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A vision of a composable interface, where objects like battery power, wi-fi status, the desktop, current time or weather outside, new mail counter, new Mastodon mentions counter, or disk space, can all be connected to a sound, or Tts, or a screen reader, or a *Messages* window like Emacs, just, everything configurable, for everyone. Let’s say your disk space is running low. Set percentage of disk space to a small sound. Or set the current weather to a soft soundscape. Just, things like that. Make computing good again, and beautiful for everyone, because everyone sees, or hears, or feels, beauty differently.

—@devinprater

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Today I learned about wet bulb temperature:

It’s the lowest temperature in a given environment that can be reached by evaporating water (e.g. sweating). At 100% relative air humidity the regular ambient temperature and wet bulb are the same. At lower humidity wet bulb is lower because the air can still absorb additional vapor. Humans generally can’t survive for long at wet bulb temperatures of 35°C (95°F) and higher.

This measurement might become much more widely used as dangerous heat conditions become more common.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

Edit: there’s newer studies that indicate the wet-bulb limit for humans to be a lot lower even https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00738.2021

—@esther

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“Why do you use Signal and all this Encryption!
Do you have anything to hide? 😡“

Yes! I do!

– The color of my underwear
– My friends’ cats photos
– My failed gym class grades
– My first attempt at “portrait”
– The outcome of my last meal
– The weird mole on my left toe
– How much I cried watching Star Trek
– How much cheese there is in my fridge
– My failed knitting experiment
– The horrible poem I just wrote
– My bank card pin number
– My social security number
– My main password
– The web search history for your birthday gift

Privacy is a Human Right! ✊

Not sharing publicly what you do not wish to share is your right! 🔒✨

#Privacy #Encryption #E2EE #RootForE2EE 🎉

—@Em0nM4stodon

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This is amazingly fucked up. Broadcasters are trying to pass a new standard for broadcasting that allows them to encrypt their broadcasts.

This means that people who use antennas to watch television will have to pay to upgrade their equipment and then pay on top of that to actually watch.

The airwaves are a limited resource that broadcasters get free access to. This amounts to a huge policy change that steals a common resource for corporate gains.

https://blog.lon.tv/2023/07/10/the-fcc-responds-to-my-atsc-3-encryption-complaint-they-want-to-hear-from-you/

—@tedivm

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✡️ Today’s Jew of the Day is Pink!

Alecia Beth Moore Hart, best known by her stage name, Pink, is a musical artist and actress. Pink has a discograhy of nine records over her more than twenty year career. Many of her albumns have charted in the top Billboard chart in the US and abroad, and she’s won multiple awards, including seven MTV Music Awards, three Grammy awards, two Brit awards, and more.

Her website is http://www.pinkspage.com/

#JewOfTheDay #LGBTQ #Singer #Musician #Philadelphian #Jewdiverse #Mazeldon

—@jewoftheday

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Many of us have seen Microsoft’s disability chart, with examples categorized as permanent, temporary, and situational.

But in her talk last month, “Ensuring your secure digital assets are accessible,” @volkswagenchick pointed out a fourth category: episodic disabilities.

Someone with, for example, HIV, cancer, lyme disease, or depression, may have some days that are better than others. A task that is possible now may not be possible later, and vice versa.

#Disability #Accessibility #a11y

—@dankeck

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Yesterday we valiantly girded our loins and embarked on Scone Fetch Quest 2023.

We hunted down yesterday’s quarry at a garden center, making our way past the artisanal jam and boiled sweet selection, battling many a cheerfully smiling lady asking “Do you have a tray?”.

It was a formidable challenge.

Tray ladies seemed to jump up from behind counters of sponge cake, cupcakes and pork pies. One even ambushed me on the hoof, brandishing a tray with determination as I passed the pasties, yelling “You alright love?! Do you WANT A TRAY?!”

Being the rebels we were, we resisted the tray until we spotted our quarry–2 scones. Behemoths the size of small planets–sitting by a small sign promising fresh strawberries, clotted cream, and a choice of jam.

We acquired our prey, along with tea that could conquer the stomach of the strongest warrior (+2 fortitude), coffee that bequeathed charisma on the drinker. (+5 nice person).

The serving lady then looked at us with a triumphant sniff announcing. “You’ll need a tray to carry all that, WON’T YOU?!”

We got a tray the balance to the universe was restored…

We located a seat with maximum view of our surroundings because there is nothing better than watching the English getting their metaphorical knickers off for cake, then spent 5 minutes arguing on whether or not jam or cream should go first.

Quest completed. Waddling home achieved. Next week we shall brave the local tea shop.

The saga continues…

#food #UK #dnd

—@georgepenney

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I’m just one little person, but feels to me like one way to show solidarity to all the negatively threatened artists across industries is to STOP playing with the current batch of generative models, stop putting it in your work, stop baking it into things, stop sharing the funny/cute/weird outputs. Stop giving it oxygen.

All the major models are built on extractive exploitation, with zero consideration of systemic harm. All designed absent the “should” and only caring about the “could”.

—@sara