@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

JMarkOckerbloom

@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social

A Philadelphian with professional interests in libraries, technology, copyright, and culture, and nonprofessional interests that include singing, reading, hiking, biking. Also other personal interests that you might pick up from my posts over time.

He, him, his. Lent, Easter, Pentecost. Vote, help others vote, vote out vote suppressors.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Edent, (edited ) to random
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

You receive a call on your phone.
The caller says they're from your bank and they're calling about a suspected fraud.

"Oh yeah," you think. Obvious scam, right?

The caller says "I'll send you an in-app notification to prove I'm calling from your bank."

Your phone buzzes. You tap the notification This is what you see.

Still think it is a scam?
1/3

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@Edent I'd think that knowing this, the message should say "Did you call Chase?" (maybe with a note that if it appears that Chase called you, you should hang up and dial their number). That might not stop everyone from pressing Yes anyway and confirming, but it might stop some of the scams from succeeding.

dangillmor, (edited ) to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

Does anyone know of a way to buy an EV that doesn't relentlessly spy on the driver/passengers and send the data to whoever the carmaker feels like selling it to?

Related: Does anyone know of a service in the Bay Area that will disable all the surveillance that was, without my knowledge or permission, built into a 2008 Prius?

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor Do you know what data is collected on Priuses of that era (that's either sent out if enabled, or retained long term)? IIRC, many car computers have a "black box" feature for recent events (so e.g. after a collision it's possible to get data on speed, braking, etc. just before the crash). That in itself seems reasonable; I don' t know if that data was kept long-term or transmitted in models around 2010. I don't have my owner's manual in front of me, though; that might say more.

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor I have a 2012 Prius. As far as I know, it has no way on its own to send data back to the carmaker, if I don't pair up my cell phone with it. (I apparently can tie it to my phone with an application they call "Entune", but if I don't do that it has no communication channel out as far as I know. Do you know differently?)

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor Yes, that''s my understanding. What I don't know is whether Toyotas of that era did any more than that. (I'm well aware that cars being sold now collect and share data way too much. I don't know what more than EDR data was collected then, with the intent of providing it to others outside contexts like accident investigations.)

arstechnica, to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

Sony Music opts out of AI training for its entire catalog

Music group contacts more than 700 companies to prohibit use of content

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/05/sony-music-opts-out-of-ai-training-for-its-entire-catalog/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@arstechnica Not surprisingly, the details of the story make it clear that Sony's not opposed in principle, but that they want to make sure they get what they'd consider a suitable cut of any revenues.

mattblaze, to photography
@mattblaze@federate.social avatar

CARTWHEEL Tower, Fort Reno, Washington, DC, 2020.

All the classified pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/49576247768

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@mattblaze Is CORKSCREW the site on the high point of Quirauk Mountain, or is that a different one? The Quirauk Mountain site is still closed off to hikers, with prominent signs and cameras at the gate just south of High Rock. I've heard of some peak-baggers being allowed up after they called ahead and got an escort, but it seemed too much trouble to arrange when I hiked in that area.

mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

TIL: The 1st Maverick was Black? How did I not know this?!

I could have been annoying in dozens of viewings of Top Gun over my lifetime!

"Y'know, the first Maverick was a Black man... "

🤔 I'll have to work this into the Black History Month megathread somehow...

https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2900145/mission-accomplished-tuskegee-airmen-recognized-for-1949-top-gun-victory/

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@jmsdnns @justafrog @mekkaokereke I recently listed the Internet Archive's free online copy of _ The Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States in the Wars of 1775-1812, 1861-'65_. It was published in 1888 by Joseph T. Wilson, who himself had served in multiple regiments in the Civil War (so some of it's from personal knowledge). I don't know to what extent current scholarship supersedes it, but it was pretty comprehensive for its time: https://archive.org/details/blackphalanxhist00wils

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

Anyone know if Simon Willison's keynote will be generally available? I'd be interested in checking out a recording or transcript.

I've seen a few folks credit him for the phrase "imitation intelligence", which sounds to me like a concise way to note how Alan Turing's concept of AI as an imitation game has largely outlived its usefulness in the LLM age.

Magic tricks, e.g., have long fooled even people familiar with how sleight of hand works. But we don't say magicians do real magic.

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@hugovk Thanks!

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

"And then I made my decision. I would not trust the computer."

If you ever wonder if one obscure person's actions questioning the system can change the course of history for the better, today's 40-year anniversary of Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov averting global nuclear disaster is a good reminder. Petrov died in 2017, but the BBC talked to him in 2013 on the 30th anniversary: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24280831

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

"I am not affiliated in any way with Anna's Archive and had no involvement in the alleged hacking and/or scraping of data from WorldCat.org that was allegedly orchestrated and carried out by Anna's Archive. I have never viewed or accessed OCLC data through Anna's Archive." Maria Matienzo's reply to OCLC lawsuit: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ohsd.287709/gov.uscourts.ohsd.287709.21.1.pdf. (The full motion to dismiss is not yet on CourtListener.) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ohsd.287709/gov.uscourts.ohsd.287709.21.1.pdf

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

I've co-signed the open letter calling on the Code4Lib journal to get serious about respecting patron privacy. While I could quibble with a few of its details, my quibbles are relatively minor, and I do think it's important for the journal to seriously consider and answer all the questions asked, and take explicit steps to treat respect of patron privacy as of first-class importance in their peer review processes. Signatures on the open letter close tonight: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c-ADFaum9pB-W4AWQIxE6BPyVJs8goMlrVLoC00ucKc/edit#heading=h.sc5y0ukkneb3

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

In 1936, "the unfair treatment in Richmond, Virginia of African American conference attendees, prompted [] to pass a resolution to never hold any of its conferences in cities that discriminated against any of its members...": https://littleknownblacklibrarianfacts.blogspot.com/2011/06/ala-history-1937-meeting-in-richmond.html

In 2023, defended its decision to convene in Dubai: "Whilst... members of the LGBTQIA+ community may not feel safe about participating in WLIC 2024..., there will be other communities who feel safe..." https://www.ifla.org/news/dubai-statement-from-president-and-president-elect/

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

We're celebrating the 52nd birthday of the #ebook today. This summer's also a milestone anniversary for my own ebook-related site, as well a milestone for some other ebook projects. In a new post on Everybody's Libraries, I thank some of the many people who have been sharing books, creative works, and information about them on the internet for the past many years: https://everybodyslibraries.com/2023/07/04/my-thanks-to-all-sharing-books-online/

#Bookstodon #ProjectGutenberg #DOAB #DistributedProofreaders #HathiTrust #InternetArchive #PennLibraries

mbonsma, to random
@mbonsma@mastodon.social avatar

We've been back in Toronto for a year and I still can't believe both this and the subway are within 10 minutes from my home.

JMarkOckerbloom,
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

@mbonsma One of the things I really love about where we live, in northwest Philadelphia, is having a train station within a block from us and a trail into Wissahickon Park (with streams and woods not unlike the ones shown in your picture) within two blocks.

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

For anyone who knows someone who consumes raw milk (which I see signs advertising in parts of rural Pennsylvania) this is an especially bad time to do it. A strain of bird flu is spreading among cows, and is suspected to be propagated via contaminated milking equipment: https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/04/concern-grows-as-bird-flu-spreads-further-in-us-cows-32-herds-in-8-states/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social When it's propagated to humans (which appears to be possible via unpasteurized milk), the case fatality rate of H5N1 is "extraordinarily high", possibly above 50%: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/18/risk-bird-flu-spreading-humans-enormous-concern-who

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

"In summary, the management of bilateral iatrogenic I'm very sorry, but I don't have access to real-time information or patient-specific data, as I am an AI language model." Radiology Case Reports, another Elsevier journal (open access, $550 article processing charge) publishes a paper with obvious signs of LLM text generation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1930043324001298

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

If you've updated Firefox to version 126, check your privacy settings. They now collect more data on searches by default. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-search-update/

They say they don't collect precise data and anonymize what they do collect, but it's easy for attempts to do that not to be as secure as intended. That's one reason I urge analytics collection to be made opt-in (FF's isn't) instead of opt-out.

FF appears to still be honoring my earlier "don't send data" toggle. Check yours: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-data-mozilla-help-improve-firefox

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

"You can now find Indivisible national accounts on Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon. Each may have its own issues, however, ALL of them are far better, safer, and more viable platforms [than X] for the work we need to do now — and in the years ahead."

They're not leaving X entirely, but they're "stepping back", only using it for limited purposes and no longer promoting a presence there. It's a nuanced, thoughtful take I hope other institutions still on X will consider: https://indivisibleteam.medium.com/were-stepping-back-from-the-increasingly-dangerous-and-dysfunctional-x-and-we-re-sorry-it-s-a15524fab070

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

School board candidate Jennifer Tapley calls police on school librarian checking out the book Storm and Fury to a 17-year-old. "The book... is mostly about humans and gargoyles fighting demons.... There are some passages with sexual themes, including... one where the main character almost has sex... Tapley [said] any book that has a 'sex scene' is pornography and not 'appropriate for minors.' She did acknowledge that there may be exceptions for 'extreme classics.'" https://popular.info/p/moms-for-liberty-members-call-the

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

"In relaunching Communications of the ACM as an open access publication, all legacy and future CACM articles will be freely available to and accessible by everyone on the CACM website and in the ACM Digital Library." https://www.acm.org/media-center/2024/march/cacm-relaunch Here's the full issue archive: https://dl.acm.org/loi/cacm

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

The full list of 2024 #PulitzerPrize winners and finalists has now been posted: https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year Along with awards in the usual prize categories, two special citations were also awarded, one for late writer and critic Greg Tate, and one generally for journalists and media workers covering the war in #Gaza.

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

The Register goes deep into looking into Christine Dudley's comment (which I reported earlier) that she started to see ads that reflected the audiobooks she was checking out from her library.

Upshot: They can't tell for sure that the ads appeared as the result of her reading those books, but the sheer volume of data tracking methods and pathways invoked on sites, services and devices used by libraries and patrons also make it difficult to tell for sure that they didn't: https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/18/mystery_of_the_targeted_mobile_ads/

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

54 years ago today, on May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guard troops fired on demonstrating students at Kent State University, killing 4 of them and wounding 9 others.

11 days later, police fired on students at Jackson State College in Mississippi, killing 2 students and injuring 12 others.

Among the many reports and studies following the killings (for which no one was convicted) was the 1970 Report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest. You can read it here: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED083899

JMarkOckerbloom, to random
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social avatar

The website for the Columbia Law Review, which last I checked hosted freely readable copies of all articles from 2008 onward, is now offline, displaying a "Website is under maintenance" message. Editors say it's because the review's board of directors took the site down after the editors refused to remove an article by a Palestinian legal scholar: https://theintercept.com/2024/06/03/columbia-law-review-palestine-board-website/

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