RE: https://chaosfem.tw/@theogrin/117411947836992885

I once referenced the Sword of Damocles in a written communication to management. I think it was over their heads.

RE: https://glammr.us/@overholt/117349584080137705

One could join the ends for a genuine Infinite Jest.

If you see ads pointing you to votesafe.org to check your voter registration, read this first.

VoteSafe is run by America PAC, Elon Musk's super PAC. It is not a government site. Its own footer says "Paid for by America PAC."

It also doesn't register anyone. The flow ends by telling you to download a PDF, print it, and mail it in yourself.

Its privacy policy (updated Aug 29, 2026) lets America PAC share your info with "business partners" for targeted marketing, or sell it. That includes whether you're registered to vote and "how you submit your vote." Popular Information found your address going to Facebook and Google, a hashed email to The Trade Desk, your usage to X, and a device fingerprint that survives cookie deletion.

VoteSafe also white-labels voter sites for allied groups, including Sentinel Action Fund and Ready to Register. North Carolina's election board warned in July that Ready to Register mailings used an outdated form, went to deceased voters, and had QR codes that could pre-populate other people's data.

To check your registration, use your state's official portal, https://vote.gov, or https://vote.org. None of them sell your data.

Sources:
https://popular.info/p/the-hidden-dangers-of-musks-votesafeorg
https://votesafe.org/privacy-policy
https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00879510/
https://www.ncsbe.gov/news/press-releases/2026/07/01/bulk-voter-registration-mailings-cause-voter-confusion-additional-work-counties

Trump's idiocy gives cover to the plans of those more clever than he. There's a lot of devious shit people want to do, and having Trump represent those ideas allows the public to be dismissive of such stupid things, while more competent people are working towards those goals behind the scenes.

Mostly resource extraction. (And human rights violations.)

Resistance to his BS is still necessary. And the flood benefits them...

q.v. Venezuela, Greenland, Canada annexations
Iran?

🍄 There's a mushroom that makes people see tiny people. The same tiny people, every time.

Lanmaoa asiatica is a bolete sold as a delicacy in Yunnan, China and the northern Philippines. Cooked thoroughly, it's a savory umami-rich food. Eaten raw or undercooked, it reliably triggers Lilliputian hallucinations, visions of tiny elf-like figures marching under doors and crawling up walls.

Classic psychedelics give everyone a different trip. This mushroom gives basically everyone the same one. University of Utah researchers sequenced it and found no known psychoactive compound at all, no psilocybin, no ibotenic acid. It points to a completely new hallucinogenic chemical.

The trips start 12 to 24 hours after eating and can last up to a week. Nobody uses it recreationally. Hot pot restaurants just set a 15-minute timer and warn you not to eat until it goes off.

Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanmaoa_asiatica
https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/scientists-identify-mushroom-behind-tiny-people-hallucinations/
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260121-the-mysterious-mushroom-that-makes-you-see-tiny-people

#mushrooms #mycology #science

No matter how kind your eggs are, German eggs are Kinder.

I've developed a habit of turning sideways to get through narrow gaps. It no longer gives me extra clearance.

🔴 A defense contractor is now selling technology that scans every electronic device in your car as you drive past a camera. It ties everything to your license plate. You cannot opt out.

It is called SignalTrace. Made by Leonardo, an Italian military contractor with existing U.S. Special Operations Command contracts. It sweeps your phone, smartwatch, Bluetooth headphones, your dog's RFID chip, tire pressure sensors, your car's infotainment system. Anything that broadcasts.

It bundles these into what Leonardo calls your "electronic fingerprint," timestamped and geotagged. Stored in an "Enterprise Operations Center for future queries and analysis."

Those are their words. Not mine.

You did not consent. You cannot opt out. Your devices broadcast by existing. In most places, this is perfectly legal.

If this sounds like something that will be abused: it already has been. Police have used existing license plate reader networks to stalk partners, verify school residency, run background checks, and monitor protests. At least 22 officers charged or resigned for ALPR stalking.

SignalTrace does not read your messages. It does not need to. It knows who you travel with, where you go, and when.

Sources: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/24/surveillance-tech-company-is-pitching-an-unholy-alpr-stingray-hybrid-to-law-enforcement/ and https://www.leonardocompany-us.com/lpr/elsag-signaltrace

#surveillance #privacy #ALPR

🐕 TIL: Dogs copy us even when it makes zero sense. Half of dogs will touch a pointless dot on the wall or flip a dead lever before getting their treat, just because their person did it first.

That behavior is overimitation, and researchers thought it was uniquely human. Great apes never do it. Dogs do it most with their own caregiver, which points to a social motive: copying keeps them in the game.

The evidence is solid. Johnston et al. 2017 found half of dogs and dingoes copied both actions. Huber et al. 2018 replicated it in Vienna. A 2023 follow-up found 85% of overimitation happened after the dog already got the reward, which kills the confusion theory.

Dogs also anticipate what their caregiver will do next and sync their behavior to match. A 2020 ethics review from Vetmeduni Vienna pulls this all together and argues it creates real duties: we owe dogs the chance to flourish, not just protection from harm.

The catch: they will pick up your bad habits too. Copying "seemingly unproductive or dysfunctional" strategies is part of the package.

Read more:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7772310/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13420-018-0336-z
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9982082/

#dogs #dogtraining #science

📜 TIL the Korean alphabet Hangul is one of the only major writing systems invented from scratch for its own language, and its letters are drawings of your mouth.

King Sejong the Great finished it in 1443 so common people could read and write. The consonants literally trace the speech organs: ㄱ is the tongue root blocking the throat, ㅁ is lips pressed together, ㅅ is the teeth.

The vowels encode sky, earth, and human: a dot, a horizontal line, and a vertical stroke.

The scholar class hated it. For 400 years it was treated as a script for women, monks, and commoners, until it went mainstream in the late 1800s. Hangul Day is now a national holiday in South Korea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hangul

#linguistics #history #korea

Do British donkeys bray, or brey?

🧪 The placebo-controlled trial wasn't invented by doctors. It was invented by medieval witch hunters.

In 1423, Jean Gerson proposed testing religious claims with consecrated vs unconsecrated objects that looked identical - the same logic behind modern placebo controls.

His method ended up in the Malleus Maleficarum (1486). In 1599, a French physician used it to prove a "possessed" girl wasn't really possessed - she reacted the same to real and fake holy water.

That trick-trial design reached Lavoisier and Franklin, who used it to debunk mesmerism in 1784 - the direct ancestor of every clinical trial.

Source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01410768231207260

#science #history #medicine