Mastodon Feed: Posts

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

In EXACTLY ONE MONTH my new novel, The Shattering Peace, comes out, and I'm on tour for two weeks, with additional appearances through the year. I'm all over the US; please come see me! Tour locations with links to dates/venues are up at my site. See you soon!

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/16/the-shattering-peace-tour-dates-other-remaining-2025-appearances-now-live/

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
sstephenson@indieweb.social ("Sam Stephenson") wrote:

Someone should do to “rowling” today what Dan Savage did to “santorum” 20 years ago

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
rail@flufftech.net ("rail 🦊 (sysadmin puppy)") wrote:

it's only true sabotage if it comes from the Sabot region of France

otherwise it's just generic sparkling interference

Boosted by adam@social.lol ("Adam"):
MikeElgan ("Mike Elgan") wrote:

TIRED: "glasshole"

WIRED: "groksucker"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/groksucker

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

“What’s wrong babe, you’ve barely touched your AI newsroom”

Won’t link to the Substack, but Henry Blodget’s creepy all-AI-employee news thing hasn’t seen a new post in nearly two months. Did all of the AI employees quit? Or maybe some of that special AI ✨sparkle✨ has faded.

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

looking for lunch

Boosted by mattblaze@federate.social ("Matt Blaze"):
jswatz_tx@threads.net ("John Schwartz") wrote:

Want to read my article about Jim Sanborn and the Kryptos sculpture at the CIA headquarters? It’s been a wild ride. Here’s a gift link. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/science/kryptos-sculpture-cia-solution-auction.html?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.ek8.6Ivg.Y%5FFaGs6ctqUg&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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

It's been difficult to separate the new World Trade Center building from that terrible day in 2001, but we now have the benefit of just enough time that we can begin to discuss the tower as a piece of architecture and as part of the skyline, on its own terms.

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

It's generally simpler to capture tall skyscrapers like this from a distant vantage point; the classic photos of WTC are usually shot from Brooklyn or New Jersey. But here I wanted to show it as it's seen in the neighborhood. The foreground buildings look taller in the frame, but the (much taller) One WTC tower still stands out, given its uncrowded position in the skyline, as if its neighbors maintain a respectful distance.

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

This was captured with the Rodenstock 70mm/5.6 HR Digaron-W lens. A large image circle allows room for considerable movements, used here to swing to selectively focus on the WTC tower. A polarizer darkened the clear sky a bit, as well as taming some of the highlights reflected off the glass wall of the tower.

The shape of the new One WTC makes the light catch it differently throughout the day and in different weather. I made several exposures at different times before settling on this one.

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

One World Trade Center (and Neighbors), NYC, 2019.

All the pixels, none of the tourists, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/49291055921

#photography

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

I'm back giving amfora (gemini client) a try. If anyone's got any gem capsules, I'd love to read them.

denschub@schub.social ("Dennis Schubert") wrote:

@Iconfactory

a super fun thing you can do with those pixelated portraits is to downsample them to their "native" resolution, 64x64, save them as a PNG with indexed colors, which gets you down to ~1KIB file size. In my case, it's 996 bytes.

You can then use them on a website with the image-rendering: pixelated; CSS directive and just scale them up as you want. Always looks sharp, perfect results, profile picture for less data than the HTML page it's contained within. Now live at https://overengineer.dev/me/card/ because why not.

adele@social.pollux.casa ("Adële") wrote:

I've opened an issue about @Tusky

I'm unable to post a new toot on my #gotosocial instance with #tusky 30.0

Do you encounter the same issue ?

https://codeberg.org/tusky/Tusky/issues/5224

Boosted by adele@social.pollux.casa ("Adële"):
marczz@framapiaf.org wrote:

@Edwin085 it seems it is an hoax https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/30/fact-check-story-boy-cardboard-nintendo-console-unproven/4310183001/
@adele

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

I learned a bit of local history today.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/08/16/you-may-have-heard-about-minnesota-winters/

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

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
CarveHerName@mstdn.social wrote:

#OnThisDay, 11 Aug 1942 Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil receive a patent for their radio guidance system – the tech that now underpins wifi.

Learn more about Hedy's remarkable life here: https://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/youmustrememberthispodcastblog/2015/1/14/star-wars-episode-iii-hedy-lamarr-ymrt-29

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #HollywoodHistory #Histodons

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
SmudgeTheInsultCat@mas.to ("Smudge The Insult Cat 🐀") wrote:

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

Airshow in central Minnesota today. Also more thunderstorms.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/08/16/airshow-today/

Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
geekysteven@beige.party wrote:

Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
EndIsraeliApartheid ("End Israeli Apartheid") wrote:

Israel’s manufactured famine is being used, according to Amnesty, as a “weapon of war.”

However, public support for the famine amongst Israelis is also disturbingly widespread.

During a speech streamed live on TVs and social media in Israel, Rabbi Ronen Shaulov said: "All of Gaza, and every child in Gaza should starve to death. I have no mercy for them…even though they are still young and hungry, I hope they starve to death."

https://www.thecanary.co/long-read/2025/08/15/israel-famine-gaza-latest/

🕎 🇵🇸 ☮️
#Gaza #Palestine
#Press #News

Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
ridicol ("ridicol 🍉🇵🇸 🏳️‍🌈💚") wrote:

#EndTheOccupation
#Gaza #WarCrimes #FreePalestine #IsraelApartheid #Genocide
#EndTheArmsTrade #BoycottBoeing

Attachments:

• video: 0eba99607412532d.mp4

aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan") wrote:

Oh, did you think the israel model would be confined to the Middle East? Why should it? Didn’t all our Western governments just declare it kosher?

First, they came for the Palestinians… https://kolektiva.social/@DoomsdaysCW/115034832497483253

aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan") wrote:

Yeah, I knew some lovely people who worked at Twitter too. And did you know they once had unfettered API access and anyone could create their own client? Some of us loved that so much we built things that helped legitimise them as an open platform. And then one day they just switched that off.

Legitimacy is gold to venture-capital-funded startups. They need people with it to convince everyday folks that this latest iteration of the same old rug pull is different. Until they’ve grown so much that they don’t need it anymore, that is. I guess we haven’t learned that much after all.

You want to understand Bluesky? Imagine if Google had invented email and scaled Gmail before allowing others to set up their own email servers, knowing that maybe a handful would and that they were large enough to make the rules ad infinitum. That’s Bluesky.

Don’t fall for the latest venture-capital funded Silicon Valley social network no matter who tells you it’s fine and no matter how many words they use to do so. Especially when we’ve had a noncommercial and noncorporate alternative for close to a decade now in the form of the fediverse.

I know it’s a low bar but can we please at least get it through our thick heads that venture capital funded Silicon Valley Big Tech does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115034545696148137

#BlueSky #BigTech #ventureCapital

Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
sheislaurence wrote:

🧵3/3: please help share that #Palestinian song far and wide, #repost #retoot. While it talks about #Jamal, Ahmed posted it straight after the killing of #Anas & #Aljazeera journalists & dedicated it "to #truth". To support Ahmed, #GazaBirdsSing and #music in #Gaza, please consider giving to his GoFundMe. Given the price of a bag of flour is between $300 to $700, his total currently covers less than one loaf of bread a day for 6 months. https://www.gofundme.com/f/hello-peace-help-innocent-people-to-survive

#FreePalestine @Palestine

Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
sheislaurence wrote:

🧵2/3: Ahmed is using the sound of an incessant #Israeli #drone over #Gaza to pitch his #singing. Miraculously, it remains stable for the entire song, when they usually change pitch making their presence unbearable.The song is about #Jamal carrying a load, a direct reference to a 14 y.o. boy who defied gunfire at a #GHF food distribution point to carry a bag of flour half his weight for 2 hours to feed his sisters https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/1mln8f1/jamal%5Fthe%5F14%5Fyearold%5Fboy%5Fwho%5Fwalked%5F152%5Fhours/. Ahmed's last notes, mixed drone-free, are haunting

Boosted by aral@mastodon.ar.al ("Aral Balkan"):
sheislaurence wrote:

🧵1/3: It is increasingly difficult to watch #Palestinian #musician Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha from #GazaBirdsSinging getting more emaciated every time he posts a new video, where he will yet again give his all to make children of #Gaza forget the horrors of #genocide through the beauty of #music. And the fact that in spite of everything he is succeeding is a testament to the extraordinary resilience & beauty of the Palestinian people. This particular song completely broke me and here is why...

Attachments:

• video: Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha from #GazaBirdsSinging sings with a young girl and boys in a Gaza camp

Boosted by adele@social.pollux.casa ("Adële"):
SolenedeM@piaille.fr ("Solène de Montmarin 🫏🇫🇷🇲🇲💚🇵🇸") wrote:

J'ai 45 ans et 20 ans ans d'expérience dans l'humanitaire et la coopération internationale.

Je suis épuisée, bloquée ou mutée parce que milite (trop) toute la journée contre le génocide à #Gaza.

J'ai urgemment besoin d'aide pour rentrer en contact avec un.e élu.e #EELV. Pour discuter de cette demande d'affreter la marine nationale.

J'ai besoin de 15 minutes de discussion par téléphone. Pas plus.

Qui peut m'aider s'il vous plaît?
Merci par avance pour le repouet !

[Edit : fautes d'orthographe]

#Urgent

Boosted by adele@social.pollux.casa ("Adële"):
Edwin085@mastodon.nl wrote:

So touching.

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

I ran into these one-way screws for the first time tonight:

https://www.mcmaster.com/products/one-way-drive-screws/?s=one-way-drive-screws

They didn't seem to work very well to prevent tampering. 🤷