Oh cool, new Mastodon official blog post! Let’s read it…
Huh… Okay… Well, that sucks for their tax status in Germany… Interesting they’re incorporating in the USA… The USA does have a very… Open… Tax regime for non-profits.
Oh, new board members!
The fourth one is COFOUNDER OF TWITTER?
God damn, Mastodon is really going corpo now, what the stars is this nonsense
unless they have a Warrant Canary like with Proton
And assuming the warrant or court gag order weren't worded in such a way that actually letting the canary indicate is now a violation of a court order anyways
@ScruffyJunco@acf@NanoRaptor@oliof I still remember primary 1 - given a colouring in exercise - there was an elephant and a cat. I coloured them in as rainbows - I was punished because the elephant should be grey and the cat ginger. I was 5 too...
That image of Oliver Twist begging for more from the original film once accompanied a "Scotsman" piece by Murdo Fraser, a Tory MSP and relentless parasite who accused the Scottish Government of being ungrateful beggars.
@nixCraft one time as kids, separated from our computer for a weekend and before the advent of smartphones, we attempted to write machine code on paper to be directly input on our calculator via a hex editor
an early attempt instead crashed the calculator, which erased the hex editor, so we weren't able to continue. ah well. it was a fun diversion
Given statistics on veganism, you have a 95-99% chance that anyone making a moral claim is a selective ethicist. The low rate of ethical veganism further supports my hunch that everyone is a selective ethicist.
Agree, choosing to acquiesce is one option, and the power mongers hope people will choose that. But even with that, if the people don't want xyz anti lgbtq or anti abortion law, and they see an opportunity to overturn it, they will - which is why the right has to eliminate democracy. They think if they take away the vote then they take away people's options. (And they think the left won't go for a civil war.)
@RickiTarr And it was made in China for 47 cents, sold for $2.50 to a distributor, $4.85 to the retailer who will sell it to you for $9.95. So you are paying about 20x markup on the junk to boot.
@MarSolRivas Le travail c'est la santé
Rien faire c'est la conserver
Les prisonniers du boulot
N'font pas de vieux os
Ces gens qui courent au grand galop
En auto, métro ou vélo
Vont-ils voir un film rigolo
Mais non, ils vont à leur boulot
Le travail c'est la santé
Rien faire c'est la conserver
Les prisonniers du boulot
N'font pas de vieux os
[…]
Paroliers : Henri Salvador et Maurice Marie Jean Pon
Has everyone memory-holed what happened after 9/11? Peaceful protests being declared “un-American”? A 20-year long war that caused an estimated FIVE MILLION deaths?
And people now are all like “oops yeah actually that wasn’t so great”.
Maybe fucking listen to protests sometime. You might learn something.
@Gargron A US based 501(c)3 lets you accept US donations that are tax deductible. It doesn't grant any magic powers to Americans, or tech companies, or even Silicon Valley.
Being able to accept donations from US citizens in a tax deductible way, gives Mastodon more chance of surviving without needing to resort to VC driven commercialization, or block chain schemes. This is a good thing.
I get that people are (rightfully!) suspicious of any change, especially those that involve boards.
@mekkaokereke@Gargron Yep, VCs have actually been on the Fediverse for awhile, some running huge servers, and they haven’t yet neutralized the mission of the Fediverse.
@mekkaokereke@Gargron@tchambers
Maybe describing it as a sort of money laundering thing will make it more palatable to people who think too much. Make a donation—and one to your instance admin—and participate in a minor (very minor) tax loophole, just like the x-illionaires do. Srsly, donate. The more you give the bigger your tax benefit. It’s arithmetic.
""What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism,” he said, after comparing his movement to those started by the biblical Abraham, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), Theodor Herzl (“spiritual father” of the state of Israel), and Lee Kuan Yew (former authoritarian ruler of Singapore).""
@harshad@vinay@timnitGebru when you grow up in a class-based society that's very obvious you spot these things, but knowing the context is hard.
I don't know the ins and outs of the caste system but having worked with a lot of Indians over the years I can tell the ones I don't like working with have this attitude about them that reminds me of the British Upper/upper middle class.
Meanwhile, my 3-year old neice (grand niece? what do I call my niece's daughter?) taught me to play hide and seek.
Here's how:
💠 I tell her where I'll hide.
💠She closes her eyes and counts to 10.
💠When she reaches 10, she opens her eyes and looks for me.
💠It does't take long to find me.
💠Then we laugh.
I suspect I am supposed to tell her where I will hide so she doesn't feel scared when she opens her eyes and doesn't see me.