"The #EU is ready to agree that immediate #OpenAccess to papers reporting publicly funded research should become the norm, w/o authors having to pay fees & that the bloc should support #nonprofit scholarly publishing models.
Trio of Texas Churches Donated to Political Candidate Despite Clear IRS Prohibition
The law prohibits churches from endorsing political candidates, but in a City Council race already beset by claims of church electioneering, one candidate in #Abilene said three #churches made an honest mistake by donating to his campaign and that he is returning the money.
I am conflicted by @mozilla content policies announcement. I appreciate that a lot of thought went into it, but I think they could be used to eliminate a lot of necessary social tension.
An example is their violent content policy: “Users may not share content that depicts abuse of humans or animals, or that includes excessively gory or violent imagery that…can disturb other users.“
I am a lifelong #vegetarian and I’ve been #vegan for 20 years. Photos of meat/dead animals disturb me. Am I to assume then that sharing this content will be banned in that instance? And if not, why not?
Also, nothing on who will be #moderating content. Is it volunteers, #Mozilla staff, external contractors??
Mozilla’s decision to outsource moderation of their Mastodon instance, thereby excluding workers from benefits and rights matter because @mozilla is a San Francisco-based #nonprofit. Their HQ is just three short blocks from me.
Poverty has exploded in San Francisco in the past few years. 1 in 9 children now live in poverty according to the 2023 Joint Venture Silicon Valley Index.
Content #moderation would be a great entry into the tech world and even more so if it was coupled with a fair wage and good benefits which, I reiterate, #Mozilla can and does offer to its workers.
I hope that @stevetex and his team can reconsider and bring moderation fully in-house, based in San Francisco and Bay Area where possible.
@cd24
As a long time Firefox user and occasional Thunderbird user I think this is great. A non-profit of Mozilla's size can certainly add to Mastodon and ActivityPub development.
Today is the Texas Observer all-staff meeting where (almost) the whole team gets together 😷 and discusses the future of our publication and upcoming ideas for stories. 🤠
We are also saying goodbye to @delger, who leaves us next month to be a Fellow at the #NYTimes.
My most awaited project of the year, the TROM II documentary, is now finally close to its release! 😃 So I just want to share a few thoughts as to why its so interesting for me:
👉 The entire #documentary, around 5 hours long and divided into 4 parts, is made by a single person (@tio), using only #FOSS software like @kdenlive for editing, and on a #linux distro (tromjaro.com) as the main OS. This in itself is a very impressive feat! And also a shout-out to the awesome #FreeSoftware / #OpenSource community for how much it has grown. I heard this documentary is the biggest project ever made on #kdenlive so far, and making such a big documentary by a single person is no joke - took years of hard work to complete.
👉 Following a #FediFirst approach, it will be released on #fediverse platforms like @peertube first! Free for all to watch without any ads or data collection. I don't know if this will be uploaded to proprietary platforms like #YouTube, tho I'm sure #Peertube will always have top priority 😉
👉 Unlike the first TROM documentary which was released a decade ago, this one features interviews with people like @bigworldsmallsasha, @aaron, @sober_pirate, @georgi and Tio himself. They talk about their personal lives, how they grew up in this world and such, their stories are supposed to give us a larger perspective on how our current society works. I can't tell you much more until I get to watch the documentary and see how all of this falls into place 🙂
👉 No stock footage has been used in the documentary! If making a 5 hour documentary doesn't sound hard enough for you then this will do it, lol 😄 So for example if it shows some scientists looking at data in one scene, then its actual scientists looking at actual data that they work on, not some stock footage of actors pointing at screens and faking stuff. Finding real world footage like this is a time consuming task as it'd require going thorugh a lot of documentaries, videos, etc looking for the right clip you need.
👉 If you've ever read any of the TROM e-books or seen their videos before then you'll know how it goes - looking at the world from a scientific perspective, encouraging people to be curious about the world we live in and the universe that surrounds us, and perhaps most important of all, to cut through all of the social constructs we've been accustomed to and see the world for what it really is, because only if we truly understand our world can we solve the many problems that are plaguing our planet right now. To get a little taste of what TROM is about you can try watching these short videos they've released in the past:
From #LGBTQIA+ rights to the #environment, the Texas Observer brings vital stories from our state to the fediverse.
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It's time for an #introduction ... As a scientific and #graphics#programmer I worked on the Human #Genome Project, the Mars Observer Camera that discovered water on #Mars, #Apple Computer, and several startups.
Then I took a 20 year break from programming, during which I retrained first as an aquatic bodyworker.
Then, I started a community #solar#nonprofit, the Solar Gardens Institute. I even got to speak at the Obama White House.
Am an accidental activist, art director, and author. Firm believer that anyone can abandon #racism when they want to, know change is possible, and know how.