Books touched on:
- The Death of Privacy and Truth: 1984 — George Orwell
- The Corruption of Power: Animal Farm — George Orwell
- The Golden Cage: Brave New World — Aldous Huxley
- The End of the Deep Dive: Fahrenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury
- Rights Are Made Up: The Handmaid's Tale — Margaret Atwood
- Greed Above All Else: Parable of the Sower — Octavia E. Butler
- A Cruel Game that the Privileged Don't Have to Play: The Hunger Games — Suzanne Collins
We're already living in every dystopian novel — Mr. Beat
Mr. Beat explains how some of those dystopian novels we were forced to read growing up in school have already (partially) come true.Disclaimer: Mr. Beat offers opinions in this video
Uh ok, so this is, like, the description of the video so keep reading. Produced by Matt Beat and Beat Productions, LLC. Filmed by Matt Beat. All images and video by Matt Beat. Additional images used under fair use guidelines or found in the public domain. Music by Electric Needle Room (Mr. Beat's band), Bad Snacks, Kwon, MK2, Otis McDonald, Patrick Patrikios, and Underbelly & Ty Mayer.
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Doughnut Lollipop 【記録係】:blobfoxgooglymlem: reshared this.
Nothing makes you hate cars more than living on a busy street, forced to listen to their din day in and day out. >:(
Cities Aren't Loud: Cars Are Loud — Not Just Bikes
Urban noise is a common problem, and the vast majority of it is created by motor vehicles. Noise is far too often dismissed as a minor nuisance, rather than the legitimate health issue that it is.The book "Curbing Traffic" has a chapter about the health impacts of noise pollution. I explore the research in the book, and visit Delft, the city that is highlighted in the book as being a shining example of what can happen when noise pollution is taken seriously.
This video explores the problem that farting cars, farting motorcycles, and farting mopeds create in our cities.
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From here:
There is no 'free' market, and there never has been. The 'free' market is predicated on the belief that all players will act honestly, and make informed choices based on available information. This is a completely false assumption, and has been proven so time after time.It completely ignores human nature whereby someone will always lie, cheat, and steal to achieve their own ends -- this is what we see here.
Industry players will always form cartels and collude in anti-consumer behavior -- price fixing being the prime example.
Without someone to keep corporations in line, the market would steadily skew to all of the power being in the hands of a few.
There is no such thing as a 'free' market, and there simply never has been. It's a utopian myth which can never be true.
People who go around spouting about the 'free' market are either naive, self deluded, or actively lying.
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damn, so we've had 11 years of this very thing getting worse.
when will people get it?! people keep voting for these pro corporate parties and it's depressing
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well, the same is happening here in the Netherlands. people have been voting the neoliberals into power for decades, despite things going to shit, and other parties being available here.
it's the propaganda that's working; most people still believe that free market capitalism is great, and it will take a lot more downfall before they understand it's shit.
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@bazkie about 10 years ago when I had learned just enough Dutch to read sites where younger folk hung out (and chat to them) I learned a fair few thought all the bicycles, good public transport (which folk in UK often envy!) and the high cost of learning to drive (which is same as UK) was imposed by "big government/EU" and they wanted to have cars just like young people in UK, enjoyed watching Top Gear and thought folk in UK and USA had more "freedom" (and those youths would be 30-40+ by now, many with families of their own)
At least you are highly unlikely to get Nexit as everyone can see the mess the UK is now in 5 years later..
@vfrmedia UK has been a lovely warning sign for us indeed!
..tho people have been voting far right the past few years despite Trump, so maybe most people don't really understand warning signs 😅
and about that dutch youth; keep in mind we've had neoliberal rule for decades now, so the whole "free market good, nationalization bad" has been really hammered in.
not sure if we'll get rid of it in my lifetime tbh. but most of the lovely social policies we have left stem from the more progressive governing we had before I was born 😅
btw why did you learn dutch? (maybe I asked before)
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I love pirate radio!
I don't know if it's actually a pirate station, here's an FM broadcaster near Quinault Lake here that plays all kinds of odds and ends with weird stuff in between. It might fall under LPFM, but I doubt the FCC would hassle them anyway since it's in the middle of nowhere and low power.
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@vfrmedia what's LPFM?
I wonder if maybe the FCC is a bit more relaxed these days since people listen to FM radio less (or well, I imagine that they do)
the "free market" is to economics what the frictionless spherical cow is to high school physics.
The very existence of corporations means there is no free market. Corporations are a legal construct of governments that grants a business (and later even a mere collection of assets) status as a district entity separated to some degree from the owners and workers within.
As such, there is no choice between "government vs corporations" because they are *two sides of the same coin*...it is all one big hegemony.
We have all been thoroughly conditioned to think otherwise for a couple of centuries now. It is thoroughly ingrained the minds of everyone in the "free world" that corporations are the capitalist free market and government is the socialist planned economy but that is pure BS.
The biggest economies in the world have arrived in the same place from two different directions...the US being a corporatocratic regime and China practising state capitalism.
As such deregulation just means re-regulation.
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Are you in France with a cat that used to live in Aotearoa NZ and the cat is missing?
A cat found in Antony France with a NZ chip. Someone posted in reddit hoping to reunite the cat with the cat''s owners/slaves.
Post with pic:
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1rm8cnc/nz_pussy_found_in_france/
Apparently also posted in NZers in France fb page.
#cat #cats #lechat #Aotearoa #NewZealand #NZ #Nouvelle-Zélande #France #francaise
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March 06,1962
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"At an Amazon fulfillment center in Spain, we used a flurry of brief walkouts late last year to force the company to improve wages and time off.
We struck for three days in November and in December in a series of “flexible strikes,” timed to hit production with intermittent walkouts during the holiday “peak” season. On December 22, the union committee announced a settlement, negotiated through government mediators.
The facility, RMU1 in the city of Murcia, employed 2,000 workers at the time, and our union the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) was one of four unions that represented them. [European countries don’t have the same “exclusive representation” system as the U.S., so multiple unions can have a presence at the same worksite. –Editors]
About 75 percent of the workforce, made up of workers from Spain and immigrants from Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, and Morocco, participated in the strike, reaching beyond the ranks of the CGT to include other union members.
Our experience shows what’s possible, even at a multinational corporation designed to neutralize organizing. Building from below, workers can organize a well-planned strike—over the objections of more conservative unions—draw on their knowledge of the production process, hit the company where it hurts the most, and wrest real gains.
Here’s how we got Amazon to negotiate with us when it didn’t want to."
https://labornotes.org/amazon-workers-spain-cgt-strategy
#Spain #Amazon #GGT #Murcia #CGT #Labor #WageSlavery #ClassWarfare
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TIL that Snow leopards and other Leopards are not directly related. Snow leopards are closer to tigers than they are to other leopards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera
#til #todayilearned
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1rmyq74/til_that_snow_leopards_and_other_leopards_are_not/
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Whether or not Iranians hate their leaders is relevant. They don't deserve to have their schools and hospitals bombed.
Ditto for Palestinians.
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Here's the thing about Proton Mail:
With Proton Mail, the content of your email is fully end-to-end encrypted and inaccessible to service providers IF (and only if) you are communicating with another Proton Mail account, or you have set up a PGP key exchange otherwise.
The metadata of your email, however, isn't end-to-end encrypted. It is accessible in plain text to Proton. This includes:
- Your payment information
- The subject line of your emails
- Your IP address(es), which can reveal your location
- The email addresses you have communicated with
- The time you have sent and received emails
If Proton is legally forced to provide this information to law enforcement, they will. They have to.
If your threat model makes it that it's dangerous for you when this metadata is shared, you need to use another, more private, method of communication.
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genuine question: why do we still try to make email a fully secure method of communication after decades of failing at it?
It feels like legacy technology that works well enough to not be replaced, but lacks features needed in the modern world 
"U.S. government is accelerating coral reef collapse around Guam, alleges a team of international researchers in a letter released this month in Science."
"[P]ressures to prioritize national security [..] will cause harm to endangered habitats."
———————————————
Author: Johnny Sturgeon
Publication: Inside Climate News @InsideClimate
February 26, 2026
———————————————
#Guam #USA #Climate #Water #Military #Animals
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26022026/us-government-accelerates-pacific-coral-reef-collapse/
US Government Is Accelerating Coral Reef Collapse, Scientists Warn - Inside Climate News
Proposed Endangered Species Act rollbacks and military expansions are leaving the Pacific’s most diverse coral reefs legally defenseless.Derek Harrison (Inside Climate News)
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"If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same."
— Marjane Satrapi to Michelle Goldberg. "Sexual Revolutionaries". Salon, 24 April 2005.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@austinkocher/116185138192496918
FUCK ICE
Austin Kocher, PhD 🌎 (@austinkocher@mastodon.social)
Attached: 1 image Third ICE Custody Death This Week, 11th Since January 1 https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/third-ice-custody-death-this-weekAustin Kocher, PhD 🌎 (Mastodon)
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The life lesson and new slogan for just about anything is:
"You've got to look the burrito man in the eye to get what you want."
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Autistic eating disorders are often misunderstood.
People assume it’s about body image.
But for many of us, it’s about something else entirely.
Interoception - or lack of.
When you can’t reliably feel hunger, fullness, or internal states, eating becomes guesswork.
That guesswork becomes chaos.
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I learned to recognize the feeling of approaching shakes, and that's what I usually determine my eating schedule by.
The interoception issues can also lead us to overeat, as well. I don't know when to stop and often overdo it as a result, to my later regret.
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RE: https://universeodon.com/@georgetakei/116185183632935876
So... it IS a war.
George Takei :verified: 🏳️🌈🖖🏽 (@georgetakei@universeodon.com)
Attached: 1 image This is what he thinks of our safety and security.George Takei :verified: 🏳️🌈🖖🏽 (Universeodon Social Media)
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Dmitriev predicts start of era of total energy collapse in EU
"By refusing Russian energy, the EU has shot itself in the foot so many times that no feet are left," Chief Executive Officer of Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev said
@
by refusing china renewables they shot themselves in the foot ...
@
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dont know for how long ... when eroei gets close to one oil will be there buried "'forever" ...
the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones ...
FEMA ordered to restore disaster mitigation funding | Courthouse News Service
https://www.courthousenews.com/fema-ordered-to-restore-disaster-mitigation-funding/
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New Strip Found: Ripley's Believe It or Not - 2026-03-06 https://www.gocomics.com/ripleysbelieveitornot/2026/03/06
#ripleysbelieveitornot #comicstrip
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US soon to launch largest bombing of Iran — Treasury chief
Scott Bessent stressed that it will do the most damage to the Iranian missile launchers and the factories that build the missiles
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Man accused of tricking hundreds of teens into sending him pornographic images is brought to US
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/man-accused-of-tricking-hundreds-of-teens-into-sending-him-pornographic-images-is-brought-to-us/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Seattle News @seattle-news-TheSeattleTimes
Took a battery I knew was bad to AutoZone and eventually got a warranty replacement.
But first, they told me they needed to charge it to check. So I left it there for like an hour.
I get back to the store to check our progress and they pull the battery out.
The sides are bulging, and it feels fucking HOT. He puts a tester on it and right away it comes up "Bad Battery".
But they don't have any. I have to take it across town to exchange, and so I am gingerly carrying this bulging hot liquid acid battery to my car and I feel like I'm transporting plutonium.
Just put the new battery in the other car and turned it over so we are finally all good.
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Content warning: Another ICE death (different one), Fascism, Human Rights
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Advertising Surveillance Enables Government Surveillance
We've all had the unsettling experience of seeing an ad online that reveals just how much advertisers know about our lives.
You're right to be disturbed.
Those very same online ad systems have been used by the government to warrantlessly track peoples' locations, new reporting has confirmed.
A new report gives us direct evidence that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has used location data taken from the internet advertising ecosystem to track phones.
In a document uncovered by 404 Media, CBP admits what we’ve been saying for years:
🔥The technical systems powering creepy targeted ads also allow federal agencies to track your location.
The document acknowledges that a program by the agency to use "commercially available marketing location data" for surveillance drew from the process used to select the targeted ads shown to you on nearly every website and app you visit.
In this blog post, we'll tell you what this process is,
how it can and is being used for state surveillance,
and what can be done about it
—by individuals,
by lawmakers, and
by the tech companies that enable these abuses.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/targeted-advertising-gives-your-location-government-just-ask-cbp
The Government Uses Targeted Advertising to Track Your Location. Here's What We Need to Do.
The online advertising industry has built a massive surveillance machine, and the government can co-opt it to spy on us.Electronic Frontier Foundation
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Blows the “imminent threat” out of the water.
This will be useful in prosecutions.
The Republicans could decide any day to let Trump hang by himself. Just a dozen or so could decide to be known forever as heroes, and impeach the evil sitting in the White House, starting with Trump.
American children are going to die in this war. Make Repubs understand that they’ll own it all, that you’ll drag them through years of hearings and prosecutions once Trump is long dead.
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5o6k7jvowuyaquloafzn3cfw/post/3mggoc725sk25
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Trendafilov stressed that if he does not hear from the authorities even after this protest, there will be a general strike. "March 14 at 12.05, ...
Workers will stage a major protest on March 14, demanding a 600 euro increase in the minimum wage, as well as an increase in all other salaries of 6,000 denars.#lsm-macedonia #wageincrease #slobodantrendafillov
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"only cowards block people"
no, people who want to protect their peace also block people. nobody owes you access to their posts, just because you want to be an asshole in their replies, tyvm
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@Air_Quotes_Comedian
that's the rule for me
if someone is blocked and i remember why, they stay blocked
if someone is blocked and i can't remember why, they become unblocked
You can make notes on people's accounts that only you can see. I usually make a note of why I blocked them.
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Can anyone recommend a tiny tiny tiny highly energy efficient SBC with an intel/AMD CPU with modern virtualization support and a hackable coprocessor with lots of I/O interfaces? Ideally want GPIO and DSI and lots of addon options, but... I also want it ultraportable and to run off a short stack of 18650s....
Don't ask what I plan to do with it, I honestly don't even know.
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*rubs head*
Please, please, please do not vibe code your billing system. You really do not want to have to explain to a payment processor why you're double billing, charging people with canceled accounts, and generally just running amok in their system.
Language models should not be let anywhere remotely near a mission critical system.
I think that someone needs to hear this today.
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Kristi Noem Reassigned To Scarecrow Role At USDA
WASHINGTON—Characterizing her new role in the middle of an Iowa corn field as a better fit for her skill set, the White House announced Friday that former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had been reassigned as a scarecrow at the USDA. “While she clearly struggled in her prior position, we realized Kristi still had more […]
The post Kristi Noem Reassigned To …
#theonion
https://theonion.com/kristi-noem-reassigned-to-scarecrow-role-at-usda/
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i miss the old internet sometimes. it sure was a place in all senses, but most importantly it existed because people found it fun to use and explore. not for the sole purpose of squeezing every last bit of your attention and money for John Shareholder’s profit
makes me sick how everything exist just to sell you more shit nowadays
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bazkie 👩🏼💻 bitplanes 🎵
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Daniel
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •every time I contemplate "upgrading" the stock exhaust on my bike, I remember it's already louder than a car exhaust.
Most car exhausts, anyway. Not the M3 that my neighbour across the road drives.
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Mira
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