@Sean@liberal.city cover
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

Sean

@Sean@liberal.city

Dad of two awesome kiddos. Lucky to be married to my best friend. Interested in interesting things: progressive politics/social democracy, infosec, Linux, organized labor, Yankees, NY Giants,Rick & Morty, Andor, CBS' Ghosts, The Orville, cord cutting before it was cool (since 2012), The West Wing, The Wire. American by birth, citizen of the world by choice, progressive social democrat.

Formerly @TheSean before the Masthead.social instance disappeared Feb '23

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

Nonilex , to random
@Nonilex@masto.ai avatar

Kasie Hunt cuts off interview w/ spox after she repeatedly attacked the 2 anchors who are slated to host this week’s .


https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4736487-cnn-anchor-halts-interview-trump-spokesperson/

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@Nonilex
It would have been great had Hunt directly into camera said "you heard it here, Trump spox said that the strategy is to preemptively whine about the debate being unfair to him, that's how the former president and 34 time convicted felon will approach Thursday's debate. Seems like a cowardly way to go about words that may or may not be said 72 hours from now, but that's what the spox answered to: “is gonna to do differently on the stage this time"

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

It's only happened twice:

Andrew Johnson refused to attend the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant.

Donald Trump refused to attend the inauguration of Joe Biden.

Media have been stonewalled asking "Will you recognize the winner if not Trump?" I would like to hear this question asked. "If Biden wins in a free and fair election will you graciously attend the inauguration?"

The current dodge is "you can't know if it will be fair, how can I answer that"

OK, but if it is fair. What then?

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@futurebird even if directly stated in the June 28th debate (if that occurs) it wouldn't move tens of millions of voters who refuse to acknowledge reality. Trump is like the baseball batter who swings and fouls off a pitch and then complains to the ump for granting him a homerun. Half of the bleachers joins him to complain about how unfair the ump is, even the the fan who caught the foul ball sitting behind the dugout.

It's all mind boggling.

Xenograg , (edited ) to random
@Xenograg@dice.camp avatar

Artist credit : Sophie Labelle
https://www.serioustransvibes.com/
https://www.instagram.com/labellesophie/
Original post : https://www.instagram.com/p/CwsSwTrs_TE/

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@Xenograg I couldn't agree more with this. More regret is expressed for breast augmentation by cisgender women than by transgender women, yet there's no one clamoring for making big fake boobs illegal. Gender is as biological as consumer products are feminine or masculine, "that pick up truck is manly and that VW bug is girly" without any biological characteristics. Transphobic is straight up divorced from logic and reality.

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Someone here once told me of how Microsoft had these customers who pay $$$ so a real driving force in the development of Excel are these horrific, unspeakable, monstrosities of spreadsheets critical to the operations of some very serious companies, serious bookkeeping, serious material operations. The elderich horror spreadsheets are decades old, have 100,000s of rows, spaghetti code formulas— Microsoft always checks updates will not harm them. IDK. if it was true: but it felt true.

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@futurebird Excel has a limit of 32k rows, at which point one has to migrate the spreadsheet over to database Access or SQL

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

After some conversations with friends NOT on the fediverse I've arrived at calling it "independent social media."

This is better than "open source" or other titles, it better conveys the central difference.

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@futurebird ad-free and algorithm-free social media might be putting the best foot forward when talking to someone not using it already.

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@jenkinse @futurebird I did not know that, I had assumed that my feed was exactly as my followed accounts posted them.

There is the possibility of toots being paid for by an advertiser, but I still think that the ad-free & algorithm-free is essentially accurate when talking with a friend who is on xitter or other private for-profit-maxization social media platforms.

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@nus @jenkinse @futurebird algorithm is the method of inducing engagement from the herd of users/advertising audience, without a distinctive difference between the two

I think it's inevitable that AI bots will be the majority of the interactions on platforms that are seeking out to maximize engagement... and likely in the next year or so not off in distant future

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@nus @jenkinse @futurebird
I was not aware of that specific term but was aware of the concept from Corey Doctorow's (@pluralistic) 'enshitification' which is not limited to the prevalence of bots but the deliberate worsening of online services and communities for the sake of engagement and profits that has wall-garden-inoperablity and bots as the conveyance of the enshitification.

bontchev , to random
@bontchev@infosec.exchange avatar
Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@bontchev view products aren't at the bottom, they're at the top if your search term is anything that could be bought

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@notnotmike @yogthos the addictive characteristic of Tiktok isn't about a massive amount of quality, but quantity hidden among mid quality content. Just all grade-A content wouldn't set off the dopamine that getting dud, after dud, after dud, jackpot, dud again, dud, dud, dud, dud, maybe jackpot no, dud, dud, dud... is a clear path to dopamine

Much like a slot machine, the algorithm can intersperse jackpot and near jackpot amongst mostly dud content that makes it very addictive.

RikerGoogling Bot , to random
@RikerGoogling@botsin.space avatar

what does it mean when you have a sex dream about a planet

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@RikerGoogling
You've got a celestial fetish?

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

OK. This is obvious but it just clicked for me. The reason you accuse the other side of doing what you are really doing is because in the end someone did it and you are hoping some people will forget who.

*someone stole an election
*someone mishandled classified documents
*someone nearly got impeached
*someone abused campaign funds cover up adultery

Last one is harder... but they'll get there.

(You know they are looking for ANYTHING. Maybe Joe has one of those 50s pinups in the garage.)

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@futurebird Tara Reade, it'll be connected to the allegations from the early 1990s without any reference to anything since then. It's pretty obvious

mastodonmigration , (edited ) to random
@mastodonmigration@mastodon.online avatar

Today we may get a Colorado Trump Insurrection Ballot Exclusion ruling. It will likely be that Trump remains on the ballot, but anything is possible.

Whatever SCOTUS rules, it does not change the facts. We saw it with our own eyes. Trump engaged in insurrection. He can not be 'vindicated'. He engaged in months of criminality to illegally change the results of the election. He sent a armed mob to the Capital, and refused to call them off for hours. His VP was afraid for his life. People died.

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@mastodonmigration
The intent of what was written in the law and constitution is immutable for the majority original intent jurists, but I'm sure that their decision will be contradictory to that often stated strongly held principle and may even be unable to counted as precedent like Gore V Bush which had it written in the decision that no other case could use it as precedent.

They will make it up as they go along, and then pretend that they have integrity

ergative , to random
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

Hey, Mastodon! Indiana's attorney general has created an anti-teacher snitch portal for people to report school teachers for being too woke. It allows you to upload files and everything!

There appears to be no safeguard against entering any text you want in any of the boxes, and no location/residence checking.

Dare I ask you to do your thing?

https://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/education-liberty/

Boosts welcome!

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@ergative it's a bit broken, can't put a phone number in it (I tried the governor's phone number with 800 and 502 area codes

StillIRise1963 , to random
@StillIRise1963@mastodon.world avatar

It's not radical to want all citizens to pay their fair share of taxes.

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@philip_cardella @StillIRise1963
Katherine Johnson had to be the one of the greatest mathematicians in history to be plucked out of her racial caste, John Glenn just needed to be white to and above average to "have the right stuff". How much greater would society be if the there wasn't a racial caste system that ignored and threw away all the above average and best of generations to contribute to benefit of all?

We might have the "flying cars"-future that we were promised

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@philip_cardella @StillIRise1963
Throughout both the South & North, community pools built by the WPA in the 1930s were filled in and closed in the 1960s when the possibility of having to allow blacks to swim with them which preceeded white flight to suburbs. Public funds paid for recreation facilities, which were removed and then abandoned before the non-white tax payers could use them. Cutting their nose despite their face is intrinsic to the bigot, just to be spiteful is totally on brand

maegul , to Fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Is decentralised federated social media over engineered?

Can't get this brain fart out of my head.

What would the simplest, FOSS, alternative look like and would it be worth it?

Quick thoughts:

  • FOSS platforms intended to be big single servers, but dedicated to ...
  • Shared/Single Sign On
  • Easy cross posting
  • Enabling and building universal Multi-platform clients.
  • Unlike email, supporting small servers

No duplication/federation/protocol required, just software.


@fediverse

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@Aatube @maegul @1984 @mindlight @maegul
Couldn't it be like public-private keys such PGP protocols, where the users have the private key and the platforms have the public key? It's seems quite good privacy, some would even say it's "pretty good privacy".

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@Aatube @maegul @1984 @mindlight @maegul
The private key doesn't need to be memorized, it stays saved on the device that the client software is on, allowing the user to integrate mobile device's biometric reader (fingerprint/face/iris/whatever) to confirm identity, or use security key, there are already different ways to implement it that doesn't require pw memorization.

I've got a long unmemorizable string for Firefox sync, Brave, Proton Mail/Pass, it's still more secure than pw memorized

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@PlasticPigeon
I have a Mastodon account, and a Beehaw (more civil version of Lemmy, more moderation, no downvoting), and i have no pixelfed or peertube (fediverse YouTube) accounts and yet I can access any account/community/hashtag from any service by either of my accounts. Mastodon has a character limit that beehaw/lemmy doesn't but Mastodon is about following individuals while lemmy is about subreddit/community/magazine/etc that anyone can participate in.

Sean ,
@Sean@liberal.city avatar

@PlasticPigeon I can reply on Lemmy with Mastodon (with Mastodon character limit), and never tried to comment on pixelfed or peertube, but Beehaw can interact with all lemmy and kbin. I primarily use Mastodon and a secondarily Beehaw.

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