@riley@toot.cat avatar

riley

@riley@toot.cat

👩‍🔬 #geek girl (#software, #dsl, #retrocomputing, #electronics, #fpga, #maths, #infosec, sometimes #sre);
🧠 #Neurodivergent (#ADHD / #TeamADHD), interested in #ActuallyAutistic / #AuDHD matters;
🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ #trans / #GirlsLikeUs, 💊 2018-12-13;
⬱🌹 Social Democrat (#SocDem), 🧙‍♀️ aspiring Social Justice Witch (#SJW);
🌌 #cosmopolitan (Wahlheimat: 🇩🇪 #Deutschland / #Germany, 🇪🇺 #EU, 🌍 #Terra);
🇺🇦 Protect Ukraine: <https://toot.cat/@riley/109575519338488877>.

𓅾 Twitter refugee. Former G+ refugee.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Thou shalt separate church & state, you power-hungry ChristoFascists.

“ has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry”

https://apnews.com/article/louisiana-ten-commandments-displayed-classrooms-571a2447906f7bbd5a166d53db005a62?taid=66731eff5988a9000164aaff&utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@intothewestaway

Be careful what you wish for.

Here in Germany, grocery stops are closed on Sundays and public holidays. It can be quite an inconvenience for people who work on weekdays.

@GottaLaff

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Exciting ant queen collecting trip in AZ. Why does it feel like all the coolest ants are in the South and South West. It's not fair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV1CkkkKbOM

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@futurebird Is it known why colonies don't readjust? Is there some sort of neurological imprinting on local environmental conditions, for example?

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@futurebird Some species of ants kidnap other ants and make them work for them. Do these ants have adjustment problems? Are there known variability to different ant species' ability to adjust to being enslaved?

futurebird , (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

How bad off would you be if you had just one genome?

An alien sends you through a transport device— on arrival every fungus, bacteria, mite, virus and plant has been eliminated from your body. You are now at the alien spaceport which is sterile, you can NOT acquire earth faunetta and floretta here. How sick would you be? Are you gonna die from this?

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@stevegis_ssg There are real-life genetic disorders, mitochondrial wasting diseases, that amount to the mtDNA being sufficiently broken that mitochondria can't be replenished after birth. They take a couple of years to kill.

Awful diseases, but they're also exciting in the sense that some of these disorders can be permanently cured with a single-dose genomic medicine. We can't replace the broken mitochondria themselves yet, but their brokenness is often in them not being able to make a small number of very specific proteins; if genes for making these proteins were transplanted into nuclear DNA of a suitably chosen tissue, then, depending on the specific conditions, the availability of such a protein might be able to bypass the mitochondrial brokenness, and allow mitochondria to reproduce properly again.

These wonderful and life-saving medicines are usually priced in millions of dollars per dose, though, because capitalism. And in some cases, the dose must be administered very soon after birth, lest the slow mitochondrial depletion cause, say, irrepairable brain damage.

@futurebird @semitones

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@stevegis_ssg Of course, if the alien's transporter is too clever for its passengers' good, it might undo such a therapy on the premise that the patched-up cells are "foreign".

@futurebird @semitones

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@stevegis_ssg There are some organisms with ridiculously large genomes, so a premise for a SciFi story: these plants had to go through such an alien's Interstellar Seeding Teleporter in the distant past, and their DNA got packed together with their microbiome's many DNAs, just to make the trip.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/science/largest-genome-fern-plant.html

@futurebird @semitones

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Lost in all the jokes about "I'd rather be electrocuted than eaten by a shark." -Trump

(It's right up there with "But let me tell you something that I found out: A werewolf can kill a vampire. Did you know that? I never knew that." - Herschel Walker Ah, yes, Republican wisdom!)

But lost in all the kerfuffle was another curious comment from Trump about sharks:

"I watched some guys justifying it ... They bit off the young lady’s leg ... These people are crazy."

So, about THAT. 1/

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@futurebird Oh my. Pumpkin must have bitten off somebody's leg! :blobcatsweat:​

riley , to random
@riley@toot.cat avatar

In shallowfake news ...

The Kootenai County District Court jury unanimously found Friday that Summer Bushnell defamed Post Falls resident Eric Posey when she posted a doctored video of his performance with a blurred spot that she claimed covered his “fully exposed genitals,” the Coeur D’Alene Press reported.

In reality the unedited video showed no indecent exposure, and prosecutors declined to file charges.

“The judicial system did what needed to be done,” Posey said after the verdict.

Jurors awarded Posey $926,000 in compensatory damages for defamation. Because Posey proved that Bushnell knew her allegations were false when she made them or that she made the accusations with reckless disregard for the truth, the jury awarded $250,000 in additional punitive damages.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/drag-performer-defamation-blogger-idaho-c0f3188081e17843059b27d19d5be980

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

The verdict may not matter to Trump's base, but I do think there is a group of people it matters to who are being overlooked: the people who were already likely to vote for Biden.

A Trump acquittal would have sapped trust in legal systems and government further. It would fueled apathy. Hopelessness and apathy can reelect Trump.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@futurebird Well, but then there's the "I like the ones who didn't get convicted" faction.

Authoritarian followers are drawn to "legitimate" authority. A felony conviction is, to a subset of them, a strong signifier against one being legitimate as an authority figure.

The ones claiming him to be a martyr will be much louder than the ones turning away from him, though.

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

😏 Via Emptywheel: 1/...

Just for shits and giggles, someone like JaredEMoskowitz
should demand a hearing on why the FBI is so inept that--according to Trump--they attempted to assassinate him knowing full well he was not present for the assassination attempt.

I guess Jasmine Crockett will have to do the job, since she's on the Jim Jordan Weaponizes Congress Committee.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GottaLaff :blobcatgiggle:​

Lucia , to random
@Lucia@eldritch.cafe avatar

The best thing about Linux is that it guarantees you will never have to wait on phone line for Windows customer support ever again 😂

Just enter your problem in your browser and it has probably already been solved and explained by a bunch of nerds on a forum somewhere who are getting impatient about solving such mundane problems for us less experienced folx.

But... Back before smartphones were invented (unless you count Blackberry) and my problem was no internet connectivity, solving problems was much harder lol.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@futurebird Putting out deliberately wrong condescension sounds kind of abusive, though.

@Lucia

GrimmReality , to random
@GrimmReality@beige.party avatar

"A handful of cretinous shitsacks who fully legalized bribery in America because they hold to an ideology that insists rich, conservative people are inherently superior and should have carte blanche to rule unfettered by laws turned out to also take fuck-tons of bribes, dismissed every suggestion they account for that because those suggestions came from lowly pleb scum, and materially participated in an effort to end democracy in America" sure feels like a plot twist every last person with critical thinking skills should have seen coming.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GrimmReality Putting corrupt people in charge of laws exactly matches Pumpkin's practice of putting anti-education people in charge of education, anti-environment people in charge of EPA, and anti-tax people in charge of IRS.

riley , to random
@riley@toot.cat avatar

Did you know that trans people have the magical mystical power to violate the laws of physics and transition through time itself? Here, you can see a young David Attenborough encountering the strange beast that is a trans woman back in 1973, which, since everybody knows there were no trans people before 2015, means that she had to travel for more than 40 years, uphill both ways, just to be there:

This episode, which contained terminology and language no longer deemed appropriate, but reflecting the attitudes and standards of its own era, featured trans women from the “Transex Liberation Group.” The trans content starts about one minute and thirty seconds in.

The group members held a discussion about their experiences as trans women in the 1960s and 1970s, commenting on day-to-day challenges, workplace issues and their transition journeys.

One speaker called Rachel talked about the difficulties she faced using bathrooms—an issue resonating with the current trans rights struggle. “If you go to the toilet, people turn immediately to see which one you are going to use,” she explained. “Things like this can get rather embarrassing at times.”

Source: https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/05/06/trans-history-week/

benroyce , to random
@benroyce@mastodon.social avatar

I need the help of .

Why the f*** would try to coopt the legacy of Immanuel ?

It's probably not a serious question. Maybe it's just a silly immature dunk on / pride. Or maybe there's something darker in Kant's writings that thinks supports recent behavior (I have no reason to believe there is, I'm just openly musing).

Either way it's certainly a bizarre new front in the conflict: war.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/german-chancellor-accuses-putin-of-misusing-philosopher-immanuel-kants-teachings/articleshow/109561696.cms

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@benroyce Most likely because Kant used to live in Königsberg, which has now become Russia's beachhead at the Baltic Sea.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@benroyce It probably makes sense, somehow, in the head of a neo-Stalinist thinker who feels like an ethnicity is an important essential aspect of a human.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@benroyce I may have ranted a couple of times about how American adoption of birth certificates was originally motivated by trying to enforce heritage and immutability of "race" on people.

Bolsheviks did the same with "ethnicity". In late thirties, at about the same time the high-ranking politicians were being Purged, the Little Peoples' "internal passport" system was amended to record everybody's ethnicity, which would be immutable, and in the later years get sort-of-inherited (although in practice, in some places, people were able to self-identity their immutable ethnicity when they got their first passport at 16).

I don't know enough about Bolshevik history to tell if this is a strong causal link, but Stalin's experience as being tin charge of the "Ethnicities Desk" in Lenin's early cabinet makes me at least wonder. Then again, using ethnic labels for people serving in the royal court goes back centuries even in the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@benroyce Except if they get caught protesting. Then, they can get drafted and sent to the war.

Speaking of discontent, a relatively influential movement in Russia's last few decades used to be the associations of mothers of soldiers. They used to play a significant rôle in ending Russia's entanglement with Afghanistan, and, for obvious reasons, were becoming a point of discontent wrt the war against Ukraine. Guess what happened to them last year?

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/07/28/russian-soldiers-mothers-group-announces-closure-after-foreign-agent-designation-a81989

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@benroyce If you wrote in a dystopian YA book that an association of mothers of fallen soldiers was declared a foreign agent, literary critics would complain about it being an implausible plot device. But the real world dystopias are not constrained by plausibility.

riley , to random
@riley@toot.cat avatar

TIR that @pluralistic 's #enshittification has strong parallels in Marx's #immiseration .

riley , to random
@riley@toot.cat avatar

If Cass had been around two hundred years ago, she'd be writing "systematic reviews" about how the evidence for abolishing slavery was lacking and not enough double-blinded studies on abolition had been done. :blobcatglare:​

Impossible_PhD , to random
@Impossible_PhD@hachyderm.io avatar

Holy shit. I just talked a cis guy on the internet down from "Let kids be kids" and got him to see why gender-affirming care for teens absolutely cannot wait.

This is one of my greatest achievements. I have a legitimate urge to take a victory lap.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@rachel If you ever find a time machine, give finasteride a try. It's technically a androgen blocker, but because of the roundabout way it does its work, it's usually not gatekept for AMAB girls (at least the closeted ones), and a GP might be willing to prescribe it as a hair preservation medicine. But it has (mild) other benefits for people who are not particular fans of dihydrotestosterone on their brains, too.

Impossible_PhD@hachyderm.io

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@rachel Sometimes, I really wish retroactive advice could be more helpful. :blobcatsad:​

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@legumancer Makes sense.

Because of the way finasteride works, it might possibly lead to a more optimal hormone balance for some people's brains than binary HRT. I reckon most of these people would be enbies of some sort, but, hey, Biology Is Messy, And Sometimes There's Exceptions.

@rachel

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

A package came today, and when my husband gave it too me I very clearly said "I didn't buy any ants" but do you know what he said back??

"What kind of queen is it?"

The nerve! I just CLEARLY said that is NOT what was in the box. How could he?

(It's Formica subsericea)

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@futurebird I didn't know USPS allows live ants to be sent through post. I think the UPU regulations only specify live bees.

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

🤨"DOJ projecting spec. counsels will spend $4 million in next fiscal yr—fraction of $29 mil they are expected to rack up in year ending in Sept.

The new est— contained in Biden’s budget sent to Congress Mon— comes as Smith's handling criminal cases against Trump and Hunter Biden are gearing up for as many as four trials in the coming mos.

It’s unclear how DOJ arrived at its est given deep uncertainty about when/whether Trump cases..will go before a jury" https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/11/justice-department-special-counsel-spending-00146333

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GottaLaff It probably suggests that most of the investigative work is done, and only prosecution itself remains to be done.

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

#Florida is swamped by disease outbreaks as quackery replaces science #ProLifeMyAss https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/03/florida-measles-outbreak-preventable

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GottaLaff Hey, scientists might still be arguing over it, but by Alabama standards, measles virus is definitely alive.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GottaLaff The "best" part of this is, measles is the rare kind of virus that is known to undo other immunities. https://asm.org/articles/2019/may/measles-and-immune-amnesia

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I think most people would object to forcing women to wear skirts. Beating up girls who do unladylike things like dancing or calculus. Many can even see how silly it is to tease a boy for enjoying painting more than sports.

Most* get this.

What I don't understand is how it isn't obvious that transphobia is the exact same impulse.

There is no "reasonable" amount of transphobia you can tolerate without also supporting rigid harmful gender norms in general. 1/

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@alshra That's not how neurotypical people make laws, I'm afraid. They hardly ever undo a law because it turns out to be stupid. They'll add epicycles and special exceptions.

@futurebird

GottaLaff , (edited ) to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

🔥 #BREAKING #Trump 1/...

#WOMPWOMP #WOMPAGE

via Pagliery!

Breaking news, first
@thedailybeast

Donald Trump has been hit with a massive one-two punch in his bank fraud case.

He owes $372 million for lying—and he can't borrow money from any New York bank, frustrating his ability to appeal the judgment.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GottaLaff He's letting them off so lightly!

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GottaLaff I often complain about how American courts tend to oversentence in comparison to European courts.

Well, in a lot of European countries, a 5-year ban on serving as a corporate officer, for a financial fuckery of this magnitude, would have been pretty automatic. He only gave them three years.

Might not be a big practical difference in context of Pumpkin the Elder, who might not even have more than three years to live, but still.

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Not from The Onion. For realsies…

Via Acyn:

“So Donald #Trump sent out a fundraising pitch that reads, Dear Melania I love you. Even after every single indictment, arrest, and witch hunt, you never left my side”

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GottaLaff If I didn't know that Melania can hold her own while renegotiating the prenuptial, I'd feel bad for her.

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GottaLaff

She couldn't have foreseen all the presidential bullshit that he's capable of when she first agreed to marry him.

wdlindsy , to random
@wdlindsy@toad.social avatar

"One day after Putin told Tucker Carlson he invaded Ukraine not because of NATO, but because of his commitment to pursue Greater Russia, Trump promised he'd help Putin pursue Greater Russia. …

At a time when winning the election is an existential necessity for Trump, one day after Putin made clear he is seeking not just Ukraine, but Greater Russia, Trump overtly promised to allow Russia to carve up NATO."

~ Marcy Wheeler

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/02/12/call-and-response-putin-is-demanding-greater-russia/

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@wdlindsy Just the other day, Beau made an intriguing argument that this takes Trump awfully close to the "adhere to its enemies and give them aid and comfort" criteria of the US constitution.

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

🤔
Via Lisa Rubin:

George was in New Hampshire last night at Trump’s party. But his conditions of release prohibit travel outside New York and DC without advanced notice to the prosecution and pretrial services. Did he tell them he was going to NH?

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GottaLaff What are the odds of Pumpkin picking Santos as his running mate?

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@GottaLaff Stalin had a distinct pattern of picking people with flaws that could be easily converted into social stigmas — such as felony convictions — but that wouldn't directly endanger his power as his closest coworkers. Seeing the pattern of combined sycophancy and incompetence in both Trump's cabinet and his legal teams, I think he's trying to follow the same pattern, only he's worse at recognising ability than Stalin was. So, Santos seems to be kind of the best fit: he can do sycophancy; he has a felony indictment hanging on his head; and he's not a threat to Trump's power the way that he'd probably perceive DeSantis, who has actual governing skills, as.

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Suppose you have a satellite phone and excellent GPS— is it reasonable to avoid large bad storms and big ships in a sailboat? Let’s say you are pretty good at sailing. Would you need something bigger than 20’ to confidently avoid danger beyond your keel dappling around on the open ocean. (and you can provision and stay out of port for a month no problem.) No time tables but several places you want to get to eventually.

(it seems possible to me but ima harbor and sound baby)

riley ,
@riley@toot.cat avatar

@futurebird It depends to some degree on the architecture of the boat, the geography of the part of the world where you plan to hang out, and the set of countries whose ports you can safely use as harbours, but 20 feet is probably not enough if where you're trying to hide from storms is the ocean at large and you plan to do it on a long, multi-year, basis.

There's a now confirmed to happen but poorly undersood mechanism that can cause occasional extreme waves, which could probably sink a 20-feet sailboat, and since the mechanism is not yet properly understood, there's currently no reliable way to avoid them.

If the body of water where you're hiding from storms is sufficiently small, as in, a lake (and preferrably, a smaller large than the Great Lakes) or a river or a canal system or a bay, that could protect you from extreme waves, but it could also complicate navigating to a place away from reliably prognosticated extreme wind events, when those happen, if your part of the world has them.

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