tokensane

tokensane, 2 days ago to random

Right-wing Tory MP discovers that the NHS can't afford his care.

> ... his hands were originally provided by the NHS, but he has since gone outside the NHS for new hands, likening the original prosthetic hands he was given to "something out of medieval times".

Perhaps if the NHS were properly funded he wouldn't have had to do that. And others, who can't afford spiffy new hands, might be able to get them too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-69037424

tokensane, 26 days ago (edited 26 days ago) to random

I've got 3 takes on the #KristiNoem dog business, going from this story on the BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68909801

1. The dog (fair enough).
2. The goat (not so fair).
3. The way she talks about it (horrible).

I'll tackle each in a separate post for space.

#noem #kristi_noem

tokensane, 1 month ago to random

#Trump is a #fascist

OK, not news. But I don't mean it just as an insult, or even "stuff I don't like". In 1995 Umberto Eco's essay "Ur-Fascism" (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism) laid out 14 points by which future fascists might be known. Trump ticks almost all of them. So in this series of posts I'm going to go through his points and check Trumpism on each one. Note that I say "Trumpism" rather than just Trump, because Trumpism is larger than just the one man.
/1

#UmbertoEco

tokensane, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Should the government directly own and operate railways?

tokensane, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Should the government directly own and operate the water distribution and sewage systems?

tokensane, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Should the government directly own and operate airlines?

tokensane, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Should the government directly own and operate computer factories?

tokensane, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Should the government directly own and operate computer software development for consumers?

tokensane, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Should the government directly own and operate mass media?

tokensane, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Should the government directly own and operate the food distribution system?

tokensane, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Should the government directly own and operate all telecommunications services?

tokensane, 1 month ago to random

tokensane, 1 month ago to random

tokensane, 2 months ago to random

There is a line of argument I keep seeing which goes like this:

1. Capitalists are doing this bad thing which is hurting this group of poor people.

2 They are doing this in order to hurt the poor people because doing so maintains the capitalist power structure.

The jump from 1 to 2 bothers me. AFAICT (1) is happening because the individual capitalists are making a profit out of it, and the wider socio-legal system is letting them get away with it. (2) implies that these capitalists /1

tokensane, 3 months ago to random

Souls are indivisible, and only death separates soul from body, right?

So if an #embryo acquires a #soul at the instant of conception, what about identical twins, formed when an embryo splits in two? Do they share a soul, or is one of them a soulless monster? OTOH, what about chimeras, formed when two embryos fuse, so that the resulting baby is a patchwork of cells from both? Two souls in one individual? Or what happens to the other soul?

And then there are siamese twins...

tokensane, 3 months ago to random

US Slave states 1858 (source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_states_and_free_states):

US No-Choice states 2024 (source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2023/nov/10/state-abortion-laws-us)

Notice a pattern?

It's not about saving babies, its about controlling women's bodies. Just like it was about controlling black bodies 170 years ago.

#abortion #RoevWade

image/png

tokensane, 4 months ago to random

In 1995 #UmbertoEco wrote an essay on what he called "Ur-Fascism": the basic nature of fascism rather than its trappings. He listed 14 points by which #fascist movements might be known. He also said that a movement with a few of these will acquire the others. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism

I've tried to draw a chart showing how this happens. Start with one, and all the others follow and reinforce each other. I've highlighted #FrustratedMiddleClass just because its the commonest starting point.

tokensane, 4 months ago to bible

The #Bible on how to treat #migrants:

Leviticus 19:33 When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Exodus 23:9 You shall not oppress a #sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Has Mike Johnson read those bits?

tokensane, 7 months ago to Portal

Security sentinels on a building site. Motion detection and cameras only, but still spookily reminiscent of those gunbots in #Portal.

tokensane, 7 months ago to random

UK trainee anaesthetists have their job hunt totally screwed up by admins

"The interview scores are stored in an Excel spreadsheet. Each of the seven [UK] recruitment regions creates a separate spreadsheet, but these have no standardised template, naming convention or structure. After being manually amended, all of the various scores are entered into a Master spreadsheet. This is carried out row-by-row and takes several days, likely to be subject to interruptions"

https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/12/excel_anesthetist_recruitment_blunder/?td=rt-3a

tokensane, 7 months ago to random

My personal approach is just use a word processor in outline mode. Then fill in the details.

Or if my ideas aren't that well-formed, I just start writing down everything I know and then try to shuffle stuff into some kind of order. The mere act of writing it down forces me to organise my thoughts and identifies weak points in my thinking.

TL;DR: use a word processor. Write first, organise second.

tokensane, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to random

TIL that Unicode combining marks can stack arbitrarily high.

Like this: Ã̷̢̧̢̛͍̘͇̰̳͇̗̠̫̫͙̤̖̻̣͔̪͍̪̤̫͖͓̳̯̬̹̠͎̙̭̩̮̑̀̊̅̇͊̒͛̿͊́͒̿̐̀̎͒̃͑̆̎̕̚͜͠͝
.
.
.
.

tokensane, 9 months ago to random

I'm migrating away from a copper landline to VoIP. When I looked for an adapter I found lots of these boxes on Amazon, under a variety of brand names inc Tonysa and Dpofirs. They are obviously all the same product, and mostly sold for £20-30.

Does anyone know if they are any good?

tokensane, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to climate

Lets create a #climate meme-storm. Show people what #climatechange really means. Make it personal; it happens to people like us. You must protect your kids from it.

See following posts for more examples.

Create your own. Post to other #socialmedia. Keep pushing it.

Avoid licensed images, including stuff from news sites. They always use AP, Getty etc who have slick #copyright takedown ops.

Wikimedia and US Gov are good sources of free-to-use images. Check the details.

Please boost!

tokensane, 10 months ago to random

So, should the University Superannuation Scheme (pension fund for UK academics) pump even more of its members money into #thameswater to stop it collapsing? Or should it write off its investment and let the Govt pick up the pieces? @ChrisMayLA6

BBC News: Big Thames Water investor backs turnaround plans

BBC News - Big Thames Water investor backs turnaround plans
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66079676