Yes, I know we could write a book, but essentially what is wrong with the Internet is the way we use it. The public changed has the way it uses the Internet to the benefit of a few monopoly tech companies and those that want to spread disinformation because laziness
Continue readingTag: Twitter
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Bye Twitter
Note that I no longer have @saskboy on TwitterX, as Sony thought it was important to DMCA takedown a few short clips of their owned songs. People can still find me at my johnkleinregina Twitter handle, or on Mastodon as saskboy@mastodon.cc or Bluesky as Saskboy.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Elon Musk, Alex Jones, X – and Freedom
Twitter / X and Elon Musk have reaffirmed their upholding of the inalienable human right to freedom of speech. This is extremely important, and extremely good. “I’m generally against evil propaganda machines. They can go to hell.” Freedom is fundamental. That includes freedom of speech. Because if we lose freedom
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: The stages of corporate social media
Corporate social media essentially goes through three stages. The first is new, free and wonderful, lots of functionality, user friendly and free, or at least pretending to be free. It’s purpose is to build a customer/product base (as the customer is the product). The second stage is monetization. The purpose
Continue readingThings Are Good: An Interview with a Cat
Those frisky felines are at it again! This time one of them is dishing out advice on how to improve your working life by communicating and acting with others. Jorts the cat is a Twitter celebrity that helps students understand their rights and workers understand theirs too. The key thing
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Ideological Soulmates
Well, it appears Pierre Poilievre, that would-be master disinformation-trafficker, has found his true soulmate in another man-child, Elon Musk. They have had a meeting of the minds when it comes to the CBC – dearest Elon has agreed to PP’s request that the publicly-funded networked be labelled “government-funded
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Angry Talking Heads
When I was a teacher, it used to bother me to no end that it only took one or two ignorant, badly-behaved kids to spoil the atmosphere and discourse in a class. For those who think it should have been a simple matter to silence those voices, well, let’s
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Mammoth Ideas For Past, Present, and Future – Sweetish Meatballs
Bread, beef and milk will be artificially produced pic.twitter.com/4AYs2kHe3N — Paul Fairie (@paulisci) March 27, 2023 Not now, meatball created from long exti wait what? pic.twitter.com/gXbcHg4aGU — tern (@1goodtern) March 28, 2023 They took extinct mammoth DNA, repaired it with elephant DNA, used sheep stem cells for replication, and created
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Why Mastodon
So why did I open a Mastodon account and why do I think Mastodon can replace Twitter. I started looking for alternatives to Twitter soon after Elon Musk purchased it and sent it to hell in a hand basket. Of course, Twitter’s problems started much earlier than that. As soon
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Mark Jacobson writes that we already have the technology needed to make a full transition to a clean energy economy – as long as we don’t allow fossil fuel interests to keep delaying the necessary and inevitable. James Price and Steve Pye discuss
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Kat Eschner interviews John Peters about the growing inequality in wealth, income and influence. And Scott Martin offers a reminder not to conflate the gross disparity in pay between CEOs and workers with anything that’s actually been earned. – Mitchell Thompson discusses how
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Erin Durkin writes about the failure of the U.S.’ government to deal with the growing impact of long COVID – and the likelihood that matters will only get worse with Republicans able to unilaterally refuse funding. And Lisa Young wishes that Alberta’s government
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jessica Wildfire discusses how the U.S. and Canada are following the UK’s healthcare collapse due to a combination of public health negligence and destruction of existing health care institutions. And CBC News reports on how Quebec’s already-overburdened emergency rooms are again preparing to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your year-end reading. – Allison Maher et al. study how COVID-19 causes fundamental changes to a person’s immune system, resulting in far greater vulnerability to other infections. Spencer Kimball reports on the rapid spread of the XBB.1.5 COVID-19 variant – which appears to be rendering previous types
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Zaina Hamza discusses new research showing how COVID-19 fatalities hit younger people and caused more loss of expected years of life in the second year of the pandemic than the first. Kenyon Wallace discusses why 2022 was the deadliest year of the pandemic
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Migration in progress
After using Twitter as my main political social media outlet for years, I’ve joined the many in the process of shifting to Mastodon. You’ll find a link to my account in the right sidebar – and hopefully the new year will see the continued development of communities which better serve
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Julia Doubleday writes that we shouldn’t accept spin from any party which attempts to minimize the unacceptable dangers of exposing children to a virus known to cause lasting damage to people’s immune systems, while Terry Pender reports on the growing recognition that COVID-19 does just
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Evening Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – The OECD issues a report on the importance of avoiding climate tipping points – and the reality that we’re on pace to far overshoot them. Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood notes that lobbying on behalf of fossil gas is the latest version of climate denialism
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Umair Haque discusses why the 2020s are turning into a particularly bleak decade as people are buried under a perpetually larger mountain of debt to try to fund a reasonable standard of living while corporate predators privatize and exploit every available source of
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