@Mikal@sfba.social
@Mikal@sfba.social avatar

Mikal

@Mikal@sfba.social

Interested in All Of The Things, which is probably why I follow you.

Things I do: #LandscapePhotography and #Protest #Photography, #paragliding, #StormChasing, #border and #HumanRights #activism.

Intellectual hobbies I watch from the sidelines: science, security/privacy, online sociality and general internet theorizing. My camera shoots fascists. Photos my own unless noted. Direct sharing photos: yay! Scraping: no.

You can write to me via my website, though Signal gets the quickest response.

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

valkyrie, to random
@valkyrie@wandering.shop avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @valkyrie
    Ah, was hoping someone would chime in with more info. I've been using Deleteme for a while and like it, but don't have anything to compare it to.

    Mikal, to random
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    I recommend everyone sign up for https://haveibeenpwned.com/
    You'll get notifications when your info has been part of a data breach. I've been in seven (that are known about).

    After about the third one, I went through my password manager account by account, identified any accounts I was no longer using, logged in and deleted them, and then sent the sites California Consumer Privacy Act data removal requests. This minimizes my attack surface, i.e. it reduces the data available to attackers if a breach happens. It also sets me up in a good legal position if the info is not removed despite me asking the site to do so, is subject to a breach and subsequently causes me some identifiable harm.

    It's kind of annoying, but I try to use Apple's Hide My Email function whenever I can, plus intentionally contaminate non-essential data (e.g. I use fake birthdays and gender, fake location).

    Mikal, to humanrights
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    I spent time along the U.S.-Mexico border last week, watching changes as #Title42 ended.

    There is a lot to say about what I observed on Friday and Saturday and I intend to write a short blog post. For now, a few photos.

    For reasons unknown, migrants coming through the border fence (through a single cut bollard a few miles west of the Lukeville crossing) were tearing up or even burning their documents. I found ID cards from India, a half-burned passport from Mauritania, a Mexican travel visa, vaccination cards, a bus ticket from Oaxaca to Tecate, and this fragment of a document of someone from Brazil.

    I don't know why they tear them, but this one in particular caught me attention. I don't know what will happen to Brazilians who entered the country without proper documents. Or Mauritanians or Indians or all the others. But I wish them good luck.

    #immigration #HumanRights #BorderLands #border #BorderWall

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    A couple groups of migrants walking the border road westward toward Lukeville, AZ, waiting to be picked up by Border Patrol. The road curves around to the left and goes around the hill in front of them, but they'll probably be picked up and taken to a processing area not far away.

    From there, I don't know where they go.

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    Cutting a single post is all it takes to breach the border wall. Once cut, it can easily be levered open enough for people to pass through.

    $25 million dollars per mile was spent on this monstrosity, yet it can be defeated in minutes with a cordless angle grinder.

    If you look closely, you'll see the 1/4" thick, 6" x 6" square steel tubes are filled with concrete in which two 1" diameter steel rods are embedded. All of this is simple to cut through.

    My guess is that the words refer to the welder (Tim S.) and the date it was repaired previously. Such repairs can be seen all along the fence. It's probably quicker to cut than repair.

    This is where most of the recent migrants were coming through a few miles west of Lukeville, AZ, brought there by traffickers who charged them large fees. The fence doesn't stop or even slow migration, but it does create a perfect business opportunity for cartels who can control the ability to cross.

    #immigration #Title42 #WallsDontWork #TearDownTheWall #asylum

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    The Border Patrol's makeshift migrant processing area a mile from the Lukeville, AZ port of entry and 1/4 mile off the main highway. This is in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, on South Puerto Blanco Drive. This is where asylum seekers are brought after coming through breaches in the border fence.

    These are people seeking asylum, who immediately turn themselves in after crossing the fence. I haven't heard what happens to them after they are taken from here.

    Many of us in the desert aid community are concerned that Biden's new immigration rules will push more people to try to cross the 60 miles of deadly desert between here and Interstate 8.

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    Joel (right) and another volunteer with the Tucson-based group Humane Borders hoist a flag to mark a water barrel, one of six placed at the request of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument officials on May 13th, 2023. These were placed along the border wall where migrants have been crossing in the last week.

    Humane Borders has a working relationship with the National Park Service to place and maintain these barrels, though the NPS usually only grudgingly allows it. In this case, with the sudden influx of migrants and the hot weather, NPS approached Humane Borders and requested the tanks.

    The blue flags also have bright LEDs so people in need can find the tanks at night.

    Yesterday, May 14th, Joel was doing similar work near Arivaca, AZ, far east of here and was harassed by racist vigilantes who have been using the hype about the end of Title 42 as a recruiting tool.

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    Blue LEDs light up one of Humane Borders' water barrels and flags placed near the U.S.-Mexico border during the previous afternoon. This was the night of May 13th, 2023.

    Lights from a Mexican truck stop shining through the border fence cast the strange striped light across the desert.

    I went back after dark to see if people were still crossing, but only passed two small groups, one with a couple of children. Both were walking toward the Border Patrol processing area, but it was shut down and there was only one Border Patrol truck there. When I drove out a couple hours later, no one was there, so the people must've been taken somewhere for the night.

    Previous nights had seen people lighting signal fires near the crossing point, something I had been hoping to photograph. There were none this night.

    These are quick edits because I wanted to post something. I'll link to more of them and a story once I get it written.

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    That's it for this thread for now. I need to get to bed! I felt compelled to stay, but have temporarily skipped out to finish my paragliding certification in Santa Barbara, CA. If anyone is in the area, say hi.

    And one final word: mainstream media dumbs immigration issues down so hard that they are not even recognizable. Even to those of us working right in the thick of it, so much of how it all works is opaque, nonintuitive and more speculation than clear fact.

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @saltphoenix

    Yeah. And next time you hear someone complain about not being able to find people who want to work, tell them I know where tens of thousands are who will bust their asses for the chance to build a life here.

    Don't ever try to make it make sense. You can't. It doesn't.

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @eco_amandine

    They can only be sent back to Mexico if they're from countries that Mexico will accept (I don't recall the list at the moment). I'm assuming others will have to be deported to their home countries if their asylum claims are denied. I need to talk to an expert in the new policy and write up a cheat sheet.

    Realize they get all kinds of questionable advice from others in the migrant communities and from the traffickers. When people come through the fence, they are pretty determined to get to the Border Patrol and turn themselves in, so aren't really prone to hanging around chatting about their journeys.

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @kiwi

    Thanks for doing that.

    I didn't realize that happened either. That would be a good question for an immigration lawyer.

    Jeremiah, to random
    @Jeremiah@alpaca.gold avatar

    If only there were a more secure technical architecture for smart cars… Oh wait, there is: https://www.leafcomputing.net

    From: @Techmeme
    https://techhub.social/@Techmeme/110355464808586899

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @Jeremiah @Techmeme

    Maybe one of the quickest motivators for companies to start adopting a standard like this would be regulations that massively constrict what data can be gathered, stored and shared, with extinction-level fines for violations and data breaches?

    Tech in general, but Silicon Valley and VCs especially, is so damn unimaginative these days.

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @Jeremiah

    Yeah, for sure, but it's a slow process. On the other hand, the more the billionaires' fuquery gets exposed, the easier it gets to convince people.

    I have to admit that I get a perverse satisfaction out of the extra effort of eschewing data-sucking products and apps, kinda like not minding (well, okay, a little) the extra effort of using Mastodon compared to corporate apps. Like, okay, so a privacy-protecting VPN costs money and slows down my already slow connection, but I'm sticking' it to the man!
    (😂) But that obviously doesn't scale in any meaningful way.

    atomicpoet, (edited ) to random

    The best way to explain is to imagine what would happen if (pre-Elon) fell in love with and they had a baby.

    That baby would be Calckey.

    Twitter + WordPress = Calckey

    Let me explain... 🧵

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @atomicpoet
    You are rapidly convincing me. I'm assuming that can migrate my social graph just like I can among Mastodon instances, right?

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @atomicpoet
    Thanks. When I have some free time....

    Mikal, to random
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    Went for a walk down a rural road. Found a skeleton in the ditch.
    (Boosting my own post like a dweeb because I cracked up when I saw it again just now and I thought maybe you would too.)

    fifilamoura, to random
    @fifilamoura@eldritch.cafe avatar

    @Mikal It's always the promise of "directly into creator's hands" but that's never how it gets implemented. That's not even getting into the fact that micropayments are shitty and dystopian, even if they're beloved of people in tech who think it's a technological solution for not paying creators (or how scammers would find ways to hijack this). It's always tech people advocating for micropayments, often tied into crypto, not creators. We'd at least like people to buy us a cup of coffee, throwing pennies at us is really dystopian. @jeffjarvis

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @fifilamoura @jeffjarvis
    FTR deleted my comments because I'm not an expert in this, though I think if done right it's a viable contribution to the larger solution. There's been some interesting work done on equitable ways to make it work that seemed really promising.

    futurebird, (edited ) to photography
    @futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

    Why oh why did I decide to try to do photography? And why did I have to decide that the best place to start would be:

    "macrophotography through glass of fast moving creatures"

    I'm recognizing that what I want to do is harder than I thought, and I'm not totally happy with my results yet, but that's OK, it's hard.

    Lighting is so hard due to reflections on the glass, but to do macro you need lots of light. Is there a trick to this?

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @futurebird

    What do you edit in? If you shoot RAW, Lightroom's dehaze slider can often remove lots of that glare. Over crank it and you'll have some other side effects to deal with, like color balance, but it's a trick to know.

    ct_bergstrom, to random

    I hate that there's still great content on twitter, but there's still great content on twitter. Here, a very good lesson from Johan Ugander.

    https://twitter.com/jugander/status/1652344958643494912

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @ct_bergstrom

    I hate that you're right.

    I'm mostly using it about once/week as read-only.

    debcha, to random
    @debcha@mastodon.social avatar

    Daydreaming about traveling coast-to-coast with a regularly scheduled airship service. It’d take a few days to get from eg Boston to Seattle, so I’d want wifi and a sleeper cabin (and a view, of course). And it’d use vastly less energy than flying, since the lift comes from buoyancy not speed.

    https://theweek.com/articles/824018/return-airship

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @debcha
    I'd love to try this! I wonder what turbulence would feel like as a passenger on one?

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @debcha @Homebrewandhacking

    Oh, for sure. I'm a storm chaser, so have realtime data on my phone that forecasters would've thought was magic not long ago. Which is also why I know that there are times that crossing the Midwest requires going through a squall line or taking a 1000 mile detour. It would be fun to see what the engineering specs on new designs are, how much turbulence they can handle, how high they can fly, things like that. I love the idea of them on many counts. I wonder if there will ever be personal-blimps like there are small planes. Would that be fun, or what?

    ct_bergstrom, (edited ) to random

    Talk about the normalization of surveillance technology.

    This used to be some spy shit. Now Ray-Ban?

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @ct_bergstrom
    Hopefully people who wear these will be the new Glassholes and get ostracized for it. If the glasses become popular, I'll put a sign up at my business banning them and giving any employee the ability to escort someone out.

    grumpygamer, to random
    @grumpygamer@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

    I gave up over a 150,000 followers on Twitter to be on Mastodon full time. Yes, the engagement and reach is a lot less, but I'll build it back up and it will be worth it. I hate to see people run back to Twitter because of friends or careers or whatever. You know what changes that? Being on Mastodon and bring those people here. Musk is a horrible person, don't be one of his enablers.

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @grumpygamer

    I've got 1000+ followers on birdchan. Here, at half that, I get what feels like 10x engagement. And my account is verified. And people are nicer.

    liztai, to Travel
    @liztai@hachyderm.io avatar

    Gonna miss this place 😁

    We were very productive here!

    Mikal,
    @Mikal@sfba.social avatar

    @liztai
    I kinda think I wouldn't be so productive there.

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