Tootfinder

This is as good a time as any for a thought experiment.
You're in Nazi Germany. You know about the camps, you know what they do, you see the ash fall, you smell it. People who resist alone are killed, some are sent to the camps too. You're afraid to even talk to people about it for fear that they'll turn you in.
You think back to when the camps were being built. You had all the warning signs, but you didn't know how to interpret them. You could believe it would happen. You thought you'd have a chance to vote him out. You thought there might be another way. You thought maybe things would turn out differently if you just sat tight, kept your head down, kept yourself safe.
You see a family being dragged from their home. You know they will be killed. You want to fight, not just for them but for yourself. You opposed Hitler, and at any point you know you could be on the list... Even if you do nothing.
You wish you could rise up, shoot the SS, open the gates, fight it all. You know you aren't alone, but you don't know how to connect with the people who want the same thing.
Using the knowledge we have now, what should you have done in the preceding months and years to connect, to build a community that would open up all paths of resistance?
There were people who resisted. We know it wasn't enough.
Gun laws in Nazi Germany were very similar to US laws in that Nazis were largely free to own guns and everyone else was not. Unlike the US, where "others" have historically controlled using the fear that they might be randomly executed, Germany did codify it. Red flag laws were one more step in the US towards that codification, and there will be more.
When Nazis were taking away those guns, the social networks didn't exist to make resistance possible for most folks. But some Jews were able to resist.
It wasn't the guns that made the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising possible, though they definitely helped. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was made possible by labor organizing in the precessing years.
If there were more uprisings like that, the Holocaust could have been stopped if not prevented. Social networks make resistance possible. Guns are only useful tools to resist authoritarianism *after* you build a community able to support that resistance, and they are only one of many tools made useful by that community.
Getting guns is easy, and not always necessary. Building community is hard. Guns won't keep you safe. Community will.
Single acts of resistance may slow the machine down, but to actually bring down a monster you need to be able to attack more than once. You need a society of resistance. If you are afraid now, build that. Talk to people while it's still safe to do so. Ask them where their red line is. Talk to neighbors. Figure out your network.
Take the steps you need now to keep your neighbors safe, to keep yourself safe.
#USPol

1. Plan going to Opole, via Kościan.
2. When you enter the train to Kościan, you discover that the change to Opole is delayed 15 minutes already. Consider changing in Leszno instead; if the delay increases, you'd have more options there.
3. Discover that there aren't any more options in Leszno today. Your change is delayed 30 minutes already. Return the reservations, and take one the other way, to Poznań instead.
4. Train station in Kościan. The displays aren't showing any delays, trains are announced normally. Tell people about the delays, so they won't stand in the -10°C waiting for the train to arrive.
5. Take the train to Poznań, and try to figure out what to do next.
6. Discover that the only reasonable choice going forward is Inowrocław: no delays and good return connection. It's the same train, so take another reservation. Your current seat is already taken there, so move elsewhere.
7. Your train should be followed by another one in the same direction, that departs from Poznań 6 minutes later. However, your train ends up waiting for another delayed train, so the other train goes first. The delay further increases as your train needs to slow down after the other train.
8. Reach Inowrocław 10 minutes later. That's not a problem, since you didn't have enough to see for all the time there anyway.
9. Discover that the town is more interesting than you thought, and you'd use more time.
10. When you almost get to the station, discover that your train is 10 minutes late. Not that you have any use for that time at this point.
11. When you're at the station, the train keeps increasing delay while waiting at the previous station, in Bydgoszcz. The station displays are completely useless, as they show only a random subset of regional trains, for no apparent reason. The announcements include all trains, but are rarely given.
12. The delay keeps increasing. Start thinking about getting a reservation for the next train to Poznań, in case it arrived first. You can't return the reservation after the planned departure time, and you can't have two reservations simultaneously, so reserve the seat from Mogilno, the next station.
13. The next train arrives first. While on board, you discover that you're not going to have any train home for 1.5 hr. Take another seat reservation to Leszno, where you can change into a suburban train and get home 15 minutes earlier than from Poznań. This time, your seat is still free.
14. The train departs 15 minutes delayed from Poznań. After all, you're changing trains in Kościan.
So I was going to go south, to Opole, via Kościan. Instead, I've ended up slingshotting north to Inowrocław, and getting back home via the same train as if I were in Opole.
#rail

The Trump administration is planning to
👉use artificial intelligence to write federal transportation regulations,
according to U.S. Department of Transportation records
and interviews with six agency staffers.
The plan was presented to DOT staff last month at a demonstration of AI’s “potential to revolutionize the way we draft rulemakings,”
agency attorney Daniel Cohen wrote to colleagues.
The demonstration, Cohen wrote, would showcase “exciting new AI to…

Government by AI? Trump Administration Plans to Write Regulations Using Artificial Intelligence
The Transportation Department, which oversees the safety of airplanes, cars and pipelines, plans to use Google Gemini to draft new regulations. “We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer. “We want good enough.”

On the Side 🆓
在边缘
📷 Nikon F4E
🎞️ Ilford HP5 Plus 400, expired 1993
#filmphotography #Photography #blackandwhite

This made it through multiple levels and multiple rounds of design and marketing approval.
At no point did anyone stop and think?
Really? This is the design we're going with?
Not one person who had any rudimentary internet skills.
Not one hero in one meeting had even the one ounce of temerity or one gram of courage to stand up and say
HEY - THE HAND ON THE LEFT IS SUPPOSED TO BE WEARING A RING.

Nasa announced on Friday radical changes to its delayed Artemis III mission to land humans back on the moon,
as the US space agency grapples with technical glitches and criticism that it is trying to do too much too soon.
The abrupt shift in strategy was laid out by the space agency’s recently confirmed administrator, Jared Isaacman.
Announcing the changes on Friday, he said that Nasa would introduce
⚠️at least one new moon flight before attempting to put humans back o…

“In my view, we are in an all-out war with the United States, Israel, and Europe;
they do not want our country to stand on its own feet,”
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian said in an interview with the Supreme Leader’s official website.
He said the current war is worse than the Iraq war in the 1980s.
“If one understands it properly,
this war is far more complex and more difficult than that war.”
“In the war with Iraq, the situation was clear;
the…

Iran says it is in full-scale war with US, Israel and Europe
Iran’s president said on Saturday the country is facing a full-scale confrontation with the United States, Israel, and Europe, describing the pressure campaign against Tehran as more complex and damaging than the Iran–Iraq war.

In June and July, Canada and Mexico will each host 13 #WorldCup games,
compared to 78 for the United States, which will organize every game from the quarterfinals onward.
"It’s not right," Blatter said.
"By putting the three together, one would have thought they would have roughly the same share of the pie."
He added that such a disparity "is not in the spir…

Former FIFA president pans mixing soccer with politics, blasts U.S. ahead of World Cup | CBC Sports
In an exclusive interview, former FIFA president Sepp Blatter blasted the United States administration's 'defamatory' policies and the 'crumbs' given to Canada for the 2026 World Cup, which the country is co-hosting with the U.S. and Mexico.

Allies of the Trump administration
are reportedly circulating a document
that they say would grant the president sweeping powers over elections,
including the ability to ban mail-in ballots,
by declaring a national emergency
over disproven allegations of interference by China in the 2020 election,
a new Washington Post report finds.
Right-wing activists who claim to be in contact with the White House
have drafted a 17-page executive order
…

Draft Order to Declare National Emergency on Elections Circulating Trump Allies
The draft is written to allow Trump to label mail-in ballots and voting machines as agents of foreign influence.