@h @haitch@mastodon.social

@haitch OK, I guess you know about websites like https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse?
I don't exactly know how they do it but you could check the code: https://git.feneas.org/feneas/fediverse
But to me, all these estimates already strongly overestimate the size of the Fediverse given how many people (me included) have at least 2 accounts on different servers.
I cannot think of any ways to reliably find a number which would not be a (potentially significant) overestimate...

There's exceptionally little coverage of this in anything remotely like mainstream press, though the Register's Simon Sharwood managed to run an item on 18 December 2020:

Your web search history plus records of the browser and device you use to make those searches could enable financial institutions to calculate you a more accurate credit rating than traditional methods, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). And the global finance organisation says the ability to use those records might be a good thing rather than a privacy nightmare.

And asking the obvious:

What could possibly go wrong with Facebook, Amazon and Alibaba using AI and your browser records to facilitate offers from third-party financial services? Thankfully, the authors can find plenty of potential pitfalls, including security worries, changes in lending behaviour that challenge prudential regulation regimes, and the potential for new players to weaken banks and by doing so undermine the role they play in the wider financial system.

https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/18/web_search_history_credit_ratings/

Random link from the archives: "How Silicon Valley’s successes are fueled by an underclass of ‘ghost workers’ - The Verge" https://web.archive.org/web/20190515101357/https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18563284/mary-gray-ghost-work-microwork-labor-silicon-valley-automation-employment-interview?curator=TechREDEF originally retrieved Wed May 15 10:13:57 EDT 2019

@ekaitz_zarraga Yeah, sorry. I avoid ELF because of it's seemingly unbounded complexity. Trying to write a loader for RISC-V object files produced by gas proved to be an exercise in self-harm, so I now avoid it like the plague.

It's also what prompted me to write my On ELF series of blog articles.

Or, in the alternative, you might take a vacation that's twice as long because you joined a union which fought for the right for you to take sufficient time off work, with pay, without any fear of retribution or negative performance review, because people need motherfucking downtime and labour organisation is the one method that's been shown effective in seeing the needs of workers met.

@dredmorbius Fridges with SIM cards already exist, albeit used for telemetry in medical/scientific applications (including the storage of the Covid19 vaccines) and mostly using just GSM and LTE (as reliability in this use case is much more important than fast data transfer)

@vfrmedia I was just doing a quick cursory scan for SIM-enabled or similar appliances, for someone claiming that the prospect was tinfoilhattery.

So whilst that result was a false lead, there are others:

"The potentialities of 5G for the home appliance sector"

As reported by APPLiA, alongside the increased number of smart devices at home, the concept of smart home is becoming more and more appreciated by people with an 80% who finds the idea of having a smart device at home appealing. By the numbers, connected devices will reach 50 billions globally by 2020 and the number of smart homes in the EU is not expected to stop either, with a tenfold increase by 2021. In the next 20 years, the International Energy Agency has predicted a share of electricity consumption from connected appliances comparable to that of traditional ones with a steadily decreased cost of smart appliances.

https://www.hafactory.it/2019/05/13/the-potentialities-of-5g-for-the-home-appliance-sector/

Which links:
"Living the connected home - APPLiA - Home Appliance Europe"
https://www.applia-europe.eu/topics/living-the-connected-home

That's still talking about generic IoT stuff, but I strongly suspect there's SIM/5G discussion happening somewhere.