Notices by Ciara (ciarani@mastodon.green)

I really like Mastodon. It feels peaceful. It feels human-sized.

'Nothing is trending right now. Check back later!'

Thank Odin for the Fediverse. Those two sentences are comically unimaginable on other social media platforms.

‘Using GPT-4 to generate 100 words consumes up to 3 bottles of water.’

I’d like to see the climate cost flagged in simple terms like this every time we are about to use AI. Like a calorie counter for the climate. A pop-up AI warning label, like nutritional information on food packaging. If nothing else, it might make us individually aware of the collective cost of using AI frivolously.

#AI
#ClimateDiary

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/using-gpt-4-to-generate-100-words-consumes-up-to-3-bottles-of-water-ai-data-centers-also-raise-power-and-water-bills-for-nearby-residents

Apparently there’s a conspiracy theory that 15-minute cities are urban prisons where residents must wear QR codes that track their restricted movements. As opposed to the reality: mixed-use neighbourhoods so handy that signposts can use walking minutes as the unit of distance to the library, theatres, cafés, community services, museums, parks and shops.

#Aarhus
#LiveableCities
#WeApologiseForTheConvenience

We need a word for real-life enshittification caused by online culture. Like being unable to find an organisation’s info because they’ve Instagram but no website. Or panicked people being sent a videolink to download to their phone when they ring for an ambulance. Or being excluded from residents' association news if you're not on Facebook. Or having cash payment refused. Or staff in the business you’re physically standing in telling you to find the answer to your question on their website.

@me :-)

@me Welcome to the neighbourhood! And congratulations on building your own home - I hope you are very happy in your new, own instance. :-) Have a lovely weekend.

@aral Thank you for the kind perspective. I try to keep both tracks in mind - we need major and drastic collective change, and we each need to contribute too. Now you have me wondering if anyone on a private jet chastises themselves about their flight and I think you're right, they don't even think of it.

I vowed off #FrivolousFlights several years ago. With the exception of one journey to immediate family that isn't possible by train and ferry on an ordinary budget (time and money). I was just wondering if there's a word for this, for someone who pledged not to fly, except when it's unavoidable, and realised there is. The word is 'hypocrite'.

#ClimateDiary

@aral I am sorry you and your parents are put through this. The amount of energy and thought that officialdom puts into designing rules that create a hostile environment for individuals - if only all that energy and thought instead went into designing radical climate crisis policies that could collectively improve all our lives.

On maps of Ikea, slime mould ‘found the exit, more efficiently than the scientists who set the task’

#LRB

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n10/francis-gooding/from-its-myriad-tips