I don't know about her involvement with this but there's a snopes article about it. It's wholly unfounded based on some random Facebook post.
A social media post originally from a Springfield Facebook group went viral nationally in recent days. The original poster did not cite first-hand knowledge of an incident. Instead they claimed that their neighbor's daughter's friend had lost her cat and found it hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbor's home being carved up to be eaten.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cats-ducks-haitians-springfield/
Thank you for the most thoughtful and direct answer.
I'd be curious to know how some of your friends and family responded to the shot taken at Trump's ear.
I see.
Iraq - the country, had nothing to do with 9/11 - the attack.
Not, Iraq - the invasion of, was disassociated with 9/11 - the attack or national moment.
I mean, 9/11 and Iraq are indeed magically linked, thanks to Bush. "Magically" is actually a great word to define the link between the two. Look - Cheney just pulled a Saddam out of a Bush!
If it's your understanding that Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2002 "had nothing to do with 9/11", you are grossly mistaken.
https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ243/PLAW-107publ243.pdf
That is not what I recall. What I do recall was both republicans and democrats having serious concerns that the government knew something we didn't and that we were attacking a country for the president's personal vendetta. This is based on my personal interactions with friends, family, and coworkers, as well as national and local news and newspapers. Granted, I'm from central NJ so perhaps we on higher alert and more "purple" than the rest of the country.
batshit insane morons
Was it birtherism or just Sarah Palin?
I think we can say most of our modern conspiracitardacy was fairly quiet till the social media wave.
I fully agree that social media has made things worse in this, and almost every, regard. Though, I'm trying to understand the mindset of Americans in 2001, not today, not post 2008.
The conspiracy around 9/11 was that the government knew more than they were telling us. That perhaps they were well aware of the event, possibly took part in it, and/or used it to manipulate public sentiment for invading Iraq for no other good reason or perhaps (ok, this I admit is crazy) setting up a new world order where we give up our rights for the sake of "national defense". There would be no Wikileaks if there was no 9/11.
I admit this are a bit fringe-sounding but we were all aware of this back then. Didn't most people believe there was some plausibility in these theories?
Don't most people today believe the government knows more about 9/11 than they've told us?
So your evidence that it was only spoken about in my social circle is that your social circle didn't talk about it?
The jet fuel burning steal beams is an interesting one. I remember, perhaps weeks after the event, if not days, scientists being interviewed on national news explaining the science about this and being very clear that this was certainly plausible - it wasn't just the jet fuel but the surrounding materials and chimney like effect of the building which increased the fire's temperature (don't quote me on these details).
How it became the most prominent conspiracy theory is wild to me. Not dissimilar from a random xenophobic Facebook post about illegal immigrants eat pets becoming a major talking point during a presidential debate. Or how it was verified that the 2020 election was the most secure in our nation's history yet more than half of Americans believe voter fraud is a serious threat.
As you've pointed out, that's just a fraction of the "coincidences" surrounding this event. Individually, I could understand they'd be forgotten or swept under the rug but as a whole, it's just a lot of stuff to swallow if you want to believe the "official" report. At the same time, I acknowledge that for this many "coincidences" to be planned out would probably be impossible to cover up.
In comparison, consider what's know and still covered up about the JFK assassination. This is relatively small potatoes in scale compared to 9/11.
True. What ultimate came out of the event was the revelation that our intelligence communities were siloed from each other. This (embarrassing) point of failure may aid in explaining some of the questions in regard to preparedness.
highly debatable if they knew enough to stop it.
Well, the theory that was floated at the time was that they didn’t want to stop it. The very fringe suggested it was entirely planned by the US. They (Bush et al) knew this would provoke our military and provide an excuse to attack the Middle East. To finish was Bush senior didn’t.
Again, I don’t really want to get down a rabbit hole of validating theories. I want to know if others recall this being a national conversation or if it was just the hundreds of people I knew and news outlets I was watching.
I’ve talked about it with a lot of people over the years and have yet to meet a single conspiracy theorist.
These theories were floated, with legitimacy, on local and national news, at the time. Not in the sense of, “it’s theorized that there were antifa plants at Jan 6” but “look here at this video and you could see how some implosion experts are saying this is the pattern for a scheduled building collapse”. They were interviewing people in manhattan who had concerns about a government coverup.
At the time, the regular news (before it got ridiculous) was pulling together all these theories and presenting them together. It was overwhelming that there was much more to this event. And it seems to have all been forgotten.
most people just forgot about, or stopped listening to the conspiracies.
This is what I think happened. People just stopped caring and defaulted back to "trusting the government" or were distracted by other things like the war in Afghanistan and the 2008 financial crisis.
In my mind, these theories were still prevalent for at least a few years after the attacks. And now, 20 years later, people forgot so much that they've accepted that only weirdo internet trolls believe in these fringe theories.
It's a bit shocking to me when I see people online putting 9/11 conspiracies in the same box as "MAGA" conspiracies (for lack of a better term, sorry).
For reference, I was 24 in 2001 living in central NJ. Even without social media or fake news websites or what cable news has become today, I have vivid memories of people having the firm belief that there was something up with the attack on 9/11. Was this just my social circle?
Jet fuel melting steel beams was one of the more fringe and unfounded (and quickly debunked) ideas but the rest of everything on that day was questionable. Tower seven falling, the missing plane debris at the pentagon and central PA, the military / president not responding to known threats, if a person with limited flight time could hit a tower, the fact that Bush attacked a country that had nothing to do with the event, and so much more are still, I thought, reasonable questions - especially when looked at together.
This is not about rehashing each theory. Or maybe it is? Have I missed that everything has been debunked?
I mean, I still believe 9/11 was an inside job or at least high level officials, including Bush, were aware it was going to happen and did nothing to stop it. I thought this was still a common opinion of most or many Americans over the age of forty.
Sure. Regardless, their terms and conditions should give you some idea of how they're using technology to permit and/or restrict access.
The reason that an iTunes video purchase is
encryptedillegal to copy is because it is illegal to break the encryption in order to make a copy
FTFY
I don't think content providers are encrypting things because it's illegal to decrypt things. They're encrypting things because the content producers (movie studios) want to ensure that (1) they're getting paid for the content, (1B) it's not given away for free and, (2) they're in business to make money.
To my knowledge, there are no laws about making copies. Breaking encryption is illegal because the encryption itself is protected under law. Selling copies is illegal. Playing copies of something for which you are not permitted or do not legally own a license to watch is illegal. So, if you make a copy of a cassette tape, legal; profiting from that copy, illegal.
Copyright law is not contract law.
Some items have time limits - such as renting a movie from iTunes or Amazon or borrowing a book from a physical or digital library. You are entering a contract with the provider where they grant you temporary access to something. If you were to make a copy of something you were given temporary access to, you are breaking the contract.
I don't know what the agreement is for football organizations or your content provider. If you're breaking broadcast or HDMI encryption to record a stream, that's illegal. If you're somehow bypassing encryption, that is probably legal. I do know that it's illegal to re-broadcast the content in public and to resell that program. There are also some fair use rules (in the US) which permit limited use for commentary and education purposes.
I don't know if people so much disagree about it as much as some people just don't want any (brown) immigrants at all. Mostly, this is because of the propaganda and hate mongering spewed by right wing media and political leaders causing people to be fearful of immigrants taking their jobs, raping them, and [sighs] eating their pets.
The issue is that this country is so racist and xenophobic that it's entirely ignoring real solutions. Immigration reform requires greater investment in border patrol and courts as well as helping other countries reduce the problems causing people to seek asylum. It's not just the southern border that needs help. I know people from European countries and Canada emigrating to the US who have waited staggeringly long times to become US citizens. The whole system needs help.
We could be doing good. We could be embracing the most American thing ever and welcoming and helping people to be their best selves. We need to overcome our stereotypical beliefs and get to know each other as human beings without borders dividing us.
If you have legally obtained something, you have agreed to the terms of ownership with the provider / owner / creator of the content. Whether you find a document on your computer or you have paid for it, it does not explicitly give you full ownership of that data forever.
For example: if you buy a DVD from a store, you're actually purchasing a license to watch the content of that DVD. If you were to give or sell that disc to someone else, you are transferring your permission to watch that disc to them. So, if you were to rip that movie to your computer, legally - you only have permission to watch that for as long as you are in possession of that physical media.
Conversely, if you were to "buy" a movie from an online platform, they may relinquish your right to watch that movie if the publisher of that content (or a government agency) no longer permits them to stream that content to you. If you were to download that movie, that does not change the agreement you made with the service to watch it. This is why it's not possible to save an iTunes video purchase to your computer in a non-encrypted format.
In other words, you've got to read the terms and conditions. Even then, they may change the terms and conditions of the agreement.
Digital tools as you've described could be used by the service to manage access to content. A book's author or publisher may object to the book being available for free. There may be limits on the amount of time you can read a book. Some content may be public domain but there may be versions of that content which the publisher has altered to in some way making some portions of the book not public domain.
Knowingly possessing something that was not freely provided to you or the public by the licensed owner, or otherwise known to be unprotected by copyright, is not legal. Just because a file is cached on your device does not mean you are the legal owner of that content forever.
There's a number of reasons you may be charged to download a pdf. It could be a means of legally granting ownership and sharing revenue with the content owner. It could be because the authorized provider of the content is simply charging to maintain the service you've acquired the content from. It could be both or it could be a sketchy website just trying to get your CC info.
This is coming from the perspective of someone in the US. I'm not sure about the rest of the world but imagine basic copyright laws are similar around the world.
He’s a compulsive liar who’s angry at things he’s fabricated for his own benefit. How the fuck is he even being considered for the job?
🤔 which is more news worthy:
1 - the chairman of the house judiciary committee tweeted a picture of trump hugging a kitten and a duck.
2 - a member of the committee calling him out and asking if he's okay because he posted the picture.
3 - The claim that "aliens are eating pets".
The origin of the claim that Haitians are eating pets in Ohio appears to stem from right-wing media accounts running with a Fox News story about an Ohio woman named Allexis Telia Ferrell, who was arrested for allegedly killing and eating a cat. The report about the lone woman sparked claims that Haitians are kidnapping people’s pets and eating them.
They're rightfully attacking you because you started the thread by making yourself the story.
To cut through the nonsense and save everyone time, especially since many in this community have a habit of resorting to personal attacks when responding to my posts recently
I don't know who you are. I clicked on this post to read about the context of the story. Instead, the first thing I read is some annoying cry baby monologue about you, as if you matter.
You are doing exactly the opposite of cutting through nonsense and saving me time.
So what if you have an agenda? Everyone posting something has a perspective or reason why they're posting it. If you continue to get downvoted or your posts are removed, perhaps this isn't the sub for you to post this content. Otherwise, just let people read the story without adding your own commentary about yourself. If you want to add context to the story, do it about the story, not you or your post history.
Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and block you being that you seem more concerned with your own ego than the news you're pretending to care about. It's not beneficial to me.
local news being owned by news conglomerates
Yeah - I've watched the Sinclair segment. I recognize that but that's not the case everywhere. More troubling is how local newspapers are struggling and going out of business. I'm in Philadelphia where we still have decent locally-owned and/or operated journalism.
I'm not sure how the lawsuit would go down but I'd be open to whatever it takes to make the right changes. Perhaps the threat of digging into city coffers is precisely why nothing has happened in forty years. It's already costing tax payers millions of dollars every year to not recycle. I'd support millions to hold people accountable and make the needed changes if that means saving us money down the road.
Feds in Philly disrupt Russian-backed propaganda effort aimed at influencing U.S. presidential vote
The disinformation campaign involved tricking Americans with propaganda posted to websites meant to mimic legitimate news sources as well as enlisting unwitting American influencers to spread it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240905014936/https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/russian-misinformation-social-design-agency-sergei-kiriyenko-20240904.html
Federal authorities in Philadelphia announced on Wednesday the dismantling of a wide-ranging, Russian-backed misinformation network targeting voters in Pennsylvania and five other swing states ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The network — known colloquially as “Doppelganger” and which prosecutors said was run by a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin — sought to dupe Americans in key demographics into believing Kremlin-produced propaganda it spread online had been produced by legitimate American news outlets.
The campaign also sought to enlist the aid of unwitting influencers in America and other countries to spread disinformation, sow social media discord, and advance the campaign of former President Donald Trump, whom the program’s backers viewed as more supportive of Russian interests.
The takedown of that effort — involving the seizure of more than 30 internet domains by agents from the FBI’s Philadelphia field office — was just one of a sweeping series of steps President Joe Biden’s administration announced Wednesday to fend off attempts by Russia to meddle ahead of November’s vote.
Taken together, they amounted to the most significant public response yet by U.S. authorities to Russia’s alleged efforts to undermine the integrity of the election.
“Protecting our democratic processes from foreign malign influence is paramount to ensure public trust,” U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said in a statement detailing the Doppelganger seizures.
In Washington, the Treasury Department announced new sanctions against a Russian-based nonprofit tied to the Doppelganger network, and Attorney General Merrick Garland unveiled an indictment against two Russian employees of state-owned broadcaster RT, who he said had paid a Tennessee company to spread nearly 2,000 English-language videos supportive of Kremlin interests.
Prosecutors said that the defendants — Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva — used aliases and that the company involved was unaware it was being used by Russian plotters.
Court filings in that case and the Doppelganger seizures were careful not to specifically name the Trump campaign as an intended beneficiary of the misinformation effort, and there was no allegation that anyone in the campaign was aware of or involved in the effort.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts,” Garland said in a statement Wednesday.
“The investigation,” he added, “is ongoing.”
For months, intelligence agencies have warned that Russia remains the primary threat to the integrity of the 2024 election — despite recent headlines about efforts by other foreign governments to shape the outcome of the vote.
Last month, federal authorities accused Iran of hacking Trump’s campaign and attempting to breach the campaigns of Biden and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
Officials have also raised alarms about threats from China, which they have accused of maintaining a vast network of social media accounts aimed at targeting U.S. voters.
But ever since the U.S. was caught unprepared in the 2016 presidential election by Russia’s sophisticated social media campaign to influence voters — a push that included organizing fake campaign rallies for Trump in Pennsylvania and other swing states — U.S. intelligence efforts have focused on Russia as a priority.
An FBI affidavit unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Philadelphia outlined the Doppelganger scheme, drawing on reams of planning documents and meeting notes by Kremlin officials as they mapped out their 2024 strategy. All references in the Russian documents to specific candidates or U.S. political parties were redacted.
“The conspirators specifically targeted the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s citizens … in order to influence the electorate in this, and other districts,” the affidavit said.
According to the court filing, the effort had been overseen since at least 2022 by Sergei Kiriyenko, a former Russian prime minister and Putin’s first deputy chief of staff. He and several of the entities cited in the court filings have already been subjected to U.S. sanctions for their roles in spreading misinformation.
Their primary goal, agents said, was to pass off inflammatory or fake news stories — supporting Russian interests or backing Trump — as work produced by legitimate American media outlets.
Plotters registered domain names similar to those of well-known media brands — like washingtonpost.pm and foxnews.cx — and posted stories under the names of real journalists who worked for them.
For instance, investigators said, one story featured on the spoofed Washington Post website — run under the headline “White House Miscalculated: Conflict with Ukraine Strengthens Russia” — sought to diminish public sentiment for Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.
“It’s time for our leaders to recognize that continued support for Ukraine is a mistake,” that story read. “It was a waste of lives and money. … For the sake of everyone involved in the conflict, the Biden administration should just make a peace agreement and move on.”
The Doppelganger network also focused on ensuring those stories went viral, going so far as to create fake social media accounts posing as U.S. citizens to spread them and seeding the comments on other social media posts with links back to the propaganda they had posted.
“The aim of the campaign,” according to one Russian planning document quoted in the FBI affidavit unsealed Wednesday, “is securing Russia’s preferred outcome in the election.”
In another planning document, Doppelganger plotters outlined a scheme they dubbed “The Good Old USA Project” aimed at targeting voters from specific demographics in the U.S. with fake news and spoofed social media posts.
They included Hispanics, American Jews, conservatives, and the “community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards such as 4chan (the ‘backbone’ of right-wing trends in the U.S. segment of the internet),” according to Kremlin planning documents included in Wednesday’s filings.
“In order for this work to be effective,” it warned, “you need to use a minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information. At the same time, you should continuously repeat that this is what is really happening, but the official media will never tell you about it or show it to you.”
>Egg prices are back on the rise as a devastating bird flu outbreak and swelling consumer demand eats into supply.
>Wholesale egg prices surpassed about $3 per dozen in August, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, up from the usual $1 to $2 range. Retail egg prices were up 19% in August compared to last year, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data, while the broader grocery category increased only 1%.
>highly pathogenic avian influenza, or bird flu, has forced egg supplies to be “less robust than normal.” At the same time, U.S. sales have jumped to levels not seen since the pandemic.
>Despite the price fluctuations, consumers continue to buy eggs — and more of them, as of the last few months. August egg sales were up more than 5% compared to 2023, and producers sold 237 million eggs in the most recent four-week period. “We haven’t seen that number since the first year of COVID,” he said, when sales soared as consumers stocked up on staples including eggs and toilet paper.
>As domestic demand stays strong, other countries are also buying more U.S. eggs. According to the U.S. Egg Export Council, total exports for the first four months of the year increased by 22% to 63.5 million dozen eggs, though values were down 22%.
>Demand is expected to rise further during the fall and winter months with the holiday baking season entering full swing. That could further pressure the commercial egg supply, especially as bird flu also spreads more easily in colder climates.
Is anyone self-hosting a genuinely snappy and robust media hosting service for themselves? What's your setup look like?
The best thing about Apple's Photos on my iDevices is the speed at which everything loads. Even videos (usually) load reasonably fast over LTE. The user interface is decent enough and has a high percentage of features I'd like to have on the go. The on-device AI is awesome (recognizing / organizing faces and objects and locations).
I'd like to get away from iCloud for numerous reasons: the subscription, the chance the UX gets worse, privacy, ease of data ownership and organization, OS independence, etc.
I currently have a QNAP TS-253A with 8GB RAM, Celeron N3160 1.6GHz 4 core, (2) Seagate IronWolf 8TB ST8000VN0022 at about 98% capacity, Raid 1 . I mostly use it for streaming music and videos at home but I also stream music outside the house without issue. Movies don't stream at HD immediately but once they cache up they're good within a minute.
Some people have suggested this hardware should be sufficient. I feel like it's archaic. What do you think?
I've tried Immich but find it to be slow and very limited with features. I've even tested hosting it on Elestio but that didn't go too well. I'm not opposed to paying for offsite services but at that point it just seems like I should stick with iCloud.
I already have Plex running on my NAS so I use that for archiving but it's way too slow to use for looking at pictures, even locally. QNAP has the photo app QuMagie with facial recognition and it seems alright but it's agonizingly slow, if it works at all.
All of the self-hosted apps, in my experience, are well outside the scope of iCloud Photos' speed and feature set. If I could even just test one that matched its speed, I could better assess whatever features they have.
What I'm not sure of is if I'm hitting a wall based on the apps, my hardware, or even my ISP (Speedtest reports upload: 250mpbs). The fact that apps like Plex and QuMagie suck even locally suggests to me it's not an ISP issue (yet).
My NAS is already at capacity so it's time for an upgrade of some sort. While I'm in the mindset, I wanted to see if there's a better product I could use for hosting. My space and finances are not without limits but I'm open to ideas.
I realize I'm not a multi billion dollar company with data centers around the world but I feel like I should be able to piece something together that's relatively comparable for less than an arm and a leg. Am I wrong?
I'm on MacOS and typically use Safari as my main browser. I have several other browsers installed on my computer which I use for different things or just to try out from time to time. Orion is one I haven't tried in a while.
I've launched Orion and found that when I previously used it I saved some tabs - one of them being Ebay. I am not signed into my Ebay account in Orion but when I open this tab I'm seeing "Your Recently Viewed Items" and it's very much showing me the items I viewed in Safari just moments earlier.
Orion promotes itself as a privacy focused web browser. >Privacy by design, like no other browser. >Orion has been engineered from ground up as a truly privacy-respecting browser. We did it by embracing a simple principle - Orion is a zero telemetry browser. Your private information will never leave Orion by default. >And to protect your privacy on the web, Orion comes with industry-leading anti-tracking technology as well as a powerful built-in ad-blocker.
How does one browser know what the other browser is doing regardless if I'm, signed into my account on a particular website?
In my experience, the retail shopping environment has been on an increasing rate of decline over the past decade+. Post-covid, it seems corporations have figured out how to maximize profit, in part, by reducing labor and tailoring towards online sales.
I grew up in a time when people would complain about salespeople pestering them by simply asking if they needed help with anything. Now, I would love to have someone help me with a purchase.
I recently bought some sneakers in a store and it turned out I probably bought the wrong ones for my needs. A knowledgable salesperson likely would have saved me from wasting my money on the wrong purchase. Most of the supermarkets in my area are self-check out only. These stupid things never work for me so it takes me forever to simply scan a few items. At some stores, items are locked up behind glass so I'm not even able to make a purchase - pushing me to buy from an online retailer instead.
I try to go out of my way to find stores that have humans working there. I try not to buy things online and try to support my local businesses. This is becoming increasingly more difficult and I fear the day will come soon where I'm not able to shop in a physical store.
Especially in this post pandemic world, I crave human interaction. I crave a brief interaction with someone who's a member of my community.
There's a small two-location food market I shop at weekly. It's a fifteen minute walk where I do at least 85% of my shopping. Most of the produce and goods are procured within a hundred miles. There are no self-checkouts. I've gotten to know the people who work there. We talk about produce and the neighborhood and the weather. I freaking love that place and legit do not know what I would do without it.
I imagine I'm in the minority. I imagine most people, especially younger people, desire not interacting with others. Some people find it difficult to engage in real life. Some people are fraught with the impact social media addiction has struck upon them - be it the fear of judgement or bigotry or simply not knowing how to interact respectfully with others.
I remember a time when people would say they trust online reviews more than salespeople who get paid on commission. Is this still a prevalent idea? I'll admit that I typically ignore reviews because reviews have become their own industry. However, there are times I've bought a product, found it to be trash, then saw some reviews, buried below the 'paid' ones, warning me to stay away.
I feel strongly, I am fearful, that as we shift more and more of our shopping online - easily enabled by [Click To Buy] buttons and mobile wallets - corporate capitalism is gaining ground on mom and pop shops. Never mind the rise of the likes of Temu. Moreover, the Walmartification of everything is diluting our sense of community.
It's because we only shop online and in warehouses, it's because we have no choice but to not engage with anyone, it's because we're increasing our reliance on 6" in-our-face screens, it's because we don't ever need to leave the comfort of our home that our neighborhoods and society are doomed to crumble.
I'm looking to replace a 6TB G-Drive for my Mac. I'm considering the OWC Express 1M2 NVMe enclosure along with a WD Black 4TB SN850X.
The drive is mostly used as my photography drive. I work off of it with Capture One. About 20% of it is archive data.
I'd like to upgrade to SSD for the sake of longevity and speed. And because I find the ticking and knocking my existing drive makes to be annoying. And because MacOS does this weird thing where opening random apps causes the external HDD to spin up and stalls operation. I fear everyday that this seven year old drive is suddenly going to die on me.
Just looking for some suggestions if anyone's familiar with these OWC + WD products or if you'd recommend something else.
Donald Trump’s strongman image is a plus for many voters.
Meanwhile, 44 percent backed the American tradition of competing branches of government as a model, if sometimes “frustrating,” system.
Why would people want to live under an authoritarian’s thumb? It’s rooted, experts say, in a psychological need for security—real or perceived—and a desire for conformity, a goal that becomes even more acute as the country undergoes dramatic demographic and social changes. People also like to obey a strong leader who will protect the group—especially if it is the “right” group whose interests will be protected. Recall the Trump supporter who, during the 2019 government shutdown, complained, “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”
I've recently been working to minimize my email clutter, my dependance on certain email providers, and to consolidate services under certain accounts.
I'm down to the following uses: Apple ID, mydomain-billing/subscriptions, mydomain-official/legal, anon, friends/family, business domain.
I also have a handful of aliases and an account just for newsletters and my RSS app.
I'm curious if others have several email addresses for similar uses or if you use your email client to categorize incoming messages for you. For people who only have one email address, how do you manage this?
Regardless of your geographic location, religion, heritage, party affiliation, or your firmness on historical texts; what is it that you believe government's role to be - or should be?
If you'd like to elaborate, what is it you think your local or national government gets right and gets wrong?
I pose the question because I believe this fundamental belief is through which we observe and react to politics. There are things we want or don't want government to do but often legislation or special interests or geographic or political threats get in the way. Our reactions to politics are often, but not wrongly, short-sighted and emotional without context or wisdom. I don't see much dialog around this topic and I wonder if people subscribe to political parties without really considering if the party aligns with what they genuinely believe government's responsibility is or should be.
He failed the tests of leadership and betrayed America. Voters must stand up to him in November.
I just received an order for a few shirts from LL Bean. Right now, any brand's Large is just a tad tight on me but I'm trying to lose weight and expect to squeeze in soon. These shirts are HUGE.
I double checked their website's fit guide. By all accounts, it's suggesting I'm a large (5'6" 43 chest). The long sleeve shirt is one size too big, the short sleeves are at least two sizes, if not three, too big. The sweat shirt is a bit large but wearable.
My plan at this point is to take the nearly two hour drive (with traffic) to my nearest store to try the shirts on in person. Just wondering if I got a weird batch or if I'm a size small in LL Bean.
Or, should I be expecting these to shrink a lot in the wash?
UPDATE: So, I drove the store and confirmed my suspicions with the associate. “Traditional Fit” is two sizes bigger, “Slim Fit” is one size bigger, and “Signature” is about right, he said. I didn’t like the signature sizing at all; it was oddly a little smocky and ballooned out at the bottom. And while the small traditional fit fit my width okay, I think it’s a little short, and I’m just 5’6”.
Share some objective or subjective wisdom you’ve learned recently.
Practically every email I've received in maybe the past year has started with "I hope you are well". I even had an LLM draft a placeholder email for me and it started with the same thing. This has not always been the case and it's strange to me that everyone I interact with begins their emails with this line. Frankly, it's annoying AF.
What gives? Who started this? Why has it become so prevalent? More importantly, how do we stop it?
While I'm at it, if you work in tech / customer support, I urge you to speak with your supervisors to minimize the boiler plate copy paste trash you insert into your emails. People dealing with shit that's not working as intended or desired do not have the mental or emotional capacity to wade through your platitudinal nonsense. Get to the fucking point.
Please watch the entire video before commenting.
The take away, in my opinion, was much less about the Chinese migrants than it was the story of the specific location they were coming through and how and why the process of legal immigration is broken. It seems so, so easy to fix this problem but it’s clear “the border” is being used as a political pawn to divide us for political gain.
The community around buying and selling gear and just watching awesome stuff pop up for sale regularly is one of the reasons I've stuck with the site for so long.
Other than FredMiranda, e$ay, Craigslist, I'm not sure what other options there are (I'm not on FB).
Is there any chance something like photomarket could pop up in the fediverse? What other sites are you trading on?
This is a rant.
It stems from the recent Joe Rogan comment about Biden which turned out to be Trump. I'm an indie-leaning "progressive" who found this to be an important moment to call out for everyone.
The video, summarized: Joe Rogan is proved wrong when claiming Biden said "one of the problems about the Revolutionary War was that we didn't have enough airports". Rogan goes on, "If you had any other job, and you were talking like that, they'd go, 'you're done'". "It's just the media narrative..." Then the actual Biden video is pulled up for him showing that Biden is quoting Trump, "This is the same stable genius who said the biggest problem we had in the Revolutionary War was that we didn't have enough airports". "Is that fake?", Rogan says. Producer, "It's not fake, here's the video..." Trump, "our army manned the airports, it ran the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do." Rogan, "Oh, he fucked up.." His guest, "that's the thing about the media today, you gotta look into it."
My comment: >Is there a sub for instances like this where people say something about "the other side" only to be immediately shown that it was their "side" who said it? >This post is iconic should be pinned to the top of every social site.
Soon after, I received a message from r/JusticeServed (a sub I don't actively participate in) saying, >Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in r/JusticeServed because you broke this community's rules. You won't be able to post or comment, but you can still view and subscribe to it. >Note from the moderators: >You have been banned for participating in a subreddit that has consistently shown to provide refuge for users to promote hate, violence and misinformation (joerogan). >This fully automated ban has been performed by a bot that cannot determine context. Appeals will be provided for good-faith users upon request. You can reply to this message and ask for an appeal. Any other messages will be ignored. More information on the appeal process here: https://www.reddit.com/r/JusticeServed/wiki/botbanned
My appeal did not include kind words. I called them out for being fascists and being part of the reason why Reddit has become a shithole. My appeal closed with asking not to be un-banned. Then I received this message,
>We are willing to reverse the ban only if you plan to stop supporting the target subreddit. Regardless of context, contributions you provide to the target subreddit is a material form of support. >Posting, Commenting, and Voting in a subreddit or on an item is a signal to Reddit and their advertisers that the participant believes that the community or comment or post has a legitimate reason for existing and serves a purpose for them. >There is no place for hate, violence and purposeful disinformation on Reddit. Those sub's advertisers should not be rewarded for the traffic metrics you and your peers provide to them by showing up and inflating those numbers. >They don't care what you say. They are just happy to have you continue to show up and refresh the page. >If this is something you can accept, to stop participating in the target subreddit, then please reply. If the bot hits you again for the same subreddit, you will not be unbanned a second time. >If you don't want to stop helping the target sub and their advertisers, then you can just ignore this message.
I responded, in part, with a full throated 'you can go fuck yourself'. This lead to a harassment warning from Reddit. I also noted the sub's 'motto' - "Too many times justice fails to prevail. These are not those times." For fucking real. I had also pointed out that what they're doing is analogous to DeSantis banning me from entering Florida just because I live in Philadelphia.
Dear JusticeServed, this is called cutting off your nose to spite your face.
I mean, this is the kind of shit that makes people more sympathetic to Musk and Rogan. I am not in support of nationalism or racism or misinformation. What I am in support of is common fucking sense.
It's very likely that had I maintained my composure I would have had a successful appeal. I didn't want to appeal to be unbanned though, I wanted to bring attention to their hypocrisy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/JusticeServed/comments/10jxlfk/justiceserveds_2_million_subscriber_extravaganza/ >With the overturning of Roe v Wade, we saw a couple of subreddits pinning mod endorsed celebration threads. Why anyone would want to celebrate people losing rights is beyond me.
Rights? What rights are you supporting, JusticeServed? Certainly not Freedom of Speech. Spying on people and censoring them for actions they take in other communities sounds a lot like fascism to me.
The take away here is that we shouldn't put so much emotional weight on stupid shit like this that ultimately doesn't matter in our real lives. And in our real lives, we should be more cautious with judging people. Your current mood and state of mind can easily cause you to misinterpret someone else's words and (re)actions. We should all be more mindful to take a breath before reacting to something emotionally triggering. And, of course, fuck Reddit.
For well over a week, I've been unable to sign into Lemmy.ml with Lemmios. I'm not having an issue with other apps like Memmy.
Without naming names, there's a well advertised grammar editing tool that's available either as an app download or browser extension. This is something I'd value for a number of reasons (good grammar is important!) but I'm super cautious about anything I'm giving permission to watch what I'm typing.
Ideally, I'd prefer to select text and have it analyzed on-demand using on-device intelligence. I'm on a Mac and it seems like Pages isn't cut out to check grammar. Also, there's no way in heck I'm paying $30 a month for a subscription.
Edit: I just want to acknowledge my request for something I'd value and then saying I don't want to pay for it. I would certainly pay for something if it met my needs but this function isn't something I'd personally value at $30 a month or any monthly subscription ($30 a year sounds reasonable). Moreover, if there's any suspicion of an application using my data for their own profit, they are not getting my money. So, in this case, for the sake of data privacy, I would prefer to pay for something (preferably once - grammar shouldn't need updating).
I was just watching some Headbangers Ball on Archive.org when the lyrics to this video by Queensryche struck me. I don't know that I ever heard this song before but I was around back then and recall plenty of "protest" / anti-government, anti-capitalist, anti-coldwar songs on the radio and MTV. It has me reflecting on the state of politics today and how things have shifted and twisted.
From 1988...
For a price I'd do about anything Except pull the trigger For that I'd need a pretty good cause Then I heard of Dr. X The man with the cure Just watch the television Yeah, you'll see there's something going on
Got no love for politicians Or that crazy scene in D.C. It's just a power mad town But the time is ripe for changes There's a growing feeling That taking a chance on a new kind of vision is due
I used to trust the media To tell me the truth, tell us the truth But now I've seen the payoffs Everywhere I look Who do you trust when everyone's a crook?
Revolution calling Revolution calling Revolution calling you Revolution calling Revolution calling Gotta make a change Gotta push, gotta push it on through
I'm tired of all this bullshit They keep selling me on T.V. About the communist plan And all the shady preachers Begging for my cash Swiss bank accounts while giving their Secretaries the slam
They're all in Penthouse now Or Playboy magazine, million dollar stories to tell I guess Warhol wasn't wrong Fame fifteen minutes long Everyone's using everybody, making the sale
I used to think That only America's way, way was right But now the holy dollar rules everybody's lives Gotta make a million doesn't matter who dies
Revolution calling Revolution calling Revolution calling you Revolution calling Revolution calling Gotta make a change Gotta push, gotta push it on through
I used to trust the media To tell me the truth, tell us the truth But now I've seen the payoffs Everywhere I look Who do you trust when everyone's a crook?
Revolution calling Revolution calling Revolution calling you Revolution calling Revolution calling Gotta make a change Gotta push, gotta push it on through