Jons Mostovojs @jonn@social.doma.dev

LLMs seems to be winning by a lot - clearly it's a less obscure acronym than I thought (though a Mastodon audience likely skews these results)

It's not why I asked the question, but this did inspire me to add a new "llms" tag to my blog, https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms/ - then back-filled the tag to 114 posts

No. #Russia must not compete in the #Olympics. Doesn't matter if their athletes compete as neutrals or not. No. Not until they stop killing people and get the hell out of #Ukraine. The #IOC should f*<k right off.

Sure it's sad if ppl don't get their big chance to compete, but they're not dead. No Russians at the Olympics. Zero. No.

“Among the unexpected sources of support for the magazine was the #fediverse—the collection of decentralized Mastodon servers that soared in popularity following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Many comments on the GoFundMe page mention that the donors learned about the Observer through #Mastodon—where the Texas Observer was one of the first journalistic outlets to set up its own server, @jamescanup said.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/29/texas-observer-closing-gofundme via Guardian

#TexasNeedsAnObserver #mastodon #journalism

They also had lots of genuinely interesting questions about it, to which the honest answers were, mostly, "I can't remember, we just thought of it in the pub and it seemed funny at the time."

This might describe more of my career than I should admit.

I love how Barnes & Noble specifically promoted some of these "banned" books. Every library and bookstore should do this.

#fascism #books #ChildrensBooks #BookBanning #FightFascism

Putin’s Regime Is Acquiring Features of Nazism https://jamestown.org/program/putins-regime-is-acquiring-features-of-nazism/

Under the new Restrict Act ("ban TikTok act") VPN users face 20 years in jail and up to $1million fine if they evade US internet censorship.

Compared to this, the great firewall of china looks like a picket fence.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15

One of the most important insights in the technology business is that there are many, many ways for users of your product to generate value for you without paying you directly.

A number of people have come out of the woodwork to ask me how they can "Help" the Internet Archive.

3 years ago, I wrote an essay about that. It holds up nicely:

http://blog.archive.org/2020/06/14/how-can-you-help-the-internet-archive/

🎧 PODCAST ALERT 🎧

@Gargron just got featured on Decoder with Nilay Patel, and the interview is incredibly educational.

It gives a brief history of Mastodon, and offer clues about where it might go next.

Here’s the transcript: https://www.theverge.com/23658648/mastodon-ceo-twitter-interview-elon-musk-twitter

@fediversenews

This gloomy post brought to you by a conversation with my son in which I asked something about the future—his future—& he looked at me and with no teen angst, just absolute earnestness, asked—"what future, dad?" & my heart just broke into shards

You know it’s pretty damn hard to parent (or teach, for that matter) when we’ve created a world where kids see no future. Their nihilism stems from a pretty damn clear-eyed view of things, but it sure makes it hard to get them to care about grades, college, adulthood. Why grit your teeth and focus on any of that when the world is literally burning and adults can’t be bothered to even turn down the gas a smidge?

Exploiting H.264 video decoders, yikes. https://wrv.github.io/h26forge.pdf

I'm watching a 12 year old trans girl testify to lawmakers that the bills they've passed are a constant reminder that she doesn't belong in her own state.

No kid should ever need to do something like that, and the people responsible for putting her in that position deserve to hear her words echoing in their heads for the sleepless nights I hope they suffer for the rest of their lives.

"I should be in school learning history, not out here making it"

(2/2)