Brazil's thought police can't easily catch people who use a VPN to access Xitter. The point of using a VPN is to hide what sites you're accessing. The people who risk arrest and fines are the ones who provide information about how to use one.
#Brazil #VPN #Censorship
This interview with Trump should scare you to death. He intends to deport millions. To use the National Guard to do it. To bring these people directly across the border and dump them. To use the military inside the US. To give police immunity from prosecution. This is a formula for a police state.
https://time.com/6972022/donald-trump-transcript-2024-election/
#Trump #deportation
A quarter of those polled said schools should have protesters arrested for opposing the Israel-Hamas war. Not for vandalism or disruption, not for supporting mass murder, just for opposing a war which the respondents support.
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/national-speech-index-july-2024
#freeSpeech #firstAmendment
Where did the contemptible #CRIT awards crowd come from? This article gives a plausible explanation. Apparently pro-Hamas people have taken over a significant part of the table-top gaming community. https://quillette.com/2024/07/02/a-tale-of-waffles-and-syrup/
So many sites (e.g., Bluesky and LinkedIn) are using JavaScript to override my mod key preferences and keep me from leaving their page when I click on a link, that I'm increasingly right-clicking and choosing "Open link in new tab." They haven't figured out how to override that yet.
Saying #Juneteenth (or as I would prefer to call it, #Emancipation Day) is only for black people is like saying Independence Day is only for states on the East Coast.
Just heard from someone who lost his #Mastodon account unexpectedly. Don't forget to export an archive regularly, especially if you're on one of the smaller instances. It could go away without warning, leaving you disconnected from your followers. The option is somewhat buried in the settings, making it easy to forget. #backup
Please boost or repost in your own words if you think it's worth knowing. Favoriting does nothing to inform people.
The reason for the annual government #shutdown #budget crisis is that #Congress has adopted the insane procedure of putting almost all appropriations into a single bill that requires a yes-or-no vote.
This wouldn't work even on a family level. Imagine deciding once a year, "This is what we're going to spend for the next year, or else we won't buy anything. Which shall it be?"
Silent movie tonight, with live accompaniment! Gertie the Dinosaur and The Lost World. 8 PM EDT on Twitch.
https://www.twitch.tv/madfilkentist
#silentfilm #stummfilm
#Biden was let off in the classified documents case because of his poor memory, but the documents he retained were from 2017, when he stopped being VP. Apparently #Hur was saying Biden's memory had already deteriorated 7 years ago. That's even more disturbing than I'd originally thought.
@beca3c7a That would be bad enough on a regular social media site. On one that's designed for people to talk about their former employers, it's truly awful.
Certain things make me immediately inclined not to take an article seriously. Examples include using "illegal" as a noun and capitalizing some skin colors while putting others in lower case.
Just boosted (and then unboosted) a post about WikiFlix, but some things seem odd. The Wikimedia article shows "Status: Rejected." The domain for #WikiFlix is toolforge dot org. Who's behind it, and is it trustworthy?
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiFlix
@b42b2f3c It reminds me of Musk's excusing China's designs on Taiwan by comparing the situation to the USA's with Hawaii. If you know Hawaii's history, there are definite parallels, but they don't make either the USA or China look good.
Some people have defended Elon #Musk against his admission of being a socialist by saying he's a liar. It's all weird. Granted, he's dishonest, but even liars don't normally make false confessions except under duress.
I'm convinced that the theme song for "Pinky and the Brain" was originally written with "Singing in the Rain" in mind, then set to an original tune. It fits too perfectly, even though the meter isn't regular.
When Bluesky shows a reply in my main page by someone I follow, it puts it in context with the post it's replying to. I just realized that's Bluesky's answer to the quote tweet, and a much better alternative. Mastodon should consider doing something similar.
Not every bigot is an advocate of a totalitarian state, though the two mindsets often reinforce each other. Mixing valid and made-up accusations only lowers the credibility of the valid ones.
I've spotted a little oasis of regularity among German irregular verbs. The "wir" and "ihr" forms are always the same except for the ending, even when the general conjugation of the verb seems to wander aimlessly among vowels and umlauts.
What? The present tense of "sein"? Pay no attention to that verb behind the curtain.
The invitation to hold the 2024 #IFLA 's World #Library and Information Congress in #Dubai has been withdrawn.
It's not clear from the article whether said invitation was by the national government or whom, or why it was withdrawn.
https://www.ifla.org/news/wlic-2024-withdrawn/
WARNING. At 2 PM Eastern Time, the National Emergency Broadcast system will make your phone make a loud noise. Even if it's on vibrate or mute. Even if a dentist is drilling your teeth or you're driving in heavy traffic.
TURN YOUR PHONE OFF.
I've heard it will blast you when you turn it back on, but at least you can be prepared for it.
@8ca90e75 The convention was originally supposed to be in a different facility, then was delayed 2 months and moved to this one, which is supposed to be a showcase for the city. Speculation is that the city of Chengdu took control away from the organizers, turning it into a promotional piece.
The fun of trying to have a fan-run convention in a socialist-fascist state.
@8ca90e75 The convention was originally supposed to be in a different facility, then was delayed 2 months and moved to this one, which is supposed to be a showcase for the city. Speculation is that the city of Chengdu took control away from the organizers, turning it into a promotional piece.
The fun of trying to have a fan-run convention in a socialist-fascist state.
The Chengdu #Worldcon train wreck is picking up speed. Their much-hyped convention facility is too small to let everyone attend the opening and closing ceremonies and the #HugoAward ceremony. Admission will be by lottery, with some exceptions.
Scroll down to "CHENGDU WORLDCON ROUNDUP". https://file770.com/pixel-scroll-10-2-23-mammas-dont-let-your-pixels-grow-up-to-be-scrollboys/
About the only checks I still write are to government agencies. They make it hard to pay by transfer or credit card, or they make the payer pay the surcharges.
There's an economic reason for that. Businesses find it worthwhile to eat the costs if it attracts more customers or keeps existing ones from leaving. Governments demand payments, and they want to minimize the cost of collection. You can't go to a competitor if you don't like it.
Hint for Fahrenheit-Centigrade conversions: Memorize the important tens (18s in F.) and you can get a good sense of where a temperature lies without doing calculations in your head.
-40° C = -40° F (this one's easy)
-10° C = 14° F (seriously cold)
0° C = 32° F (freezing)
10° C = 50° F (between chilly & warm)
20° C = 68° F (pleasant)
30° C = 86° F (hot)
40° C = 104° F (argh)
Occasional reminder that I have nothing to to with the #LibertarianParty of #NewHampshire (#LPNH). It's fallen into the hands of some disgusting people.
Another little #Lingolia annoyance. A multiple-choice question asked me to complete "___ leben am Nordpol." All the choices were wrong. The answer they wanted was "Eisbären" (polar bears). There's even less excuse in German than in English for thinking they range anywhere near that far north.
#India is dropping evolution from its textbooks for age 14-16. Also the periodic table. Presumably India's future physicists and biologists will be taught to pray to Brahma for answers. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01750-2
Just signed up to support the #Hippo (#NewHampshire weekly paper). Confirmation email hasn't shown up in over 20 minutes. I hope I can get this straightened out without having to cancel my credit card payment.
I'm wondering how many Americans are going to the #Chengdu #Worldcon. Several SMOFs are, because they'd never miss a Worldcon, and a pro author whom I slightly know is, but I wouldn't be surprised if the total is less than 50 people. I haven't encountered any data, though.
The thing I hate most about #DuckDuckGo : "Not many results contain the search term you were looking for, so we're going to ignore it, because otherwise you'll have narrowed down to the results you want, and what fun would that be?"
@b42b2f3c That attempt to defend the so-called paradox of tolerance is a deadly error. It says that you grant people's freedom to speak, to exist, etc., on your terms, subject to a "contract" which you assert. Nothing stops them from asserting another "contract," with terms in it like "no blasphemy allowed."
Tolerance doesn't mean being nice to everybody. It means recognizing their autonomy and keeping the high ground.
_The Week_ has a fictitious headline about "Trump's New York fraud conviction." The article is about a civil judgment against him; #Trump has not been convicted of any criminal charges (though he still could be). Headlines like that seem designed to fuel Trump's fantasies of persecution.
A few days ago, Morning Joe claimed Trump had been jailed. Junk journalism all around.
Got Keeper Security to work under #Brave browser by removing and reinstalling it. Brave is based on Chrome, which I know is a negative, but at this point it may be the best of the alternatives. #Firefox keeps getting more annoying.
@1c9d4ad4 In some cases, among black people, N****r is considered socially acceptable, or so I've heard. I don't know the details and would consider it unsafe to go near it.
In general, dirty words gain power by being tabooed.
#Brave isn't working too well either. The #KeeperSecurity extension complains it needs to be updated, but nothing I do fixes it. Maybe I should try the #DuckDuckGo browser?
Firefox is giving me translation pop-ups which I didn't ask for. It seems possible to turn them off only one language or one site at a time. I've been letting inertia keep me with #Firefox far too long.
It's not just the left that makes mass shootings an excuse for bad legislative proposals. #Pence wants an expedited federal death sentence (i.e., limits on appeals) for anyone "involved" in a mass shooting. That sounds as if it would include people charged as accessories. It would certainly increase the likelihood of wrongful conviction and execution.
https://reason.com/2023/09/28/no-mike-pence-we-should-not-make-it-easier-to-execute-mass-shooters/
The people who believe in the pop-culture version of #karma never find good coming back to people who do good interesting enough to cite. Only harm is worth noticing as an alleged operation of karma. It's schadenfreude, not a belief in universal justice.
#Lingolia generates a custom URL for registered users to log in with, instead of using a password. This arguably has security advantages, since users can't create a weak password, but they undo most of the benefit by emailing the link on request. Someone who can snoop your email can hijack your account.
#Reddit just wiped out everyone's coins a couple of weeks ago. Now they've introduced a new system they call a "Contributor Program."
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...
Just came across this in a 1995 Leslie Fish song:
"But now comes the age of the lightning-fast word,
When news spreads in the blink of an eye.
When you talk to the world and get any known fact,
It gets hard to effectively lie."
Many of us thought then it would be that way.
@1c9d4ad4 We're already at the point where a word which is a deadly racial insult in most circles is a friendly form of address in others, so who knows?
So far the number of total strangers who have followed me on #Bluesky is almost as great as the number of followers I know. At least the strangers look harmless.
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