ceoln @ceoln@qoto.org

And yet so many still fall for the fallacy that "If we take more money from the people to give to the wealthy who already have all the money, they will kick-start the economy," instead of putting money in the hands of those who need to spend it.

@macerg

I like Paloma Faith's response to the Tories

"assholes were literally the primary target market when automakers wanted to make SUVs mainstream"
https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo

How frightful!!!

Inside the “Private and Confidential” Conservative Group That Promises to “Crush Liberal Dominance”
--

Leonard Leo, a key architect of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, is now the chairman of Teneo, a group that aims to influence all aspects of American politics and culture.

https://www.propublica.org/article/leonard-leo-teneo-videos-documents?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

I'm becoming convinced we need a new branch of government to enforce ethics laws. A 'Supreme Congress' of some sort, that can only do one thing, remove any person currently elected or appointed to office. The ethical laws these people would need to have would have to be incredibly stringent, logical, and universally understandable.

Cold. Wet. Boring. Let's go back home.

#IdąPsięta #DogsOfMastodon

Are #mice and #rats plantigrade or digitigrade?

I've seen a loooot of studies that code them as plantigrade (e.g.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1814329116)

... but their ankle is well above the ground (e.g. video from https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2016.00042)

What am I missing? 🐀 #biomechanics #mammals

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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)

Shortly after Sputnik but before astronauts walked on the Moon, the Soviets made a science fiction film called Paneta Bur (1962). Roger Corman bought the rights to the film, sliced and diced it, dubbed it, added a few scenes and the result was Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, released in ‘65.

The plot, the pace, just about everything is incomprehensible in this mess, but the cool part is all the 1960’s scifi props from the original Soviet film (which is probably what Corman was after when he bought it). It’s got a 60’s concept car with big fins, a Robbie Robot knockoff, reel-to-reel tape recorders, astronauts with fishbowl helmets using gunpowder pistols… it’s got just about everything you’d expect from a 60’s scifi film (see the parody trailer for some examples). ...and of course all of the factual science errors like gravity in a spaceship, campfires and animals on a planet with little oxygen, Venus is 200 million miles away, sounds in space and much more.

Corman made a sequel to this film, Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), which used much of the scenes from this film, but also added some women on the planet.

You don’t want to miss this one (unless you have anything else to do).
- - - -
Accessible video description:

Parody trailer opens with title graphic, color is extremely under-saturated, almost black and white; a space station with astronauts walking on the outside like there’s gravity; a meteor whistles in space and crashes into one of the spaceships; guys walk around inside a space ship like there’s gravity, their lips are out of sync because the voices are dubbed; a 1960’s style concept car drives up with huge fins and a bubble top; a brunette woman with a beehive hairdo tries to reach guys on the radio; a robot opens the helmet visor of an astronaut who is in distress and puts a tablet in his mouth and pours water on his face and clumsily closes his helmet; an aquarium with a little turtle and goldfish, the concept car is behind the aquarium (pretending to be underwater), the astronauts are carrying the concept car; an old astronaut with a fishbowl helmet talks to a robot; the robot carries two astronauts on his shoulders through lava; a brontosaurus; an astronaut gets attacked by an fake alien monster puppet that looks like the one from The Little Shop of Horrors; the astronauts build a campfire on the planet with little oxygen; another brontosaurus with an astronaut playing with his tail; the astronauts fly the concept car and get attacked by a goofy-looking pterodactyl; an astronaut hurries into the rocket ship, they kick away the ladder, close the door and blast off from the planet.

#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #sfftw #film #movie #65 #film65 #movie65 #Venus #monster #dinosaur #spaceship #meteor #pterodactyl

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woke (adj.) - anti-racist

anti-woke (adj.) - pro-racist

#woke #kind #inclusive

so, should I docusign to sue this asshole for defamation, or just let it go?

i'd really like your opinions first

In their December 1930 issue, Marinetti published the Manifesto of Futurist Cooking, where he declared pasta to be “an absurd Italian gastronomic religion” and called for its abolition. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/italian-futurist-pasta

“Police cited arrestees having mud on their shoes — in a forest. The warrants alleged they had written a legal support phone number on their arms, as is common during mass protests. And, in a few cases, police alleged protesters were holding shields — hardly proof of illegal activity — which a number of defendants even deny.”

#StopCopCity

https://theintercept.com/2023/03/08/atlanta-cop-city-protesters/

Fascinating story: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/07/privacy-loophole-ring-doorbell-00084979

At first the police just wanted two hours of footage from this guy's doorbell Ring cam.

"It was just the beginning.

They asked for more footage, now from the entire day’s worth of records. And a week later, Larkin received a notice from Ring itself: The company had received a warrant, signed by a local judge. The notice informed him it was obligated to send footage from more than 20 cameras — whether or not Larkin was willing to share it himself."

Microsoft’s official @dotnet sent its first Mastodon post today.

Pay attention to the domain: dotnet.social.

Which means Microsoft is operating their own Mastodon community server.

@dotnet account was registered in November, but it became active today.

Clearly, Microsoft sees the Fediverse as core to marketing to developers. I wonder what other brands they’ll bring to the Fediverse as well.

https://dotnet.social/@dotnet/109990127969245035

@fediversenews

a lot of people ask me what kind of name "schmrrrlex" is, and it's kind of an interesting story: my mother was a hundred foot long argentinasaurus and it was the only sound she could make

Our mother and daughter Siamese cats are curled up like two quotation marks. #catsofmastodon