Paul Sutton @zleap@qoto.org

#ElonMusk’s new #superPAC is collecting scores of voters’ #personalInformation under the guise of inviting them to register to #vote, as part of his effort to boost #DonaldTrump’s presidential #campaign.

cc: @kamalaharrisforpresidentnews

#ElonSucks #MuskIsADick #FuckElonMusk #ElonIsATwat #ElonMuskIsATroll #FuckElon #boycottMusk #boycottTwitter #Xodus #shittyFather #electionsMatter #Kamala2024 #VoteBlue #VoteBlue2024 #VoteBlueToSaveDemocracy

https://newrepublic.com/post/184517/terrifying-way-elon-musk-stealing-peoples-data-help-trump

Imane Khelif is a cis woman, she has experienced 9 losses against other women in her career, including the 2020 Olympics where she lost against Irish participant Kellie Harrington. Yet, the usual transphobes are currently unleashing a vile attack against her, misgendering her, accusing her of being a man competing unfairly and having some sort of advantage against her fellow athletes, all because she doesn't fit their incredibly limited norm of how a woman should look.

Suddenly, people who never cared or know much about the sport are very interested in women's boxing, and found a scapegoat in her in order to spread their disinformation. Khelif is currently receiving more vitriol than convicted child rapist Steven van de Velde who was still allowed to compete.

This is basically yet another reminder that it was never about genuinely caring for the safety of women. Transphobia is dangerous for everyone, *including* us cis women, and that the links between TERF ideology and white supremacy are very real. Feminism isn't feminism if it's not intersectional.

https://junkee.com/articles/trans-women-olympics-khelif-boxing

#ImaneKhelif #Olympics #Olympics2024 #transphobia #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA

If Codeberg is trying to "compete" against GitHub and GitLab, why does it refuse to take a look at AI assistants? Apart from infringing on authors' rights and questionable output quality, we think that the current hype wave led by major companies will leave a climate disaster in its wake: https://disconnect.blog/generative-ai-is-a-climate-disaster/

Other _sustainable_ (and cheaper!) ways for increasing efficiency in software development exist: In-project communication, powerful automation pipelines and reducing boilerplate.

When someone advocates for reducing poverty and increasing education as non-genocidal options for lowering birth rates, out of concern for overpopulation, they’re tattling on themselves.

People living in poverty, lacking education, are disproportionately likely to be brown and live in the global south. People living with wealth and enjoying education are disproportionately likely to be white and live in the global north.

The former also tend to have much smaller environmental impacts than the latter:

“The richest 1% of the world’s population produced as much carbon pollution in 2019 as the five billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity, reveals a new report from Oxfam.”

If we identify the problem as “too many people,” we are equally indicting *all people,* most of whom contribute marginally to the destruction of the environment and have no say over the systems and institutions that coerce us into overconsumption. But not all people are equally responsible.

https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/press-releases/richest-1-emit-as-much-planet-heating-pollution-as-two-thirds-of-humanity/

For those of you starting to think about preparing your material for the next academic year, here's a reminder of the projects I work on:

Chirun is a tool for producing accessible course material from LaTeX or Markdown source. You can use it through a web interface or as a command-line tool on your own PC.
https://chirun.org.uk/

Numbas (@numbas) is an e-assessment system designed for mathematical subjects. There's a big database of free-to-use existing material and as well as running standalone it integrates with most virtual learning environments.
https://www.numbas.org.uk/

More members of Just Stop Oil have been sent to prison.

Firstly, this (again) seems disproportionate, but secondly, the state is starting to assemble a group of climate martyrs whose voice is likely be amplified.

As Gaie Delap says: 'They didn’t listen to the scientists, they didn’t listen to their constituents, so we had to cause disruption in order to communicate the seriousness of humanity’s predicament'!

#climate #politics #ruleoflaw

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/01/just-stop-oil-protesters-jailed-climbing-gantries-block-m25

Tenured/Tenure Track Faculty

University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School

Tenured/Tenure Track Faculty position at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology.

See the full job description on jobRxiv: https://jobrxiv.org/job/university-of-massachusetts-chan-medical-school-27778-tenured-tenure-track-facu...
https://jobrxiv.org/job/university-of-massachusetts-chan-medical-school-27778-tenured-tenure-track-faculty/?feed_id=79477

Hmmm... the EU has set up a team to prepare plans (diplomatic & practical) for the possibility of Trump's 2nd term as POTUS.

Although a Harris presidency would likely see some shifts in US/EU relations, this would normally hardly require major preparation... so it looks like the EU's reading of the tea leaves still sees a Trump victory as a distinct possibility (sadly, as do many others).

We can but hope that our American friends can galvanise support for Kamala Harris.

#USpol #EU
h/t FT

EU initiative to preserve old videogames.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkMe9MxxZiI

#retrogaming #gaming

Homo sapiens is ONE species. Racism is crazy and weird.

The Supreme Court of Nepal has ruled that Rukshana Kapali, a #transgender woman, should be legally recognized on all documents as a woman without having to submit to medical verification.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/31/nepal-supreme-court-rules-trans-woman-woman

#LGBTQ

If you're in Australia, consider helping out with a survey on the visibility of the night sky:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-31/milky-way-survey-anu-science-week-stars-night-sky/104158476

#Australia #astronomy #nature

Did you ever wonder: What does 3°C of global warming mean for us?
My new open-access book chapter explains it.
For over 30 years, I've worked in oceanography, paleoclimate & extreme weather research.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-58144-1_1

Any #blind #Windows users out there know of an #accessible way to boot from a USB drive? Really don't want to ask my family for sighted help. They're pretty much convinced putting #Linux on this computer will break it.
#tech #technology #accessibility @mastoblind @main

The world's first malaria vaccines are starting to reach kids in sub-Saharan Africa. Here's the backstory on why it took so long, and how scientists finally got them across the line.

https://www.statnews.com/2024/08/01/malaria-vaccines-development-history-40-year-fight-mosquito-borne-disease/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon_organic

At the Black Hat security conference, hackers will debut a new open-source tool called the RayV Lite, designed to let anyone hack computer chips with frickin' lasers for just $500.

https://wired.com/story/rayv-lite-laser-chip-hacking-tool/

Previously available tools to do this typically cost as much as $150,000.

@stefan also, fix the darn Mastodon Hug of Death so people can link to websites without those websites being inundated with spurious requests!