Reach for the Stars @antares@qoto.org

find interesting to note that after 20 years of "west exporting democracy" to Afghanistan, now the issue seems like "west importing talebanate state models" into the us and Israel ...

bibi and 45 a l' orange should tell us something about it ...

Is it just me or has the level of engagement gone down on #Mastodon? Not hugely, but noticeable.

Oh my God! Oh f*ck! I wake up to this big news and all I can say is f*ck! I went to bed having read something about Philip K Dick Awards (I can't even remember what I read about it!) and I wake up to learn that my book, Where Rivers Go To Die, has been nominated for this and its a big deal to me and all I can day is f*ck! What a way to start the year!

https://www.norwescon.org/2024/01/09/2024-philip-k-dick-award-nominees-announced/

@bookstodon #books #sff #book #writing #writingcommunity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiqDZlAZygU Rowan Atkinson (who plays Mr. Bean) talks about the importance of free expression.

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire collectively blamed the millions of Armenians in their territory for attacks by Armenian resistance fighters. Around 1M non-combatants were killed by the Ottoman military — in many cases, by forced marches through the Syrian desert without food and water.

Denouncing this genocide doesn’t make you an Armenian resistance fighter or an advocate for their views. It just means you’re against genocide.

In 1994, in the wake of the Rwandan civil war, the president of Rwanda was killed. Military and government officials suspected the Tutsi-aligned Rwandan Patriotic Front and blamed the Tutsi and Twa people collectively. They organized the mass killing of Tutsi people; between 500,000 and 1M people were killed in the following three months.

Abhoring this murder doesn’t make you a partisan of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. It just means you’re a human, opposed to the systematic slaughter of humans.

On October 7 2023, Hamas’s military wing attacked and killed about 550 Israeli soldiers and as many Israeli civilians. They kidnapped, tortured and raped hundreds more. In response, Israel has denied food, water and medical supplies to the 2.3M people of Gaza, driven them from their homes to a tiny sliver of land near the Egyptian border, destroyed half of all residential buildings, killed 30,000 people and seriously injured 60,000 more. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has called this action a plausible genocide.

Wanting this genocide to end with an immediate ceasefire doesn’t mean you support Hamas or want Israel to be destroyed. It means you’re opposed to mass killing and expulsion of people from their homeland.

Is it exactly the same as these other examples? Absolutely not. Genocide never is. But you can be on the side of humanity against the destruction of the people of Gaza and it doesn’t make you an advocate for the views or actions of Hamas.

https://evanp.me/2024/02/04/taking-sides-in-a-genocide/

You call it eating 17 boxes of girl scout cookies. I call it supporting independent female entrepreneurship.

Absolutely. Do not use, do not support BetterHelp.

They took patients’ intake questionnaires and sold them to Facebook.

BetterHelp itself is not a ‘covered provider’ under HIPAA. But they heavily implied any data you gave them was HIPAA covered, and would not be shared.

They have been slapped with a $8 million fine by the FTC.

(I think they should be a HIPAA-covered provider, and they should be prosecuted.)

BetterHelp *cannot be trusted*. Stay away!

https://weirder.earth/@dessertgeek/111854230732895093

Max Wolf (of Wolf 359 fame) and E.E. Barnard (of Barnard's Star fame) were "lifelong correspondents, competitors, collaborators and friends. Wolf wrote a long obituary for Barnard upon his death in 1923."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Wolf

#Wolf359 #BarnardsStar #Space

We're so used to this, but I would like academics to take a moment and look at how much of the official and unofficial discussion around university is about despair, imposter syndrome, stress, harassment, etc.

What I often see in these discussions, especially the official ones, is discussion of coping mechanisms and "self-care".

What I rarely see in these discussions is questioning why we've built an education system that treats people this way in exchange for this education. @academicchatter

@maartjeoostdijk @academicchatter
Coming in to agree with those recommending that you push back *and* to defend the passive voice, especially in places where you want to focus on the something like an experimental apparatus, not the person using it. Modulating voice can also be a useful rhetorical strategy. Passive voice has a place in good writing, IMO. Against dogma.

If you oppose genocide Republicans will accuse you of working for Hamas while Democrats take the far more nuanced approach of accusing you of working for the Russians.

Apparently the discourse is set on the same half-assed autopilot as the genocide.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/pelosi-fbi-pro-palestine-protesters-russia-1234955648/?ref=foreverwars.ghost.io

Do you use and/or read via #rss, #rssfeeds ?

Boost is good karma. Thank you.

CHINA CAMERA RISKS:

#China -made surveillance cameras, widespread in #Ukraine have been used by #Russia to guide strikes against Ukrainian targets.

The cameras are banned in the U.S. due to security concerns.

@seachanger Once upon a time there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find a neighbor wearing baggy shorts and striped leggings.
neightbor: Pardon me, would you possibly have a cup of soy milk to spare?
me: Sweetened or unsweetened?
Thus a friendship of 20+ years was born. She is still one of our (@Kleen & my) dearest friends. #SocialTech

Just a periodic reminder that being an extremist and being a dick about it will get you blocked. Want to transition to #EV? I'm on board. Do we need to drastically reduce consumption? Yes. Do billionaires need to exist? No. But when people talk about abolishing cars, you're talking about destroying peoples' livelihoods. I live in a rural area, and you can't make a living without being able to go from point A to point B. I've seen numerous revolutions fail b/c the farmers were not on board.

web browsers are emacs clones
- basically an OS
- eight hundred megabytes and constantly swapping
- you can execute a script in a special language
- extremely zealous users who complain about the other camp(s)