WTSocial: Alternative to Facebook is Announced by Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia



Jimmy Wales' (founder of Wikipedia) has a new project, WTSocial  

I'm going to presumptively speak for "the World" here:  The World is ready for an alternative social gathering spot that respects users' privacy, discourages acrimony and tamps down hard on misinformation. I'm an early financial supporter because I really want this project to take off. This will be a fundamentally different business model than Facebook in that it will be funded through user donations. Here's are a few excerpts from a Financial Times article about WTSocial:

“It won’t be massively profitable but it will be sustainable,” [Wales] said . . . Wales said he believes the time is now right for a new venue that is free from what he calls “clickbait nonsense”. “People are feeling fed up with all the junk that’s around,” Mr Wales said.

Regarding his goals for numbers of users, Wale stated: “Obviously the ambition is not 50,000 or 500,000 but 50m and 500m.”

Photo Credit:  Photograph: ed g2s - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15707

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Not-For-Sale Advocates Shed Light of Suspicious Privatization Process Regarding Lambert St. Louis Airport

Last night, the "Not for Sale" (anti-privatization) group sponsored a town hall meeting at the St. Louis Central Branch Library. The meeting was well attended, as you can see from the photo in the comments

I'm posting all of my notes here, given that this a critical community issue and that this "public" process is rife with secrecy. The entire process also reeks of conflicts of interest.

But tonight was a chance for the good guys to talk, and I learned a lot. Notably, none of tonight's speakers was being paid to take the positions that they were taking. This is in stark contrast to positions being taken by members of the airport Working Group. None of the speakers criticized the current public airport management. Many went out of their way to compliment the way the airport commission is running the airport. And how could that be otherwise, based on the following statistics (reflecting events from July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018):

  • 29% increase in enplanments
  • 6.2% more departures
  • 20% decrease in cost per passenger
  • 5.9% more overall passengers
  • 30% debt paid off ($276 million) new line
  • $6.68 million paid into the city's general revenue fund.


The meeting started with an announcement by a representative of Congressman Lacy Clay. Congressman Clay supports a public vote regarding any privatization effort regarding the airport.

The next speaker was Dr. Ray Mundy, the Executive Director of the Airport Ground Transportation Association. Dr. Mundy stated the following: He has never seen a process like this in 40 years. For instance, $1 million is available to conduct a study of feasibility or privatization. The money is offered by the FAA. The working group didn't even apply for this money, suggesting they don't want to know what such a study would show.

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Gorilla Dancing in Swimming Pool

Wow. This is a video of a dancing gorilla taken at the Dallas Zoo. So beautiful, so full of life. It doesn't matter whether you say that human animals are like gorillas or that gorillas are like human animals.

If you are ever feeling down in the dumps, just do what this gorilla is doing to celebrate life.

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The Many Benefits of Playing Music

My parents offered me the chance to take guitar lessons when I was 7, and I agreed to do that, so now, decades later, I'm doing what many guitar players are doing: Playing self-learned keyboards! Truly, I am grateful to my parents for digging deep to buy me a guitar and provide me with lessons. I'm still playing lots of music--it is a wonderful way to spend time on planet Earth. Here's one my most recent compositions, which I call "Striding."



As much as a digital studio (Logic Pro) provides endless enjoyment, I also still love playing the guitar, absolutely love it. And I love my guitars. If the house ever caught fire, I'd work hard to save them. There is a lot to love about music, especially if you end up hitting a high enough level of competence that you are comfortable sharing your music with others in your community. I was lucky in that regard. In my late teens, I was co-band leader for a 7-piece jazz rock band that played throughout St. Louis. I treasure those days.

But now I learn that there are many other benefits to playing music that are backed by science. "Music Lessons Were the Best Thing Your Parents Ever Did for You, According to Science" lists 13 of them, along with links to the science. Check out this article for explanations and links to the science. This is an impressive list:

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Homeland Security Border Suspicionless Searches of U.S. Citizens Ruled Unconstitutional

You might be surprised to hear that U.S. federal government has been demanding to inspect the digital content of the phones, computers and other devices of many U.S. citizens re-entering the U.S. even though the government lacked any suspicion of wrong-doing by the U.S. citizen. That's insane, right?

Now after a long battle by the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a federal judge has ruled that the Department of Homeland Security has been acting illegally when it does that. This is a big victory against our own government, which was acting unreasonably and oppressively.

Common Dreams reports:

"This is a great day for travelers who now can cross the international border without fear that the government will, in the absence of any suspicion, ransack the extraordinarily sensitive information we all carry in our electronic devices," EFF senior staff attorney Sophia Cope said in a statement.

The lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan, was filed by EFF, the national ACLU, and ACLU of Massachusetts on behalf of 10 U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident who had their devices searched without warrants. The suit named as defendants the Department of Homeland Security and two agencies it oversees—Customs and Border Protection as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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