Posts by quixote@mastodon.nz
(DIR) Post #AslS1hwJ3sSasxacRE by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-04-05T00:41:36Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rms A language point: without any kind of hearings to establish the facts of their cases, those people are not deportees.They're abductees. Kidnap victims.
(DIR) Post #AtYmH4bZsI34EMXeHg by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-04-28T00:15:22Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Mastodon friends: need help finding a quote.Sometime in the last few weeks, I saw a post of 3? 4? screenshots of a Muskian-type Thiel-adjacent crony saying, basically, "Crash through the system as fast as you can, force them to litigate all the illegal stuff you do. They'll never catch up."Idea being it was strategy expressed months ago. First or last name may have begun with a J.I thought I'd bookmrked / saved it, but cannot find anywhere. TIA!
(DIR) Post #AtarmjI5XogHTlGAme by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-04-29T20:00:32Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Nonilex Disappointed. Seriously. But also because I'd already laid in a supply of popcorn and was settling in to watch the fireworks. Oh well.
(DIR) Post #AtvJ1DG7K6zAHFIqKO by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-05-09T16:39:44Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@stux So good to meet Lovely Rita Meter Maid at last!(Seriously. The whole world needs more of that unshakable conviction.)
(DIR) Post #AuOkCXRcotNt3qwyiO by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-05-23T21:31:03Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
@rms Couldn't agree more. Ceiling on wealth is essential to social survival. So is a floor, possibly in wealthier societies, as a universal basic income. The two would probably work together and enable each other.
(DIR) Post #AuQmzFtnQn4x3gP9hw by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-05-24T21:11:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@selea @aral Exactly. Plus, you don't need to drum up some activisst to get them quoting that. Bezalel Smotrich, Member of Knesset -- hard rightwinger, one of the small group of hard rightists keeping Netanyahu afloat and out of jail -- proudly says the same in front of crowds and cameras. (Quoting chapter and verse on wherever that gem appears in the Old Testament.)
(DIR) Post #AuUkzcheULkSbjGrdA by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-05-26T19:08:15Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rms Medicare, too. US$46 billion cut from Medi_care_ in the 2026 fiscal year (starts in July?).
(DIR) Post #AuaRCvuf0jwZnrN1Rw by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-05-29T12:54:48Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rms I think, sadly, that ship has sailed and the language has been terminally taken over by marketing-speak. Always use the punchiest term. Who cares what it means.Netanyahu is trying for ethnic cleansing. He doesn't care if Palestinians continue living somewhere in Arab countries. He just wants them scrubbed out of the right wing definition of Greater Israel.I sometimes wonder what word people will use when some even bigger monster appears who actually does want to exterminate a whole group? Since they've used up 'genocide.'
(DIR) Post #AunT2EAlVUcEDFPBaK by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-06-04T19:44:50Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
You know the AI I'm waiting for? The one that hangs on the phone for me to deal with companies too stupid to have a human-powered email ticket system.Not only does it hang on the phone, it has to have a better-than-95% success rate. In _my_ favor. That, I might pay for. Not otherwise. End of.
(DIR) Post #AvEUtOAfnvsvbzuwcq by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-06-17T20:44:32Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rms Not sure they care that much about abortion. They'd rather kill a woman than see her control her own body.
(DIR) Post #AvxTVi7SknhhpLw6ZE by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-07-09T13:31:02Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rms Initially I felt that, after what Hamas had done, the targeted torture against women, the hostage taking, the murders, Israel had a right to revenge. How much revenge? Not sure, since I'm not the one suffering, but some.Now, watching how easily justified fury turns into ethnic cleansing to grab land, I'm starting to think vigilante "justice" is always worse than useless. Between nations as much as between individuals. There's never any way to stop it from morphing into yet another monster.This is getting way beyond war crimes. The cold calculated premeditation of it puts it in some other class.
(DIR) Post #AwMXAzWeNGV4R5CIds by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-07-21T15:39:40Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Nonilex "which experts say pose an unprecedented threat to the #US #legal system"I'm the opposite of any kind of legal expert, but may I say ........ DUUUH.(Sorry for the outburst. Him leading the law around by the nose for forty goddamn years by now makes me scream.)
(DIR) Post #AwbryzfLJSCZ9uVUQK by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-07-29T01:13:46Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Nonilex The only thing that gets Netanyahu & his rightwingers to think again is threats to recognize Palestine.This whole attack has become an attempted takeover of land. Fewer Palestinians is just an added benefit.We need more like Macron. Recognize Paelstine now.Anything else rewards Bibi and his crooks for their disgusting behavior.
(DIR) Post #AxF65Z85GkMy3NVf5E by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-08-16T23:25:31Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rms Not sure if this is the actual article, but it's worth a try. (Haven't taken the time to read enough of it to see whether it answers those questions.)https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.16613 Long-term impact of PM2.5 on mortality is exacerbatedwhen wildfire events occur
(DIR) Post #AzXfWkVZ6ktReNyrp2 by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-10-24T18:11:35Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rms That is even more horrifying than glaciers melting and sea level rise. Melting is 'throw you back to the 1850s' stuff. Photosynthesis going wonky is 'throw you back to the Stone Ages'.God help us. No indication we plan on doing anywhere near enough to help ourselves.
(DIR) Post #B1YoktK6kiiTkCx8pU by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-12-24T03:13:54Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rms The simplest way for the Dump to mess with the 2028 election would be to start a war, for some value of what he calls $WAR, and declare martial law.Compared with the illegal crap he's already pulled, it would be small potatoes, but with even vaster consequences.
(DIR) Post #B1kYNieYzTYwcay7Rw by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-12-29T19:06:58Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@stux The two different "AI" are very different things.Useful one: built on a restricted, vetted, valid database, selected by experts to answer specific questions / perform specific functions. More sensibly called an expert system perhaps. (But... is a tool for humans, so won't work for firing all the workers.)Useless one: built on scraping everything it can find, no real checks for validity, to provide what should be called autocomplete. (On steroids?) It's an imitation of an expert system like a plastic Burger King car imitates a motor vehicle. It has its uses if all you're doing is having a bit of fun; worthless if you actually need to get somewhere.
(DIR) Post #B1na8YoA5xlV7sEmvY by quixote@mastodon.nz
2025-12-31T06:10:48Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@lowqualityfacts Wait. What? I need footnotes.I assumed it was some kind of joke I didn't get. But I'm thinking maybe it's for real?? Seriously, do trees have lice eggs these days? How? Lice wouldn't lay eggs in a spruce. Somebody would have to rub their louse infected head in the branches or something. ?? Very weird. Can somebody explain this for me?
(DIR) Post #B23RVMmVrc5YTtwPAm by quixote@mastodon.nz
2026-01-07T21:49:27Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@rms Plus, if you read both alphabets, it comes across as senseless. It was years, I kid you not, before I was hit by the flash of insight that the Toys company was trying to be funny about being the only true source for toys. Because "Toys Are Us" didn't seem to mean much either. Maybe after the mental gearshifts of No-not-a-Ya-so-why---oh-they-think-that's playful-for-an-R-but-what's-that---oh-the-hell-with-it--boooooring.
(DIR) Post #B2EWSyUZpvaV50n1UW by quixote@mastodon.nz
2026-01-13T06:06:25Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@vik Honestly. Supposedly, they've known since the 5th whose accounts are involved. Do they notify us? Say anything? Anything at all? Noooo. Gumballs.And in all the serious highminded reporting, they're not mentioning that MMH was using TLS security protocol from 2008. Two thousand and freakin eight. If that's actually true, MMH owes all of us giant damanges for criminal negligence.