Mastodon Feed: Posts

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

avapolzin ("Ava Polzin") wrote:

It got a bit lost with everything else going on this week, but my (high school!) research student, Jack, has been working with me on building a low-cost home radio telescope to map Galactic 21 cm features, and his tutorial for others to do the same is now up on arXiv:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.00057

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #physics #engineering

Attachments:

• Diagram of home radio telescope setup from Phelps (2024), which can map Galactic 21 cm features from urban Los Angeles.

Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):

ErickaSimone ("Ericka Simone") wrote:

Mentally I am here:

Attachments:

• An illustrated quote from Ida B. Wells dated 1892 expresses her determination to fight injustice. The image features a portrait of Wells, holding a pistol, accompanied by text reflecting her resolve to confront oppression and seek the truth despite threats to her life. From her autobiography “Crusade for Justice:” “I had bought a pistol (the first thing after Tom Moss was lynched,) because I expected some cowardly retaliation from the lynchers. I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap. They had destroyed my paper, in which every dollar I had in the world was invested. They had made me an exile and threatened my life for hinting at the truth. I felt that I owed it to myself and my race to tell the whole truth. Having lost my paper, had a price put on my life, and been made an exile from home for hinting at the truth, I felt that I owed it to myself and to my race to tell the whole truth now that I was where I could do so freely.”

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

“The playbook for transforming a democracy into a soft autocracy… [is] clear: Win power with a populist message against elites. Redraw parliamentary districts. Change voting laws. Harass civil society. Pack courts with judges willing to support power grabs. Enrich cronies through corruption. Buy up newspapers and television stations and turn them into right-wing propaganda. Use social media to energize supporters. Wrap it up in an Us versus Them message…”

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

a powerful, and in my humble opinion, fairly accurate analysis:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/opinion/republicans-democrats-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Yk4.i-PT.Ib9ApNlspXyw&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

via NYTimes: ‘Swing-district Democrats, like Representative Tom Suozzi of New York, who held onto his seat on Trump-friendly Long Island on Tuesday, also think the party has a lot to learn.

“Trump won my district by 19,000 votes. I won by 9,000 votes,” Suozzi wrote me in a text message. “Democrats should not be asking, ‘How could they vote for him?’ They should ask, ‘Why did they vote for him?’”’

strongly agree

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io ("mekka okereke :verified:") wrote:

Black joy isn't just us having fun. It's a literal weapon of survival. Seriously!

It sucks that Black people are so good at surviving fascist Americans that wish us harm. But we are. We're kind of the world's leading experts on this.🤷🏿‍♂️

I see lots of folks talking about how to prepare for what's coming. I'm not saying those preparations are bad, but a lot of it is US-style rugged individualism.

My advice: Find your community. Strengthen those bonds. And find your sources of joy!

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

bitprophet@social.coop ("Jeff Forcier") wrote:

Bell Telephone pole test site, Chester, #NewJersey

(brief 🧵 cuz why not)

Attachments:

• Photo of a small autumnal field absolutely festooned with the bottom chunks of telephone poles in all shapes/sizes/compositions. (remote)

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

I am deeply disturbed and disappointed in Joy Reid and MSNBC for continuing to scapegoat Latinos without ever addressing the hateful rhetoric coming from liberals on social media. Or acknowledging that Latinos is a catch all phrase.

And to everyone on here, deftly maneuvering through your own hot takes, careful not to say "Latino" because you are self aware enough to know what you're doing, I see you.

Attachments:

• ebd3613221793e80.mp4

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

Ukraine updates: Musk reportedly joined Trump-Zelenskyy call

Musk was physically present with Trump when the Ukrainian leader called to congratulate him. Meanwhile, the Pentagon will reportedly allow private US defense contractors to deploy to Ukraine. DW has more.
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-updates-musk-reportedly-joined-trump-zelenskyy-call/live-70741008?

[should Musk yank StarLink from use by Ukrainian forces again, they are screwed]

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

vkc@linuxmom.net ("Veronica Explains") wrote:

Anyway, I casually mentioned that I have a wife in my last Patron update and lost a bunch of patrons as a result.

So, like, apparently I can't even share that anymore without losing my income. So yeah... I'm heading offline for a bit this weekend to regroup.

Strongly encourage anyone else who cares about themselves or their community to do the same from time to time.

Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):

The_Whore_of_Blahbylon ("The Whore of Blahbylon") wrote:

BREAKING NEWS

Attachments:

• Breaking News: The Onion on the verge of collapse after not being able to make up shit that is more idiotic than current reality.

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

listening to this NYTimes interview with Pelosi, I realize she just does not get that this was not a normal election loss. the much vaunted Democratic Party voter-contact-through-knocking-on-doors “ground game” was a failure.

agonizing reappraisal is necessary, for the Democratic Party is no longer perceived by the working class as representing it’s issues and values. perception is all in the voting booth.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

Re: Baseless election fraud conspiracies on Threads.

Liberals now have their version of Q-Anon: Stephen Spoonamore.

Attachments:

• f9eb2e3af7aecae5.jpeg
• a6c25a31e658dfef.jpeg
• 4d0667b168acace4.jpeg

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

Don't ever ask me to sing.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/11/09/my-unpleasant-christmas-memory/

Attachments:

• World's worst carol singer (remote)

Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):

ppk@front-end.social ("ppk 🇪🇺") wrote:

What do people use for cross-posting between Masto and Bluesky?

Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):

jf_718@mas.to ("Bridge&Tunnel Jeff") wrote:

I've been noticing many white women on Fedi really going hard on blaming Muslims for Harris losing, instead of looking at the majority of white women (53%) who voted for Trump and white men (59%). Which is a fairly small gap between the two, proving (again) that Whiteness regardless of gender is what caused this continuing mess that is called the USA pretty much since its founding.

I guess Islamophobia is easier than confronting your white peers.

Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):

blogdiva ("yes, it's me, liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦") wrote:

“We're also not currently at the stage where resistance fighters are most necessary.”

presumably the person who wrote this are white.

we Black and Indigenous people have been at this point forever, but especially, since the Patriot Act. we just don't have the numbers.

lynchings by police sky rocketed after the Patriot Act was passed and what did white folks do?

ask for more cops.

white people's REFUSAL to see themselves in the faces of BIPOC lynched by police is gonna get us all killed.

Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):

katiefenn@front-end.social ("Katie Fenn") wrote:

Another good excuse to drag this video out.

https://youtu.be/EEXyx0JCEvQ

Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):

catsalad@infosec.exchange ("CatSalad🐈🥗 (D.Burch) :blobcatrainbow:") wrote:

Woah woah woah! Too fast

Attachments:

• Illusion of a box within a box made of a bunch of boxes, except someone is holding the middle box. "holy shit stop scrolling so fast" (remote)

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:

The only thing scarier than the looming Trump presidency, is watching half of liberals turn into the people they've been fighting for a decade, with the other half sort of just ignoring it's happening.

Election conspiracies, paranoia, vitriol, minority scapegoating, calls for collective punishment, revenge politics, black-and-white thinking, politician worship, apathy, news outlets calling for the Dems to move further right...

We are lost.

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

masayuki60@vivaldi.net ("Masayuki60 🦮🇯🇵 🇺🇦 🐕🇺🇲📷") wrote:

A very foggy morning. Kengo is at his groomer, and I enjoyed the view of my yard. A spider with its intricately woven web. I hope its grand effort will pay off.

#fog #autumn #leaves #spider #colors #nature #photography #Fujifilm

Attachments:

• A spider in its intricately woven web in front of a house (remote)
• A foggy morning in my yard with trees with various colors of leaves: green, yellow, orange... (remote)
• A foggy morning view of woody yard with male leaves in focus (remote)
• A foggy morning view of woods: yellow leaves on the left, a tree on the right, a bush on the bottom left (remote)

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

as I have been saying for a while now: although computing brought us new general-purpose *tools*, AI brings us new forms of *agency*. we confuse the two at our peril.

“AI can process information by itself, and thereby replace humans in decision making. AI isn’t a tool—it’s an agent.”

— Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari
https://a.co/6PULswa

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

I am as guilty as anyone else in this. I let my very real past experiences of the good of individuals become a delusion of inevitability.

the moral arc of the Universe does not bend on its own.

“We should not assume that delusional networks are doomed to failure. If we want to prevent their triumph, we will have to do the hard work ourselves.”

— Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari
https://a.co/c904k6y

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

“While each individual human is typically interested in knowing the truth about themselves and the world, large networks bind members and create order by relying on fictions and fantasies.”

— Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari
https://a.co/hDeTClk

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

“Our tendency to summon powers we cannot control stems not from individual psychology... The main argument of this book is that humankind gains enormous power by building large networks of cooperation, but the way these networks are built predisposes us to use that power unwisely. Our problem, then, is a network problem.”

— Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari
https://a.co/fpyjfpE

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

More from the shoot.

📷 Pentax 6x7
🎞️ Kodak Portra 160
🔭 Super Takumar 105mm/2.4
👤 Wife
⚗ Spieker Film Lab

#BelieveInFilm #FilmPhotography #AnalogPhotography #MediumFormat

Attachments:

• A beautiful woman with black hair, wearing pearl earrings, black lipstick, and a black off-shoulder dress, in front of a green and yellow autumnal landscape.

Reblogged by jakedel@mamot.fr ("S. Delafond"):

freexian@hachyderm.io ("Freexian :debian:") wrote:

You can read about the Debian contributions made by Freexian Collaborators in October, now available at https://www.freexian.com/blog/debian-contributions-10-2024/

Thanks to the organizations subscribing to our Long Term Support contracts (https://www.freexian.com/lts/) and consulting services (https://www.freexian.com/services/) who made this possible.

#debian #freexian

Reblogged by collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth"):

dadbod@pdx.social wrote:

This guy gets it, one of the better explanations of what many people are feeling right now.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFwyyfEv/

Attachments:

• fce92516da039173.mp4 (remote)

collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth") wrote:

I might be getting too real here, but:

Saying things like "this is all part of God's plan" and "God is in control" during a fascist uprising is just writing their propaganda for them.

Reblogged by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):

jwz wrote:

Some wingnut I've never spoken to before (or again (foreshadowing!)) accused me of living in an "echo chamber" because I block people.

Fuck the "echo chamber" discourse. I reject it entirely.I am not here to wear an ascetic's hair shirt because you think that surrounding myself with dickheads builds character.

Block early and block often. I expanded on this in some detail in my "On Blocking" post from a few years back, but it bears repeating. Especially now.

https://jwz.org/b/ykcn