Notices by Simon McGarr (tupp_ed@mastodon.ie)

“75% of far right commentary about Ireland comes from outside Ireland”

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-sunshine-and-lollipops/

Senator Alice Mary Higgins asked the Chairman of Ireland’s new Internet regulator, the CnaM why his organisation didn’t take action against Grok generating CSAM under the Irish Online Safety Code.

Apparently, it didn’t appear to them to be a breach of the code.

What , then, is it good for?

We are getting reports that it is Not Raining.

It seems impossible, I know, but they are coming in from all sides.

I repeat- Not Raining is what people looking out of windows are saying.

In Dublin, on Fenian Street, there's a factory that makes child sex abuse material.

You can pay it money, as a subscription, and that's one of the services it offers. This doesn't happen by mistake or because you've tricked or hacked the system.

It’s a feature.

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the-abuse-factory/

Yesterday, after a mild query by some parents, my daughter’s primary school sent out a notice to say they were going to stop using their X account for comms.

It’s as simple as that. There are plenty of alternatives.

But even if there weren’t you can’t contribute to that.

And it can be as simple as
asking to prompt a change.

The Govt have announced they plan to pass the Facial Recognition Technology Bill through the Dáil on the last sitting day before Christmas. They’ve also removed most of the safeguards the legislation had at earlier stages and widened the scope of use.

Basically stuffing coal down all our chimneys

You can tell the Old Testament is the product of a desert people, because when they tried to imagine the end of the world they went with “rained for forty days and forty nights”, which in Ireland is just called Spring.

@HistoPol While Ireland’s politics can be wince making, we have not yet descended to the level of being in Britain, in their politics.

This interview with the Green Party Housing Minister is quite something.

“It was put to him that reinstating the eviction ban, and keeping people in the accommodation they already have, would help reduce the growing homeless figures.

He responded: “Well then it turns into a communist state, that’s what you are talking about. So we purchase everybody’s property, is it?”

https://www.thejournal.ie/green-party-housing-spokesperson-policy-matters-eviction-ban-6157921-Sep2023/

“But ESB Networks is currently (from beginning of October 2022) rejiggling smart meters so that all the granular half hour data from its customers smart meters is being brought into a centralised database, whether customers consent or not and whether their billing tariff needs it or not (and this is suggested to increase to every fifteen minutes after 2025).

This is new.”

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-how-smart-is-your-meter/

“These smart meters were originally set up to store detailed half-hour usage data but only transfer that stuff from the meter to ESB Networks if there was a request from the customer, or some other compelling reason why the data was required. Otherwise, the plan, as set out on the CRU's website, was for ESB Networks to default to getting a report once a day on how much power had been used in that 24 hours.”

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-how-smart-is-your-meter/

The Gist: How Smart is Your Meter?

"By and large, people in Ireland like having heating, cooking facilities and hot water in their homes. And, ever since hanging large pots over open hearths burning dried cowpats fell from fashion, they have turned to electricity to meet those needs.

Now ESB gets activity in every home in Ireland, broken down into half-hour increments . The'll know whether the home is occupied and when we enter our homes, and the level of activity"

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-how-smart-is-your-meter/

Ethernet wiring homes is difficult and will annoy your family. But did you know you can stick an adapter box on Co-axial cable wires and use them as Ethernet?

I'm quoted here by TechCrunch on Zoom's EU law problems in justifying their claim that they can use personal data gathered from users of their service to train AI models.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/08/zoom-data-mining-for-ai-terms-gdpr-eprivacy/

This is devastating.

Blackbird in Dun Laoghaire – a poem by Joseph O’Connor

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/08/09/blackbird-in-dun-laoghaire-a-poem-by-joseph-oconnor/

I feel Meta naming their Twitter replacement after a story of society’s decent into post-apocalyptic savagery is a bit on the nose. #ThreadsApp

The #ThreadsApp can’t launch in the EU because of EU data and consumer protections- which tells you about the level of surveillance bales in- but it has launched in the U.K., which tells you about the U.K.

High Value Tea Towel.

Look, there aren’t a bunch of rules for using Mastodon beyond not being a dose.

But there are a bunch of people who love making rules. This is not a technology thing, just a nature-of-humanity thing. Pay no heed.

However, the one thing I do here different is to write in the descriptions of the pictures for people who can’t see.

Because we don’t need rules to tell us to be sound.

This Tweet deliberately left blank so as not to break the thread.

This also was happening from the Dept of Justice at the same time.