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

playing around with @simon wonderful `llm` commandline tool tonight:

% llm -s "act like you are a D&D assistant using the SRD rules." "create a complete character sheet for a Ranger character and give it to me in markdown, please" > rangerCharSheet.md

% pandoc -o rangerCharSheet.html < rangerCharSheet.md

and the test results actually ain't too bad:

https://arghstudios.com/support/rangerCharSheet.html

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Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
lumon@beep.town ("Lumon Gif Refinery") wrote:

Attachments:

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
workingclasshistory ("Working Class History") wrote:

#OtD 2 Mar 1955 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to vacate her bus seat for whites. Her case wasn't taken up by civil rights leaders for legal technical reasons, as well as public opinion worries about her class and dark skin. More: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9207/claudette-colvin-arrested

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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
katq906@mastodon.online ("KatQ") wrote:

@DemocracyMattersALot Crypto is just a money laundering tool, if the US Government does it, it is just a means of robbing the treasury. No American should stand for it.

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slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Hey Econ profession, is fiddling with the econometric data a *good* sign for a nation's future prosperity?

https://apnews.com/article/trump-gdp-economy-government-spending-lutnick-7414ba1bd441bd4bf64620bfd66923b2

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adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold") wrote:

Adrien Brody, in his Oscar acceptance speech: “If the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”

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Boosted by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):
skiles@carhenge.club ("John Skiles Skinner") wrote:

I got laid off today, with the rest of 18F.

18F was an elite federal software shop. We made gov't websites work better, more efficiently for the American people. We saved taxpayers from getting screwed over by contractors. And were fired for it.

We made this website to tell our story:

https://18f.org/

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Boosted by jwz:
Okanogen ("okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin") wrote:

#Ukraine #zelenskyy

Alien threatens bald, crying Ripley (Alien3) meme. Captioned "Have you said thank you even once?".

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Boosted by jwz:
kiwix ("Kiwix") wrote:

"Swasticar" made its way to #Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swasticar

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Boosted by jwz:
nodename wrote:

Seen on 14th St, San Francisco

On graffitied wall, a poster of Luigi as a saint. He shows an open book; on the left page it says "deny delay depose" and facing is a caduceus.

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Boosted by jwz:
geekmomprojects ("GeekMomProjects") wrote:

Finished V2 of the truncated icosahedron, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. The sides are 32 hexagonal and pentagonal PCBs, joined by 3D printed corner connectors and covered with 3D printed diffusers. The pixels are mapped and it's running 3D animation patterns on a #pixelblaze.

Attachments:

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Boosted by jwz:
heidilifeldman ("Heidi Li Feldman") wrote:

Some words the U.S. military is dropping from its vocabulary: dignity, respect, history. https://www.tpr.org/military-veterans-issues/2025-02-28/u-s-military-removes-words-history-respect-dignity-from-digital-presence-as-part-of-dei-review

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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
molly0xfff@hachyderm.io ("Molly White") wrote:

The rot exposed here seems to go far deeper than a random blockchain VC firm. Those behind massive Solana projects including Meteora and Jupiter have been accused of involvement in a massive insider trading scheme. Meteora’s cofounder has already resigned.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #Argentina

But the rot uncovered here seems to go far deeper than just some random blockchain venture capital firm. A recording of a 26-minute-long call between Moty Povolotski, the co-founder of a project called DefiTuna, and Ben Chow, a co-founder of the Meteora decentralized exchange, was posted on Twitter.6 Meteora and Jupiter are two popular Solana decentralized exchanges, which have enjoyed massive spikes in trading volume amid the memecoin frenzy. Ben Chow has just resigned amid allegations that he was directly involved in a massive insider trading scheme implicating other members of Solana defi projects including Jupiter, and involving presidentially-linked tokens Libra and $MELANIA. It turns out that the owner of Jupiter, known only as “meow”, also co-founded Meteora, which we learned when he came forward to announce that he would be kicking off an independent investigation of activities at Meteora under Chow’s leadership, although he also “reiterate[d his] confidence that no one at Jupiter or Meteora committed any insider trading or financial wrongdoing”. The call is so bonkers that I just transcribed the whole dang thing for you. “The whole thing just looks rotten to the very core. Like, I don't have words to express...” said Povolotski, describing witnessing rampant manipulation and token sniping by the people launching presidentially-linked tokens, the influencers being paid to promote them, and those working at major Solana projects including Jupiter and Meteora. Both Pov

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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
Daojoan ("JA Westenberg") wrote:

I for one am thrilled that journalism has been saved by everyone moving to substack. cant wait to find out what happens when a single company controls the publish button for every opinion worth reading. history has no lessons here

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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
molly0xfff@hachyderm.io ("Molly White") wrote:

The DOE “book banning hoax” press release claimed that challenged books are “age-inappropriate, sexually explicit, or obscene”. Only 13% of banned books in 2023–24 included “on the page” sexual scenes—but 36% featured PoC characters and 25% featured LGBTQ characters.

via https://pen.org/report/cover-to-cover/

#censorship #BookBanning

Certain identities are being removed from library shelves en masse. During the 2023-2024 school year, 36% of all banned titles featured characters or people of color and a quarter (25%) included LGBTQ+ people or characters. Of titles with LGBTQ+ people or characters, over a quarter (28%) feature trans and/or genderqueer characters. Erasure of identities is pervasive within banned illustrated and graphic-heavy titles. For example, 73% of all graphic and illustrated titles feature visuals with LGBTQ+ representation, of people or characters of color, or that address race/racism. More specifically, 64% of banned picture books have pictures or illustrations that depict LGBTQ+ characters or stories. For all the inflammatory rhetoric about “explicit books,” only 13% of banned titles had “on the page” descriptions of sexual experiences, compared to 31% with “off the page” sexual experiences. Overall, 40% of banned titles include sexual experiences (some contained both “on” and “off the page”). Books banned during the 2023-2024 school year overwhelmingly address violence (65%), death and grief (55%), and abuse (43%); all very real human experiences.

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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
molly0xfff@hachyderm.io ("Molly White") wrote:

While Bybit’s CEO immediately claimed that “all of client assets are 1 to 1 backed”, it was later disclosed that wasn’t true. Bybit papered over the stolen funds by taking loans from other exchanges and crypto VCs, but their ability to repay those loans will remain to be seen.

#crypto #cryptocurrency

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou was quick to try to reassure customers that “Bybit is Solvent even if this hack loss is not recovered, all of clients assets are 1 to 1 backed, we can cover the loss.”14 Many customers weren’t satisfied with his promises,b and they withdrew a combined more than $5.5 billion from the exchange after the theft was announced. Bybit was able to satisfy the withdrawals, and has since said they “closed the gap” in ETH supplies to back client assets through a combination of OTC purchases and loans from exchanges and crypto VCs.15 The lack of skepticism around Bybit’s solvency is a little odd to me. For one, it’s clear that the assets were not 1:1 backed at the time of Zhou’s tweet, given that 400,000 ETH had just been stolen. Bybit later issued a press release boasting that they were “Fully Backed Within 72 hours”, acknowledging themselves that customer balances weren’t fully backed for those three days.16 Furthermore, much of the “gap” has been papered over with loans rather than the firm’s own assets. As we saw with Genesis’s $1.1 billion “loan” to try to cover losses in 2022 [I74], a company’s ability to secure a loan to cover a hole does not magically make that hole disappear. While Bybit’s proof-of-reserves demonstrates that the company now holds a sufficient quantity of ETH to back customer balances, these reports do not evaluate Bybit’s ability to repay the loans or provide any information about the terms of those loans.

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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
molly0xfff@hachyderm.io ("Molly White") wrote:

But the “announcement” doesn’t seem to actually announce anything new, and instead seems to be Trump’s attempt to apply some electroshock paddles to the easily swayed crypto markets.

Every time he does this, it seems to work less and less.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

Besides the mention of specific crypto assets, Trump’s post doesn’t actually appear to announce anything new, and instead reiterates that his “Executive Order on Digital Assets directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve” [I75]. (I will note that the actual wording of the EO was more guarded, directing the working group not to “move forward on” a strategic reserve, but rather to “evaluate the potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile”.) Nonetheless, crypto prices rallied a bit, with bitcoin returning to around $93,000. This was still somewhat of a subdued recovery, only juicing bitcoin back to around its February 25 price, leaving me wondering how many promises Trump has left in the tank to keep bitcoin prices pumped up as they are now. Without the actual government infusion of cash into bitcoin markets via this “strategic reserve” gambit — something that may yet be a ways off, could take various forms, and could fail to materialize entirely — words alone seem to be running out.

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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
molly0xfff@hachyderm.io ("Molly White") wrote:

Newsletter: President on brink of bailout for bitcoin

Trump tries to breathe life back into the crypto markets’ “Trump pump” while federal regulatory agencies wash their hands of any crypto industry oversight

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-78/

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

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

“In 1994, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan surrendered all the nuclear weapons on their territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union to Russia, by signing the Budapest Memorandum and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In return, the US and Russia, in particular, guaranteed their territorial integrity.”

for some definitions of guarantee

https://www.dw.com/en/ukrainians-react-to-trump-zelenskyy-fracas-in-white-house/a-71795975

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jwz wrote:

Doloresaurus: A data privacy lawyer during the day, in the evening, Mead slips into his 6-foot tall, 7-foot-long luminous dinosaur costume and Dolores Park becomes Jurassic Park. "This is how I deal with my day, with my life choices that led me to...
https://jwz.org/b/yki3

Screenshot

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adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold") wrote:

Can I just say how much I love that CNN’s Aerospace Analyst is named Miles O’Brien? #tng

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adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold") wrote:

Hoping everyone in the Carolinas is safe from the wildfires. 🫂

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jwz wrote:

Lindsay Young: I am the Executive Director of 18F and 18F's longest running employee- I have been at 18F for 10 years. You may not have heard of us, but last night proved that we are powerful. The way the administration ran to get rid of us under the...
https://jwz.org/b/yki1

Screenshot

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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
adamshostack@infosec.exchange ("Adam Shostack :donor: :rebelverified:") wrote:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

There's a reason I regularly repost the Declaration of Independence. It's fantastic as a statement of how governments ought to work.

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slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Even the FT is calling out Dems for being MIA.

https://on.ft.com/4bqNEtW

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
Eve@romancelandia.club ("Eve AKA Bailey Stewart") wrote:

Well ... there you go ...

themoscowtimes.com Kremlin Says U.S. Foreign Policy Shift Aligns With Its Own Vision (screenshot of The Moscow Times webpage)

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
professor444 ("k.c.") wrote:

ANYWAYS

Where are the Black people on here????

I need more of my people on my TL cuz it’s starting to look like a Smashmouth concert mixed with the RNC on my TL

#blackmastodon

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
wdlindsy@toad.social ("William Lindsey :toad:") wrote:

As Jamison Foser notes, corporate media are, indeed, a huge part of what has brought the US to the state it now finds itself in — and we only deceive ourselves if we expect media owned, controlled, and managed by the super-rich to do better

The screenshot is an excerpt from his linked article.

#Musk #Trump #chaos #destruction #FederalGovernment #firings #workers
/6

https://www.findinggravity.net/p/jeff-bezoss-washington-post-coddles

A screenshot from an article by Jamison Foser (linked in the posting) about the dismal performance of corporate media

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
TomWellborn@universeodon.com ("TomWellborn3") wrote:

Musk’s reckless cuts to USAID nearly killed Ebola prevention. Lives are on the line, and his "fixing mistakes" excuse is pure incompetence. This isn’t tech, it's fucking manslaughter.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musks-doge-mistakes-will-cost-lives/

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
johnquiggin@aus.social ("John Quiggin") wrote:

Time to cut off all EU aid to Hungary, set an example for other rightwing freeloaders. If Orban vetos EU initiatives, meet separately and do them anyway. Then find a way to suspend/expel

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/02/orban-problem-pushes-eu-towards-coalitions-of-the-willing-on-ukraine-russia