Stefan Bohacek

· 1mo ago

Happy Beginning of the Internet Age Day! "The first two-network TCP/IP transmission was between the [Packet Radio Van] and ARPANET on August 27, 1976; the van was parked next to Rossotti's (since 1956, officially the "Alpine Inn"), a well-known Portola Valley, California biker bar, and wires were run to one of the picnic tables." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_Radio_Van #internet #InternetHistory #InternetAge #PacketRadioVan #arpanet #history #OnThisDay #OTD

en.wikipedia.org

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· 1mo ago

Hey fediverse, happy #LibraryCardSignUpMonth! https://www.ala.org/conferencesevents/celebrationweeks/card #libraries #LibraryCard #books #bookstodon

ala.org

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· 1w ago

Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe

Here's @_elena@mastodon.social sharing success stories from the fediverse and reasons to be hopeful for this year's #FediDay. https://fair.tube/w/csFcmJcnMtHufq5JBr8sid https://ctalx.c-base.org/fediday-2026/talk/WUERER/ More videos from the event: https://berlin.social/@berlinfediday/117326037771580837 https://ctalx.c-base.org/fediday-2026/ #fediverse #FediDay2026

fairtube

Elena Rossini - FediDay2026

Reasons to be hopeful: success stories from the Fediverse this year https://ctalx.c-base.org/fediday-2026/talk/WUERER/

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· 3w ago

"The dopamine loss is different from ordinary dips in mood or motivation, Meyer said. It reflects an actual reduction in the density of nerve terminals, not simply lower dopamine output from nerves that remain intact. Whether that’s reversible is still unclear." https://fortune.com/2026/09/14/long-covid-brain-fog-symptoms-dopamine-nerve-terminals/ via https://mastodon.world/@MJmusicinears/117274431859625905 #news #health #covid #LongCovid

Fortune

Long COVID's brain fog finally has a biological explanation: Dopamine loss | Fortune

Scientists found up to 20% less dopamine nerve density in long COVID patients, and say the damage tracks closely with specific symptoms.

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· 1mo ago

Happy #LaborDay! "Conservative Democratic President Grover Cleveland was one of those concerned that a labor holiday on May 1 would [...] strengthen socialist and anarchist movements that backed the May 1 commemoration around the globe. In 1887, he publicly supported the September Labor Day holiday as a less inflammatory alternative [...]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day#Labor_Day_versus_May_Day "The ruling class did not want to have a very active labor force connected internationally." https://www.npr.org/2022/04/30/1095729592/what-is-may-day-history #LaborDay #workers #WorkerSolidarity #history

en.wikipedia.org

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· 1mo ago

RE: https://stefanbohacek.online/@RogueAI/117077335536360796 Oh no. #RogueAI

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· 1mo ago

Replying to

And before I get called out: sure, people can word things awkwardly, lack nuance, etc, etc. But we're beyond the point of giving people the benefit of the doubt. Especially if there is a pattern of "just asking questions". Being a fediverse moderator is typically an unpaid and often a thankless job. But if you can't deal with difficult situations, maybe better to just step aside.

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· 1mo ago

"When [socialist/left-leaning candidates] talk about policy, they don’t just focus on blaming Donald Trump for every problem; they talk about issues that their potential constituencies tell them are important." https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/opinion/socialist-wave-democratic-party.html?unlocked_article_code=1.31A.V8gz.x0v03C9L-WmJ&smid=url-share #USPol #politics #ElectoralPolitics #socialism #DemocraticSocialism

nytimes.com

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· 2mo ago

Boosted by @roots@stefanbohacek.online

@vhs@stefanbohacek.online is back, please enjoy! https://stefanbohacek.online/@vhs/117005155381138152 (Static preview of CW-ed videos.)

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· 1mo ago

Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe

"These two figures are not communicating with one another. The lady receives an amatory message, and the gentleman some racing results." https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-vision-of-isolating-technology-from-1906/ #technology #essay

publicdomainreview.org

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· 1mo ago

Quick, Bluesky is down, tell your friends about your favorite fediverse server! Don't confuse them with techy jargon, unless they care about that stuff. Just tell them why you picked the server you're on, and that they can sign up and follow and talk to people on other servers. https://downdetector.com/status/bluesky/ #fediverse #bluesky #atmosphere

downdetector.com

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· 1mo ago

Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe

Interesting to see the fediverse and the Atmosphere starting to take up similar shape, as with FASPs, fediverse servers will be able to connect to shared infrastructure. https://bonfirenetworks.org/posts/building-shared-infrastructure-for-the-fediverse/ via https://bonfire.cafe/pub/objects/01M1KV6AVGVKJMXZ1309NW20S0 #fediverse #FASP #SocialMedia #atmosphere

bonfirenetworks.org

Building shared infrastructure for the Fediverse

Bonfire is working with Mastodon to make remote media storage and automated content detection interoperable across the fediverse.

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· 2mo ago

A bundle of 150 games created by the United Videogame Workers union to support videogame industry workers in the US and Canada impacted by layoffs. "Reports say 33% of the industry lost their jobs in the last two years, and the jobs they could fill are disappearing as CEOs try to replace them with AI." https://itch.io/b/3802/game-industry-hardship-fund https://kotaku.com/itchio-game-developer-hardship-bundle-necrosoft-games-layoffs-unionization-2000720782 #videogames #unions #layoffs #ItchIO

itch.io

Game industry hardship fund by Necrosoft Games and 109 others - itch.io

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· 1mo ago

Boosted by @MaryAustinBooks@mstdn.social

"As backlash against surveillance grows, governments overseeing cities, townships, and counties around the US are dropping their Flock contracts at a record pace — a retreat so widespread that some say it could affect the company’s viability." Let's hope! https://futurism.com/future-society/flock-alpr-surveillance-major-trouble-cancellations #news #TechNews #technology #surveillance #flock

futurism.com

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· 2mo ago

"We like to think of our home as a nice, smooth sphere. But mapping the Earth’s gravitational field provides a different view of the planet." https://www.wired.com/story/nasas-new-3d-model-shows-lumpy-earth/ Interactive 3D model: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5660 #news #science #earth #geoid #GravitationalField #gravity #NASA

wired.com

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· 2mo ago

Replying to on stefanbohacek.online

Worth perhaps noting that the number of "daily likers" on Bluesky fell under one million for the first time since March 2025, as all metrics continue to decline. https://bluefacts.app/bluesky-user-growth

bluefacts.app

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· 1mo ago

Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe

"Meta on Wednesday reached a landmark settlement with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, agreeing to pay up to $17.1 billion in penalties and make major changes to its products over claims it endangered children with addictive social media platforms. In a dramatic capitulation, the owner of Facebook and Instagram agreed to the financial penalties for violating federal child privacy and states’ consumer protection laws, the states announced." It's a start! https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/technology/meta-settlement-social-media-addiction-lawsuit.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8VA.ZtqI.fwAUe8Daa-Lj&smid=url-share #news #TechNews #meta #facebook #SocialMedia #SocialMediaLawsuit #SocialMediaTrial

nytimes.com

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· 2mo ago

Estimated 150,000 people have marched during this year's London Trans+ Pride event. ✊ "Alex Palumbo, a registered mental health nurse who attended the march, said it was "important to be proud of who we are and, in fact, by being proud, we allow other people to discover and express themselves in authentic ways"." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgv1v084j0o #news #pride #TransPride #LondonTransPride

bbc.co.uk

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· 2mo ago

Replying to

Adding here as well: https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/117049023247874036 Thanks to everyone keeping the web still going!

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· 2mo ago

In 1975, oral historian Johnetta Brazzell used the "newly portable and increasingly affordable cassette recorder" to document the stories of everyday Black residents of the city of Pontiac, Michigan. "We're trying to locate people who lived [in Pontiac] and get eyewitness accounts of what was going on, how people lived, where they worked and, generally, just what life was like for them." https://daily.jstor.org/the-cassette-tapes-of-the-great-migration/ #essay #history #OralHistory #interviews #CassetteTapes

JSTOR Daily

The Cassette Tapes of the Great Migration - JSTOR Daily

An archive of recorded interviews captures how ordinary people experienced one of the defining chapters of American history.

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· 2mo ago

Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe

Has there been a conversation around why the fediverse:creator meta tag only allows one person to be listed? https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/30748 #fediverse #FediverseCreator #mastodon

github.com

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· 2mo ago

Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe

"LinkedIn, a social network awash with long AI-generated posts from executives and other corporate workers, has introduced a new button that users can click to flag if a post “seems like AI slop,” according to [@404mediaco@mastodon.social's] own tests." https://www.404media.co/linkedin-introduces-a-seems-like-ai-slop-button/ #news #technology #linkedin #AI #LLMs #slop #enshittification

404media.co

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· 1mo ago

Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe

Replying to

ActivityPub, the standard that powers the fediverse, continues to evolve and we all can contribute! https://github.com/w3c/activitypub #fediverse #ActivityPub #standards #SocialMedia

github.com

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· 2mo ago

Replying to

Not really reading the whole thing, just skimming through, but here's an interesting tidbit. "I’m not ready to announce the specifics, but we will start monetizing this year." Curious to see what they will come up with! "The way I look at it is there’s already money being made on this network. We’re sending lots of traffic to people who then convert that traffic into subscriptions.. I think our job is to just help more of that happen." Someone from their team already mentioned some form of revenue sharing. Hmm.

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· 2mo ago

Replying to

@aparrish@friend.camp Yeah, but it will happily call the cops on *you*. Unfair. https://futurism.com/openai-scanning-conversations-police

OpenAI Says It's Scanning Users' ChatGPT Conversations and Reporting Content to the Police

Futurism

OpenAI Says It's Scanning Users' ChatGPT Conversations and Reporting Content to the Police

OpenAI has authorized itself to call law enforcement if users say threatening enough things when talking to ChatGPT.

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· 2mo ago

Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe

Replying to

More from my blog's archives on #AltText and #accessibility:

Polls and other insights about the use of alt text on social media: https://stefanbohacek.com/blog/polls-about-alt-text-on-social-media/
Alt Text Health Check image accessibility reports: https://stefanbohacek.com/tag/alt-text-health-check-report/
Impact of fediverse clients on the use of alt text: https://stefanbohacek.com/blog/impact-of-fediverse-clients-on-the-use-of-alt-text/

And with my fediverse posts accessibility checker you can find past posts where you might've missed adding alt text: https://data.stefanbohacek.com/projects/fediverse-post-accessibility

Hope you'll enjoy!

stefanbohacek.com

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· 2mo ago

"The government has paid millions to private contractors to surface everything from potential threats to agents to activities that could disrupt ICE’s operations, according to federal documents, contractors and former Homeland Security Investigations agents." Stay safe out there! https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/ice-surveillance-internet-critics-e3b22f49 via https://flipboard.com/@thenewsdesk/top-stories-in-news-t9s06mvmz/-/a-ck392XZ2SKOHX8twp7xQNg%3Aa%3A43591897-%2F0 #news #SocialMedia #USPol #ICE #dragnet

wsj.com

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· 2mo ago

Replying to

@blogdiva@mastodon.social Ah, got it. Yeah, Mastodon makes it really easy to post via API. Presumably Bluesky as well, but I haven't looked into this myself. I do know some people make bots on there, so I'm guessing it must be easy enough. @django@social.coop

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· 2mo ago

Replying to

@blogdiva@mastodon.social The site defines it as an account that "liked a post on a given day". So, over the past 7 days, there have been, on average, about 997k accounts giving likes on posts per day.

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· 2mo ago

Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe

RE: https://social.lol/@neatnik/117046865381030769 This is an excellent guide, and I love this tool that lets you experience the fediverse as a assistive technologies user. https://alt-text.social.lol/check-up Awesome work! #accessibility #AltText

Quoting

Treatnik 🎃

@neatnik@social.lol

I wrote a guide to alt text! Maybe it’ll help someone? https://alt-text.social.lol/guide

Open quoted post

social.lol

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· 2mo ago

Replying to

@kleisli@mastodon.social Well https://fedidb.com/stats reports 1.2M active *monthly* users, which would be compared with the "4.5M Unique users active in the last 30 days" metric. So, still quite a bit higher, especially if a sizable portion of the active fediverse accounts are hashtag bots. https://fedidb.com/servers/tags.pub

fedidb.com

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· 2mo ago

Replying to

@blogdiva@mastodon.social Yes, sorry, missed your question from the edit, mind elaborating a bit on this? @django@social.coop

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· 2mo ago

Replying to

@kleisli@mastodon.social Yeah, compared to major/corporate social media platforms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_platforms_by_monthly_active_users) the fediverse and the Atmosphere are definitely pretty close in terms of the size.

en.wikipedia.org

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· 2mo ago

Replying to

@jorgecandeias@mastodon.social The site also shows "unique users active in the last 7/30/90 days", this is just an additional metric.

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@jorgecandeias@mastodon.social https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/117032804550630250

· 2mo ago

Replying to

Quoting

Stefan Bohacek

@stefan@stefanbohacek.online

@blogdiva@mastodon.social The site defines it as an account that "liked a post on a given day". So, over the past 7 days, there have been, on average, about 997k accounts giving likes on posts per day.

Open quoted post

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#music #musicians #friday #SupportArtists

· 1mo ago

Hey fediverse, happy:

Great day to support your favorite artists, and find new ones!

isitbandcampfriday.com

Is it Bandcamp Friday?

Is it?

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#music #musicians #friday #SupportArtists

· 5d ago

Hey fediverse, happy:

isitbandcampfriday.com

Is it Bandcamp Friday?

Is it?

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· 2mo ago

Replying to

For anyone not keeping up with the latest development, Blacksky is not only running their own ATProto stack, they are now supporting other communities through their Acorn program. https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/116574703552426391 #blacksky