kegill

kegill, 6 months ago to mastodon

Another Twitter/X suspension:

@Flipboard
“We have decided to suspend our activity on Twitter/X… we believe it’s vital to align our social presence with platforms that share our values for advancing trusted journalism, expert voices and quality information. This is one of the reasons we’re moving away from Twitter/X and investing our energy in #Mastodon and other open social platforms.”

https://flipboard.medium.com/flipboard-steps-back-from-tweeting-b0f4af1f4ffc

Via @tchambers

kegill, 5 months ago to random

Wow. @emilymbender, University of Washington computational linguist, deconstructs algorithmic tools, aka automation.

“AI” is a marketing term dating to the 1950s, when it was employed to secure research dollars.

What is being automated?
By whom and why?
Who benefits?
Who is being harmed?
How well does it work?
Who is accountable?
What laws/regulations apply to what is being automated?

Well worth the ~5 minute investment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK0md9tQ1KY

h/t:
@futureisfoss @alex

kegill, 6 months ago to philadelphia

A 16 year old Black minor, David Sparks, served 15 years in prison after he called 911 when he saw a Philadelphia shooting in 2006.

Pennsylvania Judge Scott DiClaudio reversed his and FIVE OTHER murder convictions in a three-day period. “That’s gotta be a world record.”

Why?

#Philadelphia PD and DA withheld EXTENSIVE evidence and/or the detective was corrupt. The current DA has compared their behavior to “war crimes.”

SUE THEIR PANTS OFF.

#FalseArrest

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/david-sparks-philadelphia-exoneration-gary-hall-murder-20231106.html

kegill, 1 month ago to random

I’m gobsmacked. Framing FTW.

“If you're 60, 69.1% of all job growth since your birth occurred under Democratic administrations.

“If you're 45, that number is 74.7%.

“If you're under 30, the number is 100%.”

https://twitter.com/sundaedivine/status/1784630955723919484

kegill, 9 months ago to random

The DOJ has seized $1.4+ billion in stolen #COVID19 relief funds and charged 3,000+ defendants with crimes in federal districts across the country.

In May 2021, the DOJ established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force. A lot of fraud involved #Trump’s Paycheck Protection Program, where “benefits flowed disproportionately to wealthier households rather than to the rank-and-file workers that its funds were intended to reach.”

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-results-nationwide-covid-19-fraud-enforcement-action

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2022/jul/was-paycheck-protection-program-effective

kegill, 4 months ago to random

Congratulations to @pluralistic
🎉🎉🎉

Cory coined the 2023 word of the year, enshittification, on 21 Jan 2023.

“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

“I call this #enshittification.”

#PopCulture
#CoryDoctorow

https://americandialect.org/2023-word-of-the-year-is-enshittification/

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

kegill, 3 months ago to random

Sometimes, it’s that simple.

— The Lost Cause
Cory Doctorow
@pluralistic

https://a.co/dOPjYZp

kegill, 1 month ago to random

A @pluralistic historical reference from Sen John Sherman (R-OH, William Tecumseh’s younger brother), in 1890.

Sherman articulates the need for federal anti-trust legislation (“the first federal law targeting monopolies and anti-competitive behavior”) at a time when the learned understood this was the foundation for Adam Smith’s economic philosophy. Unlike today’s rhetoric.

Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is the closest in philosophy today, I think.

kegill, 24 days ago to random

The @WSJ headline implies students were manipulated by outsiders

It’s disinformation. Columbia University students ACTIVELY sought advice, researched prior protests.

Better:
Before launching protest, Columbia students consulted with external groups, researched historical university responses

FROM THE STORY, 4th graph:
“We took notes from our elders, engaged in dialogue with them and analyzed how the university responded to previous protests.”

#journalisticMalpractice

kegill, 6 months ago to random

YES.

“#Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end. His allies are hatching plans to invoke the #InsurrectionAct on day one.

“The US then ‘would resemble a banana republic’,a University of Virginia law professor told the Washington Post…

“The press generally is not doing an adequate job of communicating those realities.”

#DemocracyAtRisk
#JournalisticMalpractice

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/09/trump-president-democracy-threat-media-journalism

kegill, 4 months ago to random

In 2023, Cargill jacked up the price of Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt

Their goal: increase annual revenue more than 10-fold, from $3 million to $50 million.

How? REDESIGN THE BOX + Jack prices

Early 2020
~$3.49 for 3# box.

Today, Diamond Crystal store price on Amazon:

• $108.95, case of nine 3# boxes, delivered ($12.11 per box)
• $13.29, 3# box delivered
• $8.99, 1# box delivered

I am #CrowdSourcing price info:
https://forms.gle/ncvBB34tXwFBTmY1A
Form does not track!

TIA for help/boost!

kegill, 1 month ago to random

News organizations continue to cherry pick quotes from Donald Trump’s speeches, and they paraphrase to make sense from nonsensical.

https://themoderatevoice.com/news-media-ignore-or-whitewash-trump-speeches-pennsylvania-event-on-saturday-followed-standard-procedure/

kegill, 1 month ago to random

Are we on the verge of a new age of anti-monopolist philosophy?

I’ve read more commentary on monopolists in the past year than in the 20 years after my post-grad studies.

From @pluralistic today (12 April), scathing takedown
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/12/give-me-convenience/#or-give-me-death

Also, @rbreich from 10 April: “Just four companies now control processing of 80 percent of beef, nearly 70 percent of pork, and almost 60 percent of poultry.”
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-are-we-still-suffering-inflation

In 2023, PepsiCo’s chief financial officer said that even though inflation was dropping, its prices would not be. Pepsi hiked its prices by double digits and announced plans to keep them high in 2024. If Pepsi were challenged by tougher competition, consumers would just buy something cheaper. But PepsiCo’s only major soda competitor is Coca-Cola, which — surprise, surprise — announced similar price hikes at about the same time as Pepsi and has also kept its prices high. The CEO of Coca-Cola claimed that the company had “earned the right” to push price hikes because its sodas are popular.
Two Robert Reich linked tweets about monopolization in food. https://x.com/rbreich/status/1778800491465773144 https://x.com/rbreich/status/1778818030371246443

kegill, 4 months ago to climate

“We conclude with a high degree of confidence that Gulf Stream transport has indeed slowed by about 4% in the past 40 years, the first conclusive, unambiguous observational evidence that this ocean current has undergone significant change in the recent past.”

This is bad.

#ClimateChange

https://phys.org/news/2023-09-definitively-gulf-stream-weakening.html

kegill, 3 months ago to random

This may be worth repeating every day: Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump, both demagogues, are linked acroos time by their common legal adviser, Ray Cohn.

Cohn “was a braggart of a tax cheat, and the Internal Revenue Service closed in; he was an incorrigibly unethical attorney, and he finally was disbarred… He didn’t pay his bills, all but daring his creditors to sue.” He was indicted four times; no convictions.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/19/roy-cohn-donald-trump-documentary-228144/

kegill, 2 months ago to random

Timothy Snyder has written a critical counterpoint to Trump’s “bloodbath” speech in Ohio.

For almost 10 years, Trump’s political rhetoric has emphasized an us-v-them dichotomy. For at least four years, he weaves violence into every public appearance.

https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/the-strongman-fantasy

kegill, 4 months ago to random

Dear @AP and every other news organization.

#Swatting is NOT a "prank" so stop characterizing it as such.

A prank is "a practical joke or mischievous act" (Oxford)

Swatting is neither.

It is filing a false emergency (911) report with the goal of having armed cops (SWAT team) descend upon an address.

It is criminal.

kegill, 6 months ago to random

Why is this not a surprise?

Investigations into why 9/11 blindsided us “don’t fully capture” that “some analysts did know that such an attack could happen, and that many of the earliest, most tenacious, and most perceptive of them were female, in an institution that had long underestimated women and their work.”

Also, in the mid-1990s, the CIA settled “two major sex-discrimination lawsuits.”

Aging > truly seeing our male-dominant BS

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/cia-women-counterterrorism-9-11-al-qaeda-warnings/676041/

kegill, 2 months ago to random

Why is New York Times campaign coverage so bad? Because that’s what the publisher wants.

@froomkin reports on Publisher A.G. Sulzberger’s talk at Oxford on Monday.

“The speech — the annual Reuters Memorial Lecture – was framed as a response to critics but never honestly engaged with their most serious and urgent concerns. Instead, Sulzberger built straw men and blew them down, from start to finish.”

https://presswatchers.org/2024/03/why-is-new-york-times-campaign-coverage-so-bad-because-thats-what-the-publisher-wants/

kegill, 4 months ago to chrome

“[H]aving the world’s biggest advertising company make the most popular Web browser [is] about as smart as letting kids run a candy shop.”
@washingtonpost

@geoffreyfowler explains why the “#Chrome browser looks a lot like surveillance software.” He recommends #Firefox. (My pick is Safari first, then Firefox.)

DYK? “Google quietly began signing Gmail users into Chrome last fall.”

#GoogleIsEvil
#Google
#GiftLink #GiftArtcle

https://wapo.st/3SaZkYH

kegill, 7 months ago to random

Your feel-good story today is about sheep who work as ‘lawn mowers.’

<< Each spring, Haven Kiers, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the University of California at Davis, ushers 25 sheep to graze the university’s grounds…”Students ride their bikes by and sit with sheep, or after exams, [the sheep] calm them down and make them happy.”>>

#GiftArticle #GiftLink
@washingtonpost

https://wapo.st/45Lqp9N

kegill, 1 month ago to random

Corporations should not be structured like nested Russian dolls. They should not be able to buy other corporations and vertically or horizontally “integrate.” That’s an airbrushed description of outsized market power. And reduced taxes.

@pluralistic again, The Beezle

kegill, 5 months ago to Texas

Kate Cox lives in #Texas. At 20 weeks #pregnant with her third child, she learned the fetus had a fatal condition, trisomy 18.

Her doctors recommended #abortion for her health and to preserve her ability to have another child.

A judge agreed.

Texas AG #KenPaxton did not. He intervened on Friday. The Texas Supreme Court dawdled over the weekend.

Kate is leaving her home, family and friends to get medical attention elsewhere.

#Dystopia #StateSponsoredMisogony

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kate-cox-flees-texas-abortion-ken-paxton-1234924534/

kegill, 5 months ago to journalism

On Thursday, please DO NOT visit the #WashingtonPost website because the union is on #strike, and they’re asking for reader support.

“For 24 hours, please do not engage with any @washingtonpost content. That includes our print and online news stories, podcasts, videos, games and recipes. Instead, share information about our strike and send a letter to Post leaders in support of the people who make this institution run.”
The full letter
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LY2jViybLQPsgsm7hVo75V8aHNu5DUEZXB8vwc60YZo/mobilebasic

#Journalism #Labor

kegill, 11 days ago to politics

Clarence Thomas is married to a woman who actively tried to overturn the 2020 election.

He refuses to recuse.

Samuel Alito is married to a woman he says flew the American flag outside their home upside down in January 2021, a symbol of Trump’s “stop the steal” BS.

He, too, refuses to recuse.

#treason
#politics
#giftLink

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/us/justice-alito-upside-down-flag.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sk0.Y8oR.TWFy6wMEoPZF&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb