Lou Katz @lou@entropyservice.com

It's been so long since I used stamps that postage has exactly doubled and I can use two of my old 34¢ ones without wasting a penny!

Severely high rates of #COVID19 in much of #canada as children and educators return to school. We don’t have access yet to vaccine boosters. Most people don’t mask or even bother staying home when sick.

This is going to be a difficult autumn.

With long-term health consequences.

#MaskUp

Shoutout to the people on this platform who are only just now learning that sometimes I even oppose things that governments do which are legal.

@lauren @ai6yr @historianess @jbaggs @vfrmedia

Especially when one had to include UUCP routing information in your sig like

...!ucbvax!intelca!cem

All that bangity bangity stuff was fun.

Jim Crow was about using the law and the threat of violence to suppress the vote. Texas (and other states) have reinstated legal vigilantism in the criminalization of voting.

#Vote #democracy #uspol

https://wapo.st/3Xbyh1N

“I can't believe I got #COVID19 again.”

Why? Didn't you post a photo from a giant concert last week?

“Well, yes, but...”

Did you wear a mask?

“Well, no but...”

Did you get vaccinated last year?

“I didn't think I needed...”

So, why are you surprised you got COVID again?

“I thought the pandemic was over.”

🤦 🤦 🤦

Yet another story of "build a safe cycle lane, and people will use it." It's time to ditch paint-only "bike lanes" and start using real protection for people cycling.

#BikeTooter #SafeStreets #VisionZero

https://www.cambridgebikesafety.org/2024/03/06/bicycle-use-in-cambridge-soars-following-installation-of-separated-bike-lanes-according-to-new-study/

Scaramucci: I've Only Met One Person Who Hates Trump More Than Melania https://hillreporter.com/scaramucci-i-ve-only-met-one-person-who-hates-trump-more-than-melania?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

In the original novel ("Monkey Planet") by Pierre Boulle, from which the entire "Planet of the Apes" franchise sprung, an astronaut near the end escapes the technologically reasonably advanced planet of apes and returns to Earth, where he finds apes similarly in charge after the very long stretch of time.

For the first film, they simplified both the apes' cultural level and the overall situation, by inexplicably having them land back on Earth in the first place, instead of a planet around a distant star.

This created a logical problem, since astronauts would be certain to recognize Earth's moon in the sky. So they basically just ignored the issue, and had an astronaut mumble something about there not being any moon. Uh huh.

Interestingly, in an episode of the TV series "Space: 1999", the main characters realize they are on Earth (albeit centuries in the past) rather than another planet, when they do recognize the moon.

Equating surveillance with safety considers only a fraction of what “safety” for everyone looks like. You cannot protect people from harm if part of what you offer them is a different kind of harm, writes EFF's Matthew Guariglia for Slate. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/08/police-surveillance-wont-make-us-safer-broken-windows-on-steroids.html

What if instead of being elephant-themed mastodon had been owl-themed and posting was called hooting

The piece of the Pavel Durov story that isn’t getting enough attention is the scandal around Emmanuel Macron granting him French citizenship as part of his effort to attract tech investment.

Brings to mind New Zealand doing something similar with Peter Thiel.

https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-finally-admits-he-gave-telegram-chief-pavel-durov-french-citizenship/

#tech #france #paveldurov #telegram

Cars are increasingly surveillance systems on wheels. They spy relentlessly not just on the driver --why are people comfortable with this, or do they not know it's happening? -- but also on the surroundings. Tesla is the worst offender as it keeps trying, unsuccessfully, to do self-driving.

If you own one is these, you are helping make the surveillance state much more pervasive.

Congress and state lawmakers obviously are in favor of all this spying, because they do nothing to stop it.

Israel Has Built an Economy Fueled by Genocide at Home and Abroad https://truthout.org/articles/israel-has-built-an-economy-fueled-by-genocide-at-home-and-abroad/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

China is such a techno-authoritarian police state that the government now censors social posts when they mention that the government censors social posts. https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/08/weibo-cracks-down-on-posts-about-weibo-crackdowns/

I was in SF for a few days this week. There are cars lining every street, owners paying pennies an hour if they're paying anything at all for the space and the state is tearing up homeless encampments as though the people in them have anywhere else to go or any way to get there. There are parking lots taking up half a city block all over downtown and an affordable housing crisis.

Subsidized housing and full employment programs for cars, subsidized theft and state-sanctioned cruelty for people.