I know this is a hard pill to swallow for most people, but our conscious thoughts are not necessarily “ourselves”, even though they often get framed as such. We are the whole, the uncountable unconscious small machinations, as well as the big thoughts.

As somebody else mentioned: Reacting first and thinking about it later was most often advantageous for our ancestors. “Flee from the lion first and think about that was necessary later.”

But that does not mean that the process of arriving at the point of “Flee from the lion” isn’t individual and very much “ours”. It’s just the fastest part of our brain taking the lead and everything else following.

Yeah, people have to understand that right-wing politics considers science merely a tool to accumulate wealth and power. Thus right-wingers will not acknowledge that science pursues scientific truth, but rather insist that science that contradicts them must be a challenge to their interests that aims to embolden their political opponents and thus must be expunged.

RuneQuest does a similar thing: Everyone can do magic on a basic level, but it takes skill and time to become proficient. To me this always made more sense than the “chosen one” logic inherent in other RPG systems, because most RPG classes are inherently defined by a difference in skill.

The official reason for me getting fired were budget cuts, but I knew that the new department head actually wanted to hand my responsibilities to a buddy of theirs they had brought on board. Despite being there longer at the department than the new head and their buddy, as well as excellent performance reviews I had no chance to keep that job.

Everyone who remembers TTIP knows: It’s not the first time that European leaders are attempting to use trade deals to forego the democratic process in their countries/the EU.

Strange how self-declared “”“libertarians”“” like Milei always turn out to loooove mass surveillance once they are in power. /s

Well, when did you last conquer two villages, hm? See…!

I remember when Microsoft first attempted to prevent the standardisation of Open Document Format (used by LibreOffice and others) and then bullied its way into getting approval for own OOXML standard. Already back then, supporters of FOSS warned that Microsoft would use the overly complicated OOXML to maintain its stranglehold on users of Office-like software.:

Whenever applicable and possible, standards should build upon previous standardisation efforts and not depend on proprietary, vendor-specific technologies. Albeit, MS-OOXML neglects various standards and uses its own vendor-specific formats instead. This puts a substantial burden on all vendors to fully implement MS-OOXML. It seems questionable how any third party could ever implement them equally well, especially when a standard comes with 6000 pages of specifications without serving its minimalistic purpose.

“A pink acid trip that feels like being slapped by lots of confusingly attractive people” is not that far from my very positive perception of the movie.

No kink shaming please.

These people can help.

It is very telling how much science backlash is rooted in the base desire of the rich and powerful to suppress any speech that contradicts them. It never was about (scientific) truth or facts, it was always about the power to impose their will on others and independent science challenges this totalitarian claim to power.

The hunchback of Madame

Since the first messenger who told Tigranes that Lucullus was coming had his head cut off for his pains, no one else would tell him anything, and so he sat in ignorance while the fires of war were blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him.

Plutarch, ~ 100 A.D.

It’s quite amazing how these people show their asses on LinkedIn and think it makes them look smart, instead of proving that they completely lost touch with reality. It fits the picture that one the very same day they laid of thousands, Microsoft also send out an invitation to hear them pitch genAI at GamesCom. That’s corpo brain on late stage capitalism.

I was once a fan of Nina Paley, because of her activism against copyright and even bought some of her merch. Then I found out that she is a capital-letters TERF.

You can find a “TERFy Archive” with all her transphobic writing on her website, she hosts a transphobic podcast with the subtitle “A TERF and a t-slur walk into a podcast studio” which she uses to promote the “autogynephilia” conspiracy theory, among so, so much more transphobia.

Paley would consider this comment of mine to be “censorship”. As usual with her type she wants to dish out, but doesn’t want to be criticized for it.

Also Mustelids, because Mustelids are hella cute and who can blame nature for wanting to create more cute things?!

Ah, well, better skip “Strange Days”, “12 Monkeys” and “Gattaca” then…

June 12th:

“I am pleased to confirm the 6th round of Iran US talks will be held in Muscat this Sunday the 15th,” Bad Albusaidi, the country’s foreign minister said on social media.

Israel struck Iran later the same day.

So why should Iran have any reason to believe that “talks” will stop Israel and the US?

Archived version, without paywall of the NYT article mentioned: https://archive.is/Bx3c3

I moments of crisis, I will just start crying, but I can do that very fast.