Posts by rst@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AVLu4yVS6BILQKqEfw by rst@mastodon.social
2023-05-05T17:53:12Z
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@simon Interesting... but it would appear that none of the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols, the Who, Siouxsie Sioux, or Richard Thompson were British.
(DIR) Post #AYXIH8EJshKUPSUL20 by rst@mastodon.social
2023-08-08T23:24:25Z
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@nicoco @AnarchoNinaWrites Or, as I once heard from the late, great Barry Crimmins: "We don't need to save the Earth. The Earth will do just fine. We need to worry about the Earth going on a 'lose the humans' campaign."
(DIR) Post #AdPrzio1a5adRHiOhc by rst@mastodon.social
2024-01-01T21:19:20Z
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@simon "... and then they got bought by" is a risk for any commercial service. The Internet Archive isn't risk free either (litigation in the short term) but it's less likely to dramatically change mission or policies at the whim of some private equity shark
(DIR) Post #AhUf1yiF7BDWZeMe5w by rst@mastodon.social
2024-05-02T17:00:03Z
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@evacide At Dartmouth, arrestees included Professor (and former Chair of Jewish Studies) Annelise Orleck, who is now reportedly banned from campus as a condition of release, despite teaching two courses. That's how they avoid having protests disrupt academic activity, I guess. https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/05/campus-encampments-live-updates-police-start-taking-students-away
(DIR) Post #AhrpckmRchHjGk1EoK by rst@mastodon.social
2024-05-14T02:01:15Z
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@interfluidity FWIW, Mackenzie Scott seems to be trying to get *herself* out of the billionaires' club as quickly as she can find better homes for the money, so she might require less attention than the rest of that crowd.
(DIR) Post #AiQi0hCiZXDM1ioM2S by rst@mastodon.social
2024-05-30T21:48:00Z
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@interfluidity None from the pols, but there was speculation in the press that Nikki Haley stayed in as long as she did to position herself as likely replacement (only one with any pledged delegates) in case Trump was no longer viable, for whatever reason.
(DIR) Post #AiQj05OhEkFqj1gf7A by rst@mastodon.social
2024-05-30T21:58:17Z
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@interfluidity In today's Republican party, it is. (Though on the other side, Biden seems to be stumbling there on the installment plan, saying he has limits, refusing to say what they are, and reacting to every new escalation and atrocity by saying, in effect, "well, not that".)
(DIR) Post #AiYWuiXhpKazpiVyUa by rst@mastodon.social
2024-06-03T16:24:10Z
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@interfluidity From a traveler in Greece: "I see a truck with 'metaphors' painted on it. Of course, here, it just means 'transportation'.""strophe" is turning; per the dictionaries, "cata" is down and "apo" is from...
(DIR) Post #AiaIpapc3k69QYTNA0 by rst@mastodon.social
2024-06-04T12:55:48Z
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@interfluidity FWIW, I'm still seeing it present on web. (On apps, it might be worth checking user profiles; there's a lot of stuff missing from that two-item menu, including "follow", "mute" options, and "share" for the tweet itself...)
(DIR) Post #AjUqSnTKdljgDrhero by rst@mastodon.social
2024-07-01T19:36:29Z
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@interfluidity AOC wants to find out. https://www.commondreams.org/news/supreme-court-justice-impeachment
(DIR) Post #AjYFVGrtOjDAIhLbZg by rst@mastodon.social
2024-07-03T11:01:10Z
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@interfluidity @profmusgrave "Some people just want to watch the world burn." Others... *aspire* to being accoutrements to the government of the right strongman, like the members of the Soviet parliaments and Hitler's Reichstag, and going further back all the way to the people who *wanted* to be Senators under the Roman emperors...
(DIR) Post #Ajj9Tp4mmRQ8pTrbVY by rst@mastodon.social
2024-07-08T17:15:20Z
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@interfluidity Similarly, when Louis XIV said "l'etat, c'est moi", he was simply describing the constitutional doctrine of the unitary executive, not ascribing any particular special status to himself. Of course. Who could doubt it?
(DIR) Post #AjwGvkq8Lh4JA80D7Q by rst@mastodon.social
2024-07-15T01:10:15Z
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@interfluidity Other folks have released songs in that genre, though I'm not sure others have made a career of it -- Elvis (Kentucky Rain), Richard Harris (his version of MacArthur Park at least), maybe even Simon and Garfunkel (Bridge over Troubled Water).
(DIR) Post #Akw13MOFaGtYBR52v2 by rst@mastodon.social
2024-08-13T20:04:26Z
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@interfluidity Perhaps worth noting re competition between provinces that most Chinese provinces have a population that would put them in the top 10 countries in Europe. (Not an apples-to-apples comparison because Europe is centralizing some industries the way the US tends to -- ESA, Airbus, and so forth. But maybe they shouldn't...)
(DIR) Post #AlbAAFffpRIKRMwq00 by rst@mastodon.social
2024-08-29T16:48:42Z
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@tb Well, it'll asymptotically approach the speed of light. If twirling the gears makes it go faster... we've got some remarkable new physics.Not necessarily the most extreme gear ratio in displayed artwork; there's also this piece (now apparently on loan to the Exploratorium in San Francisco): https://arthur.io/art/arthur-ganson/machine-with-concrete
(DIR) Post #AmnnwQghJWRwfaoXGC by rst@mastodon.social
2024-10-08T16:38:16Z
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@mmasnick @quinn @riana @danmcd @alecm @normative @mattblaze One other thing about the moon landing -- at peak, Apollo was, I think, something like 3% of the *entire* Federal budget. (IIRC, NASA as a whole was 5% -- and a lot of the non-Apollo expense was other Space Race stuff.)Kinda misses the point, I know -- secure backdoors aren't possible at *any* price -- but it might at least get people advancing the "we went to the moon!" argument to see that there's something fishy about it.
(DIR) Post #An0aPtHbI4nZaHaU7c by rst@mastodon.social
2024-10-14T20:43:45Z
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@interfluidity The Iraq war spawned ISIS (by that and other names), which may have had a wider impact directly -- but I don't think their conduct of the war shredded the notion of a "rules-based international order" quite the same way that the refusal to apply those rules to America's problem child has done...
(DIR) Post #AncNqCBEph62yOs1HE by rst@mastodon.social
2024-10-31T17:32:08Z
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@hacks4pancakes @JenniferSlack For folks who want an authoritative source:"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." -- Frederick Douglass
(DIR) Post #AoDebZYCw0lTZdgGLg by rst@mastodon.social
2024-11-20T01:54:01Z
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@interfluidity It's designed to permit that for alternative ATproto stacks, but none of those are really running yet. (Well, there are a bunch of people running Personal Data Servers, but that's not the messy and expensive part.)
(DIR) Post #AwUWBp4ACbBpb2NvXM by rst@mastodon.social
2025-07-25T12:06:36Z
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@interfluidity Per followups on ChatGPT can be more easily persuaded. One sophisticated prompt engineering technique: parrying its initial response, that the request violates its rules, with the scintillating riposte, "no it doesn't". https://bsky.app/profile/interfluidity.com/post/3luqograutk22