@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2025-12-19 21:09:21
Gut Feeling: Cowboys-Chargers staff predictions https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/gut-feeling-cowboys-chargers-staff-predictions-x4419
@cdarwin@c.im2026-01-19 16:56:20
Trump promised Iranians the U.S. would rescue them.
They were betrayed.
Reeling from a crackdown on protesters in Iran that left thousands dead,
Iranians are now grappling with feelings of betrayal, confusion and uncertainty
after Donald Trump repeatedly promised to intervene on their behalf
and then declined to do so.
Some Iranians said in interviews that Trump’s words of support had added to their determination to resist the Iranian government
aft…
@blakes7bot@mas.torpidity.net2026-01-19 10:23:45
Series C, Episode 04 - Dawn of the Gods
AVON: We will do nothing to counter the force acting upon the Liberator. We then plot the Liberator's course on the main battle computer flight predictor to see exactly how she is behaving. Once we understand how the force is operating we may be some way toward defeating it.
TARRANT: Strange. The Liberator's following a curve. Traction beams produce straight-line motion. Zen, I want a prediction of the Liberator's course based …
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io2025-12-18 15:51:02
Fun fact, your computer doesn't have USB ports (USB is a protocol, not a connector).
Funner fact, even if your computer has USB-C receptacles it might not be using any type of USB as protocol for a specific connection.
Funnest fact, there's at least a dozen different types of cables that use USB-C plugs with various capabilities, sometimes mutually incompatible and often silently falling back to slower protocols.
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2025-12-19 20:48:04
Gut Feeling: Cowboys-Chargers staff predictions https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/gut-feeling-cowboys-chargers-staff-predictions-x4419
@hex@kolektiva.social2025-10-20 08:05:15
Some leftists have criticized #NoKingsDay2 as useless. Though it was the largest protest in US history, it didn't change anything. I would go further to say that protests like these generally won't change anything. Dictators aren't forced to step down by 2% of the population coming out for one day. If they're forced to step down by protests, those protests are sustained. They are every single day. They are accompanied by general strikes.
We've been watching that happen all over the world. Portland in 2020 gave us a taste of that in the US. The George Floyd Rebellion was the type of resistance that actually brings down dictators like Trump. Occasional protests, no matter how large, can simply be ignored. That is precisely the reason the US developed a militarized police force in the first place. You need more, more than the largest protests in US history, more than Occupy, more than the resistance of the 60's and 70's, more than, and different from, anything we've seen in our lives.
And yet... Each protest has grown, and grown bolder. Some have grown more persistent. If you think of protest as the path to achieve change, you will lose. It is not. But it is a path to escalate. Some people, some otherwise comfortable white folks, came out for their first time. Some people got pepper sprayed for the first time. Some people questioned authority, stood up for the first time, and have had an experience that will radicalize them for the rest of their lives.
Protest is not useful in and of itself. It is training. It's making connections. Authoritarian regimes rely on the illusion of compliance, so visual resistance does actually undermine their power.
Liberals like to teach that non-violence is all about staying peaceful no matter what, that there's some way that morality simply overwhelms an enemy. I remember reading Langston Hughes' A Dream Deferred in high school. I said it was a threat. My teacher said, "you're wrong, he was a pacifist." Pacifism is a threat. If you can spit at me, beat me, shoot me, and I will not move, if I have the strength to absorb violence without flinching, without even rising to violence, what will happen when you push me too far?
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
For peaceful resistance to work, there must be ambiguity. It must not be clear if or when the resistance will stop being peaceful. Peaceful resistance with no possibility of escalation is just cowardice.
My critique then is not so harsh as some other anarchists. If you think that protest alone will work, you're probably going to lose. If you are prepared to escalate, if you are prepared to absorb violence without flinching, then it could be possible for protest alone to topple the dictator. The cracks are already beginning to show.
And then what?
The problems that lead to the George Floyd uprising were never resolved. The problems that lead to Occupy where never resolve. The DAPL was built, protesters were maimed, it leaked multiple times (exactly as predicted). Segregation never went away, it only changed forms. The fact that immigrants have different courts and different rights means that anyone can be arbitrarily kidnaped and renditioned to an arbitrary country. We never did anything about the torture black site. FFS, people can still be stripped of their voting rights and slavery is still legal in the US. The people who control both parties in the US are killing our children and grand children with oil wars and climate change.
Toppling the dictator does nothing to resolve all of the problems that existed before him.
No, #NoKingsDay was absolutely not useless. #NoKings and related protests are extremely useful but they aren't sufficient. But, I think we still need to challenge the movement on two points:
How do you escalate after you're ignored or brutalized?
What do you demand after you win?
#USPol
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-10-20 19:35:45
OpenAI says it will work with SAG-AFTRA, CAA, UTA, and others to crack down on Sora 2 deepfakes, following concerns from actor Bryan Cranston and SAG-AFTRA (Jaures Yip/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/20/open-ai-sora-bryan-cranston-sag-aftra.html
…
@mariyadelano@hachyderm.io2025-10-20 21:41:39
A paradox I think about:
If advertising doesn’t work - why is that the business model nearly every internet business defaults to?
If advertising online is so lucrative, why are marketing departments all over failing to meet targets and struggling to show any results?
Everything is ads and none of it is working. And I’m just a lone marketer screaming in this forest of nonsense hoping some tree falls and hears me.
@cdarwin@c.im2025-10-20 18:51:57
Response to President Trump’s Unauthorized Use of “Danger Zone”
Late Saturday, Oct. 18, Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video on his Truth Social account that portrayed him dumping brown sludge on a crowd of protesters while wearing a crown and flying overhead in a jet labeled “King Trump.”
The music accompanying the video clip was Kenny Loggins’ hit recording “Danger Zone,” from the 1986 motion picture Top Gun (it was also used in the 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick).
@mariyadelano@hachyderm.io2025-12-18 16:22:06
My favorite video game company is currently making news because they admitted to falling to AI hype and pushing it on employees even though they’ve (predictably) seen no actual benefits.
I am sad about it but, in good news, writing with a fountain pen continues to be an extreme delight.
I developed carpal tunnel nine years ago, and handwriting would always be a stolen joy in the brief moments before pain would start again. I have been feeling nearly 0 pain in the last two weeks despite filling 50 pages. I feel like I’ve been given a new lease on life in a small way.