Notices by Joe (not2b@sfba.social)

@dangillmor @pluralistic Yes, you see too many anti-230 posts on Mastodon, from people who don't understand that without 230, Mastodon instances will all have to close down or be legally eradicated, with admins liable for every post that might appear.

@lauren If someone already has the app, does the law require that ISPs and wireless carriers block the traffic? Not if I understand correctly. Seems users can keep using it but won't get updates. So perhaps a VPN would only be needed to get an updated version?

@glynmoody Wow, that's bizarre. Disagreeing with it is one thing, but refusing to let it go in the face of the threat to democracy we now face is kind of shocking.

@jwz If I understand this correctly, the astronomers get the full original data, but with a three day delay, while the spooks get it with no delay. Is that right? And the telescope images the entire sky every three nights. And astronomers still get immediate alerts but only if there isn't something that the spooks want to chop out near that position. I guess the astronomers will have to hope that we don't get something like a gamma ray burst too close to a satellite, which would inspire them to all look closer at that spot.

@tevo @mcc I used Teco back in the 70s on a PDP-10 (yes, I am old). You had to type a lot of dollar signs.

@molly0xfff Maybe they want it to blow up, so they can turn around and blame the Democrats and the Deep State for somehow hacking them? The political press would go along, because they don't know anything and like drama. If they structure it so that their own money isn't exposed, that might be the idea.

@heidilifeldman I had decided to donate again when you hit $400k, so I just did.

@heidilifeldman @BruceMirken Need to make the point that Musk is all in for Trump and Democrats are crazy to make X the center of their campaign. They should be breaking news on other platforms, maybe follow up with a post to X a day later, and only the fediverse will give them a platform that isn't controlled by an opponent (Zuckerberg should also be seen as an opponent, likewise the bros running BlueSky, though Musk is the worst).

@cdarwin If Biden does decide to drop, the only safe approach would be that it's before the convention, it's in favor of Harris and the party quickly unites behind her. A nasty fight at the convention will guarantee a Trump win. Picking someone else means that the money the Biden-Harris campaign raised can't go to the new person.

@profoundlynerdy @BeAware If it is a new account, the profile picture is of an attractive woman, and "she" DMs you out of the blue, it is almost certainly fake. Same if you block DMs from non-followers, follow someone and get an instant DM. All the other social media platforms have those people. They usually have many simultaneous targets. There was a John Oliver segment on how bad the cons can get. Some of them will try to build up a relationship with you before springing the trap. And yes, they are here on Mastodon now.

@mcc Trump will still be allowed to vote in Florida, because he was convicted in New York, so New York rules about losing voting rights apply. In New York, he can still vote unless he's actually in prison.

@HauntedOwlbear Windows 11 will not have Recall unless the machine has an expensive NPU. The machine has to meet the requirements of a so called Copilot+ machine, and even high end Intel and AMD machines don't. I can't think of why people would shell out the money for this feature.

@Bythus @Mastodon Many European NGOs have an associated US nonprofit. For example I give to MSF/Doctors Without Borders that way. It is a way for US citizens to contribute money, but does not give US authorities any operating control.

@lauren The ban is wrong, but it isn't going to help Trump, for several reasons. One is that it has pretty unanimous GOP support in Congress, and Trump's support as well until some billionaire with an interest in TikTok got Trump to switch sides. Second, the ban doesn't happen for a year, and court battles will push it even further back, so on election day there will be no change. And even if they do sell the platform will be just the same. So while I think the ban is incredibly stupid it simply isn't going to affect the election.

@WarnerCrocker "This new strategy would eliminate the need to create all these different shots, because it targets a part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus." Doesn't this just create huge evolutionary pressure, resulting in mutations that change the "part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus" enough so that the vaccine is no longer effective against it? I have no expertise, but this is a university press release, not the paper itself, and press releases tend to be overly optimistic about new research.

@GottaLaff What he did would have been rape in a number of other states, but NY law had a narrower definition. And now NY state has closed that loophole, by passing S3161, also known as the Rape is Rape Act (though I would have called it the Donald Trump Act).

@AnthonyJK @AnarchoNinaAnalyzes And yet I am hearing a lot of people on the left saying they won't help to beat the GOP, because the Democrats suck and Biden sucks and it makes no difference. It is true that Biden sucks in many ways, and I am outraged by what is going on in Gaza, but he has to win to prevent the pogrom. If we get project 2025 and even more fascist judges, it is all over: they want to eliminate trans people and push all gay/lesbian people underground.

@pettter @ajroach42 The VCs also win if the mid-size company gets bought out by a big company, for a profit, and that's basically the goal for a lot of smaller VC funded companies. But either way, the VCs will making things worse to extract all the money that they can.

@Jugi There's an algorithm, but it is a simple and transparent one: your followers see all your posts (unless they've muted you or muted a hashtag you included). If you use a hashtag, people who follow that hashtag see your post. If someone boosts your post, the followers of that someone see your post (and if that someone is @lisamelton a whole lot of people see it). There's nothing else that artificially boosts or limits your engagement. The users, not the owners, choose what gets seen.

@hikingdude @davew @aral I think it has to do with identity. They want every user to have a persistent identifier that persists across hosts. That does have some advantages, it makes migration easier. But it seems that everyone would register with them, so they'd control the user database. Caveat: I don't know if their final system will work that way, maybe it will be more open.