Laura Edelson

Cybersecurity for Democracy

Tune in to: How Do Social Media Feeds Actually Work? a panel discussion w/ Knight Institute Sr. Policy Fellow @oliviersylvain.bsky.social, and C4D's Laura Edelson (@whiskeyocelot.bsky.social) and @yaeleisenstat.bsky.social.

Thurs. Feb. 26, 1-2 pm.
Streaming: www.youtube.com/@Cybersecuri...

Hard Drive Failure Rates: The Official Backblaze Drive Stats for 2024 The 2024 Year End Drive Stats Report is here. See the the latest annualized failure rates and data insights for the Backblaze drive fleet.

Lastly on the storage front: remember spinny drives fail. It was useful to look at data like this and think about replacement rates when making cost comparisons:

www.backblaze.com/blog/backbla...

Chassis required the most thought, particularly on the power front. We were trying to scavenge parts wherever possible from the Big Bin of Parts (you know you have one too, don’t judge). But the power requirements were all BIG when we did the math and we did have to buy those new.

Coming from just building PCs or speccing out research servers that require really fast read/write, I haven’t thought about spinny drives in a minute, but they are absolutely the way to go for most home data center needs. Funny enough vendors really don’t have expect you to order 5 of these 😂

In-home data center phase 3: buying chassis, compute, and storage. The ‘compute’ part is expensive but not complicated: low volume) availability of GPUs and CPUs is good right now. Storage is also $$$, but there are a lot of choices that require really thinking about your use cases.

And now the student has become the master.

We also used gridfinity for interior organization an open-source 3D printed solution, which required making some adaptations , none of which were all that hard : gridfinity.tools

Systainer USA The systainer, a case, a toolbox, an entire system of organization for workshops, work vehicles and professionals. See the entire Systainer line up at Systainer USA.

We leaned hard into the systainer system, which has been great for our needs. They are a particularly good fit for uses that involve moving around lots of small parts. One caveat: we learned too late that they have two different grid systems for interior organization, so be warned. systainer.store

In-home data center phase 2: tool and supply organization. The pain of not being able to find the punch down because it’s mixed in with the saws( or is it with the cabling) quickly was intolerable. All the hobby stuff got organized along the way because there’s too much of a continuum of what’s what

In-home data center phase 2: tool and supply organization. The pain of not being able to find the punch down because it’s mixed in with the saws( or is it with the cabling) quickly was intolerable. All the hobby stuff got organized along the way because there’s too much of a continuum of what’s what

And before you ask, yes, phase zero was a whole house battery system to go with the solar array and whole house backup generator.

Phase 1 of the in-home data center is complete.

So what you’re saying is that we are one media studies paper away from solving this problem?

Ug, the worst reason 🫠

Why is this? Copyright?

TikTok’s mental health ‘rabbit hole’? It’s not in your head. It’s not just you: Data shows the app’s algorithm makes some topics ‘stickier’ than others

This article about the property of 'stickiness' that content feed algorithms can have is absolutely fascinating. I'm thinking about how to study this in a larger way.
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...

Many thanks to Cornell CALS for a grant to support early organizing, and to our collaborators Marie Bragg, @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social, @sarahagilbert.bsky.social, Ashley Maxie-Moreman, Damon McCoy, Amrit Purba, Jenny Radesky, & Pamela Wisniewski. Thanks also to co-authors Avriel Epps & Daniel Susser

Cardi B, Yann LeCunn, Banksy, and I have written a open letter calling for a ban on unicorn breeding. Geneticists say that unicorns will only bring benefits to humanity, but their reckless attempts to cross a rhino with a miniature pony could, in fact, doom us all.

It’s the world championships so #fightrobotsfight

Oh man, unless you really know you want to do it, don’t do it. I did this at the Met like 15 years ago and then I just had to take a few years off from live opera.

Backblaze unwrapped: you’re a data trillionaire!

A gondolier on a river at sunset

#Imwithher

Critical strike: China's hacking training grounds (PART 1) Exclusive internal design documents reveal details of China's digital training grounds, set up to attack critical infrastructure of its "major adversaries".

Leaked docs on “Expedition Cloud” show the Chinese military-industrial complex building a digital shooting range for cyber ops. Not that anyone was in doubt about the importance cyber operations, but it's fascinating to look inside the machine.
netaskari.substack.com/p/train-to-k...

Also, this complaint is 🔥🔥🔥

tangentially related: @erie.bsky.social and @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social suggest that people with technical chops punch way above their weight in policy circles: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawf...

On Lawfare Daily, @jshermcyber.bsky.social spoke to @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social and @erie.bsky.social about how state enforcers and regulators can better work with technologists, what technologists are suited to help with, and what roles technologists can play. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawf...

Great news!
JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month

www.jstor.org/action/showL...

Cropped photo of a flyer. Black text on white paper with a shine and a light reflection of the photographer behind. The top lines mention trash room, dumpster, and “Thank you for your cooperation.” The text below reads: “To do the useful thing, To say the courageous thing, To contemplate the beautiful, That is enough for one man’s life.” - T.S. Eliot

The folks who manage our building put a flyer in the elevator every week. Along with the weekly weather and notes about building rules being broken, they often add a quote. This is one I snapshotted a few weeks ago:

You’re really on to something here. But can it run Steam?