More importantly, the claim that Hz is inappropriate for non-periodic phenomena is false. Many random processes have a well-defined Fourier transform, and reporting the intensity of random fluctuations in a frequency-range is standard across signal processing, neuroscience, finance, and physics. The unit doesn’t imply periodicity of the process itself. It implies that we are working in the Fourier domain, which applies as much to periodic signals as to stochastic processes.
If you want to characterize web request traffic properly, the right question is what the arrival process actually looks like. A single scalar whether in Hz or Bq throws away almost all of that. In all cases, you have to think carefully what your underlying assumptions are and what the reported number actually measures.
I do like the analogy though. Actual radiation has many forms and energy levels.
Decay chains are a nice analogy you could use too (i.e. a branching out of subsequent processes and work that come later, but are a consequence of the initial request).
The authority on the definition of SI units is very clear:
> The hertz shall only be used for periodic phenomena and the becquerel shall only be used for stochastic processes in activity referred to a radionuclide
Usually, no radionuclides are involved in web requests.
At least for Twitter there are proxies that work without JS. For Mastodon, none that I'm aware of. I usually just audibly sigh and remark that they shall "keep their secrets then", and move on.
What I do not understand someone who goes through all this work of putting an AI-scraper tarpit on Mastodon, a system that fundamentally needs to have its data distributed to other servers. It's just signalling and posturing, because that content is available on any server that has someone following the account.
(Tip to AI scrapers: if you want to slurp all the data from the fediverse, just create an account on mastodon.social and pull the data from the "Federated timeline" stream.)
It's not you. It's the people that were somehow convinced that serving crap is gonna "hurt" the models. These are people who have 0 clue on how models are trained and how they work, but have been riled up by others who similarly don't understand the technical details, but have strong biases against them. This is ignorance signalling at its finest.
And, as expected, it's hurting their (regular) users more than they'll hurt the model trainers. Oh well..
All the talk about "putting the human first" and "embracing diversity" goes out of the window the moment you are not diverse in the way they want.