2026-02-07 10:20:02
The US military has always had a massive global advantage against enemies by having bases all over the world. There are bases in every NATO country. This would appear to be a powerful threat to anyone willing to oppose American hegemon, and under normal conditions it would be.
But a lot of those kids serving on those bases joined, not because they love America but, because they needed a ticket out of poverty. They joined for the education, for the money, maybe a bit for the adventure, but, more than anything, to escape the ghetto or podunk backwater that trapped them. Under normal times, this is the best deal they could expect. Maybe they risk their lives, usually they sit around being bored for a few years, and they get to come out with respect and paid college.
But what they are being offered is normal in most of the countries they're stationed in. Free healthcare, cheap or free education, is just what citizens in a lot of countries have come to expect. If the US attacked a NATO country, how many would snap up citizenship if they were given a chance to defect? Bonus points for taking some hardware with you, I'm sure.
But there are some who love their country. There are some patriotic Americans on those bases. Some of them joined specifically to protect the US from all enemies, foreign *and* domestic. Given a chance to fulfill that oath or violate international law, what happens?
There are a good number of former military folks too who now are unsafe in the countries they served, who would do just about anything for citizenship in any EU country and almost any NATO ally. Some of those folks know things they swore an oath to never share, but the country they swore an oath to has betrayed them. Today there's no value in leaking those secrets, but in a war between the US and NATO allies things would be different. Some of those former military folks still believe in their oath, and know exactly who the real enemy is. What happens when there's a real threat of war, when they can use their knowledge to fulfill that oath to protect the US against those domestic threats?
There are a bunch of civilian tech workers who have become targets of the regime. Some of them had clearance, or know about the skeletons in the closet. They know about critical infrastructure, classified systems, all sorts of things that would be extremely valuable to an opponent. But the opponents of the US have always been a frightening *other*, never familiar societies these folks look up to, have visited, have thought about moving to, are trying to escape to.
All I'm saying here is that invading Venezuela and kidnapping the president has a very different calculus than does attacking Greenland. I don't know if Trump or his people are able to understand that, but if he and his folks aren't then I hope European leaders are. But more than that, I hope it never comes down to finding out.
But perhaps we should all think about what we would do to make sure things ended quickly if American leadership ever made such an incredible mistake.
Approximately 35 years ago Green Day played at my friends house in Hubertus, Wisconsin after they showed up too late to play at The Unicorn in Milwaukee.
Anyway, I hope they tell MAGA to fuck right off today.
"I want you to understand, regardless of your politics, the historical danger of a secret police. What happens when a militia is deployed in our neighborhoods and against our own people. Left unchecked their mandate will grow; the boundaries of acceptable identity and speech will shrink. I want you to think about elections in this future. I want you to understand that every issue you care about—any hope of participatory democracy—is downstream of this."
@… Ok, so I went off on a tangent for no reason. I hope it really was vaguely interesting and you were not just being polite. 😜
Yes, in summary you confused GNU tar and since it cannot make zip files, it did it's best fallback (just made an uncompressed tar). Then in turn the .zip extension confused Windows.
So it was, your fault! Sor…
Jim Harbaugh says brother John will be a head coach next season: 'I just hope it's in the NFC'
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/jim-harbaugh-john-john-harbaugh-raven…
hope is a four-letter word — https://www.brichapman.com/p/hope-is-a-four-letter-word?utm_source=bri-mastodon&utm_medium=social&src=mstdn
Series A, Episode 10 - Breakdown
AVON: Let's hope so.
VILA: What do you suppose it is that's lurking out there?
JENNA: Maybe Zen's got it wrong.
AVON: Zen hasn't got it at all.
JENNA: All right then, whoever programmed him.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/110/166
Maine was the first state to abolish parole. Incarcerated Mainers, advocates hope to bring it back. | News From The States
https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/maine-was-first-state-abolish-parole-incarcerated-mainers-advocates-hope-bring-it-back
Approximately 35(ish) years ago Green Day played a show above an abortion clinic on Milwaukee after the “Fireman’s Picnic” in Tichigan, Wisconsin got canceled because someone stabbed an inflatable Hamm’s (Beer) Bear.
Anyway, I hope they tell MAGA to fuck right off today.
It's up to Americans to stop him now. The entire world needs this to be over. I honestly hope we make it to the other side.
GM John Spytek Offers Genuine Hope at the Franchise’s Darkest Hour https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi/gm-john-spytek-offers-genuine-hope-franchise-s-darkest-hour-las-vegas
I'm reading PhD applications today - a moment that's always a mix of hope and a feeling of futility. Some applications aren't great but many are seriously fantastic. Of course, this means that more than one strong candidate with an excellent file and an exciting project won't get in.
I just learned that Frank Gehry passed away. 😔
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/arts/design/frank-gehry-dead.html
One of his buildings that I hope to visit is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao 🇪🇸. I looked at the list of buildings he designed and the only o…
Also, a quick update for those of you who contributed to @…’s evacuation campaign.
While we were originally expectingt his to happen by the end of November, there was a delay due to a change of policy at the Italian government but we hope to bring you good news on this front shortly.
We won’t be sharing actual dates prior to the evacuation for Joy…
Since the release of my last two albums, I have been working on a new album, due out with Evel Records in January. As we move into the new year, I felt to share one of its tracks - 'Geometry of Birds' - ahead of time.
I hope you enjoy. 🙏
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F…
RE: https://flipboard.com/@metrolandmedia/waterloo-region-news-sr2vkak4z/-/a-EmhGJSJhT26uze9JaLSwUg:a:2864275383-/0
The language is all wrong here: they hope to EXTRACT 300 more litres per second from the ecology. And why? So they can build more condos? Water doesn't magically appear from nothing, not like financing.
#infosec annoyance of the day - I use a tool for work that requires me to put in a rolling one-time code for 2fa, and doesn't show the code as I'm typing it.
That would be ok, except if I switch apps to copy the code so I can paste it in, it usually forces me to re-enter my username and password, then even though I'm in the 30 second validity window, it refuses the code.
So I have to wait till the 30 seconds roll over, copy the code, switch to the tool, re-enter my username/password, hope it doesn't take so long to negotiate with the back end that the code in my clipboard expires, then finally paste the code.
Conveniently I only have to do it multiple times a day, every work day.
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #SoundOfCinema
Carter Burwell:
🎵 Good Fortune "Visions of the Hope Your Life Promises"
#CarterBurwell
https://open.spotify.com/track/1Gp1Q53eMkKjaaXUEjE73n
#CMOM Since the Canada/Finland women's hockey game was postponed due to mass 🤮 on the Fin team (hope they recover soon!) I'm into mixed doubles Curling.
Canada currently up 5-1 on the home team!
#Olympics #Canada
https://gem.cbc.ca/curling-canada-vs-italy-mixed-doubles-round-robin-30048?autoplay=1
"Norway postpones deep-sea mining activities for four years"
#Norway #Environment #Oceans
As the Red Army was pushing into Berlin, Hitler tried to order the destruction of German Industry. It was not simply to prevent the allies from continuing, but also to punish the German people for failing him. The film Downfall portrays him believing that the German people had shown themselves to be weak and that they deserved to die.
Trump has always had some Hitler energy. It's been reported multiple times that he keeps a collection of Hitler speeches by his bed. As he threatens Greenland, everyone wants to jump to compare that to Poland. The thing is, he doesn't have Hitler 1939 energy. He has Hitler 1945 energy.
Everyone knows he's a pedophile and a rapist. He's a loser and he'll do anything to distract from that. He would literally start WWIII if he thought it would give him a few more days. He's a coward who's afraid to face what he's done. But he's a coward with nuclear weapons.
I just hope the people around him value their life more than they are loyal to him.
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #6MusicsJukebox
Dove Ellis:
🎵 Little Left Hope
#DoveEllis
https://doveellis.bandcamp.com/track/little-left-hope
https://open.spotify.com/track/2sPxoBsNCYaS82IZFfqz98
For fans of #Steam games where you can build -really- broken mechanics like Balatro or Slay the Spire (#deckbuilders, #roguelikes, etc. - "Make the numbers go UP!"), LOOTPLOT has been *extremely* satisfying for me
It's like: "what if Incredible Machine, but Ballionaire" - you randomly get access to a bunch of items that each have their own mechanics and trigger/play off each other, which you build out on a grid - but the grid itself can be manipulated by the items. Some of the interactions are absolutely wild.
Plays a little rough on CrossOver - I think the dynamic scaling plays havoc with texture calculation - but is still enjoyable all the same. (It's written in LÖVE - I really hope the author releases a macOS build!)
The sale price of $3.49 is crazy good for the enjoyment value I've gotten out of it
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3057190/LOOTPLOT/
I'm anticipating a lot of grief in 2026 after a hard end to 2025, so I'm not looking forward to the many January conversations about everything to look forward to in 2026
You can't skip processing grief and jump straight into hope. The grief will consume you and turn into despair, or you'll internalize and repress the trauma and metabolize it into despair via a different path.
Or, I don't know, maybe some people can grieve and hope at the same time, but I know…
RE: https://mastodon.social/@verge/115657487228785905
i hope the facebook UI gets suddenly blurry as well.
Let's hope this works. Then it would be an easy fix for the bloody IKEA Nävlinge LED Lamp that breaks too easily at the clamp.
Model: https://www.printables.com/model/321152-ikea-navlinge-lamp-clamp-repair
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #JazzTheatre
George Burton:
🎵 Babel / A Color of Hope
#GeorgeBurton
WTF?
New Site Lets AI Rent Human Bodies - Futurism https://apple.news/ANMU3h3V2QBKWcilOP4_LLw
Unusual GenAI application: Snarky answers to shitty emails.
#genAI
The Constitution inarguably applies to federal immigration agents
—but the Supreme Court has taken away the hope of ever holding them to that standard.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/12/ice-scotus-impunity/685298/
Woodson, Witten among 2026 NFL Hall of Fame finalists https://insidethestar.com/woodson-witten-among-2026-nfl-hall-of-fame-finalists
In 2025, 126 media industry people were killed globally, the US had 170 reports of assaults on journalists, and Trump's government increasingly attacked media (David Bauder/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/press-freedom-2025-me…
I might just have ordered a #pebble round 2. I hope it will feel as awesome as the last one did back in 2015.
I believe there can be no crime greater in the age of neoliberalism than for the ruling class to have robbed us of hope, as with that act they have not merely stolen our future, but also any potential future we and everyone in this world deserve and could fight for.
I hold out vain hope that the coming washout of marginal operators in the #Michigan #Cannabis sector when the wholesale tax goes in will help tighten up the entities that remain. Every year or so, I have to hunt down new CBN/Indica edibles that work for me (for sleep) because the manufacturers keep lettin…
Some day in the future - some glorious day in the future - I hope that the maga government - from El Cheato through Miller, Noem, Vought, etc - will face tribunals.
They will, of course, demand our full panoply of due processes. And they will claim immunity as merely carrying out government business and powers.
Do they deserve those due processes or that we give credit to those claims of immunity?
The lawyer in me says "YES!!". The person in me says "Hold o…
@… @… this reminded me of you, if only for the reason that I hope you have a cat named Bud Purr
A perfect meditation & expression of both the sorrow and hope of these dark days...
Love Over Entropy — Ojalš (2025)
#Music4Coding …
I've finally seen the match. A good win, but my god, West Ham is terrible. I have no idea why Nuno took that job.
As much as it hurts, I applaud Slot's courage to sit Salah. I hope he has more to give, but this was perhaps overdue. That this didn't happen a game or two earlier is because Salah has earned the right to battle inconsistency.
Wirtz was spectacular. Should have scored and absolutely should have had another assist. The midfield passing in tight spaces was g…
If you’re wondering what the Internet has become, Cloudflare Radar offers a good overview. In the top 10, there’s nothing outside the large conglomerates. I hope we can change this trend over the next 10 years.
#internet #openinternet
“I think they left the door open for DLC. If that’s the case, I hope it’s a bit worse. Thanks fo-“
#patriciataxxon
> “almost everyone at Vimeo was laid off,” including the entire video team
Capitalism, working as designed.
Oh, you thought it was about making shiny, fun things for you play with? Oh, my sweet, summer child, no… capitalism is about fuck you.
Why?
Because. @…
The 8th Circuit has the blood of Alex Pretti on its hands.
Haven’t heard that said enough. I hope they know it.
So Intel have added a so-called On-Die Certifying Authority (ODCA) with ME gen 3 version 15 based platforms.
That is also explained in the recent CSME whitepaper.
I figured that the FTPR CPD manifest contains a new extension now for certificate revocation, including a URL to CRL data.
That extension's data itself is encoded as ASN.1 DER, so I need yet another parser. Uh-oh... which one should I choose, does anyone have recent experiences to share? 🙃
I am checking t…
Well I hope Novak and Carlos give their absolute best not only for the good of tennis but also so they are still playing by the time I wake up 😅 #AustralianOpen
And this is working, but it's slow progress.
Mastodon in particular has UX problems that will be very hard to overcome that prevent mass adoption, foremost is that actual conversations (aka replies) are unreliable and slow due to the way posts are distributed. Quote post support was a huge first step to remedy this. I hope we'll see more updates on it.
Bluesky got a big chunk of former Twitter users, especially in some niches like for scientists and activists; they have great performance, reliable threading and replies and really amazing featuers like fully custom feeds—but suffer from intransparent moderation and frankly insufferable leadership (still leagues better than Twitter or Facebook though).
(There's more than these, but these are what I use.)
What Raiders' Pete Carroll Has at Stake https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi/las-vegas-what-pete-carroll-has-at-stake
Methane pollution still rises, but UN reports hope for near future reductions #environment
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your day is full of rest.
RE: https://mastodon.energy/@Sustainable2050/115957799005351310
I would never have suspected that the US of would execute a restrained wounded protester and that the shooter could get away with it.
(I hope 'get away for now and get prosecuted later', but I don't know...)
Ultra-thin wireless retinal implant offers hope for safely restoring vision signals https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ultra-thin-wireless-retinal-implant.html Photovoltaic nanoassembly of nanowire arrays sensitized with colloidal nanocrystals for near-infrared retina …
I'm always amused when people online express their (valid!) frustration at technology or society by being like, "I'm going to go live in the woods."
Having spent too much time in the woods, I hope you enjoy lots of time doing nothing but staring at trees, and doing lots of driving to get supplies from the nearest town. Oh, and mosquitoes. Me, I'll take urban life and computers every time, even with the downsides. 🫣
Slaying Sober
Where we tell stories of addiction, recovery and hope...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: #AusPods
Merry Xmas to all fediverse. I hope all of you are with your family in these days. 😊
A huge hug! 🫂
#fediverse #christmas #xmas
Happy Friday. Hope you’re able to participate by not buying anything today or by rallying/marching. And if you have to spend money to make things go, then do it. If you feel this enterprise is useless or un-American then, fine. As you were.
Every post you write is first read by a machine. Should the nature of writing change to accommodate that? I look at the pros and cons of adopting an AI-friendly grammar https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonippolito_writing-journali…
With all the bad news in the world, there are things that give #hope. For example, the fact that #Germans and #Austrians can go to
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #SaturdayMorning
Wynton Marsalis, The Philadelphia Orchestra & Cristian Măcelaru:
🎵 Movement I: Born in Hope
#WyntonMarsalis #ThePhiladelphiaOrchestra #CristianMăcelaru
There's probably a lot more Ron Barba types out there than we realize, I just hope it becomes more obvious this time next year.
"Vibe coding" really is indistinguishable from playing a slot machine.
There's (for some) a degree of fun based on the hope of getting something valuable for a relatively small investment. When it won't work you just keep pulling the lever. At some point you surely will win, right?
Also with slot machines the bank always wins while slowly draining your resources.
✊🏽 Nepal’s youth uprising explained: Decades of corruption reach a tipping point
https://globalvoices.org/2025/10/14/nepals-youth-uprising-explained-decades-of-corruption-reach-a-tipping-point/
A range-spanning resurrection study of scarlet monkeyflower populations finds relatively little adaptive response to a seven-year drought event, showing that evolutionary rescue is not as predictable as we might hope
https://doi.org/10.1086/738434
Congratulations to everyone who sat through the full 195 minutes of tonight's music marathon. Hope you've still got some neurons left!
Until next time. #TOTP
You gotta have a lot of balls to enjoy Christmas.
Hope everyone had/is having a wonderful break out there!
#DogsOfMastodon #Fridog #BoxingDay
HOPE Hacking Conference Banned From University Venue Over Apparent ‘Anti-Police Agenda’ https://www.404media.co/hope-hacking-conference-banned-from-university-venue-over-apparent-anti-police-agenda/
I hope we get some kind of community notes on #mastodon. If others will not marks posts with important information I would like to.
"Brazil expands Indigenous territories as COP30 protests spotlight the stakes"
#Brazil #COP30 #ClimateSummit
Putin wants to fool you.
Russia isn’t winning.
Administration officials say that the “fall” of the eastern Ukrainian city of #Pokrovsk is a bellwether for what’s to come for Ukraine.
⭐️Yet, Pokrovsk, whose population was only around 60,000 even before the war, has yet to fall.
And in the entire year and a half that the Russians have spent trying to take this relatively small city,…
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #NightTracks
Horizontals:
🎵 On Hope Ridge
#Horizontals
https://open.spotify.com/track/7qs5WH0dW3Uz9r7aKHx7bU
ICE eats at restaurants I know and love, nice comfy meal before going back out there and destroying more lives.
It’s weird how much this enrages me. I hope the restaurant staff knows who they’re serving. I hope ICE knows they know. I hope ICE officers eat with nagging doubts about food safety.
I heard a rumor — this one not well-substantiated — that they ate at a restaurant and then come back and raided it the next day.
Prototype device restores lost smell by teaching the brain to feel odors https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-11-prototype-device-lost-brain-odors.html
Substitution of human olfaction by the trigeminal system
What the Raiders Hope Santa Claus Brings Them This Christmas https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi/las-vegas-hope-santa-claus-brings-this-christmas
“there is no person more impatient to solve the affordability crisis than Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States.”
JD Vance Test Drives the Lies That Republicans Hope Will Win the Midterms - WhoWhatWhy
https://whowhatwhy.org/economy/jd-vance-test-drives-the-lies-that-republicans-hope-will-win-the-midterms/
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #MusicMap
Manuel de Falla, Daniel Hope, Sebastian Knauer & Paweł Kochański:
🎵 Jota
#ManueldeFalla #DanielHope #SebastianKnauer #PawełKochański
"7 hopeful wildlife sightings that researchers celebrated in 2025"
#Environment #Nature #Wildlife
Photojournalist Dave Decker was arrested in November while documenting a protest in Miami, Florida.
A coalition of 23 press organizations spoke out against the charges
— and this week the prosecutor agreed❗️
The following statement can be attributed to Adam Rose, deputy director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF):
“I hope law enforcement officers take this to heart: Swearing an oath to protect the community means protecting everyone — including pre…
The Different Way the Raiders Plan to Play the Chargers https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi/las-vegas-different-way-plan-play-the-chargers
You love to see it (I hope it hurt). https://syzito.xyz/@fkamiah17/115717454528667567
Why the Raiders' Most Significant Needs Are Becoming More Apparent https://www.si.com/nfl/raiders/onsi/las-vegas-why-most-significant-needs-are-becoming-more-apparent