friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Friends, free yourselves from the bonds of Goopple! The time of the degoogling (and deappling - unappling? disappling?) is nigh!

murena.com/america/how-to-get-…

How to get the Murena Fairphone (Gen. 6) in the US: a sustainable, privacy-first, deGoogled smartphone - Murena - deGoogled phones and services

Is Fairphone available in the US? If you’re wondering where to buy the Fairphone (Gen.6) in your country, here are good news for you: The sustainable, repairable, and privacy-focused Murena Fairphone (Gen.
Murena - deGoogled phones and services

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
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Axial tilt is the reason for the season!

AkaSci 🛰️

2025-12-21 13:00:57

mastodon - Link to source

Happy Winter Solstice, which will occur at 15:03 UTC (10:03 a.m. EDT) today.

Today, earth's axis, which is currently tilted 23.44° from the plane of its orbit around the Sun (the ecliptic), will point away from the Sun.

It is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere; which means that days will keep getting longer starting tomorrow 🥳

earthsky.org/astronomy-essenti…
1/n


2025 December solstice: All you need to know

Deborah Byrd (EarthSky)

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

“She literally went to the police station because an unidentified white man was in her car and she didn’t know what he was doing there”

“may be the first criminal in history to call 911 during the commission of his alleged crime.”

mprnews.org/story/2025/12/17/c…

Judge frees couple charged with 'kidnapping' immigration agent as defense challenges government's account

Attorneys for a couple charged with driving to a police station with an HSI agent in their car dispute the government’s account of the incident. A judge released both from jail pending trial.
Matt Sepic (MPR News)

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

They went into schools looking for "illegal immigrants", armed and ready for violence. In a school. While the kids were there. So they could be hurt or killed should violence have occurred.

One of these days they're going to get people killed doing this shit!

Austin Kocher, PhD 🌎

2025-12-19 19:30:14

mastodon - Link to source

ICE descends on my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, hitting K-12 schools and immigrant neighborhoods. Update: ICE reportedly arrested two Dublin Scioto high schools students today.

austinkocher.substack.com/p/ic…


ICE Descends on Columbus, Ohio, Hits K-12 Schools and Immigrant Neighborhoods

I received a disturbing text message from my sister yesterday afternoon: “ICE has been at the girls’ old school today.”
Austin Kocher

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Here is 2025 in a nutshell

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Shit people, idioms only work if we all agree on the definitions!

After nearly 200 years of "Out-Of-Pocket" meaning "Paid for it yourself", some ignorant bonehead mashed "Out of office" together with it, and now all of corporate America says "Out-of-pocket" when they mean "unavailable".

Culturally it important? No, of course not. Am I irrationally furious every time I spend time during a meeting looking like an idiot because I have to translate before I can reply to your ignorant ass? Yes.

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Am I the only one who gets a little subversive thrill every time I type in my unnecessarily required birthdate as January first, 1970, knowing that somebody, somewhere, someday, maybe an AI, is going to expend a lot of effort trying to determine if a) that's my actual birthday, b) there's a bug in their signup processing, or c) I somehow hacked the web form to let me submit it without the date filled in?

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Why do hundreds and hundreds of websites all incorrectly, and wierdly using identical phrases, insist that the the term 'blog' is short for 'web log' (True), "which was originally a record of server requests" (False)?

mybookjoy.com/2020/06/23/word-…

Word origins: Why is it called a “blog?”

I’ve been blogging for over a year now, which is a big exciting accomplishment for me! And yet, it wasn’t until this week that I stopped and thought about how weird the word blog is. It…
My Book Joy

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Raw numbers are perhaps not enough to get across just how bad the centralisation of the Fediverse by mastodon.social is. I've done a chart to show this visually, hopefully this will make the situation clearer?

Given the circumstances, getting people to join *any* other server except mastodon.social would greatly help decentralise the Fediverse. It's no longer big vs medium vs small, it's more like supergiant deathstar mastodon.social vs everyone else 😞

#Mastodon #Fediverse #MastodonSocial

#fediverse #mastodon #mastodonsocial
in reply to Fedi.Garden

mastodon - Link to source

Marc Thomas

I feel like this is really easily solvable by just having the apps randomly cycle which server is selected by "default" when people are signing up. Obviously still give the option for people to manually select their preferred network, but by having the default random.

Just limit the random server selection to something like 10-20 reputable instances that have a track record of quality administration. That would avoid sending people to an instance that is unsupported and at a higher risk of shutting down.

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J.R.R. Tolkien Expressed a “Heartfelt Loathing” for Walt Disney and Refused to Let Disney Studios Adapt His Work

openculture.com/2025/11/j-r-r-…

J.R.R. Tolkien Expressed a "Heartfelt Loathing" for Walt Disney and Refused to Let Disney Studios Adapt His Work

Image via Wikimedia Commons I’ve just started reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit to my daughter.
OC (Openculture.com)

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in reply to George Takei 🏳️‍🌈🖖🏽

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Patmo 🏳️‍🌈

why do you all want a button to exclude AI? In that way you accept this kind of intusion in a passive way. It's like a trojan horse/virus - take it or die.

That is NOT acceptable.

The correct way should allways be the other way around: If someone wants to use AI, he/she/they could actively turn it on. That will be a way to speak with customers on eye level. I know, it is hard to understand, but that is how it is.

Please think extra long and extra deep about these Standards and come to your own conclusion 😉

Blaise reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

Today I am stepping down from my role as the CEO of #Mastodon. Though this has been in the works for a while, I can't say I've fully processed how I feel about it. There is a bittersweet part to it, and I think I will miss it, but it also felt necessary. It feels like a goodbye, but it isn't—I intend to stay on and continue to advise the new leadership and contribute, because Mastodon—and the fediverse—is one of the very few beacons of hope for a better web.

blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/…

My next chapter with Mastodon

Reflections on my time leading Mastodon and what's to come next.
Mastodon Blog
#mastodon

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Just a quick reminder that we've had so much of our freedom taken, and gotten literally *nothing* in return. No peace of mind, no extra safety, no societal value of any kind.

So now, the US is the dictatorship that its stupid, power-mad, corrupt, game-playing political parties have made it, and no one will even admit what they've lost.

theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-…

U.S. Mass Surveillance Has No Record of Thwarting Large Terror Attacks, Regardless of Snowden Leaks

A newly disclosed DHS document, for instance, shows how the lack of ISIS attacks in the U.S. is not something the intelligence community can take credit for.
Jenna McLaughlin (The Intercept)
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mastodon - Link to source

Hear me out

At this moment in time I am more pissed than when Trump won his second term.

I'm a supporter of third parties because I have felt for decades that neither the Democrats or Republicans have our interest in mind. When the that of Trump emerged, especially in the second term, I bought into the "Democrats care more at least" narrative. For the first time I was motivated against the evil more than I was voting for what I believed.

And here I am watching the people who are supposed to "be a little better" completely throw America under the bus after paying lip service and having people go without pay and go without food assistance and then throw that away despite those people sending a clear message that they were behind the fight.

Trump is evil and he wears that on his sleeve but it's the Democrats who are saying they care but still just throw America under the bus. Please explain to me how the wolf in sheep's clothing is better than the wolf that makes it's self known.

#USpol #Democrats

#uspol #Democrats

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in reply to Bob K Mertz

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Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏

Sadly, it's incredibly simple. It is virtually impossible to get elected without lots of money. Big corporate donors to the Democrats were fine with this until their CEO's faced the prospect of not being able to fly their jets home without delays, so they called the party up and said "fix this or I'm not sending you any more money!" And then the Dems caved.

In the US, if you try to run on just your principles, you're almost assured to be in a third party. Bernie Sanders might be the only one who manages to escape this trap.

in reply to Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏

mastodon - Link to source

Bob K Mertz

@alan
On Saturday I would have said OK.... But today, fuck that. It's not the people dumping money into campaigns but the people like you saying "it's impossible" because if every person that ever said that voted for a third party then we would be seeing a real revolution right now.

The Democrats just spoke loud and clear that they don't give a shit about us. Why should I keep voting for people that don't care?

@Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏

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in reply to Bob K Mertz

mastodon - Link to source

Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏

in reply to Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏

mastodon - Link to source

Bob K Mertz

@alan
I didn't catch that you weren't a US citizen so apologies for that.

We have a very broken system here and the reality is ranked choice voting (combined with strong third parties) is likely our only hope but I fear it's too late for that. Democrats really did rally and earn the centrist and independent vote and today they shot that all to hell.

Most of all what happened today is the Democrats ripped hope away from people... A hope that grew so much last week.

@Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏

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in reply to Bob K Mertz

mastodon - Link to source

Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏

I hate to say this, but it was always a false hope. As your closest partner, we've got a massive interest in seeing the US have a viable democracy and honestly it's been looking less and less viable over the past few decades. I wish I knew what the answer was, but whatever it is we all hope it can be achieved peacefully.

A wave of independents would be great but I really don't know how you overcome the "my granddaddy's granddaddy was a Republican, and so am I, so even if their platform explicitly says they'll cut my arm off and feed it to me for breakfast I'm voting for the GOP" problem.

As for voting systems, I'm leaning more toward proportional representation than ranked choice, but I'll take anything other than FPP. Let the house be full of a cacophony of voices where meaningful compromise is the only way forward.

in reply to Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏

mastodon - Link to source

Bob K Mertz

@alan
Ranked choice basically gives people the option of voting for a third party while not letting "the bad guys" win because you can say "I like third party but if they don't win then I like Democrats" so it takes away the biggest obstacle to getting people to vote for a third party.

As for generations I live in West Virginia and the whole state basically swapped a decade or so ago so change can happen (though I wish WV went the other way).

@Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏
in reply to Bob K Mertz

mastodon - Link to source

Bob K Mertz

To be clear, I don't know how I'll vote. Maybe the Democrats will do something (boot Schumer?) to turn this around. I doubt it.

The thing is last week I actually felt good about getting behind the Democrats... Hell, I actually had a little hope for our country. What they did today has just made me feel horrible and all the hope that I actually had is gone.

It's really hard to get behind a group of people that just completely shattered what little hope I had. Watching people I supported stand aside and let an authoritarian party walk all over them isn't exactly people I *want* to vote for....

I don't want to have to tell future generations that I voted for the party that rolled out the red carpet for evil.

#USpol #Democrats

#uspol #Democrats

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

In order to report my phone as lost, I have to log in to the carrier's website. In order to log in to the carrier's website, I have to type in my password as usual, and *then* I have to type in the 9 digit code they sent to my phone... My lost phone.

2-factor authentication has never *once* done me any good, but it sure has fucked up plenty of significant events in my life! Good job, Comp. Sci., you made everything suck.

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