2026-08-17 11:45:40
We Are All on the Decoy Plane
#USpol
We Are All on the Decoy Plane
#USpol
“Do you think emojis will ever become part of formal language? Are we going to see emojis in laws or letters from the pension fund?” - Emojis are mainly used in informal language, because (or that’s why?) one of their main functions is to signal closeness, familiarity and a lack of hierarchy between the conversation participants. This is also the reason why a lack of emojis from a personal chat message may trigger questions like “what have I done?!”, because it could signal that the friendly relationship is disturbed. So I think emojis wouldn’t be used in legal code. But in official letters, maybe! I once received an email from a university administrator with a ☺️ and I appreciated it a lot.
#emojis #linguistics #WorldEmojiDay
Insights from my latest piece of workplace research are now available to download from:
https://ais-interiors.com/the-space-between/
"The Space Between" explores the question whether office design has changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic (or do we simply work different…
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/reject-100-billion-submarine-purchase?source=direct_link&
I wrote a letter for the Action Network letter campaign: Reject $100 billion Submarine purchase.
Mark Carney recently announced the…
Three little kids from our neighbourhood were selling bracelets (two girls, one boy, just to break any stereotypes) and now I have the coolest wrist (well, I think so anyway) ✨
#bracelets #bray #ireland
San Francisco sends legal notices to Apple and Google demanding they take down 13 AI apps used to make deepfake nude images; Google says it has deleted the apps (Matt Burgess/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/san-francisco-demands-ap…
You can't spell "FASCIST" without the letters "A" and "I"
"The Uniform Code Council requires that there be a period after each letter in U.P.C. because the letters UPC (without periods) is the trademark of the Universal* Plumbing Code." ☝️
[Nelson, Benjamin (1997): Punched Cards to Bar Codes. A 200 Year Journey with descriptions fo over 260 codes. Helmers. Page 85.]
* Uniform, not Universal. 🧐
https://
Mullin threatens states that refuse Trump's election demands
Mullin also repeated his threat of withholding Federal Emergency Management Agency grant funding to states that don’t work to “secure” elections.
“If they’re not willing to do it, it should raise serious questions.
It’s not that hard. This isn’t a partisan issue,”
the homeland security secretary said.
This also comes after the Trump justice department sent letters to election officials in every sta…
“Buildings are the single largest energy consumer in Europe. Transposition and implementation of the #EPBD is key to boosting the EU's current very low annual energy renovation rate (1%), reducing bills for citizens and businesses and the EU's dependence on imported fossil fuels, and achieving a zero-emission and fully decarbonised building stock by 2050.”
A-hu-hu
Shuffalo, 2m 21s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/07/17
Through a portal on 419 East 6th street in Manhattan, a traveler crosses into the parallel world called Sunset/Sunrise, to search for a lost treasure.
https://www.worldofawe.net/
Another word, I do not know. Just guessing random letters. #Wordle
Wordle 1 884 6/6
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It looks like the "Christian" politicians I OK, allowing this happen, seem to have confused the behavior of the inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition with Christ's teachings.
Smething about the devil quoting Scripture to his own ends?
‘It’s torture’: prisoners’ letters expose subterranean Oklahoma ‘dungeon’ known as the tombs
It looks like the "Christian" politicians I OK, allowing this happen, seem to have confused the behavior of the inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition with Christ's teachings.
Smething about the devil quoting Scripture to his own ends?
‘It’s torture’: prisoners’ letters expose subterranean Oklahoma ‘dungeon’ known as the tombs
A group of Democratic senators
and one Republican, as well as two Democratic House committees,
sent letters Monday to the National Science Foundation
asking it to reverse course on its plan to dismantle a sprawling ocean monitoring network,
with House lawmakers going further and accusing the agency of acting illegally.
The Ocean Observatories Initiative is a network of more than 900 ocean sensors built at a cost of $386 million.
Over the last decade it has…
We've got a brand-new book out.
"Much Love from Paris: Letters to My Family (1928 - 30)" (edited by Nelda Damiano with the assistance of Katherine Rabogliatti and with an essay by Robyn Asleson) lets Louise Heron Blair tell her own story: a young, rebellious American in Paris, learning how to make her own life.
Gotta love it, when there's enough time for voters to react.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/letters/2026/07/06/letter-thank-you-kai-schwemmer/
"This revealed one of two things to the public: either Davidson was incompetent, failing…
This performative display of faith by professional athletes, paired with sensation-hungry media coverage, is a double nuisance. The former is over-staged, the latter simply excessive. And I say that as someone who belongs to a church. I miss when faith was a side note and a private matter. Can we please drop the religious spectacle and focus on the sport?
#WM2026
TIL: you can spell Supply Chain Liability with just the letters P, H, and P. https://phpc.social/@naderman/116918391854914938
hehe
Shuffalo, 0m 35s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/07/16
Today in Apple Autocorrect Sucks:
Some of us like to type phrases, clauses or words in all capital letters on occasion for dramatic or comedic effect. But more than once have I typed DONT or DON’t despite don’t.
1/7
"precarious?"
"yo!"
"did you take the whole building down, too?"
"how else were we supposed to remove the letters?" #TOTDenthusiastsunite
When I was first learning to write,
my letters and words ran from right to left, reversed as if in a mirror.
Being left-handed, I was imitating the hand strokes of my right-handed teachers instead of reversing their strokes to replicate the letters.
I gradually got the hang of writing in the correct direction, but it still feels natural for me to mirror-write.
I have a mirror-written childhood diary. Leonardo da Vinci, another lefty, did that too
The GUARDIAN:
"After erecting scaffolding on Friday evening, workers in hard hats and hi-viz vests draped tarpaulin over the temporary structure at 2am to block public views of their progress but were seen, through a small opening in the scaffolding covering, to be removing the letters at about 3am."
few nights ago, we went graveyarding in the dead of night, and a Magpie moth flew into our torch beams and onto a fallen gravestone.
#moth #graveYard
Murang #IcedMocha: pagsamahin ang San Mig 3-in-1 at Milo 😁
#coffee
Baby, we can never kill excel. Long live spreadsheets
Source: https://hachyderm.io/@liztai/117097082760512046 (Forked due to the lack of proper alt text for the image in the original toot.)
The NYC Council sent letters to Polymarket, Kalshi, Coinbase, and Gemini Titan to investigate alleged deceptive marketing practices and targeting minors (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/new-york…
Der Guardian über das Liebesbrief-Archiv (https://liebesbriefarchiv.de/):
Sixty thousand love letters and counting: volunteers help sift through vast German trove of devotion | Germany | The Guardian
Hoax alert: that legal threat supposedly sent by Flock to a discussion group telling them not to "analyze or speculate" about Flock's security vulnerabilities was made up by the group.
What Flock *actually* does is evil enough, so don't muddy the waters by making stuff up, geez. Also I was mildly suspicious of this but boosted it anyway so my bad I guess.
The title of this letter gives a flavour of what the UK looks like from the outside:
"Can post-Brexit Britain become governable?"
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2026/06/23/whether-post-brexit-…
"Letters sent to Nancy Guthrie’s family after she disappeared are released
The sheriff’s department said it was making the notes public in the hope that someone will recognize the writer’s language and style to help generate new leads."
what if those letters were written by #AI
The executive branch plays no role in making election policy or regulating election administration
—the Constitution explicitly leaves those responsibilities to the states and Congress.
The “Proposed Rule: Ballot Mail for Federal Elections” therefore conflicts with the Constitution.
Beyond that, it is bad policy that will make it harder for election administrators to do their jobs,
runs the risk of potentially disenfranchising voters
and increases the chance of …
Happy #PortfolioDay everyone. 🪴
I'm Sebastian. I like gazing at clouds, the crunching sound of dirt when I vacuum and writing stuff on the Internet. You can find some of it here.
https://finest.day/
…
2 years after the stratospheric flight of #SunriseIII, first results are released today in a #SunriseIIIFocusIssue in The Astrophysical Journal Letters:
Uff.
Shuffalo, 6m 17s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/07/15
Kris van Rens at @… "The XZ Utils backdoor -- Digging into a major cybersecurity incident"
After skipping very quickly through the technical section during the talk because of time constraints, afterwards Kris gave an interactive session on the technicalities for a handful of interested people. Lovely! Also: food for thought.
June 6, 2026 -- In the wee hours of Friday morning, Senate Republicans passed a measure ... (Heather Cox Richardson/Letters from an American)
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-6-2026
http://www.memeorandum.com/260607/p14#a260607p14
Letters from Earth
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5IrTa70FuNA&si=1RR0CZG0omeFqaof
Lieverds, er moeten toch manieren zijn om zonder typen en zonder google en andere verderfelijke zooi teksten op plaatjes om te zetten naar teksten met letters? Op linux en of op googlevrij Android?
I don't know how to read your mind
The letters are too small
I guess you know what you mean
But it makes no sense to me at all
—Willie Nelson
#ForAllMankind S05E10: is there nobody in the #SONY production team old enough to remember a correct #DOS prompt? 🤔
A bit embarrassing considering the overall situation of this scene. 🤷
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted https://bioniclab.substack.com/p/my-mentor-wrote-me-a-strong-recommendation
Monochrome thi.ng (2022)
An old exploration using only circles and the SDF-based fully parametric typeface I created as part of the work on my S-TRACE piece...
See here for other related WIP of this perpetually unfinished project:
https://mastodon.thi.ng/@toxi/tagged/STRACE
Most capitalists, as a class, don't think "oh, we should fire people to make sure we don't lose control." But, as here, a few people do. All it takes is a few because you have highly class aware companies like BlackRock, which own enough stock to just force boards to force CEOs to lay people off. Strongly worded letters from private equity can kick off firing sprees in FAANG. Everyone else just follows their lead because "they must have some information we don't" or "they're smart, so we should follow their lead."
It takes a very tiny portion of the capitalist class to maintain the system. It mostly acts without any centralized control channel. That's one of the the things that makes the system so stable.
Shuffalo, 2m 43s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/07/14
@…
You Write Letters.
Go on … do it …
Between May 29 and July 9,
roughly 51,000 comments were posted to regulations.gov
(and over 200,000 more had been received but not yet published).
The verdict on public sentiment is clear and lopsided:
about 94 percent oppose the proposed rule and only 6 percent support it,
with fewer than one percent marked as unclear.
The opposition is overwhelmingly grassroots rather than orchestrated.
Form letters make up only about 16 percent of all comments…
My most reliable random name generator works completely without any electricity and is attached to our fridge as a set of magnetic letters.
Every other day, a new name appears. It’s like magic.
I wonder how this works. 🤔
#FediEltern #photography
For decades, we've been going on vacation on the Baltic Sea, and for decades we’ve been renting bikes there. But the prices have gone up and the quality has gone downhill. So we finally bought our own bikes today and immediately went for a short ride to the Border Museum in Schlutup.
Also, we can now recommend “at Fahrräder” in Lübeck: https://at-f…
EU project proposals have become a bureaucratic endurance test.
The application process is painfully long, the evaluations often opaque, and rejection letters can feel almost dismissive. Even when a proposal succeeds, far too much of the budget disappears into compliance, coordination, reporting, controls, and audits.
When roughly 60% of resources go to administration rather than impact, something is fundamentally broken.
Europe cannot afford to turn innovation into paperwo…
Guess 3 was a waste. I can't count and didn't realize I already had 5 letters. Could have been a Wordle in 3. #Wordle
Wordle 1 845 4/6
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We're in a cafe, and someone is wearing a t-shirt that reads "GAYTRIOT" in colorful letters. 🥳🏳️🌈👕
June 5, 2026 -- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had good news for the American people ... (Heather Cox Richardson/Letters from an American)
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-5-2026
http://www.memeorandum.com/260606/p16#a260606p16
Puh
Shuffalo, 9m 45s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/07/13
I reached the Genius 🎓 level in Spelling Bee.
My stats:
Words: 40/40
Score: 170/170
Play Spelling Bee 🐝 https://spellbee.org/
A Russian drone strike damaged part of the Centralized Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilityin the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone overnight on June 7,
Ukraine's state nuclear operator Energoatom reported.
The attack comes amid growing concerns about nuclear safety in Ukraine,
as Russia continues to strike infrastructure tied to the country's energy system and nuclear sector
Sources: to fight critics on social media, DHS sent platforms hundreds of subpoenas and asked posters to sign letters saying speech about ICE "may" be a crime (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/ice-surveillance-interne…
Swapped two letters in guess 4. #Wordle
Wordle 1 843 5/6
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Beim letzten Wort blöd lang gehangen.
Shuffalo, 7m 10s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/08/12
June 3, 2026 -- Last night, in an unsigned opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded its finding ... (Heather Cox Richardson/Letters from an American)
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-3-2026
http://www.memeorandum.com/260604/p75#a260604p75
I reached the Genius 🎓 level in Spelling Bee.
My stats:
Words: 45/45
Score: 223/223
Play Spelling Bee 🐝 https://spellbee.org/
♫ When a problem comes along . . . ♪
#Shitpost #Shitposting #Devo
The Commerce Dept. signed letters of intent for $874M in CHIPS Act funding in exchange for minority stakes in GlobalFoundries, Kepler, and five other companies (Miranda Nazzaro/The Hill)
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/6000186-commerce-ai-chips-stakes/
Same. I plan to continue my subscription as additional donation.
When propaganda and hate is free, it's important to make good journalism accessible to everyone.
#Utah #Utahns #NoPaywall…
June 2, 2026 -- Officials in the Trump administration have worked hard to restrict the access ... (Heather Cox Richardson/Letters from an American)
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-2-2026
http://www.memeorandum.com/260603/p9#a260603p9
A part of the Atlantic Ocean, just south of Greenland and Iceland, has been cooling off while the rest of the world gets hotter.
This enigmatic patch is often referred to as the "cold blob" and scientists have been trying to figure out the mechanisms behind its cooling.
While some studies have blamed increased heat loss at the sea surface,
others suggest weaker currents are bringing less heat to the area.
Now, a new study, published in Geophysical Research…
Hehe. Shuffalo, 1m 21s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/08/08
I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
#Shitpost #Shitposting #OpenCarry
Threats to prosecute sheriffs in Minneapolis and Chicago,
cities that have experienced some of the most intense immigration enforcement of the Trump era,
are a new salvo in the president’s campaign against state and local officials
who refuse to embrace his administration’s crackdown.
The warnings have been conveyed in a series of letters that federal agents began hand-delivering in early July
-- to Sheriff Dawanna Witt of Hennepin County, Minn., which includes …
June 27, 2026 -- Observers are noting that the reflecting pool fiasco, in which Trump created ... (Heather Cox Richardson/Letters from an American)
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-27-2026
http://www.memeorandum.com/260628/p15#a260628p15
Sometimes, it can be enough to believe in just one thing.
#photography #graffiti
Shuffalo, 1m 46s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/07/06
Uff. Shuffalo, 8m 00s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/08/06
Unf*ck your feet! 👣
#photography #sandals #running
Ein bisserl zach heut!
Shuffalo, 6m 26s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/07/30
A breeze! Shuffalo, 3m 32s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/06/28
Heute wirklich nur Birdern zu empfehlen.
Shuffalo, 9m 18s
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https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo/2026/06/26