ceoln @ceoln@qoto.org

3 years later log4j vuln is #8 most exploited. The hype was justified. Also, why are people still using vulnerable versions and still not updating?

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa24-317a

#PleaseBoost! It's exciting to be starting up a new regional #Mastodon for British Columbia when there is so much change and growth in the #OpenSocialWeb #Fediverse!

We're not ready to open up the gates… still setting up the banking stuff among other things.

But if you're in BC and are interested in making your home on this instance please send me or @PhotographyElf a DM and we'll start making a (private) list so that we can let you know when we're ready! (Hoping Jan 1!)

#MastodonMigration

Boo…staying home for the new water heater tomorrow means I can’t go to the ypsiwrites NaNoWriMo group tomorrow.

I had a fun and productive time last week. Any local writers should go join up.

#NaNoWriMo #writing #A2 #ypsiwrites

It's been something like six months since my last #introduction so I thought it would be a good time to post an update!

I work in #manufacturing - as in I'm a drone in a factory. I'm still coming down from #Halloween, though recent #USPolitics have had a sobering effect (to say the least). Huge fan of #books, #VideoGames, #music, and, as of this year, #movies. Lately, I've been reading a crapload of #LitRPG. I take my #LittleFreeLibrary way more seriously than I should. Recently, I've been #writing more and I'm kind-of-sort-of participating in #WritingMonth (or #NaNoWriMo if ya nasty). I've got #fantasy, #SciFi, and #horror projects in the works. I'm into #PCGaming and I love my #SteamDeck to death.

Umm... Yup! That about sums me up. Here's a dancing baby:

“We forget what this country was like 50 years ago – how many children died every year from polio, pertussis, measles.
We’re going to see the return of diseases we have controlled for decades and with that many additional severe illnesses in hospitals and deaths – and that’s just from the rhetoric, not even withdrawing vaccines.”
-Dr Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

hamster levels are critical

(97%) ■■■■■■■■■□

He didn't just have sex with a minor. He paid to have her transported across state lines, making him a sex trafficker. A child sex trafficker.

He must be very popular with conservative Christian voters.

https://newrepublic.com/post/188426/matt-gaetz-high-school-girl-witnesses

Before it's Ruined (or an Unrealized Mean Side)

Self Portrait, oil on canvas, Rebecca Orcutt, 2020

#rebeccaorcutt #beckyorcutt #art #artist #artworld #selfportrait #beforeitsruined #contemporaryart #contemporaryartist #oilpainting #huile #oil #öl #oleo #kunst #künstler #artoftheday #paintingoftheday #peintre #peinture #portraitart

Where are *you* finding hope on crises that feel impossibly big to change?

Last March, I rode my bicycle 50 miles through the snow to visit the site of a famous environmental disaster and the forests that are knitting together a broken land.

This feels like the right week to share the story.

If you like this story, do let me know. I've been trying to decide if I should write more creative nonfiction in the future after a hiatus for a while. cc @clive

https://natematias.medium.com/maple-syrup-time-845bc7045754

Only a federal privacy law that empowers ordinary people to sue companies that broker their sensitive data will have enough teeth to begin reining in the data broker industry. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/americans-deserve-more-current-american-privacy-rights-act

@bruces I rather like the idea presented in Greg Egan's "Distress". That of the Cognitive Big Bang: the universe is created when someone comes up with a fully explanatory Theory Of Everything; from which point it propagates both forward and backward in time.

This week I wrote about consequence in an age of coming fascist supremacy, the need for ourselves to find safe people, and to identify unsafe people, and the ways that they will tell us which they are often without even knowing they are doing so.

https://www.the-reframe.com/rules-of-engagement/

The Recess Appointments Gambit, Explained

One of the Meidas guys explains the possible/probable machinations of how 78-year old career criminal and adjudicated rapist prznint-elect Stupid could install his cabinet misfits into the government bypassing the entire confirmation process (Emphasis is mine): "… I talked a little in yesterday’s column about Trump talking about making his Cabinet appointments as “recess appointments” to get them in office prior to Senate…

http://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/11/17/the-recess-appointments-gambit-explained/

12 years of #Scarfolk (and my life) now deleted from Twitter/X...
The many political reasons aside, X's change to its Terms of Service are damaging for creatives, as their work - and all your data infact - is now training #AI.

I teach at a very academically rigorous school. But, there are a few things this school does that might surprise people:

1. Many teachers teach a wide range of grade levels. So you could have a teacher who *could* teach Linear Algebra teaching you in 4th grade math.

2. The school makes time for creative math and CS in addition to the regular class. So I get to work with students without pressure to get them past any particular test or goal posts.

Now that I've played around with it a bit, there are some things I like better about Bluesky. What worries me is the uncertainty around what might come next (e.g., advertising, paid memberships, being bought by the Tesla guy). Mastodon seems far better positioned to resist such threats. For now, I plan to stay here and continue to bridge my account to Bluesky.

#bluesky #fediverse #mastodon

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke is calling for the end of Canada’s public postal service because its workers have gone on strike.

The company’s leaders are increasingly pushing extreme right-wing positions in Canada. Gutting Canada Post would effectively end delivery in many rural and remote communities because it’s not profitable for private companies to serve them.

#tech #shopify #postoffice #canada #cdnpoli