@leftsidestory@mstdn.social2025-12-11 01:11:47
@Tupp_ed@mastodon.ie2026-02-06 09:37:03
This week’s Gist is about how the U.K. Labour Party unknowingly has been blowing itself up by following Morgan McSweeney’s FG electoral instincts.
They don’t know the patterns, but we do.
https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-uk-labours-fg-mastermind/
@aral@mastodon.ar.al2026-02-03 09:45:06
Wow, man, imagine being the kind of person that suspends anyone he sees from Gaza during a genocide.
The inhumanity of some Germans is really quite remarkable. Didn’t you get enough of genocide the first time around?
Add social.tchncs.de to the list of Zionist, pro-genocide Mastodon servers.
#germany #israel
@ginevra@hachyderm.io2026-02-08 00:00:32
I've a small account here, same as for all SM platforms I've been on: infrequent posting, no big following. I know bigger accounts get lots of fake followers/bots, but it's rare for me. Maybe it averages to 1 per month on BSky and Insta (when I used it). Anyway, achievement unlocked:
🎉 1st follower that appears to be a bot or a spammer on mastodon (afaik)
Soz if it's a real person, but boasting of your income & faith & few/no posts earns a block from me
@rachel@norfolk.social2025-12-03 12:33:06
Why do I get the feeling that there is an org going around offering “free legal advice” on this that might be somewhat biased?
#ukpolitics #trans
@keithjgrant@front-end.social2025-12-01 18:46:02
The last few Christmases, I've idly daydreamed about setting up a siphon to make it easier to water the tree. This year I finally did it, and I love it.
I have a small bucket tucked under a branch between the tree and the wall with a flexible piece of clear tubing running into the tree stand. Now instead of awkwardly laying down and filling the stand, I can just pour water into the bucket, up to the fill line I drew with a sharpie.
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-11-20 16:45:47
Nano Banana Pro is great at following instructions, generates interim "thought images", and makes full infographics with well-rendered text from a short prompt (Simon Willison/Simon Willison's Weblog)
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/20/nano-banana-pro/
@outer@mas.to2025-12-27 16:26:45
This basic science advance was made with a rocket sled. (And math.) But rocket sleds are FUN!
#Science #PlanetaryScience #RocketSled
@castarco@hachyderm.io2025-11-16 12:05:17
I have the distinct impression that we could use most American "sci-fi" TV series (which seem to have a kink for post-apocalyptical scenographies) as a diagnostic tool for the autism spectrum.
For a moment, let's leave aside the tons of right-wing propaganda "hidden" in plain sight, and their excessive reliance on boring & worn out tropes (religious & cultish bullshit, irrational lack of communication & excess of anti-social behaviour, all vs all, ultra-low-iq characters*, psychotic & irrationally treacherous characters*, ultra-inconsistent character development used to justify "unexpected" plot twists, rampant anti-intellectualism...).
What could be used as a diagnosis tool is the incredible amount of strong inconsistencies that we can find in them**. It throws me out of the story every single time; and I suspect that it takes a certain kind of "uncommon personality" to feel that way about it, because otherwise these series wouldn't be so popular without real widespread criticism beyond cliches like "too slow", "it loses steam towards the end of the season", etc.
Many of those plots start in a gold mine of potentially powerful ideas... yet they consistently provide us with dirt & clay instead, while side-lining the "good stuff" as if it was too complicated for the populace.
Do you feel strongly about it? Do you feel like you can't verbalize it without being criticised as "too negative", or "too picky", or an "unbearable snob"? Do you wonder why it seems like nobody around shares your discomfort with these stories?
* : I feel this is a bit like the chicken & egg problem. Has the media conditioned part of American society to behave like dumb psychopaths as if it was something "natural", or is the media reflecting what was already there? Also, could we use other societies as models for these stories... just for a change? Please?
** : Just a tiny example: a "brilliant" engineer who builds a bridge out of fence parts and who doesn't bother to perform the most basic tests before trying it in a real setting and suffer the consequences: the bridge failing and her falling into the void. Bonus points for anyone who knows what I'm talking about.