ML2 @mathlover@qoto.org

@mmasnick you write thoughtful and nuanced pieces so I unfortunately can see how you’d be in a similar situation. It’s the same problem I have run into with some comms teams (I’ve had amazing ones too) - they react to the market as it is vs how it could be. And/or the people they believe to be market shapers fit a narrow definition.

@ruchowdh that's... frustrating. I honestly think a lot of these agencies feel they NEED to make these kinds of statements to feel like they're doing something.

It's nowhere near as bad as what you were told, but I've had a similar experience over the last decade of shopping an occasional book proposal. People told me to just keep shopping it, but it just seemed like too much nonsense.

Looks like it's another "end of Twitter".
The hell hole has been down for most Australians & Kiwis for most of the day.
....can it just die already!

This is a good take from Bruce Schneier and Christos Porios.

Calls to "ban all crypto" are unserious and incompatible with human rights and free expression.

But we absolutely can and should tax the shit out of all business practices that lead to carbon emissions, including crypto mining.

Ban fossil fuels, not writing code.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/cryptocurrency-mining-environmental-impact-solution/672360/

Please reboot this information:

Those who declined to accept an honour (e.g an OBE, MBE, Damehood, Knighthood):

Michael Rosen (poet)
Danny Boyle (director)
Michael Faraday (scientist)
J.B Priestly (playwright)
Amartya Sen (economist)
Stephen Hawking (physicist)
Ken Loach (director)
C.S Lewis (writer)
Virginia Woolf (writer)
Alan Rickman (actor)
Jon Snow (journalist)
L.S Lowry (artist)
Dorothy Hodgkin (scientist)
Howard Gayle (footballer)
Benjamin Zephaniah (poet)
David Bowie (musician)

Breaking: the White House has renominated #netneutrality champ #GigiSohn for the FCC's crucial 5th seat.

Here's @team statement:

"There’s no mystery about what has caused the inexcusable delay in confirming Sohn, a highly qualified nominee with decades of experience and a powerful track record advocating for transparency and accountability. Gigi Sohn has been the target of a dark money smear campaign funded by telecom giants who want to pick their own regulator."

More: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2023-01-03-breaking-white-house-re-nominates-gigi-sohn-for-fcc-the-senate-should-confirm-her-immediately

He is a dictator.

“Mastodon is just the most prominent node in a much broader movement to change the nature of the web.”
“With a core goal of decentralization, Mastodon and its kin are ‘federated’ … The most common metaphor is email, where yahoo.com, uchicago.edu, and condenast.com all host a local collection of users, but anybody can send messages to anybody else via standard messaging protocols.” https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/01/mastodon-highlights-pros-and-cons-of-moving-beyond-big-tech-gatekeepers/amp/

May you never be the reason why someone who loved to sing, doesn't anymore. Or why someone why dressed so differently now wears standard clothing. Or why someone who always spoke of their dreams so wildly is now silent about them.
When someone has a passion, encourage it.

May you never be the reason for someone giving up on a part of themselves because you were demotivating, non-appreciative, or -even worse- sarcastic about it. Apathy kills passion.

We can be better! Lets be better!

#Florida Is Fighting to Feed Starving #Manatees This Winter - https://www.wired.com/story/florida-is-fighting-to-feed-starving-manatees-this-winter/ poor manatees, humankind to blame, as usual....

"the Supreme Court Historical Society is ostensibly independent of the judicial branch of government, but...

over the years the society has become a vehicle for those seeking access to... [SCOTUS]

The justices attend the society’s annual black-tie dinner soirees, where they mingle with donors & thank them for their generosity... more than $23 million over the last two decades."
~https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/30/us/politics/supreme-court-historical-society-donors-justices.html

#SCOTUS #USPolitics

I'm sad. Very sad. We lost a nurse colleague to suicide. Our hearts are broken. So many questions. We are mourning. Crying through our shifts while still caring for patients & working short-staffed.

Please check on nurses. Fight for nurses. We wonder who else is struggling 😢

Twitter changed the way you report a tweet and it's really hard now to report verbal abuse.

Say, you see someone being calling off due their political inclination.

You can't report that. The report now requires that the attacker must be attacking someone's identity (religion, sexual inclination, whatever), but political inclination is not identity, so...

Lol, there's no better endorsement of Mastodon than the fact it's apparently become the new "pronouns in bio" to right wing chuds

I've been using #Twitter significantly less recently, and only to read stuff others have tweeted (not that I was ever a prolific poster anyway).

The one thing that really stands out, however, is just how toxic that place was. I didn't really notice until I left... It was so common that I became almost immune to it, like it was normal or to be expected.

Whether it was posts about #infosec or #Brexit or #Covid or Greta Thunberg... Tweets just constantly seemed so argumentative and intentionally divisive. It's such a more pleasant experience overall here on Mastodon!

There is some talk of the possibility of the UK rejoining the EU again. While I would love to see it happen, I wrote a piece last year for @CentralBylines highlighting some of the obstacles to re-joining, not least the need for a cross-societal consensus in the UK (assuming there will be a UK) to convince the EU and its member states that the UK would be a stable member state. https://centralbylines.co.uk/always-with-eu-some-realism-about-rejoining/ #Rejoin

Live Nation and Ticketmaster were allowed to merge in 2010. The result?

They now control 70% of the primary ticketing and live event venues market.

They exploit all of us — and we simply have to take it.

Big mergers are terrible for everyone but super-rich CEOs.