data af

A linked data expert working on HMG’s environmental statistics using open standards. #rdf #FAIRdata #5StarData

Homepage: https://www.andrewfergusson.ca/
Capacity: Entirely unofficial

Last Notes

2025-08-19 05:58:10 UTC

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If the government and Ofcom wanted to end explosive content recommendation, where money can be made sending people down dark rabbit holes of suicide talk, eating disorders, or terrorist-adjacent content, they could rein in engagement popping design.
People will find the content they want when searching, so maybe the responsibility as publishers should be keeping people in their respective lanes and don’t surface objectionable content unprompted?

2025-08-19 05:54:41 UTC

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I tend to avoid being conspiratorial but I’m having a very hard time squaring Ofcom’s take on universality of strong age verification and their utter avoidance at ensuring compliance at content delivery network level.
Could it be that going after Google, Amazon, and Microsoft for hosting images and videos in buckets, which are individually addressable and often public, be too far and Ofcom can’t hope pick them off?

2025-02-04 18:19:45 UTC

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I love this for us. I feel very safe seeing my online communities being shut down.

2025-02-04 18:17:41 UTC

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I wonder whether a geoblock of UK ip addresses regardless of previous use of said ip addresses by accounts who now mysteriously connect from say, Canada, and not the United Kingdom, absolves the responsibility and obligations under the #OnlineSafetyAct.

2025-02-04 18:03:10 UTC

Okay. So I clearly have to write 17 risk assessments for Extra Illegal Content™ for dataare.cool; however with my closed membership and personally knowing every member of the instance, and that the web page is now entirely blank and there are no sign ups… I think I’ve expunged the children risk.
The #OnlineSafetyAct is not fit for a volunteer Internet.
I feel bad for @npub1xzg…4cm5, who won’t be able to provide similarly robust age verification to whatever “significant numbers of UK users.”

2025-01-17 10:16:44 UTC

Microsoft has renamed the Office app “365 Copilot” on Windows and I don’t know what to say beyond the fact I now have traumatic semantic satiation.

2024-08-28 10:39:25 UTC

Has anyone used/purchased the C2C caberQU USB-C cable tester? I want to check my cables for faults objectively, and this seems like a good product. I remember @npub1x59…gect wanting something similar...
https://www.tindie.com/products/petl/usb-c-cable-tester-c2c-caberqu/

2024-08-23 08:41:56 UTC

Just as the cloud is someone else's computer, GenAI is someone else’s writing.