Notices by nadiaalbelushi (nadiaalbelushi@mastodon.social)

Artemis Missions Could Put the most Powerful imaging Telescope on the Moon
https://www.universetoday.com/168511/artemis-missions-could-put-the-most-powerful-imaging-telescope-on-the-moon/

Apple Maps on the web launches in beta
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/07/apple-maps-on-the-web-launches-in-beta/

One thing about being multiracial is that I never felt I belonged anywhere. I never felt fully Kuwaiti or British. Never felt fully Western or Mideastern. And honestly, it does kinda suck. Sometimes it's funny tho, especially when you meet other multiracial Kuwaitis who thought they were unique and the only multiracial ppl out there. As soon as they find out they're not unique/alone, they frown at you lol. But yeah it kinda sucks. Not gonna lie. Society is cruel.

#Mastodon #fediverse #racism

A Century of Sky, Digitized
The Harvard College Observatory’s glass plates, which record a century of changes in the sky, has now been converted into digital form.

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/a-century-of-sky-digitized/

dasch.cfa.harvard.edu
starglass.cfa.harvard.edu

#astronomy #science #news #tech #astrodon #NASA #space #history

Yesterday I wrote a post on #Mastodon about racism/fascism on #Bluesky. I deleted it coz I didn't want anyone here to get triggered by the screenshots I shared. I wrote a thread on Bluesky where I documented all the racism I've so far encountered:

https://bsky.app/profile/nadiaalbelushi.bsky.social/post/3kpoxesspx42p

Bluesky is allowing anti-Arab/Palestinian racism by Iranian accounts that are against their govt, which they accuse of being Arab-friendly.

#fediverse #tech #socialmedia #politics #news #fascism #Trump #MAGA #Palestine #Gaza

#Mastodon wipes the floor with #Bluesky. This place feels like a community. You actually get engagements here, no matter how big or small your account is. Your followers are ALSO your mutuals. On Bsky, OTOH, you get algorithmic feeds that amplify only popular accounts, little engagement unless you're a victim of dogpiling, closed-membership feeds, etc. Nobody uses hashtags or the search function. It's centralized and yet fragmented into empty echo chambers. Bsky is gonna fail.

#fediverse #tech

On #Mastodon, a biologist can post something about biology and get engagements from non-biologists. Their post could also trend for the day and be widely received by people of all different walks of life. On Bluesky this CANNOT possibly happen. Everyone is in their own closed-membership algorithmic bubble/feed where only the same large accounts are amplified. You can't break through these barriers. It's a rerun of what led to twitter's demise. It's not "new #socialmedia" at all.
#fediverse #tech

I spent a week on #Bluesky doing a social experiment. It was an exercise in depression. #Mastodon is the best new #socialmedia, by far. On Bsky, nobody uses the search function or hashtags like #science to discover posts. You're stuck to one science feed that's a closed-membership algorithmic coffin that only boosts large long-established accounts. It felt like I was in solitary confinement. You're forced to play the "social ladder" game, which encourages twitter-style toxicity.
#fediverse #tech

This Pocket PC Is Big on Open Source

https://spectrum.ieee.org/mnt-pocket-reform

#news #tech #programming #foss #opensource #linux

An amateur astronomer by the name of Melina Thévenot has managed to process a number of images that were taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope of wide-orbit planetary-mass objects (i.e. exoplanets) orbiting around their host stars.

This is her website: https://isolatedplanetsarchive.wordpress.com/

#NASA #news #science #astronomy #astrophotography #astrodon #astrophysics #space

More than a decade after the US Empire destroyed oil-rich Libya and transformed it from #Africa's richest country to one of its poorest, the US is planning to reopen its embassy there, after warring factions agreed to reunify the war-torn country. Libya was once an independent sovereign state, and is now overrun by warlords who are backed by different foreign powers. This is the price Qaddafi paid for agreeing to dismantle his country's nuclear program.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/us-wants-reopen-embassy-libya-210914025.html

#news #politics

Before #Biden became president, he criticized #Trump and vowed to "help" the Kurds.

Turkey is now planning to start a new round of military aggression against the Kurds of northern Iraq and northern Syria, only weeks after the US agreed to sell Turkey new F-16 fighter jets.

Biden and the US govt are planning to placate Erdogan's faux outrage over #Israel's war on #Gaza by green-lighting a new Turkish war of ethnic cleansing against the Kurds.

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/03/three-top-turkey-officials-visit-iraq-erdogan-threatens-kurdish-militants

#news #politics

Honestly, I had no idea DuckDuckGo had its own web browser lol. This article reminded me to try out DuckDuckGo's search engine again, and compare its search results with those of Google Search. I was actually surprised to find out that DuckDuckGo churned out way better search results. I'm definitely gonna use it instead of Google from now on.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/14/duckduckgo-adds-cross-device-password-and-bookmark-syncing/

#tech #technology #news #software #Google #internet #online #web #programming #computer #computers #browser #Chrome #Firefox

Yuma Antoine Decaux is a blind #software engineer & co-founder of OSeyeris. He & his team are working on a multi-sensorial #astronomy app for the blind & visually impaired.

The name of the app is AstreOS & is currently in beta. You can try the beta via this link, if you have an #Apple device:

https://testflight.apple.com/join/ZsGh6uYD

The #app is visually beautiful & can be used by anyone, not just the blind or visually impaired. It features exoplanets, constellations, minor stars, & all solar system bodies.

#Bluesky has just federated and crossed the 5 million users mark.

I wish success for both #Mastodon and Bluesky. I'm on both platforms but I personally like Mastodon much more, and the amount of engagement I get here is unrivaled. Even better than my #twitter days.

Nonetheless, I wish the #fediverse all the best. Onwards and upwards for #ActivityPub, ATProto, Mastodon, Bluesky, the fediverse, etc.

This is how #socialmedia should've always been.

#news #tech

https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/22/bluesky-opens-up-federation-letting-anyone-run-their-own-server/

Hypothetical visualizations of 900 known rocky and icy exoplanets by Halcyon Maps:

Link: https://www.halcyonmaps.com/terrestrial-exoplanets/

#space #astronomy #science #Mastodon #news #art

So I've been on #Mastodon for nearly 10 days and I'm absolutely loving it. Far better place than #twitter, which is now just a Nazi website, to be honest. I love that this place is overall left-leaning, albeit there is a bit of cognitive dissonance with respect to some users who appear left-leaning until, Allah/God forbid, you mention #Israel.

Anyway, there's just one thing I've noticed so far. I'm kinda embarrassed to ask but... Where are all the Black people? Any Mideasterners here too? 😕

Say what you want about some of the flaws of #Mastodon / #ActivityPub & #Bluesky / ATProto, but at least these 2 platforms are grounded in realism, unlike #Nostr, which is overrun by #bitcoin / #crypto fans who live in a parallel universe where natl govts & armies don't seem to exist.

Never does it occur to them that the dollar is backed by #US military might.

What will they do if the US govt bans crypto or if the US #military blockades a country like El Salvador? Nowt.

#Politics #News #World

#Putin's interview was beyond embarrassing, to be honest. Basically his entire argument is that #Ukraine historically belonged to #Russia.

By his own logic, Russia and Ukraine should both be part of Iran because the ancient Scythians (an Iranic people) lived there thousands of years ago, long before the arrival of the Slavic peoples.

This is exactly why I hope we erase natl borders one day and become one global federation. This planet doesn't belong to anyone. We're just guests here.

#News

I've been on #Mastodon for only a few days and I already feel less anxiety/stress over here than on twitter/X. I love the fact that both Mastodon and #Bluesky are overall leftist/left-wing. I'm so glad the future of social media is decentralized (e.g. #ActivityPub, ATProto, Nostr, etc.).

Twitter was never a healthy place with all its silly algorithms and encouragement of confrontations. I don't know which platform US society mostly resembles, but I hope it eventually resembles Mastodon, etc.