@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

GeePawHill

@GeePawHill@mastodon.social

GrandPaw, Geek, Software Development Coach, Writer, Ass Pain. Continuously startled by people and people-stuff. Pronouns: Don't care, will respect yours. https://geepawhill.org

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GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

A president or prime minister's helicopter or plane going down is almost a stock element in spy thrillers.

Iran is not a friendly country to my own, but my heart goes out, just the same.

As an aside, I marvel, that humans think we're so very high-tech and ultra-capable, and there are still places on the land that we just can't get to, when the weather acts.

Rescuers have reached the site, now, ~24 hours later, and Red Crescent says there are no signs of life.

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

I live in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, and, let's be honest, the Blue Ridge is no Rockies or Cascades or Sierra Madre's.

Just the same, when catastrophe strikes, S&R operations are often delayed for 24-48 hours because of the weather and the extraordinary difficulty of the search process.

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

I greatly admire the people who do S&R. What a job, when it's a job. What a vocation, when it's a vocation.

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

It would appear that all who were onboard are dead. There's no official confirmation, the bodies are burnt beyond recognition, but most media are calling it. President Raisi and Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian are dead.

Fuck.

These people were not my friends, and their country is not my country's friend, but it doesn't matter, really, to me.

A horrible way to go, a tragedy.

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

I certainly don't know anyone in Virginia who can protect a woman wishing for an abortion, and I definitely don't want any person in need to ping geepawhill on signal.

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

Desmond Dekker, "The Israelites".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxtfdH3-TQ4

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

This was the formal introduction into American pop of reggae.

The informal introduction had happened two decades earlier. There are Glenn Miller Orchestra takes that clearly came from Jamaican sources.

But this one, sugar, this one charted top ten.

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

(I am aware, in our current context, that this might seem to be me slipping in something about Israel and Palestine. I have my views on that issue, and I keep my visions to myself. This is a song, a great song, and a famous song. I share it because it's lovely, not because of politics or war.)

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

You're wondering if I owned the 45.

Baby, I owned the 45.

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

The worst part is when my friends defend and embrace some extractive capitalist ponzi scheme, like blockchain, or crypto, or LLMs, on the grounds that there are conceivably good applications for those tools.

I point out why that's not what's going on, the development of good applications, but rather the continued exploitation by billionaires, of people living on welfare.

They persist.

It makes me so sad.

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

In James J O'Donell's The Ruin of the Roman Empire, and his other works, he takes great pains to explain that neither the visigoths nor the ostragoths were actually "barbarians".

They'd been living side-by-side with Romans for centuries. They were, in fact, the chosen mercenary soldiers Rome turned to again and again, against a variety of enemies.

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

The "Sack of Rome" was accomplished by a man who was fully literate, spoke four languages fluently, and was collecting a debt he'd earned as a Roman mercenary that had been delayed by three years.

He sat outside the walls of Rome for six months telling them that if they didn't pay him what they owed him, he would sack the city and take it.

They didn't pay what they owed. So he took it.

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

The Inkspots, "If I Didn't Care".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH_zodj-5Vo

effinbirds, to random
@effinbirds@mastodon.social avatar
GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

@effinbirds Or, at least, a taco truck.

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

(I am not okay with attacking the physical appearance of people I regard as my political opponents. I am, in fact, embarrassed by those who claim allyship who yet turn to that.

For whatever values you have for "ugly" and "pretty", ugly people aren't evil, and pretty people aren't good.)

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

Well, it's Friday night, and I really have no official bed time, but I give you an allegedly parting shot, of rye, with a beer:

A word to become familiar with: "No."

It's terrifying, believe me, I really do know how scary and awful the consequences of saying "no" might be.

But the thing is, the global harm caused by your coerced yes is often far greater than the local harm caused by your actual no.

Say "No." more often.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

I have a big group chat with my a large amount of my real life friends, then smaller groups out of that group that have particular interests:

One is for the people who live locally to plan activities.

One is for art, but maybe the kind of art that not everyone would want to see.

One for BBQ and cocktails.

One where we talk about terrible home renovations and shit exes.

One specifically for handyman information and planning if someone moves or needs help with a project.

One where we seem to mostly talk about cute dogs, and often cheese.

Plus individual chats.

But now I'm wondering who has chats without me, do they have a secret chat where everyone talks about how I'm in everyone's business?!

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr I maintain a private slack, with about 30 of my friends.

And it's me, right, so there are meltdowns of various kinds, like my current status, tbh.

I don't think they have a secret channel, I think they coordinate through DMs.

But yeah, they will send some brave soul to DM me a wellness check. :)

Sometimes, someone will DM me with "Hey". And I'll DM them back, "Is this a check-in?"

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

There are several reasons I am avoiding the browser stack in CurryTree, as I've avoided it for many years.

But, perhaps the most important reason, and I know that many of you are now coming to grasp this, is that the browser stack requires a browser, and all the browsers are made by people who believe the rather ludicrous capitalist myth of infinite growth, and they will do anything to make that myth seem true, quarter on quarter.

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

They will ban ad-blockers. They will embed surveillance capitalism. They will force you to contribute what is seen to LLM's.

CurryTree is just http. There's no question one could write a browser front-end for it.

If it becomes real, and in spite of everything, I would like it to become real, and am working on making it real, and someone announces a browser front-end, I will change the protocol every single fucking week.

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

@lewiscowles1986 Blocking them will itself give me great joy. :)

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

And so but anyway, fuck capitalism, and good night!

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

I've been close to redlining all day today. Things that might ordinarily only mildly annoy me have sent me spiking towards screaming and throwing things. Further, the decay of that sensation has been very very slow.

I have no explanation for this. The most I can theorize is just that it's all adding up, bit by bit.

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

Aging stuff, political stuff, barking dogs, an ADHD spouse, joy-project stuff, work stuff, insufficient sleep stuff, racism stuff, corruption stuff, AI stuff, I think my baseline stress level has risen so high these days, and I can't seem to find a way to bring it back down.

rodhilton, to random
@rodhilton@mastodon.social avatar

How many days do you suppose we have before Dropbox announces they are selling everyone's documents to OpenAI?

GeePawHill,
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

@rodhilton Oh, they prolly won't announce it until someone inside blows the whistle.

GeePawHill, to random
@GeePawHill@mastodon.social avatar

The "No Regerts" tattoo cracks me up every time, but the actual sentiment seems very odd.

Anyone who gets to my age with no regerts is either a psychopath or a fool.

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