#China has planted so many #trees around the #TaklamakanDesert that it's turned this 'biological void' into a #carbonsink

https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/plants/china-has-planted-so-many-trees-around-the-taklamakan-desert-that-its-turned-this-biological-void-into-a-carbon-sink

This is wild - somebody did a deep dive into the real stories behind this famous XKCD:
https://sheets.works/data-viz/holding-up-the-internet

It is more urgent than ever; we all know the threats that BigTech and the authoritarian political forces are posing to people and planet.

@DigitalCoup

I joined DemocraticTech.Fund as an annual member after learning about it at @fediforum.

I also added to my annual donation to @iftas.

The challenges with operating community servers are real, hard, and need funding.

https://democratictech.fund/?ref=activitypub

#FediForum

When the kittens were small, I thought my fist was roughly cat-head sized and shaped and so might be easier for them to relate to than an entire human, so I’d hold out my fist for them to investigate and get comfortable with. And it worked. Except friendlykitten has developed a habit of not just sniffing it but full-on headbutting my finger with his nose. Walks up, sniffs fist, hits closest finger as hard as he can with his nose, then consents to scritches. This cannot be good for his nose.

He’s also basically full cat sized now. I might have to stop calling him a kitten.

French protests have three stages:
1. Peaceful marching
2. Rioting/arson (targeting banks, not homes)
3. Mass strikes & economic shutdown
The French elite fear Stage 1 because they know Stages 2 and 3 are coming. Canadians only do Stage 1 and our elites ignore it because they know there is no real threat of escalation.

Lol. Princeton University praised Nobel laureate Anne Carson, a former classics professor at the school, on social media, despite denying her tenure in the 1980s.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/books/anne-carson-nobel-prize-princeton-university-tenure-denied.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HVE.h0nZ.bAjwq_pjmYiS&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Only one week away! 🥳

What are you most looking forward to at #NOSF2026 ?

RE: https://mastodon.social/@publicdomainrev/117405714276067326

Europeans never met a map they couldn’t fuck up even worse

I criticize #Japanese companies a lot, but I do like this aspect of #Japan corporate culture - executives taking pay cuts in response to #company failures - in this case, actions by subordinates.

Can you even imagine something like this in #America?

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/10/08/companies/prudential-japan-unit-execs-pay-cuts/

"If you don't let me eat your dog, you're an anti-cat extremist!"

❌ AI generated slop menus with pictures that make your food look like worms

✅ scribbles on a piece of paper saying how much the soup cost

for a while tech was kind of like the "escape hatch" for people who couldn't or wouldn't fit in at other corporations and now it's sort of like a flaming timber fell on the escape hatch while people were still lining up to get in

i am being told that "in the future it'll be easy to get the computer to do what you want"

and as i sit here avoiding rebooting a program to avoid hitting a bad update, i think the real problem we face now and in the future is stopping the computer doing things we don't want it to do

as right now, the easiest way to stop your computer doing something is to write to the european parliament

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month! To get into the spirit, post your best password.