@Dinkenfunkle@mastodon.au

Dinkenfunkle

@Dinkenfunkle@mastodon.au

Just trying to get by.

Retired OWSM. Tired of all the hyper-partisan BS that makes politics into a pointless team sport.

Early retiree after work history (it couldn't be called a 'career') spent roughly equally divided between drone-level jobs in private enterprise and public service.

25+ year history of major depression, referred to as "my Black Dog" (acknowledgement to Samuel Johnson and Winston Churchill)

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

chaser, to random
@chaser@mastodon.au avatar

Sky News apologise for racism and reassure fans “it will happen again”
https://chaser.com.au/general-news/sky-news-apologise-for-racism-and-reassure-fans-it-will-happen-again/

Dinkenfunkle,

@chaser

that's incredible! Sky news has fans??

Dinkenfunkle, to auspol

I see another employer has gone to the wall and said to employees: "You wont get paid your entitlements. Too bad, so sad."

So I'm starting to think that maybe employers over a certain size, say 10 full-time equivalents, should be required to pay into an Employee Entitlements Insurance scheme.*

Yes, I know it will drive the Libs and the various chambers of commerce berserk. That's what makes me think it's probably a good idea.

(*But FFS, do NOT hand it over to private enterprise to run.)

gwensnyder, to random
@gwensnyder@mstdn.party avatar

It's great to know that if you don't have bond money you can just request a different, smaller amount and pay that instead, I'm sure that is what happens for normal people all the time

Dinkenfunkle,

@gwensnyder

Keep in mind that to ensure that the court applies the discount you must first, loudly and roundly, defy and insult the judges, courts, prosecutors and judicial system overall as wrong in the particular and corrupt in general. And brag in public that you don't actually need the discount because you're sooo rich.

It's only common sense, but courts really like it if you do that.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Writing Prompt:

Write the saddest sentence you can think of.

Dinkenfunkle,

@RickiTarr

I can't.

luciedigitalni, to random
@luciedigitalni@aus.social avatar

Lego™ is a brand.

It cannot be a plural.

That is all

Dinkenfunkle,

@luciedigitalni

Pet peeve? 🙂

luciedigitalni, to random
@luciedigitalni@aus.social avatar

I wonder if the person who used my gmail address for their complaint against the Gloucestershire police is the same person whose payslips I am now receiving?

Dinkenfunkle,

@luciedigitalni
Bright side: at least that suggests it may be accidental rather than deliberate.

dgar, to random
@dgar@aus.social avatar

is not making it weird.

Dinkenfunkle,

@dgar

well ... wasn't.

😁

atomicpoet, (edited ) to random

Everywhere that isn’t Indonesia is Outdonesia.

Dinkenfunkle,

@atomicpoet

And if you can't remember where you are ... that would be amnesia.

augieray, to random
@augieray@mastodon.social avatar

Good news, everyone. Car accidents are a thing of the past! Take off the seatbelts, use your phone behind the wheel, and get as drunk as you want before driving!

Wait, that doesn't make sense? Then why do we do it with ? In the US, we lose around 43,000 people to car accidents annually, so we take precautions. But in 2023--a supposedly “post-pandemic” year with COVID “over”--we lost 73,000 lives (and MANY more suffered chronic illness and disability.)

Make it make sense.

Dinkenfunkle,

@augieray

(Grumbles, sotto voce:)
Great ... now I have to find out what Australia's death-by-covid numbers are, so I can do an approximate per-capita comparison.

Why? Because I already did* per capita gun deaths (US about Aus x 100) and now car deaths (US about Aus x 3). So I'm morbidly fascinated to see if we've found a way to kill ourselves at the same rate.

Have a nice day!

*NB: these are very "back of the envelope" approximates and not intended to be quoted or relied on!

OldAintDead, to random
@OldAintDead@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

64,000 pregnancies from rape in just the red states? Add however many rapes didn't result in pregnancy. Sweet Jesus, we don't need to ban abortions, we need to

Dinkenfunkle,

@Edelruth @OldAintDead

Everybody is convinced that they (themselves) are the good guys.

dailygrail, to random
@dailygrail@mastodon.social avatar

8 years later, this theory continues to track.

Dinkenfunkle,

@dailygrail

I ... ummm ... the trajectory before? Really?

Dinkenfunkle,

@Beeks

the graph shows "things" level, or even slightly improving ... up until 2016.

they weren't.

just sayin'.

Dinkenfunkle, to firefox

Had a conversation about recent controversy around and . My 'take away' from that:

I've been browsing (!) some of the media coverage, along with the Wikipedia articles on the 2 main mozilla entities. Hardly a deep dive, I readily acknowledge.

My conclusion? ... "meh"

If it was child labor, drug trafficking or arms dealing, sure, I'd be plenty concerned.

But all I'm seeing is the normal outrage that somebody running a large organisation is being paid a stupid amount of money. And I fully agree, it is a stupid amount of money. How much of it came from me, or everyday users? As far as I can tell, none. And yup, the CEO pay rises at the same time as laying off significant numbers of staff ... not a good look, to say the very least. In fact downright offensive. Some decision-makers should be in trouble for that.

But does it give me moral qualms about using FF?

No, not even a bit.

On a corporate scale it's not even a storm in a teacup.

FF remains my primary net interface. I have cranked all the security and privacy settings up to 11, added one of the better ad-blockers, and search via DDG. I get virtually zero ads, even on YouTube, and my search results are not headed by dozens of ads posing as results. I've deleted the sponsored links in the default home page, because screw them. It took maybe one minute.

Why would I use anything else?

sarajw, to random
@sarajw@front-end.social avatar

Given the discourse floating around now I'm feeling much less bad about not using Firefox as my main browser.

I generally use Edge (I already use Windows and subscribe to 365 Family, better the devil you know and all that), but now I've just started toying with the DuckDuckGo browser on my phone...

Dinkenfunkle,

@sarajw

(Long time Firefox user here, so I'm curious) ... what "discourse" are you referring to?

Dinkenfunkle,

@sarajw
Oh, OK. Not stuff about FF itself then, but corporate stuff about Mozilla generally.

I'll give it some thought, but I can't see it changing my choice. And if it does make me go elsewhere it certainly won't be to MS or Google.

Thanks for your reply! 🙂

Dinkenfunkle,

@sarajw

Started a reply that turned into (the soc-med version of) an essay, so posted it separately. (It's hashtagged firefox if you're curious.) Cheers.

Dinkenfunkle, to HashtagGames

A seagull learns about Zen.


admin, to ai

TITLE: Polite Example Letter to a Health-Related Website Endangering Your Privacy

THIS is the letter I wish more people would send to health-related websites and merchants when they observe a privacy problem!

fullscript.com is a service that dispenses non-pharma products to patients (like medical grade supplements) based upon doctor's orders. You have to be referred by a physician to get a patient account. They even have a way of integrating with EHR systems.

They need to get security right.

To: Fullscript Support <support@fullscript.com>

Dear Fullscript Team:

I have always appreciated being able to order from your excellent website.

Your service strives to supply patients with supplements and medicines ordered by doctors. As such, what is ordered can give insight into medical conditions that patients may have.

You may or may not be covered by HIPAA regulations, but I'm sure you will agree that ethically and as a matter of good business practice, Fullscript would want to maintain medical privacy of patients given that medical practices trust you.

This is why I'm concerned with the HIGH level of 3rd party tracking going on throughout your product catalogue. On your login page, the Firefox web browser displays a "gate" icon to let me know that information (I believe my email address) is being shared with Facebook. This is also the case with your order checkout page (see attached screenshot showing Facebook "gate" icon, as well as Privacy Badger and Ghostery plug-in icons in upper right-hand corner blocking multiple outbound data connections).

Privacy Badger is a web browser plugin that detects and warns of or stops (depending upon severity) outbound information from my web browser to 3rd party URLs. Directly below is Privacy Badger's report from your checkout page:

~~~~  
Privacy Badger (privacybadger.org) is a browser extension that automatically learns to block invisible trackers. Privacy Badger is made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that fights for your rights online.

Privacy Badger blocked 23 potential trackers on us.fullscript.com:

insight.adsrvr.org  
js.adsrvr.org  
bat.bing.com  
static.cloudflareinsights.com  
script.crazyegg.com  
12179857.fls.doubleclick.net  
12322157.fls.doubleclick.net  
googleads.g.doubleclick.net  
connect.facebook.net  
www.google-analytics.com  
analytics.google.com  
www.google.com  
www.googletagmanager.com  
fonts.gstatic.com  
ad.ipredictive.com  
trc.lhmos.com  
snap.licdn.com  
o927579.ingest.sentry.io  
js.stripe.com  
m.stripe.network  
m.stripe.com  
q.stripe.com  
r.stripe.com  
~~~

Please note that I was able to successfully checkout WITH Privacy Badger blocking protections on, so most of this outbound information was NOT necessary to the operation of your website.

There are several advertising networks and 3rd party data brokers receiving some kind of information.

I am aware that a limited amount of data sharing can be necessary to the operation of a website (sometimes). I am also aware that this all is not malicious -- web development and marketing does not usually talk to the legal department before deploying tools useful to gathering site usage statistics (Crazy Egg and Google Analytics). However, these conversations need to happen.

As for "de-identified" or "anonymized" data -- data brokers collect information across several websites, and so are able to reconstruct patient identities even if you don't transmit what would obviously be PHI (protected health information). As an example, if Google sees the same cookie or pixel tracking across multiple websites and just one of them sends a name, then Google knows my name. If Facebook is sent my email address (as looks to be the case), and I happen to have a Facebook account under that same email address, then Facebook knows who I am -- and can potentially link my purchases with my profile.

The sorts of computing device data that you are collecting and forwarding here may well qualify as PHI. Please see:

Use of Online Tracking Technologies by HIPAA Covered Entities and Business Associates  
<https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance/hipaa-online-tracking/index.html>

This HHS and OCR guidance includes many 3rd party tracking technologies.

What I would really like to see happen is:

a) A thorough look at what information your website is sending out to what 3rd parties, along with an understanding of how data brokers can combine information tidbits from multiple websites to build profiles.

b) Use of alternative marketing analysis tools that help your business. For example, there are alternatives to Google Analytics that do not share all that data with Google and still give your marketing team the data they need.

c) An examination if you are sharing information about what products patients are clicking on and/or purchasing with 3rd parties. This would be especially problematic. (Crazy Egg tracks client progress through a website, but I'm unclear if they keep the information or just leave it with you.)

d) Use of alternative code libraries that are in-house. For example, web developers frequently utilize fonts.gstatic.com, but you could likely get fonts and other code sets elsewhere or store them in-house.

I appreciate you taking time to read this and working on the privacy concerns of your patients and affiliated medical practices.

Thanks.

~~~~~~  
#AI #CollaborativeHumanAISystems #HumanAwareAI #artificialintelligence #psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy #EHR #medicalnotes #progressnotes @psychotherapist@a.gup.pe @psychotherapists@a.gup.pe @psychology@a.gup.pe @socialpsych@a.gup.pe @socialwork @psychiatry@a.gup.pe #mentalhealth #technology #psychiatry #healthcare #patientportal #HIPAA #dataprotection #infosec @infosec@a.gup.pe #doctors #hospitals #BAA #businessassociateagreement #coveredentities #privacy #HHS #OCR #fullscript
Dinkenfunkle,

@admin @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @psychiatry @infosec

My question is "how could it not be worth it?" Which obviously you don't have to answer to me.

Is there a down-side?

Apart from quite possibly wasting your time, I mean. So then it might be an ethical issue ... do I not assist in de-shittification of the internet-cyber-webs becasue it might waste my time? Well, do I?

I hope you report it, but that's just me.

(easy for me to have an opinion, I'm in a different country. 😀 )

Dinkenfunkle, to linguistics

Did you understand what I intended to say? Did I understand what you meant to say?

Not what you or I think those words should mean, or some arbitrary dictioneer has said it means ... was my or your utterance understood the way it was intended?

I'm trying to make this my default analysis of communication failures, and of me or you getting upset about what you or I have said.

Bear with me; being pedantic is a long and hard-to-break habit.

Dinkenfunkle, to auspol

Of course, we could just insist on truth in all advertising, rather than specifically political ads. Couldn't we?

Dinkenfunkle, (edited )

@Jakra

tl:dr version: I respectfully disagree. 🙂

The long version:

The body now known as Ad Standards is, according to their own website: "part of the Australian Association of National Advertisers".*

I'm sure they're very strict on ... the other members of their parent organisation, who pay their wages etc.

Further, they say: "Ad Standards does not currently assess truth and accuracy in advertising, or conduct which may be misleading or deceptive, except in the following areas: advertising and marketing to children, food and beverages, and in relation to environmental claims."** So that leaves a bit of wiggle room, huh?

The ACCC says***:

  • We don’t investigate individual complaints.
  • We don’t resolve individual disputes between consumers and businesses.

They go on to insist:

  • Businesses should be honest in their dealings.
  • Claims should be true, accurate and based on grounds.

See those 'shoulds'. Does it sound like enforcement is a thing? It sounds to me like it is specifically written to be unenforceable. (I really like the onus to be "based on grounds" 🙄 )

(Don't misunderstand me, I'm a fan of the ACCC and only wish it was empowered and funded to do what the public think it does.)

Watch any 20 TV ads and ask yourself, for each claim made in each ad: "Is that demonstrably and verifiably true?" Other than the name of the product there will remarkably few times that you will say "Yes" as an answer.

(https://adstandards.com.au/)
(https://adstandards.com.au/issues/misleading-and-deceptive-advertising/)
(https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/advertising-and-promotions)

Dinkenfunkle, (edited )

@Jakra

"Certainly there is no expectation that the ad will be verifiably true"

... this is, to me, the exact nub of the problem. I think it should be. If you can't prove it, don't use it to sell me your (expletive deleted).

Advertisers are confident that they can say whatever they like, as long as it isn't patently false.

"We care about (you/your problems)" is a pertinent example, I think. They don't. We know that they don't. But we let them say it. We let them tell our kids this BS. Because we can't 'verify' its mendacity.

Advertising is a personal hobby-horse of mine. (Can you tell?)

For a period of my chequered working life, I worked in compliance in the Aus public service. When I see "should" in a document I believe that the wording is deliberately selected as to be not generally enforceable. It's what we used to euphemistically call 'a value statement' rather than a regulation. Also, notice in your ACCC quote "we may take some form of ... action". Again, "we may" means "not (typically) going to happen."

And don't get me started on "self-regulation"!

(Sorry ... as I said ... hobby horse. I'll go and grumble in a corner somewhere. Maybe get some finger-licking, loving-it, better-burgers and wash it down with the-real-thing for lunch.)

EDIT: PS ... I'd happily apply the same strictures to political advertising.

Dinkenfunkle,

@Jakra

Sure, I have no problem with pollies stating opinions ... as opinions. I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with the idea that politics is 'all about' opinion ... in some cases science and statistics should be in the mix. (see Covid.)

When it gets to blurry rhetoric however, opinions are often presented as quasi-facts.

No matter, we agree on your last point ... we can and should sanction blatant mis-representations.

cheers.

kcarruthers, to random
@kcarruthers@mastodon.social avatar

“There’s an acronym that is unique to Gaza strip and it’s WCNSF: Wounded Child No Surviving Family”

Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan said the new acronym was coined in Gaza three weeks ago

https://youtu.be/24PhrmfAVwQ?si=NbSSQmNpYfO_8XkW

Dinkenfunkle,

@kcarruthers

"Unique", you say?

kcarruthers, to random
@kcarruthers@mastodon.social avatar

Air monitor can detect -19 virus variants in about 5 minutes

Proof-of-concept device could also monitor for flu, RSV, other respiratory viruses

A team of researchers has developed a proof-of-concept air quality monitor that can detect live SARS-CoV-2 virus in indoor environments. The monitor uses a biosensor made with nanobodies that is integrated into an air sampler that operates based on the wet cyclone technology, pictured above. (Image: Joseph Puthussery)

https://engineering.wustl.edu/news/2023/Air-monitor-can-detect-COVID-19-virus-variants-in-about-5-minutes.html

Dinkenfunkle,

@kcarruthers

Great ... now make a breathalyser version that people approaching the building have to 'pass' before being allowed to enter.

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