Dashtop @Dashtop@mastodon.online

I'm making it a habit to question every decision made by the university to use google forms for polling us (this occurs frequently, by researchers, grad students, the grad student union, and by university administration itself) with the suggestion that this is a violation of student privacy. In its most recent iterations, we were asked to provide our full name, email, and student id, with no guarantee that this information wouldn't leave the province/country.

@EU_Commission Stop #ChatControl! Stop mass surveillance!

Little headsup, Mastodon developers seem to be testing a language selector in the posting interface (see attached image).

The idea is you set the language you're posting in which will make it easier for other people to filter your post out if they don't speak it.

You can already set your default language in the Preferences/Settings section, but the idea of this new feature is to let you optionally change the setting for each particular message. This is handy if you toot in several languages.

I have no idea if/when this will be rolled out, the developers' instances often get test features like this.

#Mastodon

The EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of your private communication – or total surveillance in the name of child protection. This would be the worst surveillance apparatus outside of China:
https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/eu-surveillance-csam
#Fight4Privacy #No2Backdoors

@thegibson All life is chaotic. It is the natural state of all things. Therefore all good is chaotic good.

#FediverseMetrics 2022 #MastoPoll. To all #Mastodon / #Fediverse users:

On which continent/region are you?
Sur quel continent êtes-vous ?
Auf welchem Kontinent sind Sie?
¿En qué continente estás?
Em que continente você está?
あなたはどの大陸にいますか？
في أي قارة أنت؟
На каком вы континенте?
您在哪个洲？
In quale continente ti trovi?
Na jakim jesteś kontynencie?
आप किस महाद्वीप पर हैं?
Je! Uko bara gani?
در کدام قاره هستید؟
어느 대륙에 있습니까?
Sur kiu kontinento vi estas?

#Poll #Vote #FediPoll #MastodonPolls

Mastodon Admins this week:
#mastoart #krita #ccby

depressing

title text: Grandma says that because of differences in primate and feline lifespans, the cat is actually my 17,000,000th cousin 14,000,000 times removed.

(https://xkcd.com/2608)
(https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2608
)

Please boost this post if you would like the EFF to join the fediverse.

In a survey the EFF sent me, I suggested they create an account on the fediverse, so they can reach more supporters and support innovative free software that promotes interoperability among platforms, something they've advocated for in the past, too.

If you can boost this post, maybe I'll be able to show them that there are quite a few users who would like them here!

The EFF is the infamous nonprofit organisation that fights for privacy, government transparency, and digital freedom. Their fight is very important, and the EFF is very special to me. https://www.eff.org/about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation

You can see some of their work here https://www.eff.org/work

In the meantime, you can follow @eff, which is an unofficial mirror of their Twitter.

"Technology is the active human interface with the material world.

But the word is consistently misused to mean only the enormously complex and specialised technologies of the past few decades, supported by massive exploitation both of natural and human resources.

This is not an acceptable use of the word. "Technology" and "hi tech" are not synonymous, and a technology that isn't "hi," isn't necessarily "low" in any meaningful sense.

We have been so desensitized by a hundred and fifty years of ceaselessly expanding technical prowess that we think nothing less complex and showy than a computer or a jet bomber deserves to be called "technology " at all. As if linen were the same thing as flax — as if paper, ink, wheels, knives, clocks, chairs, aspirin pills, were natural objects, born with us like our teeth and fingers -- as if steel saucepans with copper bottoms and fleece vests spun from recycled glass grew on trees, and we just picked them when they were ripe..."

http://ursulakleguinarchive.com/Note-Technology.html