Mastodon is 100% the early days of social media all over. Some of you will already be familiar with this story.

My weather station (a very nice Netatmo that has served very well) crapped out after nearly 10 years of excellent service. I asked for recommendations here for a new station that would play nicely with #HomeAssistant, and hopefully, also HomeKit. I received *many* recommendations, with Ecowitt (and the brands it manufactures for) taking the lead.

A connection on here offered me their *unopened* Ecowitt weather station for a very generous price. It arrived yesterday, and I set it up, and it's already doing a great job. Works offline, talks to Home Assistant without any problems. I just need to do a couple of bits of configuration jiggery-pokery and it will pass data to HomeKit.

This is very much how things were when I first joined Twitter in 2007. In spite of attempts at #enshittification of everything, the #fediverse is putting up a good fight.

May your day online be as satisfying as mine was yesterday.

LATER EDIT: I’ve been thinking, and I do realise this good experience isn’t necessarily what happens for everyone. It’s still the case that too many good people don’t find a welcoming place here, especially if they are queer or of color. If this is you, know that I see you, and that I will always try to be welcoming and listening, even if you have things to say that bring me discomfort.

Yes, today’s forecast was largely a bust. No bones about it. The model forecasts were predicted on there being breaks in the clouds and enough sunlight to heat up and destabilize the atmosphere, which obviously didn’t happen. But, forecasters thought (as did I) that wind shear at peak levels would compensate for that, and again, that didn’t happen either.

There have been a lot of swings and misses in the last two years from the forecast models, and I lay a lot of blame on this regime gutting NOAA’s budget, laying off hundreds of NOAA employees, defunding weather research, and ordering the military not to share satellite data with NOAA. You can’t have that happen and expect forecast quality not to suffer.

As the Nazgûl Lord swings again, Meriadoc of the Shire stabs a Barrow-blade into his knee from behind. ‘Éowyn!’

She makes a final thrust with her sword just beneath the crown.

A scream: after four thousand years of service to Sauron, the Nazgûl Lord passes from Middle-earth.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@adhd_coffee/116232648381524772

It’s no accident.

Significant W as of this week: 100% of @thetaggartinstitute's course material, including The Homelab Almanac, has been ported over to our new home on Discourse. Learners can enroll, study, connect with others, and even purchase the book for lifetime access—all from a self-hosted forum space.

If you want to see what a post-Discord, post hypercapitalization internet looks like, I invite you to join us. https://beta.taggartinstitute.org.

A redditor (Ok_Lingonberry3296) traced $2 billion in nonprofit grants and lobbying records across 45 states to figure out who's behind the age verification bills.

The answer is Meta - a company that profits from your data writing laws that collect more of it.

Page: https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings?tab=readme-ov-file

Page backup: https://archive.ph/2026.03.13-193015/https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings?tab=readme-ov-file

Reddit discussion: https://web.archive.org/web/20260313143853/https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/

#Meta #Facebook #AgeVerification #privacy #surveillance #dystopia #socialmedia #technology