it is weird how often i read about lie detector tests recently yet nothing about whether lie detector tests have some how been proven reliable recently

The cat, over the course of about 2 minutes, just barfed on the carpet and three different rugs. In case you're wondering how my day is going

When there are multiple stories about data centers simply building gas turbines without permits, PROVING they can’t be trusted, you’d be a fool to trust them. This is not paranoia, it’s pragmatism.

Anil Dash@anildash.com · 3d ago

I'll add some nuance here — most local pushback against data centers is actually quite fluent, and not grounded in the more wild-eyed rhetoric you see on social media. Very often, the core premise is a simple, correct one: you can't trust what Big Tech says in its promises to a local community.

Reminder - table top fire pits like this are dangerous. If you have one at home, toss it. If there is one at your vacation rental, don't use it.

Texas has suspended over 1.2 million voter registrations. Many valid voters in Texas have found their voter registrations were somehow canceled when they checked. Check your registration here and fix it immediately - Texas doesn't always honor provisional ballots cast on election day.

imagine an orphan crushing machine. i hate the machine and i hope we can dismantle it. but if the man who helped build the orphan crushing machine falls into it? buddy i’m gonna crack a smile.

Laura Jedeed@laurajedeed.bsky.social · last wk.

The predictable Discourse is starting and I'm going to take a strong stand here: you can both want to abolish ICE and laugh really, really hard at Milo Yiannopoulos getting arrested by ICE after a decade of stoking the ethnonationalist hatred that led us to this point

Dolly Parton is proof that rich people can just do stuff like that whenever they want but most of them are bad people

Not the obituary I wanted to read today

I don't know if anyone else has noticed but dogs are pretty good

Every single strike is for all of us, union and non union. Every single striker is risking their income and livelihood to insist that working people deserve dignity and respect and livable wages.

The reverse is also true: anyone who opposes striking workers opposes you too

Margaret Killjoy@margaret.bsky.social · 2w ago

Every single strike is for all of us, union and non union. Every single striker is risking their income and livelihood to insist that working people deserve dignity and respect and livable wages.

They didn't like Aaron Swartz's goals (making scientific knowledge more accessible to the public) and they do like the LLM companies' goals (permanently crushing the labor market for knowledge workers)

Chance the Lawyer@chancethelawyer.bsky.social · 2w ago

say what you will about the myriad valid concerns with current LLMs but I personally will never get over the fact that Aaron Swartz was prosecuted to his literal death for downloading JSTOR and then a decade later, they downloaded & ingested the entire world and our IP laws just went ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

this is psychotic but a genuinely valuable articulation of a thing many drivers actually believe

Christopher Owen@oysta.au · 2w ago

found another new type of guy

Always a good reason for Stephen Jay Gould’s quote: “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

He may well have 1000 Einsteins and Mozarts working in his warehouses right now, but they can't do anything with their abilities what with having to work 18 hours a day under constant threat of being fired for taking a piss

i don't know who thought it was a good idea for the high-profile pedophiles in charge of our government to develop a makework program for lesser known pedophiles within our federal policing apparatus. but i disagree with them

Spencer Ackerman@attackerman.bsky.social · 3w ago

ICE and CBP are full of rapists and child predators. A new report details it in horrific detail.

[redacted person who does not know whose mentions they wandered into]: In my city, the cyclists are so entitled, they act like they own the roads. Me: LET THE BIKES OWN THE ROADS. THE BIKES ARE FAR LESS DANGEROUS AND POLLUTING BY ABSOLUTELY EVERY MEASURE. MAKE THE CARS PAY TOLLS TO THE CYCLISTS.

if cities dumped their entire police forces and plowed all of that money into actually improving peoples's lives I am convinced crime would actually go down

there is no such thing as "age verification." All "age verification" is actually "identity verification." You can coat it in glitter and "privacy-preserving" wrapping paper. But in the end, mandating age verification means mandating surveillance be built into software and hardware. Period.

Things that use a time format like "07:30 PM" are needlessly confusing because the leading zero is an indicator for 24-hour time. I don't like it

Man's Annoyed Face Reaction

Alt: Man's Annoyed Face Reaction

static.klipy.com

These gloves don't cause neuromuscular incapacitation the way that a taser does. In fact, they only work when applied directly to bare skin. These aren't made for apprehending anyone. These have one and only one use: causing extreme pain to already-restrained captives. In plain language: torture.

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 3w ago

Zero surprise that these are explicitly designed to cause pain without leaving a mark, not to incapacitate. Yes, we're spending $20M to buy ICE agents torture devices.

I think about this a lot.

If we could do anything for these men, it’s: teach them that even if you have a partner, masturbation is fine, and possibly could be just a routine and acceptable thing for a highly-sexed person with a less-sexual partner. Or - for a person with no partner. It’s the shame that is so toxic. 

41 years ago, Carl Sagan gave a clear and elegant explanation of the science behind global warming.

For Bluesky to survive, we're gonna need to decipher that ancient language and fulfill the prophecy

Aaron Silvers Lining Playbook@cut.buzz · 3w ago

For Bluesky to survive, were gonna need to hold this dance at a grain elevator just outside the town limits.

www.bbc.com/news/article... Your horrifyingly all-too-regular reminder that the very existence of a death penalty is fundamentally incompatible with a civilised society.

Three men will be executed the same day as US sees steep rise in death penalty

Despite growing opposition to the death penalty, one state is behind the rising numbers.

bbc.com

If you missed the solar eclipse, this is what it looked like:

'Supposably' is a word. supposably = “as may be conceived or imagined” supposedly = "allegedly"

Zalgo is Tony the pony. He comes.