Tootfinder

War is an unconscionable horror. The illusions of "international law" and "rules of war" have lead us to believe that war can be clean, managed, and "civilized."
But wars are fought by humans and humans are messy. Humans are not well suited to following orderly rules. Humans respond to their environment. Humans in extraordinary situations can be extraordinarily vindictive and brutal. Sufficiently traumatized humans can act without a conscience, spreading trauma like an infection. If humans respond to their situation, then there can be no "civilized" war because war is itself an situation outside of the society. It is a place that promotes antisocial behavior and punishes pro-social behavior. War cannot be expected to follow "international law" because it is what fills the void created by the failure of "international law" (so long as we rely on nations).
To call for war is to inflict atrocities on civilians. It is to kill the parents and children who serve, and to destroy the combatants who survive. It is to infect both sides with a trauma that will spread if untreated, when soldiers come home or when they become mercenaries in other wars.
And yet... there are times when the brutality, the incompetence, the evil becomes so unbearable that no other option exists, when taking up arms is simply bringing symmetry to an existing asymmetric conflict. There are times when the worst possible thing is inescapable, though it can never be justified.
In this new era of war, in the scramble of conflict under the collapsing of the (poorly named) "Pax Americana," I hope that we, the people, can understand that war is not a tool to fulfill an objective. It is not part of a larger strategy. It is not an extension of deplomacy.
War is a failure.
While it may be the only way to deal with the irrational - the genocidal, the slaver, the dictator - it is still a failure. It is a failure to build a world in which these people can't control armies and economies, can't turn populations in to cults and bend nations to their will.
And we will continue to have such wars until we unite against those who would use as as pawns, who would control our lives and lead us to our deaths. We will have these wars until we unite, as one world, against those rulers. This is what I mean, and what a lot of other people mean, when we say, "No War, but Class War."

Minnesota Senator Tina Smith hospitalized after not feeling well at Capitol (Jasmine Baehr/Fox News)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/minnesota-senator-tina-smith-hospitalized-after-not-feeling-well-capitol
http://www.memeorandum.com/250716/p159#a250716p159

Sorority cites Trump while slamming trans sister in discriminatory court filing - LGBTQ Nation
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/06/sorority-cites-while-slamming-trans-sister-in-discriminatory-court-filing/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

AMD says it will restart shipments of its MI308 AI chips to China after the US Commerce Department said it would approve the sales, following Nvidia (Mackenzie Hawkins/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-…

I need to spend some time with a USB PD analyzer and some of my hardware.
Earlier today I observed the following cursed USB-C behavior at a friend's place:
1) Laptop -> phone: charges phone
2) Power bank -> phone: charges phone
3) Wall brick -> phone: red LED on phone turns on, but OS doesn't show any indication of charging and battery level doesn't go up
4) Wall brick -> power bank: charges bank
5) Laptop -> power bank: LED flashes …

The rain has topped up the pool pond! 🙏 🌧️
It is overflowing at the overflow and only at the overflow, that I can tell :). I powered the pump up from its 40% (34W) to 75% (120W) to get things moving in the filter while we have the rain.
I might as well use it to allow it to clean the gunk out of the system naturally!
Still feels like I got rushed into filling it, but it is really satisfying nonetheless to see it functioning as designed in my head! lol
#poolpond #diy #backyardproject

Man, I had a shit week.
Tried to stretch outside my comfort zone in a big way; but failed myself really badly.
Old trauma woke up at a crucial moment, and bit me really hard; and I think the whole thing, instead of being healing, just … doubled everything down.
I’m feeling worthless in a whole new way.
Feeling like I undid, in like one hour, years and years of self-confidence building.

Welcome to Berlin Buzzwords 2025! 
Be sure not to miss our keynote speaker, @…, who will be giving a talk on „Unpacking Digital Sovereignty: How to avoid fueling the nationalist rise," which commences at 9:35 am at stage Kesselhaus.
 
Learn more:

Unpacking Digital Sovereignty: How to avoid fueling the nationalist rise
With the new ruling coalition of Trump, Musk and Big Tech, European digital sovereignty seems to be the widely accepted solution to break free from US companies that are used to threaten European governments. The EU is reviving industrial policy and is willing to invest a lot of money into digital sovereignty - but which problems exactly should it address, and what should be part of the solution? This talk shows that digital sovereignty is prone to open the door to a nationalist agenda which fa…

Vikings' J.J. McCarthy to sit out Saturday preseason game vs. Patriots after strong joint practices https://www.nfl.com/news/j-j-mccarthy-to-sit-out-saturday-preseason-game-vs-patriots-following-strong-joint-practices…

Scale AI says it is laying off 200 full-time employees, or ~14% of its global workforce, and will stop working with 500 contractors, after Meta invested $14.3B (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-16/scale-ai-to-…