volkris @volkris@qoto.org
Since I guess everything is political these days, I'll identify as extremely liberal but without a home in US politics.
Mainly, there's so much misinformation out there that people in society have trouble even organizing into coherent political groupings. So I'd rather not talk about politics but instead focus on information and education. Nothing else matters until the bedrock of fact is buttressed.
But... people are always going to be wrong on the internet, as the saying goes.
So: Old man yells at clouds is a famous joke from The Simpsons, and it probably fairly describes what we do when venting on social media.
Just speaking into the void, since I figure it's an exercise in futility to conduct discussions on these platforms.
Joined Dec 2022
volkris
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Sculptures of Dante and Homer from the front of the former Albany Academy in the Woodlands area of Glasgow. Dating from 1875, the sculptor is unknown.
#glasgow #sculpture #dante #homer #architecture #glasgowarchitecture #glasgowsculpture #stonework
The #DebtCeiling narrative that most have bought into is so backwards from how the federal government is actually designed, and so what's actually happening here.
And the reality is much more interesting and dramatic.
Fundamentally, this is a president requesting more power, power to borrow. Alright, what does he want to use to convince the Congress to expand his power like that? Well, his rhetoric has been to offer nothing: he demands that power without proposing anything in exchange for it, not even checks on how he's to use the power.
But to give his position SOME oomph he's been on a tear in the public, threatening to order the US Treasury, his executive branch department mind, to default on US debt, which would be unconstitutional and, IMO, impeachable.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have voted to give him expanded power to borrow, and they're the only group who have done so, and yet THEY'RE the problem? The only ones that have responded to the president's request?
Oh, and let's not forget that this president signed the legislation to put the US in this position in the first place, almost like he set the stage for this power grab.
It's quite the dramatic story, that most people seem to be missing.
volkris
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"Please Stand By - Jacking In..."
Last night at the spooky goth club, someone handed me a floppy disk with a zine on it! I'm living the dream, you guys. It was quite a journey getting it to run. Is there a decent HyperCard player (vintage 1991) that...
https://jwz.org/b/yj_2
volkris
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Friend texting me: I could SWEAR I saw you just now at the airport carrying a duffel bag.
Me: I am here! Terminal A?
Friend: No! Terminal D!
Me: Huh. Must be my duffelganger.
volkris
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"A trench of jostling anglerfish, gaping and preening and starving for lack of prey"
There's too much to quote here; this is brutal: Burning Down The House: The overheated register in which Silicon Valley types have tended to talk about Twitter -- as...
https://jwz.org/b/yj_1
volkris
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@Gargron Hi, I post sexual content of an educational nature - SexEd for adults. Please can you tell me if there is a mastodon server that allows sexual content? Or is it like LinkedIn where all sexual references must be covered up? Thanks for your help! Jane
Too rarely mentioned is that the #Title42 immigration statute, that's big in the news this week, is a law with certain guidelines, not just something one president made up that another can end.
One reason to emphasize this is, of course, so we can call for revamping of the law if need be.
And to hold presidents accountable for actually following these laws.
I think people complaining today about #CNN giving #Trump airtime should consider that it seems his performance served to show the country that he hasn't changed, and he's not being misreported on, we see directly from him that he really is just as awful and not worthy of election as he was last time he lost.
Had the event not been broadcast there would have remained a more doubt among people on the fence, that maybe his handlers finally got through to him that he has to act different if he wants to be president.
So it's a case of, Don't deplatform, instead let people show you for themselves how awful they are, so they can be judged with even more finality.
Also, I suspect it was a no win situation for Trump. Had he pretended to be moderate then his supporters would have gotten upset.
volkris
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Neato!: https://subtls.pages.dev/
This page produces an annotated transcript of fetching itself via HTTPS over TLS.
Maybe the hearing was a complete lie. Maybe all of the evidence is fabricated. Maybe this is nothing but a witch hunt.
But I really do think that there should at least be discussion about this congressional hearing on this platform, and even after specifically searching for discussion, I see literally two people talking about it.
Echo chambers are so dangerous to our society. It's really unfortunate that this platform seems to be embracing echo chamber effects, often very deliberately.
NEW - House Oversight reveals the nine Biden family members that received wire transfers from foreign nationals via shell companies. 1. Hunter Bide...
volkris
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Someone around here recently linked to this two-second explanation explaining why they wrote Bluesky.
With ActivityPub the Fediverse has us all counting on instances.
Sure, we can sort of change from one instance to another, but it's a kludge. We don't really move but rather start a whole new account and set up a note on the old instance pointing to the new one, IF the old instance decides to cooperate. See how tied we are to instances here?
I always thought this was a huge issue, a huge mistake in the core design of ActivityPub, one that can't really be changed at this point.
Bluesky does this better, putting the power in users' hands and allowing users to actually move from one node to another, decentralizing all the way down to the user.
https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/issues/255#issuecomment-1287953987
No, separation of powers doesn't allow the president to unilaterally borrow money without authorization.
It's exactly the opposite:
BECAUSE of separation of powers, the Congress cannot stop the president from performing his constitutional duty to service the debt, as per the 14th Amendment, when when the Treasury has the cash to do so.
And it's just shameful that Biden has been using those threats to duck his 14th Amendment responsibilities to push for greater borrowing power.
volkris
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volkris
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🚨 MASTODON NOW HAS COMMENT THREADING! 🚨
This makes following a conversation much easier, especially in long threads with many participants.
It's a major usability improvement, and makes Mastodon much easier to use.
https://mastodon.social has comment threading right now, and only on the native web. This feature should be available on other servers and clients with a future update.
See screenshot as an example.
How do you feel about the addition of this feature?
volkris
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pspsps fedi
if anybody here wants to try out owncast but is on the fence about actually doing it from the effort of setting up and paying for a server
from today until june 1st i'm willing to host an owncast instance for anybody at no cost
the only catch is just that this is just temporary, a trial offer to make it easy for people to give it a try basically, its open from now until june 2nd, after which everyone will be provided with the full backup to continue with on another host if desired
why? i'm doing this because i setup a server for myself to try owncast, but my internet isn't good enough to use it myself, however the server is fine and its not going to cost me anything to keep it running for the next month
so instead of letting the server go unused i figure i could use it to give others who are on the fence about it the opportunity to try owncast
you can either bring your own domain (which i recommend, because that will let you continue hosting with little effort)
or i can provide a subdomain (<name>.cast.tela.moe) just be aware that you can't change the domain after the fact, and i don't have the setup to allow you to keep the subdomain
i'm not putting up any strict rules on what you could stream, i'm not twitch or youtube i'm not going to bonk you for swearing too much, just no illegal content or hate content, and because the server would be shared no 24/7 streams
if anyone is interested send me a DM and we'll sort it out
#owncast #fediverse
I always find it funny when "fascist" is apparently the term for someone pointing out simple facts or science or math.
It's one of those things where you can see that name calling doesn't promote any argument, when it ends up being that whatever derogatory term is conflated with people who actually know things.
"Oh you can do calculus? Well you must be a <insert slur>!"
Well apparently those <slur> people are pretty smart and informed! Go figure!
Just to highlight another case of how we live in completely different worlds when we don't stop to figure out matters of basic fact, compare this week's breathless reporting on mifepristone against the Supreme Court's release:
"As narrowed by the Court of Appeals, the stay that would apply if we failed to broaden it would not remove mifepristone from the market. It would simply restore the circumstances that existed (and that the Government defended) from 2000 to 2016 under three Presidential administrations."
Press outlet after outlet said the opposite. So, would have been nice if we could all get on the same page about this kind of thing.
It's pretty funny that two big dramatic things in #USPolitics right now is Thomas taking vacations with friends (how dare he not disclose that?!) and NPR accepting money from the US government (how dare #Twitter disclose that?!).
Well, funny might not be the right word.
It's sad. But this is Fediverse.
volkris
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I’ve found the BlueSky team to be very purposeful. It’s not run or owned by Jack, it’s not Jack’s thing, although he is on the board (it’s a Public Benefit Corporation in the US).
Jay Graber is the CEO & founder who fought for it to be independent of Twitter & calling it Jack’s thing erases her. It’s not great.
It’s another open protocol that makes different trade offs than ActivityPub.
I wrote more about the protocol and open source code earlier https://cosocial.ca/@boris/110149727703071833
Since I guess everything is political these days, I'll identify as extremely liberal but without a home in US politics.
Mainly, there's so much misinformation out there that people in society have trouble even organizing into coherent political groupings. So I'd rather not talk about politics but instead focus on information and education. Nothing else matters until the bedrock of fact is buttressed.
But... people are always going to be wrong on the internet, as the saying goes.
So: Old man yells at clouds is a famous joke from The Simpsons, and it probably fairly describes what we do when venting on social media.
Just speaking into the void, since I figure it's an exercise in futility to conduct discussions on these platforms.
Joined Dec 2022
