Paul Sutton @zleap@qoto.org

"In Britain, the canary has sung. This summer we have witnessed something new and unprecedented. The billionaire owner of a tech platform publicly confronting an elected leader and using his platform to undermine his authority and incite violence. Britain’s 2024 summer riots were Elon Musk’s trial balloon. He got away with it. And if you’re not terrified by both the extraordinary supranational power of that and the potential consequences, you should be."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/18/inciting-rioters-in-britain-was-a-test-run-for-elon-musk-just-see-what-he-plans-for-america

Well, we had a rare thunderstorm rolling through tonight in the PNW with plenty of lightning strikes, mostly cloud to cloud.
These are two consecutive strikes in quick succession combined in one frame.
Bellevue, WA
8/17/24

#WaWx #Washington #PNW #Weather #Lightning #Storm #Thunderstorm

I'm not into fearmongering but we need to know about this: Seems the social media channels, where millions of people get their news, are now much more vulnerable to disinfomation:

"Twitter, now X, has sacked at least half its trust and safety team. But then so has every tech company we know about. Thousands of workers previously employed to sniff out misinformation have been laid off by Meta, TikTok, Snap and Discord."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/18/inciting-rioters-in-britain-was-a-test-run-for-elon-musk-just-see-what-he-plans-for-america

21000 Palestinian children some as young as 4 days old were murdered by IDF since the start of the Gaza genocide. These are just those offically verified by the health ministry register in Gaza, the real number is far far larger.

This is the shame of the “civilized world” who is still supporting and protecting this genocidal regime.

#Gaza #Children #Palestine #Israel #Genocide @palestine @israel

Gig racing https://personaljournal.ca/paulsutton/gig-racing

This year alone, #ULA has lost about 45 of its 105 Launch Operations engineers 👨‍🏭 to competitors, including #BlueOrigin and #SpaceX https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/company-news/2024/08/15/the-pentagons-top-rocket-launcher-is-behind-profit-goals-and-losing-staff/

Free-agent CB Stephon Gilmore signing with Vikings on one-year, $10 million deal https://www.nfl.com/news/free-agent-cb-stephon-gilmore-signing-with-vikings-on-one-year-10-million-deal #NFL
@nfl@a.gup.pe

On the topic of alt text:

Being offered a chatGPT solution when the problem is that people need to put in effort, feels like asking for a sandwich and being served a bowl of dry dog food.

Like, yes technically this solves the problem, but I don't want it, and the fact that this is what you're offering and you feel so clever about it, speaks to a profound disrespect for me and my access needs.

Ranked: The 10 Best Countries for Women
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-10-best-countries-for-women/ #infographic #ranking #women #countries

‘Nobody ever saw anything like this before’: how methane emissions are pushing the Amazon towards environmental catastrophe
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/17/methane-climate-crisis-amazon-peat-permafrost-vegan-heat-pumps?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Food for thought: Maybe the Fediverse should actually split.

Leave Mastodon to its own devices. Leave them the term "Fediverse". Let Mastodon "be the Fediverse". Let "the Fediverse" and "the Mastodon network" be all the same. Just what absolutely every last newbie who came over from the Birdsite thought is the case. Just what many Mastodon users still think is the case. And exactly what not exactly few Mastodon users want the Fediverse to be.

Let Mastodon's many proprietary, non-standard, Mastodon-only solutions work perfectly with no interference from outside.

And leave Mastodon to be EEE'd by Threads.

Everything else could throw out all Mastodon-specific kluges and hacks and finally concentrate on pure standard ActivityPub plus FEPs. It could make full use of object types, regardless of how Mastodon renders them. It could introduce nomadic identity via ActivityPub without constantly having to check how well it works with Mastodon. It could implement a standard permissions system with no regard for how it'll work with Mastodon. For Mastodon will never implement anything they can't claim having invented themselves.

It could assume the name "Social Web" in the place of "Fediverse".

Its users could finally live the cultures of wherever they are and make use of the features available to them. They would longer have to deal with Mastodon users who try hard to force them to adopt the Mastodon culture and throw away the culture and most of the features of their home.

It could become acceptable for Social Web projects to introduce by-server-type filters and use them to block Mastodon as a whole. This could keep out the invaders who try to enforce their own foreign culture.

Such a step would also show which Fediverse projects are actually independent and which ones are nothing but add-ons bolted onto Mastodon. Because they will have to choose a side.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mastodon #Fediverse #SocialWeb

Lesser known: Before NASA and the Apollo program, Margaret Hamilton worked with mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz.

From 1959-1961 she programmed weather simulations on his LGP-30 computer. Those projects were the precursors to his famous 1963 paper that marked the birth of chaos theory.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-heroines-of-chaos-20190520/
https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110907153207130442

Tell the FCC: ⭐️Satellite mega-constellations need #environmental #review⭐️

We should look before we leap.

The number of satellites in mega-constellations that power satellite internet has ♦️increased by 127 times in five years♦️, in large part because of SpaceX.

At peak deployment of these disposable satellites, 29 tons of metal will re-enter our atmosphere per day.

That’s almost like a Jeep Cherokee falling from space every hour.

https://pirg.org/edfund/take-action/tell-the-fcc-satellite-mega-constellations-need-environmental-review/

"In The Beginning Was The Command Line" An essay by Neal Stephenson that talks proprietary operating systems and FOSS operating systems. Written in 1999. https://lemmy.ml/post/19268678

How to Decolonize Our Battle Against Climate Change #decolonizing #emissions #fossilfuels #ClimateChange #inequality https://countercurrents.org/2024/08/how-to-decolonize-our-battle-against-climate-change/