Tootfinder

As salty as I am about it, there's also another way to think about this. For anyone who still has connections to folks on the right (which is perhaps unlikely for anyone on this server, I digress), the cult that has consumed them thrives on isolation and grievance.
The words "you were right" have the potential to cut through the programming and open up an opportunity for reconnection. The modern conspiratorial cult of the Right has been built partially around people who were told they were wrong or were crazy. In the vast majority of cases, they were wrong and even when they were right they completely misunderstood why, but we'll skip that for now. Liberals making fun of them (even the times when they definitely earned it) has pushed them further and further into their ideological hole.
The thing about those words, "you were right," in this context is that the way they offer reconnection also requires them to take one little step of betraying their ideology to accept them. So they must choose between maintaining allegiance to a pedophile or finally getting to feel superior after years of living in an illusion of persecution.
Under the ideology of the Right, admitting one is wrong is a weakness. It is admitting defeat. They have to "own the libs" by saying things, things that they know aren't true, in order to feel dominant. But these things are often so absurd that they end up being made fun of, feeling even more weak and pathetic, reinforcing their fear and alienation.
Offering what they're looking for can offer a way out, but only if they're willing to start to recognize the thing they've supported for what it is.
And they were right about some things. They were right that Bill Gates was a terrible person. I've had plenty of liberals defend him based on his philanthropy washing, but he's awful and always has been. The Epstein links make that blatant. They intuitively recognized him and didn't trust him, even if they were wildly off base about *how and why* he shouldn't be trusted... Even if their correct mistrust was leveraged into one of the most destructive conspiracy theories ever (vaccine denial and COVID vaccine avoidance).
They were right about Bill Clinton. He was always shady as fuck. Sure, the people who attacked him at the time turned out to be even more shady but that's not the point right now. He was connected to Epstein and that was always creepy as fuck.
And the Epstein thing was an open secret that liberals ignored for a long time. It was seen as some weird thing that right wing nutjobs believed about the Clintons. But it was true. Not all of it, and there has always been an antisemitic element to the right wing interpretation or Epstein stuff, but his whole pedophile conspiracy was always kind of real.
The whole "Illuminati"/deep state thing is a vast oversimplification, an attempt to make comprehensible an incredibly complex set of interlocking and emergent behaviors. But Epstein did very much want to remake the world, to create a new world order, and he absolutely played a part in it.
The Right wing nutjobs talked about global authoritarianism, Blackhawks flying over American cities, masked men with guns disarming and executing legal gun owners in the streets. That's all happening right now.
The "FEMA concentration camps" are not actually that far off. ICE and FEMA are sister agencies, both under DHS. I'd be more than happy to call that one "close enough" in order to hear some MAGA admit that ICE is, in fact, building concentration camps.
There was always a huge millennialist element to these things. They tended to be connected to "the antichrist." It was absurd, especially for me as someone who no longer identifies as a Christian. But I'll even acquiess that to a degree. The "the number of the Beast" is 666. That's just the sum of the Hebrew spelling of "Nero." Revelations focuses a lot on Nero coming back to life after his death. His death that involved a head wound, thus the line from Revelation 13:3:
> And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast.
The parallels between Trump and Nero are easy to draw, and Trump's ear wound feels pretty on-the-nose for this. I don't believe in "prophecy" in this way. I think that there are patterns, and useful patterns can become encoded in beleif systems. But I will, again, happily call this one "close enough" for anyone on that side willing to also acknowledge it. I'm happy to meet on that common ground, because anyone who accepts it must recognize that their duty is to fight against it.
A lot of these correct nuggets are embedded in a framework of religious extremism and antisemitism. The vast majority of the beliefs holding these together are wildly wrong and incredibly toxic. But by giving some room to feel validated, listened to, understood, can give some room to admit things that were wrong.
Cult de-programming starts with an opening. People have to talk through their own thoughts, hear their own inconsistencies. Guiding questions can help them untangle these things for themselves. And it all starts by having enough room to feel safe, to not feel cornered, to not feel stupid. Admitting mistakes means being vulnerable, and the MAGA cult is built on fear. It's built on exploiting vulnerability and locking it away.
De-programming takes a long time. It's not easy. It takes patience. But every person who comes out does so with a powerful perspective, a deep understanding, that can be turned back against it. The best people at getting people out of cults are former members. Some of the most dedicated antifa are former fascists who understood their mistakes and dedicate their lives to fixing them.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is recruiting around 100 full-stack engineers and cybersecurity professionals, as well as managers to oversee its tech shop.
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/hiring-ret…

CMS seeks 1,200 new hires as agency ramps up AI-driven fraud prevention
CMS agency is recruiting engineers, cybersecurity specialists and data scientists while expanding its use of AI tools to identify fraudulent payments.

Demis Hassabis says he still broadly expects AGI around 2030, though he now sees 2029 as a possibility, and 2026's "agentic era" is a "bit like a practice run" (Ina Fried/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/05/26/deepmind-ceo-demis-hassabis
…

DeepMind CEO: AI agents are a "practice run" for AGI
Demis Hassabis warns we're not prepared for how quickly these systems are advancing.

Giant armadillo, mastodon, sloth fossils found in flooded Texas cave #fossils

Financial markets fall to new 2026 low as oil rises again
The longer oil prices remain elevated, it’s going to be harder to avoid a bad economic outcome,”
said Tom Porcelli, chief economist at Wells Fargo.
If the increase in oil prices holds for the next several months, that economic headwind could cancel out the tax cuts and other stimulus that the Trump administration was counting on, he added.

Financial leaders around the world have begun to warn that the global econo…

Financial markets fall to new 2026 low as oil rises again
Consumer sentiment in the economy dropped to its lowest level since December, as investors, businesses and consumers worry about the Iran conflict.

The problem with relying on commercial services for hosting any of your blog content is that they may only be around 10 or 15 years.
My blog has been around for 29 years and every now and then I need to fix up a bunch of posts from a decade ago because some service shut down.
My personal site (paid for by doing side jobs for people) has outlasted corporations with VC backing and overpaid CEOs who failed.

Don’t Do Team Meetings
Regular team meetings are often treated as a default part of work. They are seen as a sign of coordination, alignment, and healthy communication. In practice, they often reveal the opposite.
A recurring team meeting where everyone goes around the room to explain what they did last week is usually not a good use of time. It turns communication into a performance instead of a real exchange of useful information. If the team needs a formal meeting just to lear…

Don’t Do Team Meetings
Personal webpage of Alexandre Dulaunoy - from information security to open source and art

Analysis: the share of entry-level hiring in India's tech sector fell to ~15% in 2025 from 28% in 2024 as companies shifted focus to AI and automation roles (Tanya Pandey/The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.i…

India’s tech sector grows with fewer freshers as AI reshapes hiring
The share of entry-level hiring in the sector has fallen to around 15% in 2025 from 28% in 2024 as companies focus more on AI, cloud, cybersecurity and automation-focused roles. Emerging technology roles account for nearly 52% of hiring demand and are expected to touch 60% by the end of 2026, signalling a broader shift away from campus-led pyramid hiring model, experts said.

Starting in less than ONE HOUR, our final webinar of this series:
"Report-Back from COP30, Reflections on Change-Making and Next Steps."
Register now to hear about COP30, the Peoples' Summit and the Indigenous Village.
We will also reflect on corporate capture of climate action.

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Report Back from COP30, Reflections on Change-Making and Next Steps. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.
In November 2025, Seed the Commons participated in the People’s Summit Towards COP30. We presented a talk as part of the Just Transition axis, and the last day of the summit we marched with tens of thousands of other activists from around the world to demand real solutions to our climate crisis. Alongside organizations such as SEUI 1021 and the SF Labor Council, Seed the Commons co-organized a solidarity climate march on the same day in San Francisco. We merged it with a People Over Billionai…

This is only going to change travel around New York for rich people.
Joby says the price of a flight from Manhattan to JFK airport will be about the same as a “premium car service”.
What constitutes a premium car service is up for debate,
but it appears to cost a minimum of $200, compared to $11.75 on public transport.
The Joby might be quieter than a helicopter, but for now, most New Yorkers will be stuck with the subway.