Cory Doctorow @pluralistic
on how patent trolls are 'prefect IP':
The only truly perfect IP is the naked IP of a patent troll, the bare right to sue, a weapon made from pure abstract legal energy, untethered from any object, product or service
https://capitalaspower.com/2022/06/patent-troll-ip-is-more-powerful-than-apples/
FTC fines Twitter $150M for using 2FA info for targeted advertising https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/ftc-fines-twitter-150m-for-using-2fa-info-for-targeted-advertising/
I work for cognizant doing work for Google Maps maintaining stuff, yesterday my office went public with organizing around a mandatory Return To Office that many can't do, whether it is for health, monetary or childcare reasons. My coworkers are super organized and it is really exciting!
The NYT did an article on us :P
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/technology/google-maps-workers-office.html
"Groups that operate under the guise of inclusion are serving the greater goal of crypto that keeps the whole thing afloat: finding ever more fools to buy in so that the early investors can take their profits."
"Predatory community"
https://blog.mollywhite.net/predatory-community/
If you're looking for a small general Mastodon server to join, and you like coffee, you could try:
It's run by the same admin as https://mstdn.social, a nice person who has been doing this for years.
Also (and this is my last thought on this I promise)
Thinking in terms of the health of the Fediverse
Masto instances shouldn't let themselves get too big
No instance should be "too big to block"
Some top 100,000 websites collect everything you type—before you hit submit
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1854097
#keyloggers #Biz&IT
PixelFed is one of the types of server that make up the Fediverse
It focuses on photos and images, with an interface that's somewhat similar to Instagram. There's more info on the official site at https://pixelfed.org and their official account is @pixelfed
You can follow PixelFed accounts from Mastodon, you might even be doing so already without realising it, because from within Mastodon they will look like any other account. (For example @connyduck is a PixelFed account)
You can get a PixelFed account yourself by signing up on a PixelFed server. There's a list of servers to join at https://fedidb.org/software/pixelfed, but unfortunately they don't currently tell you anything about how one server differs from another, so you'll have to rely on word of mouth.
There's no official app for PixelFed released yet (though there is one in testing), but you can use PixelFed accounts through Mastodon apps.
Love this letter (fax!) from Douglas Adams: https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/please-dont-let-anyone-americanise
American audiences do not need to feel disturbed by the notion that places do exist outside the US or that people might suddenly refer to them in works of fiction.
needless to say i didn't predict how timely a piece like this would be when i was doing the interview.
apparently my elderly neighbor has been maintaining a personal website about the history of UK photography and it is an incredible piece of work.
apparently he still uses some piece of adobe software from the 90s. there is so much care and effort here, and its such a pristine image of the early web being still updated 😭
This letter from Apple employees to their leadership counters all the points which Cook et al are using to insist on moving back to the office so well.
https://appletogether.org/hotnews/thoughts-on-office-bound-work
California now has the strongest #NetNeutrality law in the land. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/01/california-prevails-net-neutrality-and-states-can-go-forth
One of the few upsides of having to quarantine for the next several days is that I get to spend some time with this thing, courtesy of my friends at #Rhizome (cc @dragan).
Meta, TikTok and YouTube may finally have to start sharing data with researchers https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/5/23058139/meta-tiktok-youtube-senate-transparency-hearing-research-us-europe
Senior Director/Arts at Knight Foundation. #musetech from way back when. Vaguely parenting. Drums sometimes. Sarcasm always. My half of the Zoom call happens in Austin, TX. he/him/his