Notices by . (fembot@mstdn.social)

#Tankman in #Tiananmen Square, facing down a column of tanks in Beijing, following the bloody events of the June 4 massacre. June 5, 1989

To this day in 2025, his identity and whereabouts are unknown.

📷 photo by: Jeff Widener/AP

• The story of this photograph and the events leading up to it:
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/world/tiananmen-square-tank-man-cnnphotos/

Indiana Jones and the Tempeh of Doom

#VegetarianAMovieOrShow

@jeffowski

A followup Q: I've heard it's easier to hack/change/customize open-source code to breach someone's SM account access or stalk them, as compared to a walled-garden site. Is that even true? I mean, is that a built-in vulnerability of open source? Thx for any insight

@jeffowski whoa, ok, thanks. I'm not a digital native and some of these kinds of particulars are murky to me, so I appreciate the insight.

Presumably, most individual private fedi/masto servers aren't from institutions but I see your point about the potential for access abuse either way. It's why I mostly shy away from clicking ppl's links to their own websites as well, unless they state they don't use trackers, etc.

@jeffowski

Somewhat related: Can someone here tell me if ppl on their own private servers can see who is reading their posts/accessing their serverposts from masto/fedi?

I've heard that it's easier for stalkers to, well, stalk via open source than a walled garden, though I would not have expected that.

Please hold the snark on this one, if you can. A serious response is most welcome tho. Thx.

@skinnylatte ok, that's amazing, the culinary melding in your household. It sounds warm and natural (and delish). How's it going with the different pace of life in Monterey when you're there? Sounds like a pretty cool adventure all around.

@Em0nM4stodon Thank you. Is there a way to prevent Meta/Threads from being able to view or interact with one's Masto account? (I'd assume an instance-level block would accomplish that. But what about at the individual level?)

Habitat for Humanity pays tribute to the humanitarian work of Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter, and note their dedication to service. The Carters first volunteered with Habitat in 1984.

https://www.habitat.org/

#JimmyCarter #RosalynnCarter #HabitatForHumanity

@mekkaokereke Thanks, I hadn't heard mention of it lately. As a creative, it's put the urch on my posting my own work here again until I can find a way past that. I've heard the #NoBot tag isn't effective outside of Masto 🤷♀️

@mekkaokereke Does Bsky still scrape text and images from posts for AI and LLMs? And does that still apply to crossposts from Masto/Fedi?

@SallyStrange Pronouncing just the first syllable or two of a multi-syllabic word – "sitch" for situation, etc. As long as it still makes sense, Y not.

Casual writing in sentence fragments instead of gramatically correct sentences = fine as long as it's understandable.

Oxford comma only if needed for understandability. And it's ok to pronounce some non words as words ("lol" said as a word).

I've always flung words around idiosyncratically, and anyway language is a living, morphing thing imo!

@BeAware What they learned and demonstrated to others is how easy it is to scrape the Fediverse for AI, though. They'll be back, is my guess. Am I cynical? Lol, yeah, a little.

What would be helpful in this case would be an anti-AI (or anti-scraping?) feature we could opt into or out of while still maintaining interoperability with the Fediverse. Surely someone is able to develop this. A fediverse moonshot! Why not though?

I hear your frustration about individual account opt-in. Not ideal.

@BeAware I'm not exactly sure either. Yesterday's case seems like just exploiting existing site architecture. Not particularly believeable they didn't know how it works here.

That's a great point = how things are here vs. how ppl might want them to be. Seems like safety and privacy (different but related things) are important to some ppl and less so to others. There's no slam in that, it makes sense. It should be possible to accommodate all, imo. Opt-in (or out) anti-AI instances, for example.

@BeAware Safety first, though, right. Yesterday's breach was a direct reminder of how techbros design systems for themselves first, which is actually fine. It's when the rest of us participate that the system itself is weaponized in ways that compromise safety.

What I wonder is how open source itself might encourage malicious ppl to use open source to harm others. Do you have an opinion on that?

Walled gardens have other downsides, for sure.

I think you were brave to reply, so thx.

People are just the worst. Also though, people are absolutely the best, and I love those ppl.

I'm starting to see the wisdom of the walled garden. I mean, it doesn't matter if what endangers you comes from a corporate source or a malicious techbro source — the harm is not only the same but more apt to be wielded by the tech bros and their apologists. And they know you can't and won't stop them.

From a safety and privacy perspective, who is Open Source federation for?

#Mastodon #Fediverse

@GossiTheDog So, why is stalking entertaining? [Curious if this post is visible? I mean, it should be, but no reply earlier so I'm not sure. Thx.]

A sunlit drizzle

Nikon • 28mm

#photography #rain #leaves #green

• AI's Electricity Use is Spiking So Fast It'll Soon Use As Much Power as an Entire Country

"A recent analysis published in the journal Joule found that by 2027, these server farms could use anywhere between 85 to 134 terawatt hours of energy per year.

"That's roughly on par with the annual electricity use of Argentina, the Netherlands, or Sweden, or 0.5 percent of the entire globe's energy demands."

https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-electricity-use-spiking-power-entire-country

#AI #energy #climate #electricity #serverFarms

@Gargron @shiri @petergleick
Is that also why there's no ability to see ALT text on images on the mobile web page/Android?

Hey mastoPeeps 👋 Have you ever looked at your own account from different instances? I had occasion to do this after I blocked or muted some ppl, and I have questions.

Why do our own social graph numbers and the number of boosts and faves per post vary so much — sometimes by a *lot* — from one instance to the next – for the same account?

The numbers we see in our own account on our home server is not necessarily what other servers see. But why? 🤔

#mastoTips #mastodonHelp #FediTips @feditips