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pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

Guess who is in charge of telling American history for the 250th birthday?

PragerU.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/07/04/dreading-2026/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGG0BjXeIGE

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
phooky@hexa.club wrote:

Fedi, help me solve a fifty year old mystery. These are the dominoes from my childhood. They're wooden, but they have a very detailed pattern impressed in them. What kind of wood are these? And how did they manage to emboss such an elaborate pattern? (Scale: these are about 1" x 1/2")

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
Catlynn@nerdculture.de ("squirrelygirl") wrote:

I’ve been wondering what to name this new hummingbird but than I realized it’s just my backyard hummingbird tricking me. I wondered why the new bird was so comfortable with me ☺️ The light is better in the front yard so it’s easier to see what a beauty he is. I have spent countless hours sitting with this little guy. The world can be crumbling and Little Bit goes about his business. I love his consistency 🤗

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
MLE_online@social.afront.org ("Emily Velasco") wrote:

Other than a few minor loose ends I need to take care of, i think my homemade ebike is, as they say, d-u-n-n, done

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange ("abadidea") wrote:

Wikipedia has a cheat sheet of well-known tells for identifying generated text. (With an appropriate warning not to over-index on minor ones as absolute proof) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject%5FAI%5FCleanup/AI%5Fcatchphrases

Boosted by taral ("JP Sugarbroad"):
junebug@slime.global ("Perfect Butterfly Angel") wrote:

Everybody wants to make a game about running a small business when what we SHOULD be doing is making a game about running an office of public infrastructure. i don't WANT to spend every day "making money at my cute cozy shop" i want to run a cute cozy POST OFFICE or BUS STATION or WATER TREATMENT PLANT

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

Business Man - Tom Cardy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsIBPTTqreM

Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
jef ("Jef Poskanzer") wrote:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us.

Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
jef ("Jef Poskanzer") wrote:

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

Captured with the Rodenstock 70mm/5.6 Digaron lens and a bit of vertical shift. The afternoon light highlights the basic arched form of the bridge structure against the background and foreground foliage. A polarizer darkened the clear winter sky.

The Taft Bridge, named for the famously portly US president and SCOTUS chief justice, is the largest unreinforced concrete bridge in the world. Comprising seven major arches over Rock Creek Park, it links the Kalorama and Woodly Park neighborhoods.

mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze") wrote:

Taft (Connecticut Avenue) Bridge, Washington, DC, 2019.

Bigger and heavier pixels at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/49245011451

#photography

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

Herr Trump once again claims he does not know what he says is a racist slur

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/general/donald-trump-calls-bankers-shylocks-says-he-didn-t-know-it-was-considered-antisemitic/vi-AA1HYamm?ocid=BingNewsVerp#details

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

Lots of flag-waving, parades and bands everywhere….

As Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in Germany, observers wrote repeatedly about how exciting this all was — both to Germans and outside observers (that is, observers who ignored thugs beating and disappearing folks as the "excitement" unfolded).

There were parades! Torchlight processions! Pageants and festivals! Lots of singing, marching, bands galore! Flags waving everywhere! (Book burnings and pogroms.)

#FourthofJuly #Trump
/1

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

Frederick Douglass’s famous “FOURTH OF JULY” speech
(Presented 5 July 1852 in Rochester NY)

https://loveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1852FrederickDouglass.pdf

worth reading

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
tante@tldr.nettime.org wrote:

"Whatever" is a brilliant essay on "AI" by @eevee:

"But I think the core of what pisses me off is that selling this magic machine requires selling the idea that doing things is worthless. Because if doing something has some value, then it must be somehow better than pushing a button and receiving Whatever for essentially no cost."

https://eev.ee/blog/2025/07/03/the-rise-of-whatever/

pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

Put away the hot dogs and fireworks, we're in mourning at this house.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/07/04/im-cancelling-the-fourth-of-july-at-my-house/

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
minouette@spore.social ("Ele Willoughby, PhD") wrote:

Happy birthday to #astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921) who set the scale of our Universe. My portrait of Leavitt is printed in silvery lavender ink on Japanese kozo (or mulberry paper). Behind her is a line showing stellar luminosity (capital L with subscript sun-symbol, a circle with a dot) as a function of time (t). She is printed over constellations in gold (Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Draco, 🧵

#linocut #printmaking #WomenInSTEM #sciart #histstm #astronomy #constellation #mastoArt

jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:

Happy Fourth of July

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
nsmsn@social.lol ("Nick Simson") wrote:

I’m the 97th person with a blog to be featured in the ‘People and Blogs’ series.

The world certainly feels like it’s on fire, but I’m happy with how this interview turned out.

https://manuelmoreale.com/pb-nick-simson

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
shadowsminder@wandering.shop ("A.L. Blacklyn") wrote:

For this Fourth of July, can you help a Southern Black woman who was fired for promoting her rural town library and community?

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-lavonnia-moore-seek-justice-and-equality

News: https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/georgia/pierce-county-ga-library-manager-book-display/77-cbd989f0-7464-40e9-ace6-41704310a72f

#ColorOurWorld #FreedomToRead #Facebook #LibraryCensorship #bookBanning #GoFundMe

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
RickiTarr@beige.party ("Ricki Bowie Knives Tarr") wrote:

Okay, I've mentioned this a few times, but let's talk about The Orange Alternative. It's Poland in the 80's and an art history student noticed that when someone would paint an anti-authoritarian message, it would very quickly get painted over by the government. He decided to paint a dwarf with an orange hat any time he'd see the white paint that covered these messages. Soon other people were doing the same. They embraced this kind of absurdism, what the government was doing was ridiculous, so they leaned into it. The paintings of dwarves soon became organized street parties. They would all wear orange pointy hats and walk through the streets with banners, chanting Dwarf Dwarf Dwarf! They would pool what little extra funds they had together and buy things that people needed like toliet paper and tampons, and would have street fairs with food and dancing, and hand them out. At Christmas, they would dress as Santas, and do the same. The police were flummoxed by what to do, if they arrested people for wearing hats and giving out tampons, they looked foolish and would be embarrassed, not sure what to do with these surreal forms of protest.

There is so much more to this, definitely read up on it, but it was an effective form of protest, creating community, spreading joy and absurdism, because authoritarian governments are absurd. Protests are going to look like a lot of different things, and this is just one of them.

In Russia, they have created Little Picketers, tiny rough clay figures holding banners, that they press into people's hands to remind them, that they aren't alone.

So, don't believe the propaganda, you aren't alone in caring, you aren't alone in wanting a different world, put on your goofiest hat, and let people know they aren't alone either.

fribbledom ("muesli") wrote:

The difference between a million and a billion is roughly...

*checks calculator*

...a billion.

I, too, am available for tutoring.

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

awww, purty baby tomatoes

fribbledom ("muesli") wrote:

Tomorrow, today will just be yesterday.

ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕") wrote:

Giving FreeTube another shot today. Works really well, but the only problem is when YouTube decide to be silly and break stuff.

Boosted by ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕"):
eco-g@stroud.social ("Cllr Gareth Kitchen") wrote:

Green Peer Jenny Jones tabled a “motion to regret” to government plans to proscribe Palestine Action in the House of Lords, the strongest opposition allowed, reports the Guardian.

Jenny told the government:

If you want Palestine Action to disappear, then stop sending arms to Israel and giving military support to a foreign government engaged in ethnic cleansing. There are many things Palestine Action has done I don’t agree with, but spraying paint on refuelling planes that campaigners believe are used to help the ethnic cleansing in Gaza is not terrorism. It’s criminal damage, which we already have laws for.

The motion of regret was rejected by 144 votes to 16, a majority of 128. Palestine Action will challenge its proscription at the Royal Courts of Justice today from 10.30am.

#GreenParty #ukpol #PalestineAction

Boosted by ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕"):
lionelb@expressional.social ("LionelB") wrote:

There are two things we need from Labour. Proportional representation for UK elections and serious moves towards rejoining the EU.

These are not just 'policy nice-to-haves'. They are existential.

Without both of those things we follow the US into fascism.

#ukpol

Boosted by jwz:
lain@cyber.ms ("Lain Iwakura Bot") wrote:

📺 Serial Experiments Lain

🗓️ Season: S01E06
🎥 Episode: Kids
🎬 Directed by: Ryūtarō Nakamura
📅 Release Date: August 10, 1998
⏯ Frame: 0650

jwz wrote:

If you have been wondering, "is it worth the time to figure out how to switch fail2ban from iptables to ipset", the answer is yes. The difference it made for me was "load is often > 12" to "load is never > 1".

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam Newbold"):
macmanx@social.lol ("James Huff :prami_pride_pan:") wrote:

:usa_distress: