Lou Katz @lou@entropyservice.com

Do test restores from your supposed backup.

An untested backup isn’t a backup.
https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/112191102558111994

@pluralistic Oh, look! A big wooden horse!

"Political science scholar Tim Hogan said that, if the Secret Service "does nothing about Trump's violation of federal law making a threats against the POTUS [the Department of Homeland Security] head should fire the director of Secret Service and refer the matter to the DOJ for charges. Because Trump is out on bail, he should likely be held pending trial."

"Trump should be in custody," he added."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-biden-imagery-revoke-bail/

It costs ~$70 to produce a year’s supply of insulin. Yet, the average annual cost of insulin went from $2,864 in 2012 to $5,705 in 2016 to $18,000 in 2024. That’s a 25,714% markup.😳

That isn’t inflation. It isn’t supply chain issues. It is 100% corporate greed. #MakeInsulinFree

@mos_8502 @brouhaha

I'm far more worried about the ones in closed-source which will, in all likelihood, NEVER be found

Good. 👍

Now let’s eliminate tax exemptions for religious organizations.

https://www.axios.com/2024/03/29/americans-lose-religious-affiliation-survey

I’ll never understand how in this time I can both have a controller with such sensitivity that I can shoot a sniper rifle across a map in a video game with pinpoint precision, and yet have remotes that can’t even locate the TV half the time when pointed directly at it.

While looking for something else in the NY Times archives, I stumbled on https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/25/us/sunnyvale-journal-store-serves-all-needs-of-the-computer-crazed.html — and those of us who remember Fry's will sigh for its loss.

Ross had some heart problems, likely exacerbated by several Covid infections.

I am weary of so much loss in recent years. Please take care of yourselves, friends.

See they think repealing the 22nd Amendment would mean Trump 2028, but in reality it would be Obama 2028.

And 2032.

And 2036.

And 2040.

#uspol #uspolitics #politics

Remote attestation is already a reliable feature of mobile platforms, allowing agencies and corporations whose services you use to make sure that you're perfectly defenseless - not blocking ads or tracking, or doing anything else that shifts power from them to you - before they agree to communicate with your device.

What's more, these "trusted computing" systems aren't just technological impediments to your digital wellbeing - they also carry the force of law.

9/

The tech giant is a feudal warlord whose platform is a fortress; move into the fortress and the warlord will defend you against the bandits roaming the lawless land beyond its walls.

That's the promise, here's the failure: What happens when the *warlord* decides to attack you? If a tech giant decides to do something that harms you, the fortress becomes a prison and the thick walls keep *you* in.

2/

Sometimes there is good news.

Texas is a deeply racist state, and the way it operates its criminal justice system is some of the best evidence. But an appeals court there overturned the conviction of a woman who only wanted to vote, and was told she could vote by officials, though it turned out she was ineligible.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/28/crystal-mason-texas-woman-acquitted

Having said that, the American prison system is so horrible that no one should wish it on (almost) anyone.

It's racist, violent, cruel, dehumanizing -- and in general everything you'd design if you wanted to create more criminals and more violence.

"Hey, what's a good name for our company that makes switches?"

"ANU?"

"Yeah, sounds good! Let's buy the domain for our website!"

https://anuswitch.com/

I’m guessing that Trump’s marketing strategy for his bibles involves driving around the dustbowl, obituaries in hand, and convincing recent widows that their late husbands had ordered them (COD, of course).

"The lesson of 40 years of pro-monopoly policy couldn't be clearer: you can either have an economy that is regulated by lawmakers who are at least nominally transparent and democratically accountable, or you can have an economy regulated by totally unaccountable and opaque monopolists. Fail to do the former, and you will always end up with the latter."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/28/concentrated-benefits/#diffuse-harms

#business #politics @pluralistic

So far, the only negative side effect I have seen of #threads supporting ActivityPub has been the whining and demands for preemptive censorship (from people who have more in common with the book burners than they realize).

I haven't seen a single objectionable post from Threads.

My hope is that I'll be able to delete my Threads account and follow those I care about from my Mastodon account. Mastodon gives me some decent tools for controlling what I see (lists, filters, blocks) and doesn't push me into an unwanted algorithmic feed. I have multiple UI options from both apps and the web.

I understand that any time a social space is opened up to new participants, it is disruptive. But I don't really care. If you want a private discussion space with a culture that you control, you should be using a closed forum. A federated open social network is not the best tool for all purposes.

The Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament have published a report on age verification. Its conclusion is that age verification is necessary but impossible.
Important for DSA and AVMSD.
https://www.greens-efa.eu/en/article/document/trustworthy-age-assurance

Hostage families told Netanyahu they get better treatment from the White House than from Israel https://www.axios.com/2024/03/28/israel-hostage-families-netanyahu-biden-treatment?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon