@JaneImber
Which is exactly why the American right-wing makes a concerted effort to keep their base ignorant about how other countries work. They are actively conditioned to believe that the US is doing literally everything better than every other country.

A reminder that many (most?) of your problems don't exist in more civilized countries. Medical care is paid for by your taxes. Homeless are housed. College is free. Wages are liveable. Sick pay and vacation time are generous. The rich pay taxes. Mass shootings are rare. Police shootings are rare. Voting is encouraged or required. BIPOC and LGBQT people live in peace. Science is funded. Allies are respected. Elderly are cared for.

This terrible country needs a reboot.

#AmericaWasNeverGreat

"They cut SNAP. So like 30% of children who rely on food stamps will lose their food stamps. "
They changed the rules about what counts as a child. It's no longer 18 & under, now it's 7 & under.

So if you're a parent with a child who would otherwise qualify for food stamps, but your child is 9, you're shit out of luck.

The GOP:
"They're literally taking food out of children's mouth to put money in Elon Musk's pocket"
@emptywheel on the @nicolesandler show.
https://www.youtube.com/live/hMeCXqlMog4?t=1804
#uspol

@hosford42 @actuallyautistic
Honestly, I would find it helpful if people would just be direct and say something like, "Hey, I'm sorry, but this is a bit too much all at once for me right now."

I'm okay with people feeling that way. I don't expect everyone to be interested in the same things I am or to the same extent. That is totally fine.

What's really uncomfortable is when people just expect me to pick up on that message based on their body language or facial expressions. I've gotten pretty good at picking up on that for the most part, but it takes *active* effort on my part. Even then, I am never 100% sure I read things right and my brain will pick that uncertainty to death.

Shit like that will literally pop into my head at random times and I'll think, "Fuck, did I annoy that person? Did I mess that entire interaction up? Do they think I'm an asshole?" There are conversations I have thought about off and on for *years.* And what really sucks is that I know none of that actually mattered all that much, but it doesn't stop it from happening.

I have been conditioned to believe that any missed cue is *my* fault, which is such bullshit. People just being explicit about their unwillingness to engage in the same amount of conversation as I am is incredibly helpful to me.

@grinningkittenpress
People talk about nihilism like it's dark and dreary. I'm sure there's plenty of nihilists like that, but if you think of it this way, that there isn't any purpose to life and you can just decide what's meaningful and worthwhile for yourself, it's incredibly liberating.

My latest coordinated-motion model is flat and based on a hexagonal tiling, with all the identical pieces moving in and out simultaneously. Naturally, assembly is very easy on a flat surface. It's too simple to be considered a puzzle. The mechanism is the same as in the classic Magic Disc and my Blast-hedra puzzles. I can make as many pieces as I like. I created this model more for the sake of completeness. Does anyone have ideas for making it more interesting? Thanks!

@VeroniqueB99 @hamkaas @kameleonnn
Because bullets don't know it's rude to show up in a stranger's home uninvited.

@nanma80
Or it doesn't have to be a puzzle, per se. If you just give them different numbers of trapezoids on each side, the middle should come together in different shapes, right? It could be fun to just make different designs.

@nanma80
Seems like it would be possible to make it so they have a different number of trapezoids on any given side so that there's only one configuration where they all slide together like that and connect in one solid-looking piece in the middle.

I keep hearing comments like “I plan to ignore it for the next four years”. This Billionaire Bill shuts down democracy. Look away at your peril.

If you support starving kids to death - you deserve the absolute worse punishments that can be given.

#IsraelIsATerroristState #USrael #BoycottIsraeliApartheid #StopGenocide #BoycottIsrael #BDS #FuckIsrael #FuckUSA #ZionismIsACult #WarCrimes #geopolitics #ColonialViolence #EthnicCleansing #Famine #Starvation #FaceOfEvil #IsraeliTerrorism #ZionistViolence #Racism #Bigotry #Fascism #Terrorism

More and more people joining our little weekly Eastbourne #Gaza protest. But really, the whole town should be there with us. As this placard says:

“one day, everyone will have always been against this”

(From Omar El Akkad’s book of the same title)

@AndreSolo @Peternimmo
I don't know, I've certainly never been scruted here and I prefer it that way.

So, how's it going over on what used to be #Twitter? "If a billionaire bought one of your local haunts, renamed it, humiliated the employees, brought back many of the people who’d been banned for harassing other regulars, eliminated basic rules of decency, started having town halls with Republicans and a leader of the AfD, taking your business elsewhere would be perfectly rational. This is essentially what’s happened on X"
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/05/stop-using-x/682931/?gift=bQgJMMVzeo8RHHcE1_KM0ZFAJnC47hGETLAEy8bNA0Q

France has raped Haiti of its wealth for generations. It's time to pay (a fraction of) it back https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/05/24/haiti-paid-france-a-costly-ransom-for-independence-some-say-it-must-be-paid-back/
#Haiti #Wealth #France #Slavery

I used to think ChatGPT was a threat to lawyers. So far, it's been great.

I'm dealing with an opposing party who's clearly using it to answer pre-litigation emails. They're very arrogantly giving me 100% wrong legal takes to justify their actions - and all in writing!

Easiest case ever. And fun!

for whom the kitty meows;
it meows for thee 🫵⁠:neocat_scream_stare:
#Caturday

Admin of todon.nl suggests, and rightly so, that the default/flagship Mastodon instance (isn’t decentralisation great?) be moved to a more neutral jurisdiction than Germany:

“Herewith the urgent request to move the Mastodon server presented to new users as the default (mastodon.social) to a more neutral jurisdiction (e.g. Switzerland). An alternative is to set up a new Mastodon server in a more neutral jurisdiction, which can then serve as a new flagship server.

The trigger for this is the regular negative moderation of people who speak out against the largest and bloodiest genocide of our time, the one in Palestine. In particular they use (or abuse, how you want to look at it) of a German law that seeks to counter so-called Holocaust reversal. With hiding behind this law, the moderators of mastodon.social (and especially its owner) are also unwittingly sitting in the chair of the (German) judge.

Apart from the fact that one local law should not affect the entire Mastodon project, the question is whether this law and the concept of Holocaust reversal are legally tenable in an international context.”

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/discussions/34747

Mastodon mod closes the ticket after stating “There is no current plan to make changes to the Mastodon instances operated by Mastodon gGmbH. People are free to choose any Mastodon server when signing up for the platform.”

And this (see screenshot) is what that “choice” looks like.

This decentralisation anti-pattern – along with the fact that they didn’t close registrations after hitting a certain size to create a social precedent and allow distribution to other servers (as I advised Eugen to do back in the day) – is why there is a flagship instance to begin with when it’s an absolute contradiction of terms in a system that purports to be decentralised.

#fediverse #mastoson #mastodonSocial #todonNL #Germany #israel #genocide #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #settlerColonialism #Palestine #Gaza

@drgroftehauge @Nickiquote
"I'm not going to let the Nazis drive *me* out," says man at Nazi bar as he hands his money to the Nazi bartender for another Nazi beer that he enjoys alongside Nazis.

What a bunch of fucking ding dongs.

I thought we were supposed to be the pious, woke, humourless ones, with our content warnings for eyes and booze and meat and scolding people for not alt texting their photos of boozy eye meat.

It turns out we’re just inscrutable. Incomprehensible. Like quantum science, an ancient god or a poorly-designed board game.