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mastodon - Link to source

I haven't seen it said anywhere so me go: The Billionaire Bitch Fight™️ should be the thing to finally teach the opposition that the MAGA alliance has the structural integrity of wet toilet paper.

This is just one specific fault line but the GOP bloc is riddled with them; it's just about mobilizing the many, many wedge issues & hammering on them, and the whole rotten apparatus will collapse like an unstrung puppet.

@pluralistic explains 👉 doctorow.medium.com/https-plur… #resist #uspol #bitchfight


The true, tactical significance of Project 2025 - Cory Doctorow - Medium

TODAY (July 14), I’m giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth Hackers On Planet Earth, in Queens, NY. NEXT SATURDAY (July 20), I’m appearing at Chicago’s Exile in Bookville. Like you, I have…
Cory Doctorow (Medium)

mastodon - Link to source
Box64 v0.3.6 Released, Supports Vulkan 1.4 Now: github.com/ptitSeb/box64/relea…
#linux #linuxgaming #update #release #foss #gaming #box64 #vulkan #upgrade

Release v0.3.6 · ptitSeb/box64

What's Changed This version introduces wowbox64.dll for Hangover; the ability to use the Volatile Metadata of Windows executables for x64 wine; and some better x87/SSE/AVX handling => WowBox64 can...
GitHub

mastodon - Link to source
GE-Proton10-4 Released: github.com/GloriousEggroll/pro…
#linux #linuxgaming #update #release #foss #proton #protonge

Release GE-Proton10-4 Released · GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom

Proton: Fixed broken cursor issue with DOOM Eternal, DOOM Dark Ages, and Rocket League in winewayland (Thanks OOOOOF123/Etaash) Added a stub implementation for amdxc64.dll to enable FSR4. Use FSR4...
GitHub

mastodon - Link to source

Betsey Piette discusses the challenges the US faces in containing global opposition. Three main challenges are highlighted:

the resistance of Palestinians and people in West Asia for a free Palestine

China's resistance to US capitalist domination of the global economy

the growing awareness among young people that they have no future under capitalism

Piette emphasizes the importance of young activists and workers developing a global perspective.

workers.org/2025/05/85945/

#socialism


Socialist China’s role in combating imperialist domination

Despite decades of wars and occupations of countries abroad, the U.S. faces a global challenge it is unable to contain.
Workers World

friendica - Link to source
Russia-Nigeria Friendly Match is 'Great Way to Show How Nations Can Connect,' Nigeria's Captain Says en.sputniknews.africa/20250605…

Russia-Nigeria Friendly Match is 'Great Way to Show How Nations Can Connect,' Nigeria's Captain Says

The Russian and Nigerian national football teams will meet in a friendly match in Moscow on Friday. The game will start at 8 pm Moscow time, 6 pm Nigerian time.
Sputnik Africa

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

You can follow us in other languages. Visit our website for more information wordsmith.social/protestation/…

Protestation

2023-06-11 11:27:05

ActivityPub - Link to source

Social


English– @protestation@friendica.eskimo.com

Français– @protestation@social.trom.tf– @protestation@mastodon.social

Deutsch– @protestation@friendica.opensocial.space

Português– @protestation@mastodon.acc.sunet.se– @protestation@friendicarg.nsupdate.info

Quotes– @protestation@embers.social– @protestation@freeradical.zone


mastodon - Link to source

A report by Morgan Stanley predicts the US dollar will weaken and reach pandemic lows by the middle of next year. The dollar's decline is attributed to interest rate cuts and slowing growth, as well as trade policies and uncertainty. The bank also predicts 10-year Treasury yields will reach 4% this year and decline significantly next year due to Federal Reserve rate cuts.

investmentnews.com/ria-news/mo…

#usa #economy


Morgan Stanley says dollar could lose 9% in a year

Greenback predicted to fall to pandemic levels.
Bloomberg (InvestmentNews)

friendica - Link to source
When it comes to helping NASA scientists better understand the effects of space travel on the human body, fruit flies are the heavyweights of experiments in weightlessness. Because humans and fruit flies share a lot of similar genetic code, they squeeze a lot of scientific value into a conveniently small, light package. Through a new […]

NASA Provides Hardware for Space Station DNA Repair Experiment  - NASA

Rachel Hoover (NASA)

diaspora - Link to source

Thomas Mann


geb. 6. Juni 1875 in Lübeck

Mal 'ne kleine Erinnerung zum 150sten! 🎉


Eine 4 in #Deutsch, das #ABI nicht geschafft ... Es gibt also Hoffnung für uns alle! 😎


Außerdem war er fähig zur Einsicht, denn er wandelte sich vom konservativen Kriegsbefürworter, im Ersten Weltkrieg, zum #Antifachisten.

Also: Auf, auf, und zur Feder gegriffen! (und immer schön an #Menschlichkeit, und am #Charakter arbeiten 🤗) ✨


deutscher Schriftsteller und Nobelpreisträger (1875–1955)

Autoren der Wikimedia-Projekte (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)
in reply to N. E. Felibata 👽

hubzilla - Link to source

Alexander Goeres 𒀯

hmm, vielleicht bin ich ja mittlerweile alt genug, mal den zauberberg zu lesen. als jugendlicher (also vor dekaden) hatte ich es mal mit "joseph und seine brüder" versucht; da war ich aber nachhaltig abgeschreckt, als ich einen satz über 1,5 seiten lang auch nach zig mal lesen einfach nicht verstanden habe ...

friendica - Link to source
Vitaly Naumkin: “Our function is to support the efforts of the state that we have something to add to” journal-neo.su/2025/06/06/vita…

Vitaly Naumkin: “Our function is to support the efforts of the state that we have something to add to”

We present to you the second part of the interview series with Vitaly Naumkin. We discussed how Russia is securing a friendly environment in the Middle
Юлия Новицкая (New Eastern Outlook)
in reply to stephie

mastodon - Link to source

stephie

Hier gibt's auch eine Meldung dazu, was Merz konkret gesagt hat

Grundlage für die Angabe des stark gestiegenen Antisemitismus sind die RIAS-Zahlen, die Merz Migranten in die Schuhe schiebt.

Wir wissen ja, dass sie RIAS-Zahlen inhaltlich völlig intransparent sind, und auch auf Massenmeldung eines Aufklebers beruhen können, mit einer Meinung die RIAS nicht mag.

So schließt sich dann auch wieder der Kreis. Der Antisemitismusvorwurf als Tool rechtsextremer Agitation.
dw.com/en/germanys-merz-extrem…


Germany's Merz 'extremely satisfied' with Trump talks

Germany's chancellor held a friendly meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House, and said he hopes for progress on trade talks and putting pressure on Russia.
Kate Hairsine (Deutsche Welle)
in reply to atzanteol

lemmy - Link to source

NotASharkInAManSuit

911, and ideally they would alert a tactical response team with a negotiator to get on a helicopter while they gather details and form a plan in transit that would reflect their training for these situations. Have four of these teams in each state. police cordon off the area and monitor the situation to keep the team updated while they are in transit and to watch the entrances and exits while the staff that were already in the building, including resource officers, would be doing what they could to get people away or get them to the safest place they can. Police force as an intervention would be a last resort scenario, as escalation in these situations will only guarantee more dead. The police have no obligation to protect or serve under the current laws, they are not required to do fuck all, they should not be the people you expect to save or help you, they only exist at this point to punish you and bind you.
in reply to NotASharkInAManSuit

lemmy - Link to source

atzanteol

Congrats! You win a prize for offering the first actual answer to the question without simply attacking me for my perceived biases. 🏆

In most mass shootings I doubt negotiation is going to get very far - and the delay may cause more deaths. Many times the perpetrator simply commits suicide. These are folks who have hit 'fuck it' and are looking to end it all and cause a lot of damage on the way out. Often by the time police are even able to respond they've done most of the damage they will do already.

The rest sounds an awful lot like SWAT.

LandedGentry doesn't like this.

in reply to atzanteol

lemmy - Link to source

NotASharkInAManSuit

You’re right, there is no perfect answer so we should just do nothing and allow the cops to do whatever the fuck they want and give them immunity for everything. If we can’t have it absolutely perfect every time then we should just let things go to their worst possible situation, right? Otherwise we’d have to accept that the system isn’t perfect.

Go fuck yourself you stagnant kowtowing twat.

Edit: Yes, SWAT is a tactical response team trained for these specific situations. Way to point out that we actually already have these units ready to be used, you god damned idiot.

This entry was edited (3 months ago)
in reply to NotASharkInAManSuit

lemmy - Link to source

atzanteol

Your trophy is taken back. Sorry - I thought you were serious.

You’re right, there is no perfect answer so we should just do nothing and allow the cops to do whatever the fuck they want and give them immunity for everything.


Where did you get this from? I genuinely don't understand the childish level of anger I'm getting for asking a legitimate question. When people say "never call the cops" they neglect to say what one should do instead. Just hide in a corner and wait for inevitable death?

Go fuck yourself you stagnant kowtowing twat.


Kowtowing to WHO??? Are you people crazy or something?

lemmy - Link to source

Besides mod logs, is there a better way for the Fediverse to keep track of malicious actors, such as Kiwi farms members, Nazi apologists, and genocide deniers?
This entry was edited (3 months ago)
in reply to Frenchfryenjoyer (she/her)

lemmy - Link to source

Fizz

The voyger mobile app allows you to tag users and see how many times you've upvoted abd downvoted them. If you have an idea you can suggest it as a feature on github. Outside of that you can only really block and report if their behaviour breaks the rules.

At the moment its up to the community at the moment to weed out those kinds of people.

friendica - Link to source
DPA: NATO has approved the largest arms build-up since the Cold War en.news-front.su/2025/06/05/dp…

DPA: NATO has approved the largest arms build-up since the Cold War

NATO defence ministers have approved the largest arms build-up since the Cold War.   About it writes the agency DPA. “NATO has agreed on the largest rearmament programme since the Cold War”, – stated in the material.
newsmaker newsmaker (English News front)

diaspora - Link to source
Bonjour tout le monde, je suis #nouveauici. Mes centres d'intérêt sont #art, #art--design, #art-abstrait, #design-art, #design-charecters, #french-air-and-space-force, #linux, #linux-admin, #mao, #mao-linux, #music, #musique-alternative, #pair-aidance, #paranaoïa, #schizophrénie et #typographe.

reshared this

friendica - Link to source
Europe doubles weapons purchases from Israel despite growing calls to end Gaza genocide thecradle.co/articles-id/31215

Europe doubles weapons purchases from Israel despite growing calls to end Gaza genocide

Israel's defense industry has increased its profits in recent years, selling weapons to European countries supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia
thecradle.co

ActivityPub - Link to source

Deep in Mordor where the shadows lie: Dystopian tales of that time when I sold out to Google

I will do something I normally never do here, and make my first ever blog post on the topic of, long sigh: tech. I’ve already talked about Google a number of times on Mastodon which is, blessedly, by design, not discoverable; but I’ve decided to commit the full story to print. Hopefully this won't come back to bite me in the ass but eh it’s the apocalypse, who cares at this point. At least Wordsmith Dot Social is half-abandoned and has no comment system, so I won’t have to deal with techbros batting for billionaires or preaching the power of Open Source (™ Open Source Initiativeⓡ).

But if you clicked this, Dear Reader, then you wanted the tea; and I am nothing if not forthcoming with tea-spilling. The fact that Google fired me with shut-up money only makes it more fun to do it. So go get some chamomile and sit comfortably, for this is an old woman reminiscing; let’s talk about capitalism and anarchism, about the precariat and surveillance, plush dolls and churrascarias and gay argots; let us go back in time and space, and journey to tropical Brazil in the distant time of 2007…

Black-white photo of a camera installed on an architectural detail like a geometric series of parallel slats. Taken 2008.

1. Treason


Cover to the Brazilian edition of the pen-and-paper RPG called Paranoia, second edition from the nineties. In a comedic cartoon style, it shows a man in a red suit walking down a corridor that's heavily monitored, and about to be ambushed by an assortment of robots, agents, clones of himself, and random weapons coming out of the walls, including one cartoonish round bomb on one hand, being lit by a different hand coming from another hole of the futuristic wall.

2007 wasn’t a good year to start a new career, as it turned out.

Google back then prided itself on broadcasting its Best Place To Work award, won year after year after year. Younger people will have trouble picturing this, but Google used to nurture an image of being the “good one” among megacorps; they championed open standards (except when they didn’t), supported open source projects (until they backstabbed them), and used language that corporate wasn’t supposed to use, like “don’t be evil” (until they, infamously and in a true dark comedy move, retracted that motto). The work environment was all colourful, nerdy cool, not a single necktie in sight—this was seen as brave and refreshing rather than cringe and tired, you see. And they made a big deal out of something called “20% time”: Every engineer was promised 1/5 of their work time for themselves, to do anything they want. (Google owners will still own whatever you create during your 20% time, natürlich). Famously, Gmail came out of someone exploring their interests during 20% time.

I don’t think much of anything else came out of it, though.

I found out I was always overworked on drudgery; my main job was to fix boring bugs on the Ruby on Rails internal user accounting system that someone else had developed. When I complained that this was a far cry from the academia-like, exciting research environment I had been promised, and asked to be assigned to a more challenging project, I was told the following rationale against it: “no”. Moreover the deadlines and expectations were such that even if I worked (unpaid) overtime every day, I was still was at risk of a performance review. Making actual use of the “20% time” felt like a pipe dream.

And all that with wages well below even the local market in our crumbling Third World economy. With no exciting research positions nor self-managed time nor compensation, what was the advantage over a high-paying job at Microsoft or IBM? A bright blue vinyl floor and WarioWare Wii in the cafeteria? Well we were the hip tech vanguard, we were all geniuses, we were paid in prestige and promises and ego massages. Perform good enough and you might be awarded a smattering of shares at some point, get some crumbs from the bountiful capitalists' table.

Like most employees I blamed myself for not working hard enough to get good compensation—or to have time to exercise my right of 20% free time… Until I saw in the “Googlegeist” statistics that some 95% of employees never use their “20% time” at all, being trapped under the same pressures as I was.

I started a discussion about how the recruiter's promise of “20% free time” could maybe be this little thing that the forgotten priestesses of ancient Samarkand called a “lie”. There was an internal Blogger system, only available for other employees and bosses; and I wrote a post arguing that if no one feels able to use their 20% time, then it’s not much of a perk, is it.

The result of this was my boss having a fit over me “backstabbing” him. See, me complaining about the unfulfilled recruiter promises marked me as an Unhappy Googler. And Google, if you remember, was the Best Place To Work. It was very important that every promising young engineer thought of Google as the dream job where everyone is happy. Unhappiness isn't allowed. My manager was severely scolded by his manager for having dissatisfaction (gasp) within his team.

I said, “But the issue is real and not my fault, don’t you agree? I just used the data to bring it to attention. Didn't you say we operate under 'radical transparency'?” (I was young and believed in this kind of slogan. Yes, I was a sitting duck and didn’t stand a chance.)

Boss replied,

Radical transparency doesn't mean you get to say negative things.


Exact quote, I remember every word in that backroom in Phoenix, AZ.

Ever heard of the 1984 dark comedy RPG «Paranoia»? It takes place in a dystopian future society called the Alpha Complex. The Complex is ruled by the Computer, which is perfect and makes no mistakes, guaranteeing the best possible life for all humans. If someone commits a crime, for example, the Computer will always know—every wall has cameras—and instantly disintegrate the offender—every wall is packed with death lasers.

Of course, if you suggested that this ever happens, you would be implying that the Computer can raise a criminal human. It would logically follow that you’re holding the Computer to be less than perfect. That accusation is a crime of treason. Treason is punished with death. Nobody ever complains about life in the Alpha Complex, which goes to show how perfect the Computer is. In fact, everyone in the Alpha Complex is perfectly happy with the Computer's rule. To feel unhappy is equivalent to accusing the Computer of making mistakes, and it therefore constitutes treason. Happiness is mandatory. Are you happy, citizen?

2. The Google Precariat, Part I: dictbot


Photo of the anti-racism protests in reaction to the murder of the Black teenager Nahel in France. While most people are dressed in normal riot gear, with black hoodies and COVID masks, the photo focus on a protester who is wearing a red net over their had that covers their entire face, eyes and nose and all. Underneath they wear a striped yellow-white T-shirt and large, hip-hop style chains.(Photo by Stephane DUPRAT / Hans Lucas.)

When you joined Google, you were quickly overwhelmed by massive amounts of corporate jargon—a hundred opaque project names, TLAs for everything etc. To help new Googlers settle in, the Intranet had an online glossary.

Now in the spirit of “20% time”, we were encouraged to tinker with pet projects, or so they told me. And we used to hang out in IRC chatrooms back then. So I made a little IRC bot that would fetch definitions from the glossary. Very basic stuff, if someone said “wtf is Chrome” in the channel, the bot would dump the summary paragraph, “Project Chrome is an initiative to develop a Google web browser, based on KHTML…”

I then got scolded for it, because I was leaking private information into a space that could be accessed by “temps, part-timers, and contractors”—Google's sprawling precariat (put a pin on that, more on that later). As I alluded to, we Googlers were pampered with prestige; but the “temps, part-timers and contractors”—no fun name for them, they were always called “temps, part-timers, and contractors”—were second-class in Google Nation, had to be constantly put in their place in a myriad ways. How else would the Engineers feel like geniuses, if there wasn’t a “normie” class to be treated worse than them?

One of the barbed-wire fences around temps, part-timers and contractors is that they should not have access to inside info, e.g. what is Project Chrome. My bot was, allegedly, violating that norm. I pointed out that all that my bot did was to fetch info from the glossary page, and that anyone with access to the IRC channels already had access to the glossary page.

Dear Reader, this is how I became responsible for provoking the Computer into fencing away the glossary website from temps, part-timers, and contractors.

3. A lament from Project Android


A colourful illustration of a clockwork bird, made of gold and jewels, singing. From a Russian edition of Andersen's "Nightingale" story.Illustration: Джона Пейшенса, ISBN: 5-232-00383-6.

The Reader might well imagine how I had become persona non grata to my boss after the “backstabbing” episode. When I wrote that blog post, I had gotten a number of emails from employees thanking me for talking about it, saying they’re glad someone is finally taking a stand, praising me for my bravery.

Now my posture back then will feel very natural for those of you who only met me post-transition, and knew me from the start as this like, badass nazi-punching antifa thug with no filter and no sense of consequences. But you have to understand: back then I was a shy little nerd terrified of everything. I wasn't brave; I was incredibly, magnificently naïve. I was maybe the only person in the world who believed Google’s corporate kool-aid; I bit it hook, line and sinker, I really did believe we were some sort of new, dynamic academia, we didn't work in offices we worked in “campi”, the company was a way to fund exciting new research and we were there to improve the world by organising its information. At least I thought I was.

Interviewer: What attracted you to Google? me: I agree with the Ten Principles of the company. Interviewer: The what now? Me: The Ten Principles? Google's Principles? In the 'about' page? Interviewer: Uuh, sure…


It did not even occur to me that it was all a scam, that everyone else knew it was all a scam and the actual point was to get rich. In retrospect I should have read the undertones in early Paul Graham essays; I was a literary girl, I'm good at undertones; but I only read what I wanted to be true.

Not long after my post in the Intranet Blogger, there was a post by some engineer I didn't know; a core programmer from the secret Project Android. Out of the three big ones I had to stay quiet about, Project Android and Project Chrome got finished and became highly successful—only to immediately turn into world-wrecking monstrosities that we, low-level grunts, would never have imagined. The third project, a physical-layer broadcast technology for the Internet—Youtube with HD quality if you logged in at showtime—never went forward.

But this insider, they were venting about how disappointed they had become with the directions that Project Android was taking. They were losing their motivation, this is not what they thought the “Linux phone” would be about, this wasn’t what they signed up for. The blogger was silent on any tech details, or what exactly was so disappointing; but with the benefit of hindsight it's easy to imagine.

A few days later, the same person posted something like “haha disregard that, I was having personal mental health issues and wrote a ill-conceived rant but it's all my fault really, of course there's a always few bumps but Project Android is amazing actually!! Y'all are going to love this, it's going to change everything!! We're organising the world's information and making a difference”, etc. etc.

Like, conspicuously back-to-back, the two posts.

I’m an airheaded bimbo but at some point the lesson will penetrate even my smooth silly brain. This time, I was observant.

4. Mona, entendida, odara… 🤔 elza


Police photo of a group of Brazilian travestis—a local transfeminine culture—detained in skimpy clothing, their photos blurred.

I wasn't out as trans yet, but I was already proud to be queer. Showed up first day with neon orange hair, unicorn T-shirt, the works. That made of me a Gaygler™, and Google Belo Horizonte was always happy to have me on team photos to add some colour and progressiveness to the image.

Now even though Google is fundamentally a spyware advertising company (some 80% of its revenue is advertising; the proportion was even higher back then), we Engineers were kept carefully away from that reality, as much as meat eaters are kept away from videos of the meat industry: don't think about it, just enjoy your steak. If you think about it it will stop being enjoyable, so we just churned along, pretending to work for an engineering company rather than for a giant machine with the sole goal of manipulating people into buying cruft. The ads and business teams were on different floors, and we never talked to them.

One day one of the AdSense people asked me for a little meeting. They sat right by my desk, all sleek and confident, and said that they had heard I was a Gaygler™ and were wondering if I could help with one of their clients. “Can you tell me some words that the Brazilian gay community uses? like slang, popular media you like, names of parties, that kind of thing?”

Caught off-guard and unsure how to react, I struggled to think of gay-coded speech, and I was expertly mined for pajubá terms to be fed into the machine. Whole interaction took maybe ten minutes. The AdSense goon left, never to be seen again, leaving me feeling violated in ways I couldn't articulate.

Google supported its queer employees.

After I got marked as a troublemaker and put into the inevitable performance review, one of the items raised against me was that my company profile page was 'too personal'. the extent of personal information in my profile was this sentence: “I am a nerd, a bisexual polyamorist, and a parent.”¹

5. The Google Precariat, Part II: A water purifier’s salary


Cartoon of a homeless person being rejected at the communal kitchen for lacking documents.“Sure, we give aid to the poor! We’ll only need your registration forms, bank statement, and certificate of good conduct!” Cartoon by Karl Berger for Augustin.

You might have noticed, Dear Reader, that I have made somewhat contradictory claims: 1) that we Engineers were pampered, and 2) that we Engineers were underpaid, pressured to do unpaid overtime at salaries low even for the Brazilian market. Such was the carrot and the stick. We all were told that if we performed just a bit better we would get higher pay, shares, positions at cool projects, and the biggest carrot of all: a relocation to the magical Global North where human rights are real. A way through the wall.

We trudged on, with little more than promises and hope. But we trudged on with style. The offices were all gaudy in Google colours with vinyl flooring, full of fridges with free snacks; the break room had the latest Playstation with brand-new high-tech Rock Band controllers; when you joined in you got a small bonus to buy toys for your desk (most Engineers got legos, I got a pink Kirby plushie I would dress up). This was unheard of; companies at the time were all Microsoft, all performative professionalism, Google was fun! Google gave you Perks, gods, so so many Perks. the Lumon motivation baubles from “Severance” gave me heavy Google flashbacks. We were periodically treated to dinner with the managers at the most expensive churrascarias. Master let us eat right there with him, inside the big house.

I will be honest and say that most of my fellow programmers ate that shit up, we had all been gold-star kids and here was the hottest company in the world constantly massaging our egos, telling us we were better than everyone for being geniuses. I would have loved to feel the same, I tried to feel the same, but I came from poverty and I could not stop noticing the precariat: temps, part-timers, and contractors, an entire layer of the company who did the brunt of work without being Googlers. No toy budget for kitchen staff.

It's the little things that bugged me, how people would eat the free candy or have a bowl of cereal and just leave trash and dirty dishes everywhere for the cleaning ladies (contractors) to deal with; more than that the way nobody looked at them or said “thank you”. We Brazilians have a social class for that, a social code underlying that studied invisibility, I knew what this was: these were maids.² Servants. The women in my family, my friends at school. The “campus” was pretty open and my then-wife visited it a few times; it creeped the Fuck out of her, the distinction between people and non-people.

We had those expensive, high-tech water purifiers, several on each floor. One day there was a discussion on the topic of cost savings, and I suggested the traditional Brazilian solution—the well-known ceramic filters in terracotta jars; they're consistently rated among the safest, need no electricity, make the water cool even in summer without spending any energy, cost little and last a long time before you need to replace the charcoal element, which is anyway inexpensive. The idea was dismissed out of hand. Too low-tech, I suppose.³

The fancy water purifiers weren't owned by Google; they were leased, at a high cost. Somehow it bothered me a lot that each of those excessively technological water monsters got more money per month than any temp, part-timer, or contractor.

The water purifiers were never fired.

6. Cathy don't send that email today


A still from the music video for "Cathy don't go to the supermarket today" (1985), by the extremely abusive sex cult Family International. The song is about how paying with barcodes and cards was an implementation of the Mark of the Beast and will cost your soul. In the still, a large, creepy, Terminator-like enforcer in a trenchcoat is stopping a woman from paying groceries in cash. The number "666" is partly visible on the walls.

Google was my first taste of smartphones, back when that meant a Blackberry (delightful, sturdy little corporate toys with pleasantly clicky, full-QWERTY thumb-keyboards). Mobile data plans were prohibitively expensive for anyone on wage labour, but I was graciously allowed to use my company phone for private purposes; and I delighted in the novelty of not getting lost for once, walking up and down the hills of Belo Horizonte with futuristic, always-on Google Maps under, whoa, unlimited data.

Which is to say, Google was my first taste of the surveillance society that has now become the new normal.

The Reader will remember our big carrot; all of us at Google Brazil worked hard to get the job because it meant a ticket to the Global North (potentially). Now I had been a weeb from an early age, and back then I was already like, intermediate to advanced in Japanese. So of course my dream was to move to Japan. But when I talked about it with my boss—a disembodied face from Phoenix to whom I would report under a giant monitor; this too felt very new, very high-tech, and very dystopic at the time—he dismissed the idea out of hand, saying my Japanese wasn't fluent and that this would make me a poor fit.

I talked to my colleagues about it and someone said, wtf girl no, most international engineers brought to Shibuya cannot even say konnichiwa, if anything your language ability and cultural experience with the diaspora make you the ideal candidate. We had a relevant contact in Google Sweden, and my mates said I should talk to them about contacting Shibuya directly regarding relocation.

And there I was after putting a target on my back as a troublemaker, about to directly contradict my boss and look for a way into Japan behind his back. My colleagues sternly advised me to never mention any of this by email, and also not call from my desk. “You really think they would do that? Just go on my email inbox and breach privacy? :O” International calls were very expensive those days and I didn’t have a landline, so I ended up calling Sweden from a company line inside a little cleaning closet, between brooms and bottles of disinfectant, in the dark, after everyone was gone from the office. Sorry, “campus”.

The Sweden contact told me they knew people in Tōkyō and were sure they would be happy to have me. A couple weeks after that, I was fired. (Mid-economic crisis, in the 3rd world, with one 2-year-old kid and another about to be born.)

And it was so weird and surreal to be in that little locker room, afraid of every whisper, aware that every communication was being spied on. And when I tell this story to my now adult children, I struggle to convey how weird it was. I realised belatedly that they never experienced existing with technology without it being the default expectation that it's hostile to you and it's spying on you all the time. For them this has been the case all of their lives.

Today, the concept of “spyware” has been obsoleted because every software is spyware. Google's “organising the information of the world” turned out to be indexing which Gaza families to bomb, children and all; “making money in the free market to invest in social change” was about bankrolling literal, textbook fascism. Today, for us Latinx to even briefly step in the USA, if we don't have an always-on handheld device with spyware “social media”, its absence is taken as proof of criminality. I will never visit Arizona again, and my kids will never know a world that's not like this; but for me I saw this world being forged up close and personal, deep in Mordor where the shadows lie.

7. The Google Precariat, Part III: Without a Heart to Guide them, the Other Powers are Useless


Fanart of the Eco-Villains from children's cartoon Captain Planet, coloured by hand. Villains include Hoggish Greedly, a rich man in a short mohawk and green suit; Looten PLunder, a sleazy-looking hunter in noveau-rich furs; Sly Sludge, looking less like an oil magnate and more like an operative in working overalls; Duke Nukem, a radioactive monster who looks like a stony yellow humanoid; Dr. Blight, a sexy mad scientist grinning evily, and her AI, MAL, shown as a digital green face; and Verminous Skumm, a rat-human hybrid.Art: Vultureclaw

I was always an anarchist, abstractly, but in many ways Google was my political awakening.

We had an office party every Friday evening. Every single Friday. It was called TGIF, “thanks God it's Friday”, and involved fancy finger food, drinks, and more of those dystopic heads on monitors talking to us of all the great things Google was doing to revolutionise the world. Thanks to TGIFs, we all could leave work early on Friday afternoons.

I was such a sucker for things like this, I was so entranced by the food variety and the socialisation and the festive atmosphere, that it took me a long time to think of Bretch's question (“All those feasts—who did the dishes?”).⁴ Belatedly I realised that none of the dishwashers would think of Friday afternoons like, “graças a Deus é sexta-feira”. My privilege of working less and partying every week was paid by them staying late every Friday, dealing with the aftermath of our juvenile entitlement. Most of these women will never step inside a Fogo de Chão restaurant in their lives; while we were taken on fancy dinners at a whim by the bosses, when they wanted to reassure us of our specialness.

One day, shortly before I was fired, the 2008 crisis had hit full force, the Phoenix office that managed us got shut, and Google had fired 70% of the South American precariat, in one fell swoop. Then, during one of my last TGIFs, I accidentally listened to two high-level managers talking about it, two white male gringos in expensive business-casual. They were commenting on how the company was still doing perfectly fine without all that weight.

And that's not what stuck with me, the arguments, no. I understood the incentives to do layoffs, and the human need to rationalise them. What stuck with me was their happy smiling faces. Their laughing.

Yes they laughed about it. Out loud.

I had full awareness of what it meant for Third World people to be fired under the crisis, what it was about to be like for the Argentinians, for our families—but so did they, they were down here, they knew the reality. They talked to us every day, they had their spreadsheets handled by temps and were now here eating food prepared by contractors. Yet here they were, in tailored clothes that cost more than a cafeteria lady's living expenses, partying happily without even bothering to pretend to be sad about all those families. Not caring enough about us to even bullshit.

Any sympathies I might have had about the simplistic logic of free-market liberalism evaporated under that laugh.

As a little girl I used to despise cartoons like Captain Planet, whose devilish, paper-thin villains destroyed the world with manic laughs for nothing but the thrill of power, polluting for the sake of polluting. I thought that was deeply unrealistic, and condescending too; I felt talked down to. I cherished nuanced villains like Lady Eboshi from Mononoke-hime, the leader of Irontown who was destroying the ancient forest—but with the goal of liberating women from violent patriarchy and poverty; Irontown was a refuge for outcasts, its mining economy a ticket out of male domination, and Lady Eboshi would give her own life for her girls. Complexity! Humanity!

It was at Google that I learned that no, capitalists are actually literally the same as Captain Planet villains. We are not blessed enough to live in Ghibli reality, capital owners built us a 90s trashy USA cartoon reality. What is crypto mining if not a textbook Captain Planet villain scheme—to kill and raze and destroy for nothing but imaginary tokens proving that you did lots of killing and razing and destroying? What is GenAI if not stealing energy and water and even art itself, only to syphon it all into a grinder, producing no benefit but the hoarding of even more money away from the poors—when you already have more money than a human being could possibly ever spend? What is this all-encompassing addiction to “number go up” if not Sly Sludge, dripping happily with pollutants, going “Aloha suckers! I'll miss this profit paradise but I have a souvenir to remember it by”, as he picks a briefcase full of money and leaves the island to explode?

My experience at Google drove me to want to understand capitalism, and I would eventually find in Malatesta the answer as to why capital owners cannot help but be cruel, revel in cruelty, performatively broadcast cruelty; why the cruelty is indeed almost a side effect, a corollary to what it means to do capitalism. A mould that grows inevitable on material that’s inherently rotten. Every action you take has consequences not just for the world but for your psyche; you cannot avoid being affected by your decisions, anymore than you can avoid the third law of motion when you punch a wall. You cannot make people work for you and hoard all the profits while they are stuck with fixed salaries, without in the process developing strong feelings on why you're entitled to do that and how they deserve it actually.

But before I got into political theory, it was Google who demonstrated to me what is capitalism, firsthand up close. I wouldn't say that this was worth working there, but I benefited from the lived experience; from that part of it, and nothing else.

Footnotes


  1. That was me in egg state beating around the bush; I am now fully out as a jock, a lesbian relationship-anarchist, and a mother. I added this footnote so that men stop hitting on me because I wrote the b-word once in this text about capitalism.
  2. Anyone interested in the Latina “maid” as a social class is encouraged to watch Que horas ela volta? (2015) (English title: The Second Mother). It’s an engaging and heartwrenching film but keep in mind: everything it portrays about the social othering of maids is factually true, and happening today.
  3. If this kind of thing appeals to you and you haven’t heard of it yet, I am pleased to introduce you to the low tech magazine.


Who built Thebes of the Seven Gates? All articles name the names of kings; I gather the kings brought those boulders on their royal backs? And great Babylon, who fell and fell again, Who put'er back together, every time? In which flats of gold-paved Lima lived the road-pavers? The night the Great Wall of China was finished, where did the construction crew hang out? Awesome Rome is full of triumphal archs. Who arched them up? Also— who did the Caesars triumph over? We sing the palaces of Byzantium— the whole thing was just palaces? Even Atlantis of tall tales shouted, choking, as the seas swallowed it whole—

for its slaves.

Young Alexander conquered India. All by himself then? Caesar defeated the Gauls. Did he bring along a cook at least? Felipe de España, el Prudente, cried when his Armada sunk into the sea. And nobody else cried that day? In the Seven Years' War, Federico Secondo grasped victory. Who else grasped it with him?

All these pages, all these conquests. All those feasts—who did the dishes? Every ten years a new Great Man. Who covered the budget?

So many headlines. So many questions.

Captain Planet Eco-Villains by Vultureclaw on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com
in reply to Tim Mak

mastodon - Link to source

Tim Mak

Immerge yourself into the reality of life in Ukraine now to understand it better – read the article through the link!

counteroffensive.news/p/newsfl…


NEWSFLASH: Russia's revenge

What it felt like overnight in Kyiv as the Russian dictator lashed out in response to Ukraine's sneak attacks on military targets. This morning, we awoke to Journalist's Day in Ukraine.
Tim Mak (The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak)
in reply to Tim Mak

mastodon - Link to source

Tim Mak

UKRAINE LAUNCHED PREEMPTIVE STRIKE AGAINST RUSSIA: Ukraine struck several Russian airfields overnight before Russia launched one of its most powerful air attacks, the Kyiv Independent reported.

Ukraine attacked Engels and Diagilevo airfields. Both are key to conduct air attacks.

kyivindependent.com/preemptive…


Ukraine strikes Russian air bases in 'preemptive strike' ahead of drone, missile attack, General Staff says

Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted Engels and Dyagilevo airfields — two key hubs for Russia's long-range bomber fleet, as well as logistics sites in Russia's Kursk Oblast.
Tim Zadorozhnyy (The Kyiv Independent)
in reply to Tim Mak

mastodon - Link to source

Tim Mak

GERMANY SCRAMBLES PLANES OVER RUSSIAN INTEL: A Russian reconnaissance plane was spotted in the Baltic Sea yesterday, prompting Germany to scramble two fighter jets, the European Truth reported with reference to DPA.

eurointegration.com.ua/news/20…


Німеччина піднімала винищувачі через розвідувальний літак РФ над Балтійським морем

Два винищувачі Eurofighter німецьких Збройних сил у четвер піднімались у повітря через російський розвідувальний літак над Балтійським морем.
Європейська правда
in reply to Tim Mak

mastodon - Link to source

Tim Mak

Curious for more untold stories from Ukraine?

Join our 150k community from all around the world in supporting groundbreaking journalism

Follow along through the link in bio!

counteroffensive.news/


The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak | Substack

A war correspondent's open notebook, reporting live from Kyiv. Human stories that illustrate what’s happening during the war in Ukraine, and elsewhere on the frontlines for democracy.
www.counteroffensive.news
in reply to Tim Mak

mastodon - Link to source

Tim Mak

See the reality of the war

Subscribe to The Counteroffensive to discover real stories told straight from Ukraine.

Catch more exclusive insights through the link.

counteroffensive.news/


The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak | Substack

A war correspondent's open notebook, reporting live from Kyiv. Human stories that illustrate what’s happening during the war in Ukraine, and elsewhere on the frontlines for democracy.
www.counteroffensive.news
in reply to Tim Mak

mastodon - Link to source

FunGuy2PlayWith

A good YouTube channel #ThinkUkraine documents some of the life of an average Ukrainian.

"Widow of a military pilot, I'm an ordinary teacher in Kyiv sharing the truth about life during the War. With two kids by my side, your donation to #ThinkUkraine fuels my mission. Help me amplify the voices of those living through the chaos. "

This one is from 25 May 2025, the day Kyiv turned (approximately) 1543 years old.

youtu.be/36lDYOuhLRw?si=WEqgU_…


News Update from Kyiv, Ukraine - Kyiv Day and Russian Missile Attack

🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 Widow of a military pilot, I'm an ordinary teacher in Kyiv sharing the truth about life during the War. With two kids by my side, your d...
YouTube

friendica - Link to source
Israeli airline Air Haifa to launch twice-weekly flights to Rhodes starting July haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-0…

Israeli airline Air Haifa to launch twice-weekly flights to Rhodes starting July

The price will not be cheaper than the Ben Gurion Airport-Rhodes flight, and renovation of the Haifa Airport's tarmac will be completed by the end of the month
Hadar Kane (Haaretz)

sharkey - Link to source

@timkmak@journa.host > Follow along through the link in bio! Dude... It's #Substack. Substack profits from and provides material fucking support to #NAZIs and Neo-Nazis. ***No thank you.*** #JustSayNoToSubstack

Tim Mak

2025-06-06 14:11:00

mastodon - Link to source

Curious for more untold stories from Ukraine?

Join our 150k community from all around the world in supporting groundbreaking journalism

Follow along through the link in bio!

counteroffensive.news/



The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak | Substack

A war correspondent's open notebook, reporting live from Kyiv. Human stories that illustrate what’s happening during the war in Ukraine, and elsewhere on the frontlines for democracy.
www.counteroffensive.news

misskey - Link to source
whaat in da fuq
nypost.com/2025/06/06/us-news/…

Exclusive | Mystery pigeon lady is snatching sickly birds at NYC museum, leaving locals on edge: 'Some die'

A mystery pigeon lady is snatching “weak” birds from outside the Met and storing them for days at a time inside her car – leaving neighbors disturbed over the strange behavior. The birdnapper, who …
Nicole Rosenthal (New York Post)

mastodon - Link to source

Really enjoyed David Gerard's amusing take on how programming with AI becomes like a gambling addiction for many.

"Large language models work the same way as a carnival psychic. Chatbots look smart by the Barnum Effect — which is where you read what’s actually a generic statement about people and you take it as being personally about you. The only intelligence there is yours."

"With ChatGPT, Sam Altman hit upon a way to use the Hook Model with a text generator. The unreliability and hallucinations themselves are the hook — the intermittent reward, to keep the user running prompts and hoping they’ll get a win this time."

"This is why you see previously normal techies start evangelising AI coding on LinkedIn or Hacker News like they saw a glimpse of God and they’ll keep paying for the chatbot tokens until they can just see a glimpse of Him again. And you have to as well. This is why they act like they joined a cult. Send ’em a copy of this post."

pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/05/gen…


Generative AI runs on gambling addiction — just one more prompt, bro!

You’ll have noticed how previously normal people start acting like addicts to their favourite generative AI and shout at you like you’re trying to take their cocaine away. Matthias Döpm…
Pivot to AI
in reply to BrianKrebs

sharkey - Link to source

George E. 🇺🇸♥🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Couldn't resist so I asked #AI if your post was written by AI and honestly I wasn't prepared for the critique:

-----

That excerpt does not appear to be written by AI—it reads very much like the work of a human author with a distinctive voice, strong opinions, and a flair for biting, satirical commentary.

Here’s why it almost certainly wasn’t AI-generated:

1. Authorial Style: The tone is snarky, sardonic, and rhetorically sharp—hallmarks of a practiced writer with a clear worldview and a human-like sense of irony. AI tends to struggle with sustained sarcasm and tightly controlled satire without explicit prompting.

2. Cultural Referencing & Analogy: Comparing LLMs to carnival psychics, invoking the Barnum Effect, referencing the Hook Model, and equating AI enthusiasm to religious zealotry—these are layered cultural critiques typical of polemical essayists, not AI text.

3. Narrative Framing & Voice: It uses deliberate pacing, rhetorical repetition ("just a glimpse of Him again"), and personal/colloquial flourishes ("Send ’em a copy of this post")—stylistic touches that feel authored, not synthesized.

4. David Gerard Reference: David Gerard is a real-life tech critic known for his skeptical takes on crypto and AI. Referencing his writing and mimicking his voice is something a human poster might do, especially if they’re quoting or paraphrasing him.

It’s very likely this came from a blog, a Mastodon post, or something like a Substack article—not AI. If it was AI-generated, it would have had to be very tightly prompted and heavily edited by a human afterward.

Let me know if you want help tracing the original source or adapting the tone for something of your own.

-----

The fact that AI apparently seems to know what makes it's writing "appear to be AI" is what I found the most interesting.

How long before the AI companies tweak the settings and throw in more cultural references?

mastodon - Link to source

Die vorübergehende Schließung der Verteilzentren in Gaza, die von der ominösen Stiftung Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) verwaltet werden, sei ein weiterer Schritt seitens Israel und den USA, Hunger zur Waffe zu machen, kommentiert nd-Redakteur Cyrus Salimi-Asl.

Abonniert linke Analysen, sorgfältig recherchierte Reportagen und aufschlussreiche Interviews. 🤝 dasnd.de/abo

👉 nd-aktuell.de/artikel/1191703.…

“Das neuer System der Verteilung von Lebensmitteln und Wasser im Gazastreifen ist eine geplante Farce, die zur Tragödie mit vielen Toten wird.” Cyrus Salimi-Asl, nd-Redakteur

Humanitäre Farce

Nach den tödlichen Schüssen an den Hilfszentren im Gazastreifen hat die umstrittene GHF-Stiftung die Verteilung von Hilfsgütern gestoppt. Wegen »Renovierung« und »Arbeiten zur Effizienzsteigerung«. Eine Farce im Krieg.
nd-aktuell.de
This entry was edited (3 months ago)

friendica - Link to source
Congressional Request for Thousands of Private Records of Pro-Palestinian Students at Columbia University Must Be Denied #Palestine palestinelegal.org/news/2025/6…

Congressional Request for Thousands of Private Records of Pro-Palestinian Students at Columbia University Must Be Denied

Palestine Legal today announced the filing of a "friend of the court" brief in the lawsuit filed by detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil and other Columbia students against the Committee on Education and Workforce and the Trump Administ…
Danya Zituni (Palestine Legal)

mastodon - Link to source

libertytree.ca/quotes/John.McL…

“All questions of power, arising under the constitution of the United States, whether they relate to the federal or a state government, must be considered of great importance. The federal government being formed for certain purposes, is limited in its powers, and can in no case exercise authority where the power has not been delegated. The states are sovereign; with the exception of certain powers, which have been invested in the general government, and inhibited to the

Quotation by Justice John McLean

"All questions of power, arising under the constitution of the United States, whether they relate to the federal or a state government, must be considered of great importance.
LibertyQuotes

lemmy - Link to source

We now have a PieFed instance!

Kaity has just spun up a PieFed instance, which is open to anyone that wants to try it out.

PieFed is part of the "Threadiverse" along with lemmy and mbin. If you are already reading this in lemmy, then you already know what PieFed is about.

If you're curious to try it out, or if you're just looking for a way to avoid lemmy, you can find it at piefed.blahaj.zone/

Like our lemmy instance, we have set PieFed applications to require manual approval, but if you're already a member of our lemmy instance, you can get auto approved by our modbot by quoting your registration code somewhere in your application.


Blåhaj PieFed - A PieFed instance for gender diverse folk and their allies.

Blåhaj PieFed is brought to you by the kind folk at Blåhaj Zone, and while anyone is free to register for an account here, please bear in mind tha…
piefed.blahaj.zone

mastodon - Link to source

libertytree.ca/quotes/John.Mar…

“The province of the Court is solely to decide on the rights of individuals... . Questions, in their nature political or which are, by the Constitution and laws, submitted to the Executive, can never be made in this court.”

~ John Marshall
(1755-1835) US Supreme Court Chief Justice
Marbury v. Madison, February 23, 1803

Quotation by John Marshall

"The province of the Court is solely to decide on the rights of individuals... . Questions, in their nature political or which are, by the Constitution and laws, submitted to the Executive, can never be made in this court." ~ John Marshall
LibertyQuotes

friendica - Link to source
Exclusive: Iran warns US, EU over potential IAEA nuclear resolution english.almayadeen.net/news/po…

Exclusive: Iran warns US, EU over potential IAEA nuclear resolution

Sources told Al Mayadeen that Iran warned that it would respond with decisive action if a new IAEA resolution were issued.
Al Mayadeen English (Exclusive: Iran warns US, EU over potential IAEA nuclear resolution)

mastodon - Link to source
I'm in my cushy office, minding my own business, considering taking a nap on the couch.
Two guys from the warehouse come bargin in. We had a container arrive from Japan and they were both talking at once telling me that there's no way we can unload it.
I had to walk all the way to the warehouse and across it. They had nailed 2x4s to the floor of the container in front of each pallet, to prevent shift. We don't have a loading dock, just a huge bay door and no crow bar. each skid weighed 650lbs...
in reply to The Felon Pope

mastodon - Link to source

The Felon Pope

The pallets were stacked to high to clear the top of the door from the bottom of the contaner.
They had tried to get the boards up with a hammer, but werent' able to.
I got a second hammer and used it to hammer the claws of the first hammer under the boards and pried them up. Then I stayed in the container and positioned one skid at a time with the pallet jack at opening where our forklift could read them, had the forklift guy pick up a skid and hold it, then had the driver pull forward 2/3

mastodon - Link to source

libertytree.ca/quotes/Henry.Da…

“That government is best which governs least.”

~ Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862) American author, poet, philosopher, polymath, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and transcendentalist
Civil Disobedience (1849)

Quotation by Henry David Thoreau

"That government is best which governs least." ~ Henry David Thoreau
LibertyQuotes
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