Marc Madness @marcmadness@librem.one

All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

And yet, these moments are what make life worth living.

@mmasnick

Lumen is scoping building an "easy to install and use" tool that would allow fediverse instance admins to easily and effectively accept takedown requests of whatever variety and simultaneously send them (in whatever form deemed appropriate) to us here at Lumen.

If you were wondering about the UK Online Safety (nee Harms) Bill and where it's at, read: https://www.gp-digital.org/the-return-of-the-uks-online-safety-bill-whats-changed-and-whats-next/

New research reveals a scalable technique that uses synthetic data to improve the accuracy of AI models that recognize images.

https://bit.ly/3HgonWz

#ACMTechNews #AI #ArtificialIntelligence

Years ago I bought a collection of IBM Selectric Typewriter ‘golf balls’ (including some rarer ones) from a typewriter repair shop. Once upon a time this was how fonts were stored for the machine. The owner literally used his arm to shovel them into a cardboard box like he couldn’t get rid of them fast enough, in a shop full of hundreds of them. A good memory. #design #typography #typewriter #fonts

What twisted product designer thought this was a good part of that #FrostyTheSnowman cartoon to make kids reenact in boiling snack form?

Today it is to celebrate 25 years of #GnuPG 🎉 a #FreeSoftware implementation of the '#OpenPGP and #CMS standards for #endtoendcrypto . For this GnuPG 2.4.0 is announced and #Gpg4win 4.1.0, see https://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg-announce/2022q4/000477.html and https://lists.wald.intevation.org/pipermail/gpg4win-announce/2022/000099.html

If you're hearing a lot about the fediverse these days, you should know: Mastodon is not the whole fediverse and the fediverse is not simply a Twitter replacement. The fediverse is an entire ecosystem, built on something called ActivityPub. Learn more: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/11/leaving-twitters-walled-garden

@pluralistic @Bloomberg I'm just spitballing here, but it seems to me that Apple (and Google) should either be able to block third party app stores, or charge fees to use theirs, but not both. Either could be considered a valid business plan (regardless of merits), doing both is extortion.

Introduction:
L0pht Heavy Industries was a group of hackers based in the Boston area during the late 90's. Our early website spread hacking information far and wide. We pioneered early vulnerability research and the vulnerability disclosure debate. In May 1998 we warned the US Congress about weak computer security in government. We went on to found the internet security consultancy @stake. Today the original members of the L0pht, former employees of @stake and those we influenced along the way have scattered throughout all corners of the Internet.
#Forging Machines to Build Your Dreams.

Today’s social media status quo isn’t cutting it, so Mozilla is exploring an alternative here on Mastodon. In early 2023, Mozilla will be testing a publicly accessible instance in the Fediverse at Mozilla.Social. We will keep you updated, but for now learn more here: mzl.la/3BNXQMQ

"Police provide first official details of Elon Musk’s alleged stalker incident"

🚨"Police say a member of Elon Musk’s security team is currently a suspect in their investigation, not a victim"🚨

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/20/police-provide-first-official-details-on-elon-musks-alleged-stalker-incident

In rehearsals for Allegiance opening in Jan at London’s Charing Cross Theater. First show is already sold out, and the rest filling up!

For tickets: https://AllegianceMusical.com

No one: ….

Absolutely no one: ….

Wait, do I hear bagpipes? OH MY GOD IT’S ROWDY RODIMUS PRIME!

WOPR 1:12 scale scratch build model

Don't write your year in technology reviews for 2022 just yet. There are still a few more days to go for more unfortunate stuff to happen

"A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?"
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/

#ContentModeration is fundamentally about making social media work better, but there are two other considerations that determine how social media *fails*: #EndToEnd (#E2E), and #FreedomOfExit. These are much neglected, and that's a pity, because how a system fails is every bit as important as how it works.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free/ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

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@pluralistic I'm sure you have an over-abundance of sources, but Amazon's algorithmic pricing versus their "merchant" promotions are crazy. Our products sold for less by algorithm than when put in the merchant program that was charged back to the merchant. When it came time for promotion, the algorithm would push prices up, so they could go "sale" -- that sale cost the merchant, whereas the algorithm did not. This "pay for promotion" was old school big box retail practice -- and one that Amazon eschewed to lure the vendors to its platform in the early days, -- and then pulled the rug out, once the damage was done. Chokepoint, Indeed. Thanks for your tireless efforts covering this nonsense and evil, because I suspect you'd rather be writing scifi and seeing your work put on the big screen in a world of independent studios and independent theaters.

Software freedom is a fundamental right that allows users to have control over their own computing. It empowers you to use, study, change & share the software as you see fit. Embrace your software freedom: https://www.fsf.org/ #FreedomToShare