Posts by brainwane@social.coop
(DIR) Post #Ax0CXuWuysX4t8cs0u by brainwane@social.coop
2025-08-09T18:51:46Z
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Weird.https://www.nycvotes.org/events-calendar/ displays three € symbols after one of the bullets. But when I try to directly copy them from the page, they just paste as three spaces.Based on the source code I think something's gone odd with the   character being directly preceded by a bullet ·
(DIR) Post #AxNUdv2aGJ601KWwKW by brainwane@social.coop
2025-08-21T00:29:49Z
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SHE TRIED TO BRIBE KATIE HONAN ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!!!!https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/08/20/winnie-greco-eric-adams-aide-attempted-cash-katie-honan-reporter/
(DIR) Post #AxsF9LgFgrpeFko7Wq by brainwane@social.coop
2025-09-04T20:29:23Z
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From @avani :"Who here do I know that hosts their own webpages or blogs? A postdoc colleague and I would like to ask a few fast questions about your traffic patterns over the last 5 years. (please reshare for reach thank you!)....What we need is, broadly, historical request logs. I want to know how the request landscape is changing, particularly repeat requests to otherwise cold content."https://bsky.app/profile/avani.bsky.social/post/3lxzlwogl4c2m:boosts_appreciated:
(DIR) Post #B062v2GW62EWsGrP8K by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T17:38:07Z
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#ZohranMamdani is the mayor-elect of #NYC (where I live) and, like a huge percentage of the world population evidently, I have thoughts on this!In particular I have some reflections on stuff from this weekStarting with the video his team released the morning of election day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jRIi7ZHTZM It isn't a Get Out The Vote message; the title is "Today is only the beginning." and it is scored, edited, and structured like a movie trailer for the Mamdani administration.1/n
(DIR) Post #B062v3OLuO5yMrXAzA by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T17:45:14Z
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Early on, Sanders's arm blocks our view of the two faces as he says "There is a reason why the whole bloody world is watching this election." This makes the shot feel more candid, and impels, for many viewers, a reflexive curiosity about what's being obscured.Bookend near the end, 3:31: "be the light that our city, and our nation, so desperately need" -- the pan past the NYC flag, passing the lamppost that temporarily obscures our view of City Hall, and then revealing the US flag.2/n
(DIR) Post #B062v4AuzowYnUFxgW by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T17:50:03Z
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1:47, the shots of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez smiling as they watch a rally from backstage, analogizing them to proud parents.2:01, the nonchalant inclusion of the f-word (spoken by a guy hugging Mamdani) seems noteworthy. In the past several years we've broken a lot of old taboos about what major US political figures are okay having in their intentional public communications, and this is another data point there.3/n
(DIR) Post #B062vCBvByV1eumsMK by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T17:55:16Z
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2:07: "I think that's the thing that I'm most proud of in this campaign, is not the successes, it's that we took so many swings. Because swinging is an example of being unsatisfied with the options that you currently see."OK, so, certainly Mamdani and his team know the sexual connotations of talking about "swinging" in this way, which I find funny.The "lifelong struggle. Not an electoral one" portion starting 2:52 makes it so clear that this video is a message *to the volunteers*4/n
(DIR) Post #B062vKSATSFTHcRxnE by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T18:02:05Z
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Mamdani has, for ten years, been a part of left organizing in New York City. People who mentored him knew how much organizing capacity grew in the 2008 national electoral campaign and https://harihareswara.net/posts/2008/we-are-the-that-ones-we-have-been-waiting-for/ and how heartbreaking it was to watch that capacity wither after the campaign ended.Left organizers in NYC are absolutely determined to continue building people power after this election https://hammerandhope.org/article/mamdani-left-socialism and to collectively fight for their agenda .5/n
(DIR) Post #B062vS3IDp6WqmsD8C by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T18:11:59Z
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I just came across https://ourtime.nyc/ , which is basically a way to engage Mamdani campaign volunteers to continue to contribute to his agenda:"a campaign you can be part of, and grow in, alongside other membership organizations you belong to — or while you find your long-term political home"And that long-term political home might be Working Families Party or Democratic Socialists of America or maybe someplace else! Several DSA people on the leadership team. But also:6/n
(DIR) Post #B062vZePyBxaPxISTA by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T18:23:52Z
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Interesting note for those of us more in the programming & open source side of things: the executive director of Our Time is Jeremy Freeman, who is thus leaving the "data and science for climate action" startup he foundedhttps://carbonplan.org/blog/board-chair-letterFreeman is someone #Python folks may have run into through his work on mybinder.org or at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.I'm fascinated by the implications for Our Time's approach.7/n
(DIR) Post #B062vguGzdnmv9liee by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T18:40:39Z
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Because that means that, in addition to working with the strength of grassroots canvassing-type organizing,https://truthout.org/articles/mamdanis-ability-to-break-with-dem-status-quo-depends-on-organizing-from-below/maybe Our Time is looking to *build new digital platforms* that will supercharge that organizing.Mamdani's campaign (like Barack Obama's and like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's) excelled at both field organizing and at making/using digital platforms in ways that their opponents didn't. I'm curious what new, modern, purpose-built tools could help enable!8/n
(DIR) Post #B062vpx5MYOoyU9amu by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T18:46:47Z
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Another person who gets the importance of digital platforms: Lina Khan, whom Mamdani just named as a co-chair of his official mayoral transition team. https://www.transition2025.com/#team In his victory speech, Mamdani declared that there is no problem too big for government to solve. Khan's a promising candidate to strategize not just on regulating private platforms, but building public ones: https://www.techpolicy.press/mayor-elect-mamdani-can-build-a-tech-agenda-for-new-york-and-a-model-for-the-country/9/n
(DIR) Post #B062vy7J0RKOIUzrpQ by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T18:54:20Z
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And Mamdani's statement is SUCH a switch from the rhetoric we're used to from US Democratic politicians.In 1996 during the State of the Union address, Bill Clinton declared that the "era of big government" was over. "We know there's not a program for every problem." https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-before-joint-session-the-congress-the-state-the-union-10 The Democrats had been the party of the New Deal and the Great Society and now, no more.But Mamdani is speaking in 2025, to New York City residents.10/n
(DIR) Post #B062w6KMTmWblJAPI0 by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T19:02:25Z
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Speaking to Wired in late October, https://www.wired.com/story/the-big-interview-podcast-zohran-mamdani/ Mamdani praised Huge Ma of TurboVax, talked about finding common ground with tech leaders who want to bring excellence and reduce waste in city government, and generally implied that he is really interested in using tech platforms in new ways to improve civic engagement and service delivery.11/n
(DIR) Post #B062wEbfhJ7nRJKLNg by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T19:14:41Z
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Back to the victory speech https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/05/zohran-mamdani-victory-speech-transcript from Tuesday night -- he quoted from Jawaharlal Nehru's speech from the moment India gained independence in 1947.Quoting *Nehru* specifically MEANS SOMETHING. Nehru wanted a pluralistic, socialist India. He wanted a secular government that worked to benefit people of all religions. And he was a groundbreaker, the first prime minister of independent India, someone with the responsibility to model how this thing could be done.12/n
(DIR) Post #B062wMpn6hAkxPzjV2 by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T19:18:58Z
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The end of the "Today is only the beginning." video: a skyline, starting with the Chrysler Building (gorgeous NYC landmark), then taking in more of the cityscape till we see Mamdani standing alone on a rooftop, viewed from the back, his face in quarter-profile and immediately obscured by the letters on the screen. He's in kind of a Batman pose, surveying the city he is about to steward. That's very unusual in his campaign videos; they usually show him from the front or the side.13/n
(DIR) Post #B062wUdg5cEjAAOAjI by brainwane@social.coop
2025-11-07T19:21:43Z
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And visuals of Mamdani in his campaign videos usually show him interacting with someone, either someone onscreen, or a just-offscreen audience, or you as the viewer.This shot heralds the transition from someone seeking citywide power to someone who holds it.I'm curious about what's next.14/14
(DIR) Post #B1Sj0uo1F9TiImRRPU by brainwane@social.coop
2025-12-21T04:18:01Z
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sheets/blankets on top of a sleeping person perform multiple purposes, including:retaining heatcocooning the sleeper, providing a sense of enclosureBut sometimes a sleeper wants one without the other! Such as temperature maintenance with something feather-light, or something comfortingly heavy that still allows the sleeper to remain coolI bet there are products that serve these niches and I bet people will tell me about them in the replies
(DIR) Post #B1Vnt2B527XS5tAZ1s by brainwane@social.coop
2025-12-22T15:39:58Z
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sometimes I read an anecdote or advice that includes the statement that it doesn't cost anything to be kindbut it does, sometimesusually not moneydemeaning someone else can improve one's group status (e.g., a clever put-down garnering accolades) or feelings of self-righteousness or relative self-worth; being kind sacrifices thatbeing kind when one's peer group has decided otherwise can cost social acceptancekindness is a good habit and often leads to good thingsbut isn't always free
(DIR) Post #B1qYTXZ8ICgGv5xovI by brainwane@social.coop
2025-12-16T12:34:27Z
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https://nygroove.nyc/why-does-no-one-stop-at-red-lights-anymore/ !!!Reminded of this after reading https://bsky.app/profile/mcnietzsche.bsky.social/post/3m7uu7zetbc22"Agree, I've seen people in the outer boroughs start treating lanes and stop lights like suggestions and it's legit unsettling. How can I drive safely if I cannot rely on you to stop at a red light?"