I forget who recommended the Alamaxa series here, by Hadeer Elsbai. I'm reading the first book, The daughters of Izdihar and enjoying it a lot, so thanks, whoever it was. It's a fantasy series set in something like an analogue to 19th century India or perhaps the Levant, mixing fantastic themes on magic with social concerns such as women's emancipation.

#reading #books #fantasy #series #ReadingRec

Kdyby náhodou jste to nevěděli, tak rusáckej dobytek stále vraždí civilisty na Ukrajině.

Já jen, až budete mít pocit, že jste "unavený válkou", tak lidi v tomhle baráku byli jen unavený a šli spát.

#rusko #Ukrajina #StopWar

A camera the size of a room

govdeals.com/asset/31081/782

#BelieveInFilm

🤣 Russia has fined Google 2 undecillion roubles or USD$20 decillion for blocking Russian media on YT etc.

If not paid in 219 weeks that increases to USD$1 googol.

abc.net.au/news/2024-11-01/rus…

Russia is a laughing stock. Putin, you're a muppet. This is Austin Powers / Dr Evil level fines.

Russia has fined Google more money than there is in the entire world

Russia has slapped Google with a fine of $US20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 for blocking state media channels on YouTube.

^{Maddy Morwood (ABC News)}

Yesterday, my students presented our work at the ACM ASSETS conference. "Not Only Annpying. But Dangerous": Devising an Ecology of Protections for Photosensitive Social Media Users" dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/366…

In this study, we investigate prior work, conduct survey inquiries, and use co-design methods to explore how social media design choices influence exposure to dangerous flashing content which can trigger seizures, migraines, nausea, and disorientation for photosensitive users.

Through our analysis, we identify the current ecosystem of flashing content on the Internet, and propose a more robust ecology of protections, including on-device graphics filters that directly edit pixels buffers to prevent flashing before it occurs.

First, existing WCAG guidelines against auto-play of media need to be enforced. Second, users should have device level control over animation that may trigger flashing, and this control shpuld not be able to be reset by platforms that try to enforce autoplay to support their own ad revenue. Third, other users need to be aware of what makes content dangerous, so thay they may stop circulating it and causing accidental exposure. Fourth, creators need to know what makes content dangerous, and how they can test for danger, to prevent them from creating dangerous media in the first place. This includes corporate creators, like movie studios, whose ads for acrion movies have been a recent source of autoplaying strobing content in movie trailors posted via ad platforms. Fifth, platforms, including GIF libraries, but also all social platforms, need to implement reporting mechanisms specifically for flashing content which can remove that content from circulation. Sixth, there should be actual penalties for platforms and creators that do not react to, correct, and remove dangerous content, or who force auto-play on users.

And seventh, device manufacturers and operating system developers need to create on-device filters that eliminate flashing through simple real time post-processing. Machine Learning classification and prediction algorithms ARE NOT NECESSARY. We can do this with simple math. Yes it may sometimes look weird. But also people won't be dying in their sleep.

This work is very important to me, and I've been working on it (on the side) since 2017. I wasn't allowed to pursue it fully as a graduate student. As faculty, I still had to string the project together on wishes. And I'm still looking for a collaborator to work on the implementation, though if industry would just get their shit together and do it themselves, that'd be great.

#ASSETS2024 #accessibility #Epilepsy #migraine #photophobia #photosensitivity #NEISVoid #graphicsProgramming

“Not Only Annoying but Dangerous”: devising an ecology of protections for photosensitive social media users | Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

^{ACM Conferences}

#deltachat_desktop finally has Automated E2E testing again! 👨‍🔬 🧪 🚀

Thanks to the desktop team and #deltachat_web for making this possible.

Also thanks to #playwright for making such a nice testing solution.

The article discusses VMware Workstation's move towards using upstream KVM instead of proprietary code. This change will likely improve compatibility and efficiency, benefiting users of the virtualization platform.

Link: phoronix.com/news/VMware-Works…
Comments: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…

VMware Workstation Shifting From Proprietary Code To Using Upstream KVM

This isn't an off-schedule April Fools' Joke or anything like that but an exciting sign of the times: VMware Workstation will be shifting off its proprietary base and onto leveraging the upstream Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) for virtualiz…

^{www.phoronix.com}

🗣️ CANADA, DO NOT LET THE FASCISTS TURN YOUR COUNTRY INTO A BAD COPY OF THE UNITED STATES
mastodon.world/@somecanuckchic…

seriously, the world needs to do a billionaire purge STAT

somecanuckchick

2024-11-01 01:09:54

Despicable. Alberta wants to police pronouns, sex education, and youth healthcare. cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/al… #cdnpoli #polcan