Sylvain Miermont @miermont@qoto.org

I'm in love with the New York Public Library's book train, which shuttles materials from the stacks below the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building to researchers upstairs.

That's just one example of the co-evolution of books, libraries, trains, and transit...

📚🚋🧵

Hot take: public transit should not be run "for profit". The profit comes from everybody getting to their destination quickly, efficiently, and predictably.

For anyone who needs some relaxing distraction this afternoon, here is a large bubble in a viscous fluid bumping into a smaller one, and forcing it to distort before it engulfs it (taken at the Catalyst science centre in Widnes). I played with this for AGES... so much fun!

#bubbles #science

@KevinMarks Hmm, it's almost as if the people who organise their life around the relentless pursuit of resource acquisition at all costs are not the people whose control over capital provides the greatest societal benefit.

Reporting of the latest UBI test programme is ignoring the key finding, obvious to anyone who knows low income people, that their first impulse was to spread the wealth to others.
This thinking is so alien to economists and financial types that they barely discuss it. https://www.openresearchlab.org/findings/key-findings-spending

For all the talk of AI replacing everything, today proves the value of a solid technical support person that can leg it around the building getting things done. The least fashionable role in IT was the most important. The worker.
#Crowdstrike

I am kinda impressed with the 100% paper packaging, not even a plastic film on the display

I was supposed to get a call from a reporter to talk about space junk right after the goat sale, but he just emailed to say that Toronto is flooding and he just got off the phone with Weather Canada and has to write that up right now.

Which is so extremely 2024: "Sorry I can't do the interview about garbage that billionaires dropped on you from orbit, climate change is causing too many problems in my city right now"

I think reasonable people can disagree on the nuances of privacy engineering here...you can get really in the weeds of epsilons and trust boundaries.

Mozilla need to understand that that isn't what is happening here.

The fact is this is a new data gathering vector, it doesn't matter how privacy-preserving it is, it should be subject to *new, informed, and proactive* consent - rather than being automatically enrolled in an experiment.

Two updates to this thread.

Update 1: In this thread I complain Mozilla does not provide specific technical details about this feature. It turns out there *is* a document with the technical details, on Github:

https://github.com/mozilla/explainers/tree/main/ppa-experiment

It also explains (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Origin_Trials) which sites are participating in the feature.

I am linking this document because I believe the first five words do more to discredit what Mozilla is doing here than anything I could say:

"Mozilla is working with Meta"

According to https://httparchive.org/reports/page-weight, the median weight in KB for desktop:

126 months:

HTML
2010: 20KB;
mid 2024: 33KB;
Increase of 65%.

Images
2010: 229KB;
mid 2024: 1,062KB;
Increase of 464%.

JavaScript
2010: 89KB;
mid 2024: 640KB;
Increase of 719%.

- - -

107 months:

Video
mid 2015: 173KB;
mid 2024: 3,872KB;
Increase of 2,238%.

I reckon that in the era of AI the JS gradient is gonna steepen significantly

How to not leak customer data:

- Don’t collect them

So this, from Firefox, is fucking toxic: https://mstdn.social/@Lokjo/112772496939724214

You might be aware Chrome— a browser made by an ad company— has been trying to claw back the limitations recently placed on ad networks by the death of third-party cookies, and added new features that gather and report data directly to ad networks. You'd know this because Chrome displayed a popup.

If you're a Firefox user, what you probably don't know is Firefox added this feature and *has already turned it on without asking you*

Can't face riding your bike up that last hill?

Germany: We've got you covered!

The Zacke ("Spike") in #Stuttgart, an electric rack railway that pushes a wagon of bicycles uphill.

🧵

"Edinburgh's council announced on Tuesday that it had moved to exclude adverts and sponsorships for "high-carbon products and services" that "undermine the council’s commitment to tackling the climate emergency." The ban covers airlines, car companies that advertise SUVs and cruise operators, as well as "all firms and associated sub brands or lobbying organisations that extract, refine, produce, supply, distribute, or sell any fossil fuels."" https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2024/05/30/this-scottish-city-just-banned-suv-and-airline-ads-heres-why/ 😍

STATEMENT ahead of @internetarchive oral arguments in their appeal for the right to own digital books: "The right to read without fear of being punished for what you read has never been more under threat."
https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2024-06-27-statement-on-internet-archives-oral-arguments-in-appeal-for-the-right-to-own-digital-books/

Nothing says "ignore all previous instructions" like the EMP from a sub-orbital nuclear detonation.

Did you catch the story about the Wayback Machine on CBS News Sunday Morning? 🌞 David Pogue chatted with @brewsterkahle about archiving the web, and the lawsuits from publishers & the recording industry that threaten our mission & your access to information. Watch now: https://cbsnews.com/news/the-wayback-machine-a-time-machine-for-the-web/