Retired dude named "Ben" and escapee from GA and G+. Sir Maniac of Colorado.
Joined Oct 2018
Pinned toot
@The717
Well, there are guides like
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/08/mastodon-quick-start-guide/
where you are already halfway through it.
Or this guide which has a little more detail
https://docs.framasoft.org/en/mastodon/User-guide.html
The other thing I would recommend for the web interface is to point at things to see the text hint & click them if it seems right. You can click on links, hash tags, profile names, icons, and so on.
Pinned toot
A more concise explanation of the "Fine People Hoax"
https://twitter.com/SengMerrill/status/1296971911185006592
I might have to pin this one....
Pinned toot
Another resource - Whitehouse pool reports
https://kinja.com/poolreports
There seems to be a regular cycle of reports here. Late evening the day before there is a schedule for the next day. Then a series of either official announcements, a report of "what happened" in a briefing or event. Repeat cycle. I looked for an RSS feed and could not find one - maybe you have to sign in.
Pinned toot
The "fine people" hoax and how to combat it
https://blog.dilbert.com/2019/04/30/the-fine-people-hoax-funnel/
Scott Adams has had several discussions about this hoax and has found the rebuttals following a specific order. Here's that order and what you can say at each step. It includes links to relevant information as well.
A couple of censorship articles from "Reclaim the Net"
https://reclaimthenet.org/youtube-removes-live-stream-virginia-gun-rights-rally/
A peaceful rally in Virginia was removed by YouTube for violating the "firearm" policy stating
“YouTube does not allow live streams showing someone holding, handling, or transporting a firearm.”
but doesn't apply that same policy to M5M outlets.
https://reclaimthenet.org/tennessee-principal-suspended-criticizing-big-tech-censorship/
A principal in Tennessee was suspended for criticizing high tech censorship. The comments from the school board rep should be read....
Mark
boosted
The hits keep coming: ‘Skynet Is A Private Company, They Can Do What They Want,’ Says Man Getting Curb-Stomped By Terminator
Mark
boosted
You guys who don't follow regular fedi might get a chuckle out of this.
We've all heard of the "fediblock" -- the great blocklist that NAS and any server with fun people are on.
P from FSE created a new relay that includes only instance that are on the fediblock list lol
Johnny Mnemonic Day...
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/01/today-is-johnny-mnemonic-day/
Yet another movie made over 20 years ago has caught up with the current date.
I guess I'm glad people don't have storage devices in their heads.
Some good rules for living
https://philebersole.wordpress.com/2021/01/16/some-good-rules-for-living/
Just the image.
I guess my favorite is the last one - "If it does not concern you, mind your own business."
Insecure screen savers (and why...)
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/01/i-told-you-so-2021-edition/
JWZ built XScreenSaver many years ago & written several times about how to make screen locking secure (despite the X server being relatively insecure).
It doesn't help that people did a copy & past of hunks of that code into other screensaver products without preserving the license or making attribution.
Mark
boosted
Server move complete, however there are still some network and hardware changes to make.
Expect additional periodic downtime throughout the weekend. Thank you for your patience.
Snakes in a car
https://www.9news.com/article/life/animals/snake-rescued-after-stuck-in-seat-of-car/73-3cf4898b-cbc1-4f05-be12-f0747325969a
A guy took his snakes for a car ride and one got stuck in a seat (driver's side?). The police managed to loosen enough parts to get it out and advised the driver to restrain the snakes in the future....
Interesting "feature"
https://social.quodverum.com/@pangaea/105549854563010018
Images saved by Mastodon apparently need to have EXIF data stripped. The OP had an issue where the header image had lat/long data included and was refused with a 403 error on upload. The issue listed in the 2nd toot indicates this is a deliberate feature.
17 part thread about the election
https://social.quodverum.com/@AmareVita/105561676712838295
About the only thing missing here is a direct link to the report.
Perhaps this one...
https://navarroreport.com
though in my quick look the page numbers don't seem to match but the charts all seem to be there.
Lots of words like fraud in here - I'll leave it to the reader to decide what it really is or not.
35 part threat over at SQV about the COVID vaccines
https://social.quodverum.com/@watch4thedrop/105561755179258342
The guy is a pharmacist, describes the vaccine mechanisms and then rattles off a series of Q&A. There is more from the peanut gallery as well.
FWIW - read and decide for yourself what you want to do about the vaccines.
Back in the "good old days" you had problems like this one
https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/15/on_call/
A server running NetWare 3.x (a reasonably solid choice) was rebooting each morning. The IT guy ended up getting in early to see what happened to cause the reboot and found a pretty innocuous cause....
PS: In a similar vein, I worked one summer near a bank of fluorescent lights - lots of RF interference for the radio. I managed to "fix" it with a large capacitor.
Car with missing person found with Google Maps
https://notthebee.com/article/watch-this-guy-accidentally-found-a-dead-body-on-google-maps-that-had-been-missing-for-22-years/
An IT guy uses Google Maps regularly to look at areas that can be used by school kids to walk to school. He zoomed into the area near his ex girlfriend lives and saw what looked to be a car in a retention pond. A few hours later the car was pulled out of the water.
The car was there for over 20 years and visible in Maps for over a decade before it was found.
Mark
boosted
Tiki boat theft in Key West thwarted
https://twitter.com/USCGSoutheast/status/1349446406122123268
The person aboard showed signs of intoxication....
According to "CDC Wonder"
https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D76
(or search for it if that link doesn't work)
Year Deaths Population Rate/100K
2017 2,813,503 325,719,178 863.8
2018 2,839,205 327,167,434 867.8
2019 2,854,838 328,239,523 869.7
Preliminary data indicates roughly 3.1M (12% increase from 2019).
https://usafacts.org/articles/preliminary-us-death-statistics-more-deaths-in-2020-than-2019-coronavirus-age-flu/
Three stories from Human Events I found interesting
https://humanevents.com/2021/01/12/beyond-section-230-addressing-the-causes-of-online-censorship/
The first pokes at section 230 and the considerations of "platforms", "publishers", "public forum" (or not) and so on.
https://humanevents.com/2021/01/12/liberal-hate-machine-gab-goes-after-twitter-compiles-list-of-threats-slurs-that-have-not-been-flagged-or-removed/
Gab collecting & noting hypocrisy at Twitter on hateful speech.
https://humanevents.com/2021/01/12/the-squad-and-tina-too-come-in-peace-through-twitter/
Various Democrats issuing "peaceful statements" (or not) on Twitter.
Law Enforcement Today blocked on Facebook
https://reclaimthenet.org/facebook-bans-admins-of-law-enforcement-today/
Admins and others are blocked from posting new content. No explanation offered by Facebook on the restrictions imposted.
More detail on the SolarWinds hack
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/01/solarwinds-what-hit-us-could-hit-others/
Brian Krebs has a nice summary of what we now know about the penetration of SolarWinds and how it could be effective against many suppliers.
Chuck Norris was NOT at the Capitol building riot
https://disrn.com/news/chuck-norris-was-not-part-of-the-capitol-riot-photo-is-of-a-wannabe-lookalike/
despite photos showing a person that looks like him (but not as handsome...). Just look at the eyes to be sure.
Retired dude named "Ben" and escapee from GA and G+. Sir Maniac of Colorado.
Joined Oct 2018
