Pablo SB @iPabloSB@qoto.org

This toot encapsulates everything wrong with $ in politics.

*80% of the public wants something, but nope, can’t have it.

*Donors (those with $$$) get the ultimate say.

*Pols do whatever the $$$ tells them because if they don’t, they lose their job.

*Those with the $$$ (corporations & corp owners) get to dictate the policies that govern them.

*This leads to monopolies that make our lives more expensive and much worse since there’s no regulation & no competition.
https://press.coop/@WIRED/113209298383884874

And now I officially hate this bubble more than the crypto bubble.
https://www.ivory.ai/home

Today is the autumn equinox 🍂

As autumn arrives in the northern hemisphere leaves will soon be turning shades of yellow, orange and red on their way to brown.

This graphic is an old favourite that looks at the colour chemistry involved: https://bit.ly/3Zx6Li6

Just seen something referring to academics as "unpaid content creators for Elsevier" and I am dead ⚰️.

@academicsunite @academicchatter
#Academia #Macademia #Science

Looks like Western media is already attempting to normalise Israel’s supply-chain-based terrorist attack from yesterday that indiscriminately and savagely wounded ~3,000 people (yes, they’re people, as hard as it might be for some white folks to understand), some 300 of them critically, and killed others, including a 10-year-old girl.

But don’t worry, it’s not like many USians/Europeans carry personal electronic devices made in foreign countries or anything… what’s the worst that could happen?

The Internet Archive losing its appeal means one thing: pirate stuff. Pirate brazenly. There’s no point trying to do it the nice way - you’ll get shut down anyway. Copy, share, and archive to your heart’s content. It’s the only way we’re keeping digital media and our cultural memory intact.

This is very sad, and an example of what happens when the collective public relies on dubious 2 minute shorts on TikTok and Youtube to get their "information" from, more and more, and lose the ability to absorb long form content by people who actually know what they're talking about.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/21542/end-of-the-road-an-anandtech-farewell

If it sounds like the composer might be a vampire, it's Bach.

If it sounds like the composer is trying to set the violins on fire, it's Vivaldi.

If it sounds like the composer is trying to sell you fancy mustard, it's Haydn

If it sounds like the composer is making fun of you, it's Mozart.

If it sounds like the composer is trying to make you as deaf as he is, it's Beethoven.

If it sounds like the composer is trying to shoot you, it's Tchaikovsky.

If it sounds like the composer is mansplaining to you, it's Wagner.

If it sounds like you bought Star Wars on Temu, it's Holst.

If it sounds like the composer is trying to incite a riot, it's Stravinsky.

If it sounds like there's 10 hands playing a single piano, it’s Liszt.

If it sounds like there's 10 hands playing a single piano and all of them are clinically depressed, it's Chopin.

If it sounds like two marching bands playing different songs meeting at the 0 yard line, it's Ives.

If it sounds like , it's Cage.

I'm a therapist and I've been watching this video on a loop for an hour

The fact that Microsoft Teams 🤮 contains a feature called "Teams" where actual teams can create a Team, and at Microsoft the teams working on that feature probably have a Team to discuss the Teams feature, suggests that there exists a Microsoft Microsoft Teams Teams Teams' Microsoft Teams Team.

In an unbelievable act of corporate vandalism, Paramount completely erased the entire archives of MTV dot com, wiping out more than 30 years and hundreds of thousands of pages https://www.showbiz411.com/2024/06/25/paramount-shuts-down-mtv-website-wipes-history-after-20-plus-years

My biggest wish for WWDC24 is that they don't show a video of a few dozen developers being crushed by an industrial hydraulic press to create an AI coding assistant for Xcode.

It’s so crazy that climate deniers think humans don’t cause climate change but volcanos eruptions do.

The eruption of Mount St. Helens released ~10 Mt of CO₂ into the atmosphere.

Human activities currently release that amount of CO₂ in ~2 hours.

The flip side to “Europeans are lazy and don’t work hard” is that we’re able to maintain a modern society with a high standard of living while still being able to spend time with our families. And why kill yourself through overwork when most of the rewards go to somebody else, anyway?

Remember in Blues Brothers when they end up at the Nazi rally and the point isn't even that Jake really hates Nazis, it's that Nazis are about the biggest losers that anyone could imagine. They are portrayed as completely pathetic dead-ender assholes.

Or in the Rocketeer when the mobsters find our the Sinclair guy is a Nazi and join forces with the FBI to stop them because Nazis are clearly the worst thing.

Or when Christopher Plummer rips the Nazi flag in two in Sound of Music.

None of these films were making bold political statements. The Nazis were the bad guys because that was something that everyone in the audience could agree one. Dunking on Nazis was a guaranteed crowd pleaser.

When the hell did we stop agreeing on something so simple and self-evident as Nazis Are Fucking Losers?