Notices by Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)

Younger family member who works for a big tech company is here for the Holidays. He is working everyday finishing up writing end of year peer review evaluations. Apparently everyone at the company has to generate 30+ extensive evaluations of their coworkers. This is done using a special version of ChatGPT which cranks our long beautifully worded reviews based on a few prompts. These then go to the respective managers who use ChatGPT to summarize the results for each employee. Seriously 🤦♂️

The way to phrase the issue to city managers is: Are you comfortable with all emergency services being blocked and rendered useless in the event of a major disaster? Has this citywide robot taxi gridlock been factored into your emergency disaster response plans?

News: Waymo robot taxis fail to manage SF power outage causing widespread gridlock

https://missionlocal.org/2025/12/sf-waymo-halts-service-blackout/

The question we should be asking is what are the penalties for creating such a citywide menace?

What if the blackout had been caused by a big earthquake, and a big fire ensued, and emergency services were unable to get anywhere because all the major intersections are clogged with brain dead Waymos.

It's early days, and there will certainly be some detailed analysis, but at this point it seems clear that these cars are too stupid to deal with widespread traffic lights being out. Unlike human drivers they do not know how to adapt to a non-standard situation. As a result we now have a situation where our public infrastructure is completely clogged in the event of a power outage. Is this acceptable? What dangers does this create? What happens when there are even more of them?

@RealJournalism

Unacceptable! We need to fix this shit!

"We are living through an era where Trump and his allies normalize hiding records, slow walking disclosures, ignoring deadlines, and daring the public to stop them. Democrats are supposed to be the alternative to that. When the party leadership withholds a report explicitly meant to diagnose failure, it blurs the moral contrast and reinforces the worst public assumptions about Democratic institutions."

@skinnylatte

True, but it is not unique for CA. Lots of the LA area is the same or worse.

Simply remarkable fall off in tourism to the United States.

"The US is down at least $30 billion in tourism for 2025. International boycotts and a loss in appeal to visit due to Donald Trump has resulted in millions of trips canceled." source: Anonymous on Bluesky

As clarified by @transicorn below, apparently many Mastodon servers now ask for your birthdate when signing up.

The difference between this and the Bluesky 'age assurance' measures are:

1. Mastodon says they do not store the information.
2. It is not retroactive to accounts created before this question was asked.
3. If you run your own instance there is no need to provide a birthdate.

OK, that's pretty snarky.

But, here is a question for #Bluesky users running their own PDSs.

Are you still required to provide your birthdate to Bluesky PBC?

Bluesky users, if you do not want to provide your birthdate to US VC funded #Bluesky PBC, simply join one of the other completely independent decentralized AT protocol instances listed below:

😉 [end of list] (/s)

Alternatively, you can just come on over to truly decentralized public social media where your personal data will not be exploited.

https://joinmastodon.org/

EDIT: 🤦♂️ It seems Mastodon also now asks birthdate during sign up, but with substantive differences. See clarification below.

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@evacide/115692611798213002

Perhaps the most important emerging insight...

...and a truly must-read article.

We will get out of this, and it will be because the general population comes to this realization.

RE: https://mastodon.online/@Luis_Fierro/115692394602729702

Wow!

This is incredible 😲

No Crockett is not funded by AIPAC

So, there is a falsehood that has been burning up the replies all day since Jasmine Crockett announced her candidacy for Senator that she is funded by AIPAC.

This is 100% false. Crockett has not taken any money from AIPAC.

Do not be deceived and do not help spread disinformation.

https://www.trackaipac.com/congress

Yikes 🔥

Here's to Hope!

RE: https://defcon.social/@fortyseven/115686336586809751

Bluesky Birthdate Required

So, it seems like now you can no longer use #Bluesky unless you provide them with your birthdate.

Others report you can't even delete your account unless you provide your birthdate to them (https://mastodon.social/@JennCutter/115686590793556531)

@dangillmor

Think about every nut, bolt, switch, bearing in a Tesla. Each part is a new design. Established car companies use an inventory of designs and parts refined over years. They make continual improvements for performance and reliability.

Each part has a statistical chance of failure which is reduced through design iteration. When everything is new overall reliability is dramatically reduced because of the cumulative affect of using all new untested unrefined elements.

@dangillmor

Been predicting this. Two things to understand.

1) Tesla's are indeed poorly engineered, and poorly engineered things wear out faster.

2) Teslas are designed new from the ground up and do not have the benefit of the integration of engineering refinements over decades. As these cars get older expect more things to fail simply because there has not been a long history of improving component designs. See below for elaboration on this point.

1/2

@joeinwynnewood

This is an important story. As with the current investigations into the military drug boat murder/warcrime, and multiple states setting up official portals to report ICE abuses, institutions begining to stand up to this lawless regime is a critical inflection point.

@folkerschamel @mmasnick.bsky.social

There is a big difference between truly decentralized and technically decentralizable.

See: Are we decentralized yet >>> https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/