Notices by Don Marti (dmarti@federate.social)

Happy #WikipediaDay to all who celebrate!

If you're putting off getting started because of the maze of complicated official docs and rules, there is a good one-page intro (video and text) at https://blog.mollywhite.net/become-a-wikipedian-transcript/

@codinghorror @Em0nM4stodon YouTube just told my YouTube account that it's a child—which excuses you from the "personalized" ads, so I guess that account will never grow up

"The American right, especially the emerging MAGA ecosystem, was simply a dream customer: highly engaged, highly inflamed, and extremely willing to click through to garbage sites that paid out ad revenue." https://www.reneediresta.com/on-the-internet-no-one-knows-youre-a-maga-patriot-in-lagos/

(if there is a the funny part about all this, it's that the real #WinRed is losing traffic and probably donations to international rage-bait operations)

@mcpinson @evan in the long run, the point of view of a publisher is going to align with the interests of the advertisers. You can't show favoritism to any one advertiser, but Road and Track is going to agree with "buying and driving fast cars is a good thing to do" and Linux Journal was all about buying hardware because you can run Linux on it. Look at the ads in the New York Times and the big picture is: living in an expensive apartment and buying expensive bling is what New York City is for

@spacehobo @evan "Burn All GIFs Day may be the first time in human history that anyone has ever thought it worthwhile to stage an organized political protest, even a small one, over a mathematical algorithm."

https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/citation/wc991103.htm

(we didn't know how good we had it—algorithms are doing all kinds of protest-worthy harms to all kinds of people these days)

@babe for some reason being in French makes this one sillier

HP is putting #ads on their (Microsoft Windows) laptops. Isn't that special?

(why, yes, we are having a Linux installfest next month, see my pinned toot for details)

https://www.adweek.com/commerce/hp-is-launching-an-ad-business-with-laptop-targeted-ads-and-a-streaming-service/

Question for #Linux #beginners and educators: What are some good intro to Linux books?

(Background: I'm organizing an #installfest at the public library and the Linux books on the shelf are from 2009-2012. I'd like to be able to recommend some up-to-date intro reading. The installfest isn't until Aug. 30 so we have time to get some books ordered and/or into the library purchase request system)

@evan it's not that simple -- surveillance advertising is also part of a political movement that goes back to direct mail ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/04/conservatives-pioneered-direct-mail-stoke-discontent-it-has-worked/ )

@masukomi @aral yes, that's a huge issue (and one that on its own should rule out having events here—conference organizers need to pay attention and not just assume that no attendee is affected)

@aral I am in the USA and I agree. I'm not inviting anyone from outside the country for the foreseeable future unfortunately.

(I have a rough idea what to do if a visitor has trouble with local law enforcement here, but you could be sent to a Federal or private location out of state where it would be hard for any host or their lawyer to communicate with you)

@inthehands good point, there's already a fart sound effects feature on those things, hopefully the compromise will be annoying and not dangerous.

Did you ever see the old Reddit thread where a former Tesla employee wrote about ssh-ing in to people's cars?

@aral good point. (and how much money would the USA's Big Tech companies owe in EU fines if the EU wasn't going easy on them because they rely on the USA's help for regional defense?)

myth: #Mozilla is forced to do creepy advertising shit because the users are slacking and not making enough donations!

reality: the users see Mozilla making hella $$$ from creepy advertising shit, so they don't need donations like other .orgs do

@evan I figure that by blocking surveillance ads I should be spending an extra $17/mo on subscriptions to even things out https://blog.zgp.org/or-we-could-just-not/ (but that's a USA number, probably lower in countries with less total money spent on advertising)

not affiliated with this #job just sharing what looks like an awesome #privacy #sysadmin opportunity in #california

(implementation for the #DeleteAct so you get to go home every day knowing you helped make the surveillance industry big mad)

https://calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/Jobs/JobPosting.aspx?JobControlId=466076

@fabiocosta0305 @glynmoody @cstross The fair use issue in the USA still isn't decided. In the EU, though, AI can be trained on copyrighted works unless the copyright holder "expressly reserves" -- which all the mainstream publishing companies, and most independent authors, have been doing

https://cultureactioneurope.org/news/european-parliament-adopts-the-ai-act/

@tek @twifkak @jonathankoren and the NSA, and the CIA... https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-nsa-and-cia-use-ad-blockers-because-online-advertising-is-so-dangerous/

@twifkak @jonathankoren @tek (and yes, "experienced advertisers" in the USA are more likely to run an ad blocker than average https://www.ghostery.com/blog/privacy-report-advertisers-and-adblockers )

@twifkak @jonathankoren @tek

Malwarebytes has more info on fake domains showing up in search ads -- in this case it's fake ads for ads.google.com but looks like the same principle (?)

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/01/the-great-google-ads-heist-criminals-ransack-advertiser-accounts-via-fake-google-ads