@paulwermer@sfba.socialAs I did a quick search on SCAR, and some of it's members - I can't help but feel that the driving force is that they feel they do not receive
"The deference due
To a man of pedigree"
Texas congressional candidate with extremist views backed by hard-right donors
https://…
@PaulWermer@sfba.socialAs I did a quick search on SCAR, and some of it's members - I can't help but feel that the driving force is that they feel they do not receive
"The deference due
To a man of pedigree"
Texas congressional candidate with extremist views backed by hard-right donors
https://…
@Techmeme@techhub.socialBluefish, which helps brands manage visibility across AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude, raised a $43M Series B, bringing its total funding to $68M (Trishla Ostwal/Adweek)
https://www.adweek.com/media/bluefish-raises-43m-to-help-bran…
@cdarwin@c.imTrump acknowledged this week that “most” NATO members have said they’ll stay out of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.
So far, the only NATO members that have come out in support of the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran are the Czech Republic, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
Others, including Denmark, Finland and Luxembourg, have remained neutral in their opinions of the strikes, while issuing broad criticisms of the Iranian regime.
@NFL@darktundra.xyzBrian Daboll talks how experience with Josh Allen will benefit Cam Ward https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47967992/tennessee-titans-oc-brian-daboll-excited-cam-ward
@Techmeme@techhub.socialThe Linux Foundation announces $12.5M in total grants from Google and others to help FOSS maintainers cope with the influx of AI-generated security findings (Simon Sharwood/The Register)
https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/18/linux_foundation_ai_slop_defense/
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.ioIt’s not exactly an entirely satisfying consolation given the amount of misery they inflict on others, but it does help a little seeing them for what they are.
@patrick_townsend@infosec.exchangeSignal can help you organize a group
I have been amazed at the stories about neighbors helping neighbors in Minneapolis and in other towns and cities. Nothing can replace the courage and kindness of the people who have risen to the occasion to help others. And one tool they use to organize their neighbors and friends is Signal.
You might think of Signal as a messaging app. It is that, but it is so much more. In addition to messages, Signal supports private video meetings, phone …
@outer@mas.toI think introspection can help us figure out things about ourselves that we didn't know we didn't know. And many times, that's a good thing.
Sometimes we might have asked others, except we never thought to.
#SelfAwareness #Introspection
@lornajane@indieweb.socialIs anyone using trust scoring on PRs to help evaluate things during this influx of noise on public repositories? I'm looking at #openSource
@aral@mastodon.ar.alRE: https://ieji.de/@DiaaMahmoud097/116302314827601466
We spoke with Diyaa just the other day.
Please help if you can. And please share so others might also.
Thank you!
💕
@mlncn@social.coopRE: https://mastodonapp.uk/@MarkHoltom/116119118572185085
We need collective not individual action to overcome systemic injustice and all that, but having an income of $10M a year and using it to help others can help a ton of people and it shames the bil…
@cdarwin@c.imPeople come to the Fediverse to connect with others around communities and topics of interest.
We’ve seen people enjoy their time on Mastodon the most, when they can follow and engage with individuals and organisations that have interesting things to share.
We want to help those who are new to the Fediverse discover these communities more easily.
Back in October 2025, we shared our initial ideas about a new feature that’s coming in Mastodon 4.6, that we’re calling "Coll…
@niqdanger@social.linux.pizzaA few years ago I opened a ticket with the company help desk about a problem, only to have it routed through 3 others and then back TO me with a note "see ticket." If I could solve the issue, why would I open a ticket? Today was one of the days that made me remember that ticket. If I come to you with a problem, asking for help, it means I can't fix it on my own.
@memeorandum@universeodon.comAlex Jeffrey Pretti Knew He Wanted to Help Others (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/us/alex-jeffrey-pretti-was-an-icu-nurse-at-the-va-hospital.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/260125/p10#a260125p10
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systemsI think the most neglected thing about helping others is that you should actually ask what kind of help they need. "Helping" without actually understanding their needs is inefficient at best, and outward harmful at worse.
While this is an important thought in general, it also applies to creating patches for #FreeSoftware.
@chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca“The suspect was able to then open a second ChatGPT account, despite being flagged by OpenAI systems in the past, and "continue planning scenarios involving gun violence”.”
The BBC, CBC and other media are only focusing on half the story. But the quote above almost gets there! Hey @… can you help highlight this in your reporting??
Yes, it is extremely important that OpenAI tells the authorities if obviously dangerous planning is happening. But we should also be asking a second question:
Should we as a society allow automated tools to be created that can help plan “scenarios involving gun violence”?
This is not an "age verification" question. As far as I'm concerned, a computer system should not be designed or be allowed to counsel people of any age on how to kill others. That is what ChatGPT is likely to have done here. There is no limit on what any LLM/AI system can say to users.
That is a problem that must be regulated.
This might also be an issue of 'sober second thought' @…
#CanPoli #CdnPoli #CBC #TumblerRidge
@jswright61@ruby.socialRE: https://mastodon.social/@yuhasz01/115956727387266057
It’ll take more than a song. This is a good one! Hopefully this, and others like it, will help galvanize us as we embark on the long slog to take our government back.
@adamhotep@infosec.exchangeDear students: If a slop bot like ChatGPT does your homework, you are the victim. With this strategy, you limit both yourself and your capacity to help others.
(*Sigh*. I know this falls on deaf ears. My future coworkers will be idiots.)
https://www.404media.co/what…
@Techmeme@techhub.socialHow Russia-linked crypto exchanges, like Bitpapa, Exmo, and others help Russian entities move money across borders, bypassing banking oversight and sanctions (Elliptic)
https://www.elliptic.co/blog/russia-linked-cryptocurrency-services-and-sanctions-e…
@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialIn the interests of starting a more productive dialogue than yesterday's main character was interested in, let's make a #brainstorm thread about design changes to ActivityPub and/or client UI that could actually help address drive-by (often racist) harassment on the fediverse.
Feel free to discuss pros/cons but don't feel an idea needs to be perfect to suggest it. Also since this is a brainstorm don't worry about complexity/implementation cost. If you have a great-but-hard-to-implement idea someone else may think of a way to simplify it.
Note that the underlying problem *is* a social one, do there won't be a technological fix! But tech changes can make social remedies easier/harder.
I've got some to start:
1. Have a "protected mode" that users can voluntarily turn on. Some servers might turn it on by default. In protected mode, users whose accounts are less than D days old and/or who have fewer than F followers can't reply to or DM you. F and D could have different values for same-sever vs. different-server accounts, and could be customized by each user. Obviously a dedicated harasser can get around this, but it ups the activation energy for block evasion and pile-ons a bit. Would be interesting to review moderation records to estimate how helpful this might or might not be. Could also have a setting to require "follows-from-my-server" although that might be too limiting on private servers. Restriction would be turned off for people you mention within that thread and could be set to unlimit anyone you've ever mentioned. Would this lock new users out of engagement entirely? If everyone had it on via a default, you'd have you post your own stuff until someone followed you (assuming F=1). One could add "R non-moderated replies" and/or "F favorites" options to soften things; those experiencing more harassment could set higher limits. When muting/blocking/reporting someone who replied to your post, protected mode could be suggested with settings that would have filtered the post you're reporting.
2. Enable some form of public moderation info to be displayed when both moderator and local server opt-in. Obviously each server would be able to ignore federated public tags. I'm imagining "banned from X server for R reason (optional link to evidence)" appearing on someone's profile & an icon on their PFP in each post viewed by someone on server Y *if* the mods of server X decide it's appropriate *and* server Y opts in to displaying such tags from server X specifically. Alliances of servers with similar moderation preferences could then have moderation action on one server result in clear warning propagation to others without the other mods needing to decide whether to also take action immediately. In some cases different moderation preferences would mean you wouldn't take action yourself but would keep the notice up for your users to consider. Obviously the "Scarlet Letter" vibe ain't great, but in some cases it's deserved, and when there's disagreement between servers about that, mods on server Y could either disable a specific tag or disable federation of mod tags from that server in general. Even better shared moderation tools are of course possible.
3. Different people/groups have different norms around boosting. Currently we only have a locked/public binary. Without any big protocol changes, adding a "prefers boosts/doesn't" setting which would warn in the UI before a viewer chooses to boost if the preference is "doesn't" could help. This could be set per-post, but could also have defaults and could have different values for same-server or not, or for particular servers. For example, I could say "default to prefer boosts from users on my server but not from users on other servers" or "default to prefer boosting on all servers except mastodon.social." Last option might be harder to implement I guess.
#ActivityPub #Meta #Harassment
@pre@boing.worldOne of my VR Lighthouses died last month. These things are gyroscopically spinning 24 hours a day for, what, a decade now? Nearly.
No wonder. Mostly the industry seems to be settling on using head-mounted cameras rather than sweeping infra-red beams and receptors on the head anyway.
It is true that lighthouses give accurate positioning, but means I can't easily take the headset next door, say. Or to a party.
So inside-out, as they call it, is fine for the headset now and mostly okay for the hand-controllers.
But it offers no solution at all for the foot-trackers and hip-tracker that I need for puppetting the characters in the #vr #slimeVR #trackers
@Techmeme@techhub.socialBerlin-based Cloover, which makes software to help install solar, home batteries, and heat pumps, raised $22M from Lowercarbon and others and $1.2B in debt (Coco Liu/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01…
