S&P and Moody's were collaborating since at least 2000 on the pricing of the so-called "esoteric" structured instruments associated with mortgaged-backed securities that caused the 4Q07 crash. They collaborated via the competitive intelligence firm Washington Information Group (which does not seem to be around anymore.) The collaboration was almost certainly illegal (IANAL). They did this because neither wanted a price war when rating these. I did sign an NDA with S&P that kept me out of the industry for two years. I left the industry shortly after that and went back to what I used to do.
While this is a transparent and shitty power plant by the loathsome VVD, I am hoping it backfires. D66 is almost strong enough to lead a coalition of reasonable parties. I mean, it's not the shift far left that I would like (and think we need), but it'd be a hell of a lot better than VVD + to the right of VVD remaining in power. I don't think the BBB has a lot of momentum left either.
Can you simply link to the kbin.social by typing their address/instance into lemmy.world's search, and the it becomes ...indexed? What is the word for that? Known to this instance in any case?
So it's a scaling problem. Can we not fight bots with bots? And thanks for the answers, btw, really helping me understand more about the underlying architecture, which before seemed rather abstract to me.
I got on back in November but didn't do much. Once Reddit imploded (sorry to bring this topic up again) I dedicated myself to understanding the Fediverse including Mastodon.
About the same time I got an invite to BlueSky, so I've been comparing the two. BlueSky definitely feels more like Twitter and has some relatively high profile people on it - except they are really interacting with each other and other users in a way they did not on Twitter, probably because it's so small.
Mastodon on the other hand feel far more like a place to meet new people; it feels easier to get a conversation going with someone there, kind of more low key? If that makes any sense?
My hope is enough journalist and news organizations get onto Mastodon to make it the useful service the bird used to be. We'll see!
I agree this would not be a good look for young Lemmy but...
...not all dark websites and not all dark markets are for illegal or immoral things. I'm on a darknet discussion board because the people on it want to be able to speak freely among friends since some of them are public figures or in positions where they should watch what they say in public. No crazy right wing stuff (we are all big soft lefties).
More importantly, some people rely on, or may find themselves seeking out, dark markets to get medications they legit need but for whatever reason cannot legally or easily get.
Unpopular opinion: let the man burn the Quran, just not in front of a mosque just before Eid. There's protest then there's inciting violence, which happened the previous time as well.
I'm an atheist, but I'd never show up in front of a church on Xmas eve to burn a bible. You look so mean and petty it nullifies your protest.
S&P and Moody's were collaborating since at least 2000 on the pricing of the so-called "esoteric" structured instruments associated with mortgaged-backed securities that caused the 4Q07 crash. They collaborated via the competitive intelligence firm Washington Information Group (which does not seem to be around anymore.) The collaboration was almost certainly illegal (IANAL). They did this because neither wanted a price war when rating these. I did sign an NDA with S&P that kept me out of the industry for two years. I left the industry shortly after that and went back to what I used to do.