@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

VulcanTourist

@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social

Founder of the Society of Insouciant Candor.

Displaced secular humanist Vulcan with a hatred of self-delusion, tribalism, and selfishness. Promoter of democratic socialism as an unobtainable ideal. FULLY independent (non-tribalistic) thinker: don't expect me to defend or support you merely because you profess liberal ethics if you fail to demonstrate them. Ad hominem is NEVER acceptable.

Twice gifted; autism, ADHD, OCD traits. Agnostic atheist. #Autism #ADHD #AuDHD #OCD #HSP #Mensa

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

Meet the "private equity" people who did so much to drive Red Lobster into the ground -- the top executives at Golden Gate Capital.

https://goldengatecap.com/team/?_sft_function=operating-executives

They sold off the restaurant real estate to help pay for the buyout, and leased it back at what the bankruptcy filing describes as "priced above market rates."

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor

If corporations truly are persons per the Supreme Court, then we have laws that prohibit cannibalism and those laws should apply here.

Mergers and acquisitions should be illegal. They are corporate cannibalism. PLEASE someone test this in court.

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

Nabiha Syed is the Mozilla Foundation's new executive director. She is brilliant, and motivated in the best directions, a great choice for this post.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-foundation-welcomes-nabiha-syed-as-executive-director/

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor

Mozilla certainly needs some brilliance.

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

I feel like very recently— like, the last month— Google has gotten massively worse about aggressively correcting acronyms to unrelated, similarly-spelled words. Like look at this search where I search for the wiki for the C# game library FNA, and Google simply decides, without even offering a "Did you mean…", that it would be more interesting if I had instead been looking for "FNAF"

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@mcc

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

Play-by-play Trump trial coverage, with so-called analysis of whether the prosecution or the defense has "scored points" -- the staple of Big Journalism right now -- is the equivalent of horse-race political coverage.

All it takes are stenographic skills and the ability to make confident-sounding guesses. It's clickbait and ratings bait, and it does nothing good for public understanding.

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor

I decided that I was going to ignore all the trial headlines until a verdict has been reached. I don't need prognostication nor prediction nor speculation. I'm perfectly capable of doing my own speculating, but why would for such a thing? It's like playing a mind game with a stoplight.

iraantlers, to random
@iraantlers@mastodon.online avatar

yo granny walker got truck nuts up the yin yang

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@iraantlers

Time for a truck colonoscopy.

plink, to Jewish
@plink@mastodon.online avatar

from #WorldOutlook
Why Opposition to #Zionism is Not Antisemitism

article contains links to a statement by over 1,000 [#Jewish professors opposing equating #antiZionism with #antisemitism. Also contains link to a statement by Jewish students of #Columbia with the opposite position]

#DefendStudentProtesters #SolidarityWithPalestine #NotAntisemitism #CeasefireNow
#StopArmingIsrael
#StopGazaGenocide
#Gaza #Israel #Palestine #USPolitics
#news #press @palestine @israel

https://world-outlook.com/2024/05/11/why-opposition-to-zionism-is-not-antisemitism/

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@plink @palestine @israel

Who needs such persuasion? Those trying to equate them can be described as either (a) hopelessly invested and delusional or (b) completely ignorant of the subject themselves and trusting the wrong authority figures.

mondoweiss, to Palestine
@mondoweiss@social.mondoweiss.net avatar

In the first such divestment action by a major Christian denomination, the General Conference of The United Methodist Church has voted to divest from Israel bonds, and those of other countries carrying out prolonged military occupations.

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/united-methodist-church-votes-to-divest-from-israel-bonds/


@palestine @israel

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@mondoweiss @palestine @israel

I hope that I live to see Israel (and its conspirators) held to account for 8 decades of brutality, occupation, and colonialism.

Fuck manifest destinies, ALL of them.

gutenberg_org, (edited ) to books
@gutenberg_org@mastodon.social avatar

American physicist Richard Feynman was born in 1918.

He developed the Feynman diagrams, a pictorial representation of the mathematical expressions governing the behavior of subatomic particles, which provided a powerful tool for calculating complex interactions among particles. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 jointly with Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga for their fundamental contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics (QED).


1/3

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@gutenberg_org

Are humans so tribalistic that we'd erect fictional barriers around our activities and thoughts as well the land we occupy?

eff, to random
@eff@mastodon.social avatar

"If you bought a game, if you made a game, if you love a game, technology shouldn't get in the way of that game's ongoing existence,” EFF’s @pluralistic told @IGN — tech should preserve games for those who love them and for posterity.
https://www.ign.com/articles/how-stop-killing-games-ups-the-ante-in-the-fight-for-video-game-preservation

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@eff @pluralistic @IGN

This is not easy to do when the owner of a game's "intellectual property" is willing to defiantly sit on it as a game slips into obscurity and then abandonware. It's the intangible version of the real estate phenomenon of huge parcels of land that sit barren in (sub)urban areas, sometimes for decades, while its speculative owner waits for that Deal of a Lifetime.

Copyright straddles and strangles that preservation goal like a Berlin Wall.

tzimmer_history, to random
@tzimmer_history@mastodon.social avatar

The Students Have Never Been the Enemy

Student protest movements have historically functioned as an indispensable corrective for America and the West. That is the legacy of 1968 we should be talking about.

A thread, based on my new piece:

🧵1/

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-students-have-never-been-the

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@tzimmer_history

The peculiar thing about students and why they are prone to protest about ethical issues is simple: because they can. They haven't yet taken employment in society that makes them directly dependent upon the One Percent. They may have student loans that make them beholden to them, but those can't be revoked for arbitrary reasons.

This independence is never or rarely articulated in the context of their willingness to protest, but may be precisely because of it that they do.

Eka_FOOF_A, to random
@Eka_FOOF_A@spacey.space avatar

"You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me."
Which asylum do I throw them in?

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@Eka_FOOF_A

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

On a multi-person video call this morning, we were asked what podcasts we listen to.

I didn't get a chance to chime in but here's my answer:

None regularly. I don't have the time, even at fast playback, to listen to something linear that I could scan much more quickly if it was text.

Podcasters, please post transcripts.

VulcanTourist, (edited )
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor

This is why I religiously avoid "talking heads" on YouTube. I avoid any videos that only impart information through the spoken word that would be far more effective for me in written form. Who exactly is benefiting from that linearity? It's not us.

mina, to books
@mina@berlin.social avatar

There was a time, when I dearly loved and , and they will always have a sweet spot in my heart for the many laughs and for all the cultural heritage, they left us.

However: Whenever I now grab one of their , their style and language feels terribly outdated and, frankly, boring to me.

Unpopular opinion, or do you agree?

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@mina

What about Piers Anthony?

taylorlorenz, to random
@taylorlorenz@mastodon.social avatar

“We later found out that Hamas had offered on October 9 or 10 to release all the civilian hostages in exchange for the IDF not entering the Strip, but the government rejected the offer.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/no-doubt-netanyahu-preventing-hostage-deal-charges-ex-spokesman-of-families-forum/

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@taylorlorenz

I hope he has proof of that. It will be damning.

VulcanTourist, to random
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

Why can't someone invent cheese where the bacteria in it out-compete molds?

DropBear, to Israel
@DropBear@theblower.au avatar

"It was a daunting dilemma – and the more I thought about it the more certain I became that no solution was possible."
...
"But now – half a century later – I fear I have no words to disguise my disgust for the actions of Netanyahu and the Israeli Knesset, and the appalling genocide they are currently inflicting on Gaza."
https://johnmenadue.com/the-israel-dilemma/
#IsraelPalestineConflict
#israel
#Palestine
#WarCrimes
#CrimesAgainstHumanity
@palestine
@israel

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@DropBear @palestine @israel

https://mastodon.social/@VulcanTourist/112201755233615144
> "The first lesson that a marginalized person should learn from being marginalized is to NEVER DO IT TO ANYONE ELSE."

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@DropBear @palestine @israel

> Israel is not Jewish. Israel is Zionist - and that's a very different thing.

I don't grasp why you're responding to me as if I either don't already understand that difference or that I disagreed with what you posted. I offered agreement.

As Lipscomb wrote, SOME PEOPLE that decided to violently found Israel didn't learn the fundamental lesson that I mentioned, from being marginalized themselves: don't do it to others, ever.

CultureDesk, to history
@CultureDesk@flipboard.social avatar

There are more than 180,000 historical markers throughout America, and many of them tell only partial truths. Over the past year, NPR has analyzed crowdsourced data to uncover some of those errors. Many were strange, funny or silly — like a sign that marks the home of a world-famous Santa Claus school in Albion, New York, and a marker in Arizona that pays tribute to a donkey that drank beer. But many paint a fractured version of history: 70% of markers that mention plantations do not mention slavery, and there are 500 markers that describe the Confederacy in glowing terms. Here's more.

https://flip.it/UG5.qn

@histodons

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@CultureDesk @histodons

Children don't remember what they were made to read in a textbook: they remember what they chose to read etched in granite while on vacation.

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@amiles @CultureDesk @histodons

It's called revisionism, and it's the rule and not the exception. The tug-of-war fought over Wikipedia articles is a microcosm.

dgar, to random
@dgar@aus.social avatar

If, at first, you don’t succeed, destroy the evidence that you tried.

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@dgar

That's why we domesticated hungry dogs.

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

New Yorker: "The Problem with Defining Antisemitism"
https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/the-problem-with-defining-antisemitism

VulcanTourist, (edited )
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor

The problem isn't with "defining antisemitism", the challenge is determining the intent that is crucial to the definition.

no intent == no antisemitism
no intent == no racism

Circumstantial appearances don't matter. Intent does.

Eka_FOOF_A, to random
@Eka_FOOF_A@spacey.space avatar

"Woman Stunned After She's Turned Down For Job Because She Didn't Wear Makeup For Interview"

What about chemical sensitivities? Do people realize how many chemicals are in makeup?

https://www.comicsands.com/woman-interview-no-makeup-tiktok-2667742168.htm

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@Eka_FOOF_A

The article's been deleted. Apparently someone fact-checked it and thought better of publishing fake news?

campuscodi, to random
@campuscodi@mastodon.social avatar

Discord has rolled out new terms of service on April 15 that remove a user's ability to sue the company by forcing everyone into a forced arbitration process.

These types of clauses are usually secretly inserted into ToS documents right before a company does something extremely shady.

According to Polygon, there's a way to opt-out: https://www.polygon.com/2024/4/20/24134970/discord-arbitration-how-to-opt-out

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@campuscodi

I'm surprised that the company wasn't one of the legion that jumped on the forced-arbitration bandwagon immediately after the Supreme Court ruling that made it possible. The ruling was about 12 years ago. I can't recall anything specific about that ruling, but I'm sure one of the legal eagles here can fill in that blank.

PayPal also offered an opt-out when they forced arbitration, but they didn't make opting-out easy; nothing online, had to mail a signed printed letter or form.

Mrfunkedude, to random
@Mrfunkedude@mastodon.social avatar

I wonder if this “sex“ thing will ever catch on?

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@Mrfunkedude

That's what Japan wants to know.

ampersine, to Ukraine
@ampersine@mastodon.online avatar

The House has passed $60.8 billion in aid to !

All voted for the bill.

More than half of voted against it, because they support .

VulcanTourist,
@VulcanTourist@mastodon.social avatar

@thepoliticalcat @ampersine @mastodonmigration

> We can't have foreign assets who represent a hostile foreign government

Inferring motive for 112 people you don't know personally and for whom you have no objective proof of that motive is not defensible. The only thing you can infer is that you found the result objectionable. I'm all for speculative stereotyping, but this one's a grand leap.

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