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@tiotasram@kolektiva.social
2025-10-13 06:16:23

Just finished "Beasts Made of Night" by Tochi Onyebuchi...
Indirect CW for fantasy police state violence.
So I very much enjoyed Onyebuchi's "Riot Baby," and when I grabbed this at the library, I was certain it would be excellent. But having finished it, I'm not sure I like it that much overall?
The first maybe third is excellent, including the world-building, which is fascinating. I feel like Onyebuchi must have played "Shadow of the Colossus" at some point. Onyebuchi certainly does know how to make me care for his characters.
Some spoilers from here on out...
.
.
.
I felt like it stumbles towards the middle, with Bo's reactions neither making sense in the immediate context, nor in retrospect by the end when we've learned more. Things are a bit floaty in the middle with an unclear picture of what exactly is going on politics-wise and what the motivations are. Here I think there were some nuances that didn't make it to the page, or perhaps I'm just a bit thick and not getting stuff I should be? More is of course revealed by the end, but I still wasn't satisfied with the explanations of things. For example, (spoilers) I don't feel I understand clearly what kind of power the army of aki was supposed to represent within the city? Perhaps necessary to wield the threat of offensive inisisia use? In that case, a single scene somewhere of Izu's faction deploying that tactic would have been helpful I think.
Then towards the end, for me things really started to jumble, with unclear motivations, revelations that didn't feel well-paced or -structured, and a finale where both the action & collapsing concerns felt stilted and disjointed. Particularly the mechanics/ethics of the most important death that set the finale in motion bothered me, and the unexplained mechanism by which that led to what came next? I can read a couple of possible interesting morals into the whole denouement, but didn't feel that any of them were sufficiently explored. Especially if we're supposed to see some personal failing in the protagonist's actions, I don't think it's made clear enough what that is, since I feel his reasons to reject each faction are pretty solid, and if we're meant to either pity or abjure his indecision, I don't think the message lands clearly enough.
There *is* a sequel, which honestly I wasn't sure of after the last page, and which I now very interested in. Beasts is Onyebuchi's debut, which maybe makes sense of me feeling that Riot Baby didn't have the same plotting issues. It also maybe means that Onyebuchi couldn't be sure a sequel would make it to publication in terms of setting up the ending.
Overall I really enjoyed at least 80% of this, but was expecting even better (especially politically) given Onyebuchi's other work, and I didn't feel like I found it.
#AmReading

@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot
2025-12-12 09:59:02

"The reality is that the views expressed in this US national security strategy are in many ways identical to the Russian viewpoints on Europe and the Russian goals of regime change in European countries." — @…
I think we should all consider the possibility that this may be because

@jake4480@c.im
2026-01-10 22:08:23

I was thinking this morning, there should be more things like Goodwill, more thrift stores like that everywhere, for even LESS things going to landfills. Just people getting together, even as a trade or barter system, things like flea markets or garage sales-- people do some of this already.
Reusing things is so important, and repair, when possible-- I've been seeing some cool self-repair fix-it meetups on here, too.
As I was talking to my wife about it, and I remembered thi…

Snip from Wired piece that says 'how will these smaller groups of happier people be monetized? This is a tough question for the billionaires. Happy people, the kind who eat sandwiches together, are boring. They don't buy much. Their smartphones are six versions behind and have badly cracked screens. They fix bicycles, then talk about fixing bicycles, then they show their friend, who just came over for no reason, how they fixed their bicycle, and their friend says, 'Wow, good job," and they make…

Progressive lawmakers are demanding that the Democrats use the upcoming government funding deadline to hopefully reduce the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to wreak further havoc.
“I just don’t understand how we provide votes for a bill that funds the extent of the depravity,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told CNNThursday.
“I know we can’t fix everything in the appropriations bill but we should be looking at ways we can put some commonsense limitations on their ability to…

@paulwermer@sfba.social
2025-11-08 15:00:48

Unfortunately, 'Doing good" at a politicians request is perfectly harmless until it's not - and I know how I respond to requests to people who have done me a favor, even if it's to help someone else. And it is easy to get yourself associated with the favor you had someone grant to someone else - it's a great off-the-books campaign donation. And it's easy to do return favors.
Is it absolutely harmless the vast majority of times? Sure. Can/will it be abused? …

@PaulWermer@sfba.social
2025-11-08 15:00:48

Unfortunately, 'Doing good" at a politicians request is perfectly harmless until it's not - and I know how I respond to requests to people who have done me a favor, even if it's to help someone else. And it is easy to get yourself associated with the favor you had someone grant to someone else - it's a great off-the-books campaign donation. And it's easy to do return favors.
Is it absolutely harmless the vast majority of times? Sure. Can/will it be abused? …

@hex@kolektiva.social
2026-01-08 15:07:55

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.

@blakes7bot@mas.torpidity.net
2025-12-10 19:28:02

Series A, Episode 05 - The Web
BLAKE: Increase power to compensate.
JENNA: It's getting worse all the time.
BLAKE: If there is a planet there we should be close enough to get signals now. Vila, go and see how Cally is, will you.
VILA: Must I?
blake.torpidity.net/m/105/169

@saraislet@infosec.exchange
2026-01-05 19:31:05

One of the strongest factors in building and motivating an organization as a leader is saying out loud regularly that you care about people.
As Alicja frames, it's the difference between knowing what ice cream tastes like and actually eating ice cream.
It is so SO meaningful to tell people that you care about them, that you value their expertise and work, that they deserve to be respected and supported, and so on. Customize it to the individual situation: identify what someo…

@andres4ny@social.ridetrans.it
2026-01-02 21:13:49

8yo: "I just thought it would be funny if every contact on my phone started with the letter 'A'.."
8yo: "what should I call the Family Chat?" [that's our jabber chat room for the 4 of us]
13yo: "how about the Asshole Convention?"
8yo: 😂
8yo: "I love it!"
Me: "I.. don't love it. Choose something else."

@andycarolan@social.lol
2026-01-05 13:36:05

How is it only lunchtime? It feels like it should at least be April by now! 🤔
#TimeCrystals

@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io
2025-11-26 15:24:48

My big gripe with "AI" is that a big reason why it's sold as the second coming of Jesus is that most tech people fundamentally do not understand how it actually works.
Their reasoning goes something like, "It works sort of ok for code generation, and programming is the hardest possible thing in the world to do, every other human endeavor is trivial compared to writing code, therefore it must excel at anything else!".
So it ends up being pushed due to a mixture of ignorance and hubris; and especially being stuffed into things it should never be used for (usually when users don't have a say which software they need to use for work).
The finbros are happily along for the ride because they just need something that can be hyped to pump and dump.

@teledyn@mstdn.ca
2025-12-02 01:53:07

I think this may be the thing that truly kills the last embers of any passion I had for tech. I knew it was coming when I coined WYSIAYG (what you see is ALL you get) and here it is, only 40 some years later, and while services halting inexplicably is is a fact of computing, WYSIAYG means the software won't even try to explain, intelligent logging and troubleshooting wasn't in the Business Requirements because we all know software only ever works perfectly. If you really must know, use gdb.
It's like the old joke, spouse buys a parrot, leaves it as a surprise, arrives home to find it cooked for dinner; how could you, it spoke 12 languages! then it should have said something.

@paulbusch@mstdn.ca
2026-01-03 13:17:56

Good Morning #Canada
Overnight news of Trump attacking another country in a blatant attempt to seize their resources should be a wakeup call for Canada. Does anyone here think a strike on Ottawa to remove the current government couldn't happen? Could the U.S. find a stooge willing to become the interim leader? How much oil, aluminum, uranium, hydropower or other resources would be looted before Trump strokes out from too many big macs. Yesterday I would have laughed at this scenario but today it starts to be less of a fantasy.
I glossed over this article when it was first published back in November but now I'm leaning towards support of developing a volunteer force in Canada. Perhaps a 2-year voluntary military service for our youth to provide employment and training. I don't want a volunteer military force to ever be used and hopefully it becomes a deterrent. But unfortunately a serious discussion is needed.
#CanadaIsAwesome #ElbowsUp
ctvnews.ca/canada/article/the-

@ErikJonker@mastodon.social
2025-12-05 07:13:09

The National Security Strategy of the US is worth reading. It clearly shows that the USA is no longer an ally of Europe and that NATO should be worried about the reliability of the US. It also shows how completely unhinged and extreme right the US government has become.

@inthehands@hachyderm.io
2025-11-02 20:24:20

Look, say what you will about about all the practical good and bad of all the things the Obama admin did — and please DO NOT say it in my replies, I’m aware, I do not need your input, instant timed mute, thank you — but just take a minute to watch this video. This is a crash course in how every anti-fascist politician should be campaigning right now.
Just copy the guy. Steal from the best. Do it. He’s giving you the answer key for your campaign homework; it’s right there, and it’s free for you to use. Take it. fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app

@markhburton@mstdn.social
2025-10-29 08:46:56

Richard Murphy, who previously advocated green growth, gets there in the end.
"The real challenge we face is not how to restart a growth engine that has already driven us to the edge of environmental collapse. It is how to redesign the economy so that the resources we already have are used to meet human and ecological needs.
Growth is not coming back — and nor should our democracy depend upon it."

@deprogrammaticaipsum@mas.to
2026-01-04 14:54:53

"Christopher Bishop’s 2006 book “Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning,” arguably one of the triggers of the current popularity of machine learning, is quite literally a book about applied mathematics, diving into probabilities, linear algebra, neural networks, Markov models, and combinatorics. And rightfully so; if your objective is to find a job as an engineer at OpenAI, knowing a thing or two about eigenvalues and eigenvectors is definitely going to be useful."

@brian_gettler@mas.to
2026-01-05 14:27:50

At the beginning of every new semester, I reflect on how much work I have that my professorial forebears did not. Email is perhaps the most obvious, and it certainly occupies more time than I'd like. Attention to the bureaucratic demands on syllabus composition is also way more demanding than it should be. Canvas is the one, though, that rankles the most in terms of time suck.
I can't imagine any of the crusty old men who taught at my university in the mid-20th century doing an…

@aral@mastodon.ar.al
2025-12-28 21:43:19

Whereas with our tiny not-for-profit, Small Technology Foundation, we set things up so we don’t have shares/ownership and we only receive a salary and pay all our taxes. Which is how it should be and would be perfectly fine if we taxed these motherfuckers their fair share also.
PS. I know I suck at advocating for ourselves but here’s your infrequent reminder that you can help us continue to exist, should you like to see that, by becoming a patron:

@pre@boing.world
2025-12-30 03:08:16

Hummm.
So I was thinking about how with a couple of caster-boards and straps, the bed could be upturned and stowed in the studio. Probably? I should have figured for a fold-away really.
Still. Could work...
Then, without a bed in there, the place could turn into a dining room.
I was thinking about a shape of a table for a dinner party in there.
Oh my god.
This semi-circle table curve of wood and attachable table-legs and fold-able stools might just fit, like, under the bed normally?
Looks perfect for a card-game or a Dungeon Master setup.
Could that table and it's legs and it's chairs all fit under the bed? Probably not at it's current height. But I want to raise it a bit anyway.
🤔
Oh my god, look at this though. The projector is pointed at the wall behind the throne surrounded by the seats for the council of seven.
This could be built.
Not right away, but eventually?

@boris@cosocial.ca
2025-11-29 17:30:52

“[open social] must be funded like infrastructure, not consumer apps. In fact, given the scale of hybrid threats, it should be funded from defense budgets, not innovation leftovers.
The strategic layer of democracy is the information layer. And right now, it is outsourced.” @seabass.bsky.social
<…

@cjust@infosec.exchange
2025-12-04 03:38:21

#Shitpost #Shitposting #ShamelesslyStolenFromTumblr


So my family has a Gay Pirate Plate.
Stay with me.
We do not know how the hell the Gay Pirate Plate was first acquired. This being a point of contention is actually pretty plot-relevant; the saga of the Gay Pirate Plate began with my grandmother and her sister, who, for some ungodly reason, both BADLY wanted the Gay Pirate Plate and believed it to be rightfully theirs.
I should back up, firstly, to establish: The Gay Pirate Plate is the cheapest, tackiest, ugliest plate in existence.
It is in …
@rasterweb@mastodon.social
2025-12-17 22:05:50

I might be the minority here but I feel like if Firefox shipped with AI shit enabled but a huge "DISABLE AI" button you could press to turn it off... I might be okay with that.
If the alternative is (almost) every other browser having AI and no way to turn it off, is a "DISABLE AI" button a win?
It would let the people who care disable it. People who don't care could also disable it, we just need to tell them how and why they should.
1/n

@saraislet@infosec.exchange
2026-01-07 04:39:02

Please — and I can't believe I have to say this — please do not lick your employees.

Margin note in red: "please do _not_ lick your employees"

How then can you be sure you are being truly heard? What techniques can you employ? Is it enough to have your subordinate paraphrase your words? I don't think so. What you must do is employ all of your sensory capabilities. To make sure you're being heard, you should watch the person you are talking to. Remember, the more complex the issue, the more prone communication is to being lost. Does your subordinate give appropriate responses t…
@jake4480@c.im
2026-01-05 17:06:51

One I somehow missed last year and may have even made my top 20 because of how damn good it is, NYC punks KALEIDOSCOPE and their LP 'Cities of Fear' that was written and recorded in just a few days in 2024. Some KILLER, catchy, rough, angry hardcore punk the way it SHOULD be. ffo MDC, Poison Idea, Crucifix.

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, according to a transcript of the Oct. 14 call published by the Bloomberg news service,
advised Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov that Putin should call Trump to congratulate him for the Gaza peace deal,
say Russia had supported it and that he respects the president as a man of peace.
“From that, it’s going to be a really good call,” Witkoff said according to the transcript.
When asked by Russian state media to comment on Bloomberg’s…

@ruth_mottram@fediscience.org
2025-10-24 08:44:36

This was a really cool session, started with palaeoproxies, ice sheet dynamics, detoured into extreme value statistics and isostatic rebound and ended with concrete and steel and community engagement.
Just like every grant ever says it will..
#NCKF25
#NCKF25 symposium and the plenary is all about the #SeaLevelRise.
This is the downstream part of our job as glaciologists and it's important to understand how the projections will, can and should be used...

@kunstbanause@nrw.social
2025-12-27 12:16:05

Does someone here know how to restore #signal messages from the cloud #backup?
It seems to be the only way to create a backup on #iOS. Unfortunately, the option from the documentation does not exist on the new

Screenshot on where in the settings it should be possible to restore signal from a cloud backup.
@teledyn@mstdn.ca
2025-12-01 18:11:21
Content warning: intense Gnome frustrations no one should be forced to read

so
very
frustrating
#Gnome #Evolution how is this even possible? Fresh #Debian13 install, launched, added my google workspace, read and answered email, browsed calendar, really nice, but the VERY NEXT MORNING suddenly tossed into OAuth2-is-missing, step through the 'wizard' and it always ends with the same heartache, are you trying sign in? and then…
Mail authentication (shown) gives a URL to a page, Make sure you trust Gnome (4 perms already granted, Google console agrees) but in Firefox that URL asks to confirm and then reverts to google.com. In the minibrowser, it gets to "Requesting access token, please wait"
And wait you do.
How is this even POSSIBLE? What could cause it to (a) drop an OAuth2 overnight that had been in use for a day and (b) subsequently give a URL that does not result in an access token. I removed permissions on the Google side, but same results. Reinstalled Evolution, no change
yes, I checked gitlab.gnome.org

@hex@kolektiva.social
2025-11-21 14:40:06
Content warning: Loss and grief

I keep thinking that I should text a friend of mine, tell him how much I've been writing, tell him I mentioned him in something I wrote. Then I remember he died like 4 years ago.
Edit:
It must have been more like 6 or something now that I'm thinking about it. It was part of the way through the first Trump administration. He would have really appreciated the way Trump is unraveling now. One of the last times we talked he was like... "You know man, You used to play 'Baby, I'm an anarchist' and I'd think... ' don't want to throw a brick through a Starbucks window. I kinda like their coffee sometimes.' But the way things have been going lately, I'm kind of looking around and thinking you might be right. Fuck Starbucks. Where's that brick?"
At least I won the SRV vs the Hendrix version of Voodoo Chile debate. Hendrix is just better.
We used to talk about music, especially punk (and rockabilly, and ska, and 2 tone), and poetry, and beer. He liked hop stupid, but I always thought it didn't have the body to match the hops and I always preferred Racer 5. Of course, this time of year we'd be shifting in to red and stout season, and I'd be excited for Lagunitas Russian Imperial and this year's Bourbon County Stout batch.
He was really big in to Star Wars. He missed all of Andor, which is probably the best thing to have come out since the original 3. But I guess he also missed the new trilogy, so maybe it balances out.
He would have really liked all the good music I've run across in the last few years. He had a music blog for a bit.
Yeah... I don't know why it's hitting me so hard now, other than maybe I never had time to really process it before.

@annsev@troet.cafe
2025-12-26 21:39:18

How can it be that a president of the United States, Darth Donald #Trump, decides for himself who should be killed? He murders people on boats and now in a faraway country.
He doesn't believe in courts, human rights, or international law. He thinks he's an absolute ruler and is only accountable to himself. What a jerk!
Why isn't the ICC officially launching an investigation? Trump…

@lil5@social.linux.pizza
2025-11-27 18:15:04

Ask a SaaS product what backup solutions they use and if they store it at a different company, you get nothing, no reply.
#hanko #HankoAuth #SaaS
Please have faith in Bezos
Shame…

@inthehands@hachyderm.io
2025-11-29 15:57:42

That article is a giant PR puff piece for an AI detection company. Nature ought to know better and should be ashamed of itself.
That’s not to say initial accusation isn’t credible; it certainly is!
But…just look at this reporting. Note how •completely• credulous it is about the accuracy of Pangram’s product.
2/

@mlawton@mstdn.social
2025-12-20 19:37:29

Costly win. Isak looks like he’ll be out for a while. Szoboszlai will have a yellows accumulation suspension for some transgression I didn’t see and the coverage couldn’t be bothered to find. Wirtz hobbled off at the end.
It should have been done and dusted, but loose balls in the box continue to be #LFC’s undoing. They give up one and then forget how to play. Konate continues to have the yips an…

@Techmeme@techhub.social
2025-10-19 09:10:46

A study of 311 AI-generated eighth-grade civics lesson plans in Massachusetts suggests they fall short of inspiring students or promoting critical thinking (The Conversation)
theconversation.com/ai-generat

@jorgecandeias@mastodon.social
2025-10-21 15:03:51

Every European (and Canadian, and Australian, and so on) should read @… 's latest.
A snippet:
"It's well past time for a post-American internet. Every device and every service should be designed so that the people who use them have the final say over how they work. Manufacturers' back doors and digital locks that prevent us from upda…

@thomastraynor@social.linux.pizza
2025-12-24 16:22:46

Not surprised. I found stuff that looked great. I am fairly experienced at baking and part of them didn't turn out. Going over them afterwards I should have clued in on the temperatures for the candies. I have made fudges and candies for decades and thought maybe they knew something that I didn't. They turned out to be almost as runny as cold syrup and will be used as a topping for fruit cake with ice cream.

@cjust@infosec.exchange
2025-11-04 17:22:16

A good friend of mine has the Muppet character "Beaker" as his avatar. For reasons.
He offers me advice. I offer him advice. We chat. These are #ChatsWithBeaker
The link in the discussion thread:

-> Sounds like you might need to go to .Chotchkie's. Maybe get some coffee.
<- only if the cute waitress is there, who I am pretty sure is an immortal.
-> Also
-> It's weird how the people who starred in Bram Stoker's Dracula have all barely 
-> aged since 1992. Probably nothing to worry about
<-Holy shit.
<-and I LOL'd at seeing Tom Waits on that list.
-> https://bsky.app/profile/jamieson.bsky.social/post/3m4sty7uefk2x
<-Jesus I hate this timeline
-> We should be shoving weasels into the large…

In neither this year nor the next should anyone expect Russia to propose a deal that is meaningfully different from what it has already.
How do we change the circumstances?
There are two main levers.
The first deteriorates conditions inside Russia to the point that Mr. Putin is forced to consider ending the war as the lesser evil,
and it is achieved by imposing sanctions that would be powerful and smart enough to erode Russia’s capacity to wage war and significantly i…

@aral@mastodon.ar.al
2025-10-18 11:05:37

Dear USians,
How about you don’t call a Middle Eastern guy “white” and go on to tell him he’s “no better than any other oppressor we encounter” simply for trying to warn his Palestinian friends to not take any unnecessary risks and to be careful on Mastodon?
Also, apparently Divya has blocked me for this, which sucks because it has made it impossible for me to keep boosting her fundraiser, which you should, of course, still follow and support (link below).
I’m not going to …

Aral Balkan
@aral@mastodon.ar.al

You can support the Palestinian people without supporting Hamas. You can support the Ukrainian people, oppose Russia, and oppose American imperialism at the same time.

Do you see the common thread?

You can support the everyday people being oppressed without taking the side of any oppressor.

17 Oct at 08:51

Aral Balkan
@aral

An important note to my Palestinian friends in Gaza: please do not favourite, boost, share, or otherwise show support publicly for any…
Shantini
@shantini@techhub.social

@aral oh look another white man giving patronizing advice to marginalized
people. Check your privilege. And when multiple brown people call you out,
don't write an essay. Check your privilege again. Sit with it. Or you are no
better than any other oppressor we encounter.

Aral Balkan
@aral

@shantini Thanks, Shantini. I'll let my Turkish parents know I'm a white man
now.

Do fuck off.
@Erikmitk@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-10-22 18:34:13

I've been reading biology related books and by sheer hubris and ADHD delusion I thought about switching careers*! Figuring out life's systems feels more fascinating than figuring out how IT systems should be working together.
Then I found out that Alan Turing has touched both fields. I did not know about that! So here I stand with interests between Turing machines and Turing patterns! Always pretty cool to find out about these connections between fields!
* I won’t!

@tiotasram@kolektiva.social
2025-11-18 12:11:51

This is a subtweet...
People who are not anti-capitalist sometimes wonder: "Why is there a monopoly on X life-critical thing?" (E.g., epipens, insulin, web search).
This one is really simple actually: because monopolies are more profitable than competition, and the foundation of capitalism is that capital = power.
Various societies have recognized the necropolitical outcomes of monopolies and have tried to erect barriers to monopoly; we all know that monopolies are bad, death-and-suffering-causing things. But since these societies mostly remain capitalist, they allow these barriers to be eroded by the power of capital (to do otherwise would be to repudiate capitalism because it puts a limit on the power of money). The barriers are ineffective, and the capital = power equation holds, and monopolies result and get to do their killing & maiming thing (remember: even things like social media monopolies that you wouldn't expect to pay for political assassinations like a mining company still profit from inciting genocides). *Sometimes* there are oligopolies instead of monopolies, but instances of really competitive markets are pretty rare for things that are widely sought-after.
The "government will manage the markets to prevent bad outcomes like monopolies" strategy has failed repeatedly, spectacularly, and almost universally. To actually prevent monopolies you need a population that no longer believes that money should equal power, it's that simple. Sadly, it's actually not that simple, since all of the alternatives which equate something else to power, like "the king" or "party loyalty as judged by the supreme leader" have the same problems or worse. The attitude you need to cultivate is "nobody should have power," which is hard because *all* of the power-systems we have constantly propagandize against this attitude in myriad ways. Still, in the future once we've broken free of this age where hierarchy is accepted, people will look back and wonder whether the historical records are even credible given how much needless death and suffering were endured with little resistance.
#anarchy #capitalism

@ruth_mottram@fediscience.org
2025-10-24 07:37:01

2nd day of the #NCKF25 symposium and the plenary is all about the #SeaLevelRise.
This is the downstream part of our job as glaciologists and it's important to understand how the projections will, can and should be used...

@paulbusch@mstdn.ca
2025-12-28 01:32:49

I decided that I can regrip my golf clubs without "professional" help from Golf Town. Instead of $130 my total cost is $60 for a kit from Amazon. Did my driver today just to see how tough it will be. Learned some stuff and the rest of my set should go smoothly.
#DIY #Golf

As 2025 comes to a close, I thought it might be worth revisiting a fascinating social media post from the Silicon Valley pro-extinctionist #Daniel #Faggella.
He espouses the radical view that
👉we should build a
“worthy successor”
in the form of

@ruth_mottram@fediscience.org
2025-10-24 07:36:56

2nd day of the #NCKF25 symposium and the plenary is all about the #SeaLevelRise.
This is the downstream part of our job as glaciologists and it's important to understand how the projections will, can and should be used...

@mlawton@mstdn.social
2025-10-22 18:00:40

I had thought we'd see Ekitike on the left, with Chiesa on the right. Slot, instead, puts Ekitike on the right and leaves Gakpo in.
Happy to see Jones make it into the midfield, as he's been good all year and a) Gravenberch needs to rest that ankle; and b) Mac Allister needs to rest period. Will be interested to see how far forward Szoboszlai plays.
Robbo and Frimpong make sense. I think Bradley has been better than the general perception, but Frimpong should get a run ou…

@stargazer@woof.tech
2025-11-17 07:26:13

#WritersCoffeeClub
10. What have you recently learned which will have a big impact on your work?
11. How accessible is your work?
12. How can writers ensure the focus is on the work and not the writer? Or should they?
---
10. That's a hard question.
I fear I've reached a plateau where nothing freshly learned can do that.
11. It consists of words.

Cover of a book titled:
The Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949
"Don't be a dick"
@yaya@jorts.horse
2025-10-23 18:50:46

we are the clapton, always anti-fascist, fuck the terf FA, LET THEM PLAY
#claptoncfc #ccfc #ftfa #fedifc

claptoncfc

In May 2025, the FA
restricted women's
football to only
people "born with
ovaries."

The ban immediately
ended the careers of
4 Clapton women and
non binary players.

Trans and intersex
players have been
fairly and safely
taking part in FA
women's football
for years.
claptoncfc

This ban is unwanted,
unevidenced and
unenforceable.

Is the FA seriously
proposing mandatory
sex testing for the
hundreds of thousands
of players who play
grassroots football?

One banned player said:
"Playing for Clapton
CFC surrounded by
loving, supportive
teammates was one of
the best things to ever
happen to me.
Football should be
sanctuary, instead
the FA have made it
a place for exclusion,
discrimination and
intrusion".
claptoncfc

Already, we've heard
reports of players being
subjected to invasive
questioning and
investigation because
of how they look.

The FA is responsible
for this toxic
harassment of gender
non conforming players.

On 5 December 1921,
the FA announced
a ban on women's
football.

It took 50 years to
overturn it.
claptoncic

We are on the right
side of history.

Our protests and
our solidarity will
mean we won't have
to wait 50 years to
overturn this new
ban.

The FA must change
course now.

A supporter said:
"The FA is a governing body that has
a track record of banning women for
playing their favourite sport.

A governing body who has allowed
teams to be bought by capitalists
throughout the pyramid but will not
allocate resources to grassroots
facilities and clubs.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, I
kn…

Trump has ordered “a total and complete” blockade of all ‘sanctioned’ oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela ports,
-- which is technically an act of war.
How seriously should we take this?
Trump has certainly threatened war with Venezuela in the past.
Former US National Security advisor John Bolton reports that Trump said during his first presidential term (2017-2020) that invading Venezuela would be “cool”
because it is “really part of the United States.”<…

@chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca
2025-10-18 22:57:42

drier filled! two big red mixing bowls full of (unpicked) grapes filled 8 trays and I added some bananas for the last two.
set for 135°F
The internet says the grapes will take about 48hrs. Bananas should be less than that.
We got this drier probably 10 years ago at Cabellas. Love how much we can stuff it full!
#fruit #harvest #portalberni #grapes

@smurthys@hachyderm.io
2025-11-14 17:02:59

Spending time in #Udupi #India, I've to be extra disciplined to eat healthy because #food is plenty and plenty of food is #unhealthy (but tasty). My success requires the understanding of both hosts and the serving personnel, and most days they take very good care of me.
Today was especially moving because I was at a place and people new to me, but they heard understood my needs, gave me a prime spot where they could monitor what was being served to me, and they made sure I got plenty of whatever I wanted; and nothing I didn't.
It's amazing how many people it takes for just one person to live well, and how generous, tolerant, and welcoming Udupi people are. 🙇‍♂️
Anyway, you should come visit: hachyderm.io/@smurthys/1155462

@paulbusch@mstdn.ca
2025-12-17 12:44:15

Good Morning #Canada
I finished my breakfast this morning only to discover that it's National Maple Syrup Day. A missed opportunity but at least I can share some important facts about Canada's sweet and sticky sauce.
- Indigenous People taught early Canadians how to harvest maple sap and boil it down into a sugary liquid.
- A maple tree can yield sap for up to 100 years, but the trees must be roughly 45 years old before it’s first tapped for syrup making.
- It takes roughly 40 gallons (150 litres) of tree sap to produce 1 gallon (3.8 litres) of syrup.
- Quebec produces 72% of the world’s maple syrup. In 2021, that equaled 133M lbs from Quebec.
- The big bottle of Costco Maple Syrup is from Quebec.
- Maple Syrup only has 1 ingredient. Sap.
- Maple Syrup has an indefinite shelf life but should be frozen if storing for more than 2 years.
And regarding the great Maple Syrup heist, this is still the best report on that famous crime.
#CanadaIsAwesome #MmmmSyrup #MapleSyrup
vanityfair.com/news/2016/12/ma

@chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca
2025-12-22 17:32:12

Now #TheAmericanFascist has appointed an 'envoy' to help convince Greenlanders to ditch Denmark and join the USA. Denmark is shocked and angered, as they should be. Greenlanders are wholly opposed.
There is poetic irony of a Louisiana politician being tapped to lead a "Greenland Purchase" by America. I very much doubt the result will be the same. But there are some interesting parallels.
Lousisiana Purchase (1808)
a) Made possible by squabbles and warring in Europe.
b) involved purchase of 2.14 million km2 of North America for $380 Million in 2024 dollars. Greenland is 2.17 million km2.
It's difficult to fathom just how undervalued the Louisana Purchase was...nevermind the whole — selling Indigenous Lands without Treaty — issue. But hey... that would be another parallel with today's Inuit and Greenland Peoples.
Back in the modern context, America's Fascists just want to do Fascist things like take over sovereign countries and oppress nations, not unlike Hitler, the Kaiser's Germany, the Napoleans, Imperial Britain, Conquistador-ist Spain, and Tsarist-Stalinist-Putinist Russia.
This all needs to be kept -- forefully if need be -- in the past. We cannot allow these regressive dictators to come back.
He must be stopped.
United States of America!
Americans!
Stop prancing around with Christmas presents as if nothing is happening and DEPOSE YOUR PRESIDENT ffs! This is ON YOU first and foremost!!
#USAPoli #Denmark #Canada #Imperialism #TheWorld #UN #NATO #Russia #Ukraine #RussiaUkraineWar #Louisiana #LouisianaPurchase #Greenland
bbc.com/news/articles/ckgmd132