA docs obtained by @josephcox show the Secret Service talking about how they don't need a warrant to track phone locations because people "willingly" gave it away by agreeing to long terms of service docs for random apps

https://www.404media.co/fyi-a-warrant-isnt-needed-secret-service-says-you-agreed-to-be-tracked-with-location-data/