leinir @leinir@computerfairi.es

Hi Internet! I'm Drew and THIS IS MY FACE.

If this GIF has ever brought you joy in the past, I humbly ask you to consider making a donation to the National MS Society. It would mean a lot to me and to those I know affected by the disease!

Donate at http://BlinkingGuy.com

Good morning. A reminder. #elon #elonmusk #tesla

Can we get a solarpunk rival to burning man, where people congregate to permanently upgrade civic infrastructure somewhere instead? Like a convention of hippy nerds going door to door offering to install free insulation, guerilla gardening on empty lots, repairing derelict houses, running volunteer transit, hosting pop-up pay-what-you-can grocers and restaurants.. something that revels in _mattering_ instead of "leaving no trace" (but at exorbitant cost)

Reject techbros
Embrace furries

If you're in the UK and are looking for a gig doing PHP/Laravel, deployments, and GIS, the #SlowWays team is hiring a 4 days a week person at £40k: https://app.beapplied.com/apply/sayb9vvbjx

SlowWays is a project to create a walking network for the whole of the UK. I've walked many of their routes!

#GetFediHired

UK peeps: Please consider signing this parliamentary petition (Stop the passing of the Online Safety Bill)? https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/634725

#KDE contributors on the #Fediverse / #Mastodon

Let me know if I missed anyone, I'd like to keep this thread going!

🧵

@aks
@AleixPol
@aronkvh
@bshah
@carlschwan
@claucambra
@espidev
@Jbb
@jriddell
@kdedude
@leinir
@niccolove
@nicofee
@notmart
@redstrate
@sgmoore
@sitter
@tdfischer
@The2Ring
@tobias
@tsdgeos
@VolkerKrause

As Mitch McConnell makes news again for what appears to be some kind of neurological crisis, just your regular reminder not to be an ageist, ableist asshole when you talk about him.

Mocking his cognitive struggles won’t hurt him, won’t even scratch him. But I promise your mocking •will• hurt somebody else who’s listening.

This is a guy who’s spent his life championing white supremacy, war, inequality, and environmental destruction. Punch that. Make people feel bad for that.

Ooh good, there's a UK distributor of furry books now :) https://thebookbadgers.square.site/

We no longer live in the age of Lost Media. We live in the age of Active Erasure by corporations who have the means to preserve it but the financial impetus to destroy it. #LostMedia #ActiveErasure #HBOMax #wbdiscovery #wb #Max #Disney #DisneyPlus #Google

@androcat Talked to a lady who worked for the tax authority here in Norway once. She told me straight away that welfare fraud is such a minor phenomenon that it has zero effect on the welfare budget. She followed that up by saying, "So we need to decide what kind of society we want - one where we're so afraid that someone might get some help they didn't qualify for, at the risk of depriving many others who need that help? Or one where we help folks through tough times and help them become tax payers again?"
A year or two later, I read a study that showed a significant amount of "welfare fraud" cases are folks who genuinely believed they qualified.
The more accessible benefits are, the better for everyone, ultimately.

When I see city/town streets devoid of weeds and decorated with plastic flower towers in full bloom in the middle of the summer heat, I always assume they are run by Tories because they care more about appearances than living creatures or people.

This opinion comes from having grown up in such a place.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/26/civic-wars-break-out-over-rewilding-town-centres-age-of-extinction

Discussing the British Press, and I'm reminded of the time when I had a moderate amount of celebrity in the UK LGBT community, and the press tried to do a hit piece on me.

Now here's the thing. There's a cheat code, and I'm going to explain what it is:

They will contact you for comment.

If you say nothing, they will publish the piece and say you were offered the chance to comment.

If you tell them to fuck off, they will publish the price and say your response was foul and unprintable.

I did neither of these things. I told them that this piece wasn't journalism. It was ridiculous tittle tattle and represented everything that was wrong with a failing and dying industry more obsessed with clickbait than proper reporting. I asked them if they didn't have proper news to report, and said that they should be ashamed of themselves.

They're basically screwed at that point. "We contacted Ms Brown for comment and she said that this was ridiculous tittle tattle and that the reporter should be ashamed of herself."

They're not gonna say that.

I'm struck by something one of my history teachers once said about medieval castles. They weren't meant to be impregnable. They were meant to be annoying enough that an invading army would decide to investigate other priorities instead.

The piece never ran.

If you're a trans person in the crosshairs of the British press, make yourself an annoying target. They're on a deadline, and if you make them conclude that life is too short, they will leave you the fuck alone.

Like old magazines about computers? Why not subscribe to the Time Machine Subscription Service?

You get:

* 12 Computer / Console Magazines ranging from 1980 – 2004ish
* One sent each month
* Excitement of getting stuff in the mail

(I've basically got loads of old magazines to get rid of, servers to pay for, and though this would be a fun way of dealing with it)

More info here:
https://ramokromok.com/mags

This is what a privatised health service looks like.

No vaccine if you are poor, no vaccination program for the common good, just private companies making money from those who can afford to pay.

Covid booster jabs to be approved for sale to UK public
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/17/covid-booster-jabs-approved-for-sale-to-uk-public?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

IDK how to explain to people that it's not just about covid at this point. I haven't had a cold or flu or any kind of illness in years now. I haven't been sick since 2019. The way we used to live now grosses me out, and I simply do not want to return to it.

This is someting I wish I'd realized a lot sooner in life.