Mastodawn

Prof. Sam Lawler 1h ago

Better. (But I'm still angry.)

https://novaramedia.com/2026/04/14/nhs-staff-told-stop-criticising-palantir-or-lose-your-job/

Open Rights Group 5h ago

NHS workers are being gagged from criticising the Palantir contract 🤐

We can't duck the hard truths that embedding US Big Tech in UK public services carries risks of outside political interference and waste from vendor lock-in.

The alternative is here: Digital Sovereignty with open source tech.

#DigitalSovereignty #opensource #palantir #nhs #ukpolitics #ukpol

NHS Staff Told ‘Stop Criticising Palantir or Lose Your Job’

NHS staff have been told they might lose their jobs if they criticise NHS England’s controversial £330m contract with IDF-contractor Palantir.

Novara Media

kottke.org 3h ago

For decades, Aadam Jacobs recorded live music shows. His collection of over 10,000 shows since 1984 features Nirvana, R.E.M., The Pixies, Björk, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and so many more — and they're now available on the Internet Archive for free. https://kottke.org/26/04/online-treasure-trove-secret-concert-recordings

Now Online: a Treasure Trove of 1000s of Secret Concert Recordings

For decades, a guy named Aadam Jacobs has been recording live music shows. His collection of over 10,000 shows since 1984 feature the likes of Nirvana, R.E.

kottke.org

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@muntashir/116372607911622394

Keep Android Open 4h ago

Google's assault on F-Droid has begun. They are permitting malicious actors to claim other people's apps and take them over. As we've warned, this is going to destroy F-Droid and independent app distribution around the world. Speak out and help stop them at https://keepandroidopen.org. #keepandroidOpen

Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág 5h ago

Líra, the bookstore chain that Fidesz tried to bully out of existence, has just moved all Orbán books to the "History" section.

LOL

#Hungary #elections

Oh hey, there's an ASTRONOMY MITIGATIONS section!! All of the collective astronomy yelling and screaming is working!!!

...oh wait it's all total bullshit, because they don't actually have anything close to a satellite design or even a size. Three whole sentences at the very end of the document!! They care so much about saving the night sky and all of astronomy research!

And with that, I desperately need to go take a walk in the woods.

No mention of atmospheric pollution, of course, because the FCC doesn't give a shit about that. With SpaceX's 5 Starlinks a day a few months ago, we were well above natural infall rates of most metals, so 1 (presumably) gigantic satellite per hour will be a lot worse than that.

My colleagues and I wrote a bit about using the atmosphere as a satellite crematorium here, and it's bad: https://theconversation.com/a-new-space-race-could-turn-our-atmosphere-into-a-crematorium-for-satellites-276366

A new space race could turn our atmosphere into a ‘crematorium for satellites’

Planned ‘megaconstellations’ of satellites could cause unforeseen harm to the ozone layer and climate systems. Global regulation is needed before it’s too late.

The Conversation

"Blue Origin will take all feasible steps to reduce the probability of collision by at least 1.5 orders of magnitude for any collision risk above a threshold which will be no higher than 1E-5" I'm an orbital debris expert and I'm not sure I can parse this sentence. But I'm sure it'll be fine!!

They say they'll get the collision prob down to 1 in 1000 for any periods of non-maneuverability. With 51,000 sats and a million more from SpaceX, these are great odds! (...of a collision)

To nobody's surprise, they will burn all their satellites up in the atmosphere, because that's what all the cool kids do. They don't actually say their operating lifetimes anywhere. But if they're 5 years like Starlink, then that's a bit more than one satellite burned up per hour.

And will they burn up completely? Well, they say they'll use the same NASA debris model to assess that said that the SpaceX Crew Dragon trunk would burn up. So I'm not worried at all!!