Xeno Danger Evil @XenoDangerEvil@dpw.social

Cheap desalination without a power hookup, without even batteries, produces drinkable water.

A "shipping container" sized unit, again with no power, no batteries....

"On average, it desalinated around 5,000 liters of water per day—enough for a community of roughly 2,000 people."

"Cheap as tap water"

This is good news. Very good news.

#climate

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/10/desalination-system-adjusts-itself-to-work-with-renewable-power/

@rbreich
Widely used paraphrase: "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities".

Alternative translation: "Whoever is able to make you absurd, is able to make you unjust."

-Voltaire

WordPress’s emperor, Matt Mullenweg, demands a hefty tribute from WP Engine, and a battle erupts leaving millions of websites hanging in the balance. Meanwhile, the Internet Archive is under siege from hackers.

Listen to "Smashing Security" in your favourite podcast app:

🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3J7pBxEu43nCnRTSXaan8S

🟣 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/smashing-security/id1195001633

Everywhere else: https://smashingsecurity.com

Some good news...

#Malaria #Egypt #WHO

Egypt declared malaria-free by World Health Organization - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2yl8pjgn2o

Hey AMERICANS

I have an opinion I think you should VOTE EARLY

According to CBS you can vote early if your state¹ is on the map below in BLUE OR LIGHT BEIGE

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/map-early-voting-mail-ballot-states/

I think you should vote early because of BULLSHIT

If you early-vote and encounter BULLSHIT, this may give you a chance to CORRECT IT before the regular election

"But I don't like—" Then I think you should vote DOWNTICKET

¹ Puerto Ricans: Sorry

Good people: “doing this worked for me, it might work for you!”

Bad people: “doing this worked for me, if it doesn’t work for you, you’re the problem”

Shitheads: “doing this worked for me, buy my $500 course to find out it more”

Kindness goes a long way.

The phrase "Powered by AI" gives me the same kind of feeling I get when I see a notice that something I might have eaten was the subject of a health recall.

Universal masking and social distancing at the start of the pandemic were so effective that they eliminated a strain of flu, and now annual flu vaccines have been redesigned because that strain no longer needs to be included in the shot. Amazing.

Story: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/17/nx-s1-5155104/flu-shot-vaccine-b-yamagata-extinct

That Dolly Parton song “9 to 5” really messed with my expectations on the hours I would be required to be at my desk when I got a full time job.

The removal of the Klamath River dams will have effects for decades, but one of the most important has already started to show. Less than a month after the dams came down, there are salmon in a Klamath stream where they haven't been seen in 100 years.

Never let anyone tell you there's nothing we can do, that things are too far gone to try. There's still so much we can save, and some we can even bring back.

#Oregon #salmon #rivers

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/10/18/salmon-return-klamath-basin-oregon-dam-removal/

backing up the last project file and it would fill 220 CD-ROMs.

with a 52X CD drive, that would take some 7+ hours of write/read time and who knows how much extra time shuffling discs around.

#OtD 18 Oct 1931 German workers in Braunschweig went on strike in protest against the Nazis. In the 2nd half of 1931 there were 25 political strikes by 30k workers in protest against fascism, with many more the following year. German antifascist art here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/anti-fascist?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Stop this. Stop this at once.

Your call is unimportant to us. We get tons of calls, basically all the time

X’s new terms steer lawsuits to Texas court where judge owns Tesla stock

X terms specify Northern District, where Judge Reed O'Connor is a Tesla investor.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/xs-new-terms-steer-lawsuits-to-texas-court-where-judge-owns-tesla-stock/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

The world’s largest #InternetArchive is under siege — & fighting back

There are few organizations dedicated to the gargantuan task of preserving the vast, ever-shifting record of human activity that is the #internet. The largest such record belongs to a #nonprofit based in an old church in San Francisco that operates on a smaller annual budget than the DC Public Library.

It is currently under siege.

#tech
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/10/18/internet-archive-hack-wayback/

Robert Stern: "If you are turned away at the polls because your name is not on the register, don't walk away. Say this: "I REQUEST A PROVISIONAL BALLOT AS REQUIRED BY LAW." Don't let them steal your vote." copy: @KamalaHarrisWin #politics #voting #votingrights

I would encourage every Fediverse software project to implement a “dead-man switch" on registrations: if nobody with moderator permissions has been active in the last week, then disable new account creation.

The Fediverse has a significant number of abandoned instances that are used by bad actors to create accounts and send spam.

We implemented this in Mastodon (https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/29318) and it has been highly effective.