There were six people protesting for Palestinians on a Dublin street yesterday. Just stood with flags outside a building on the quay.

There were security personnel, all stab vests and stern looks, watching them.

And (this is important) five gardaí (police officers) were in attendance. Presumably called by someone from the establishment.

They weren't trespassing.

They must have been extremely threatening to require such a heavy handed response. (/s)

There's details that are too distressing for me to deal with currently but I'll leave with this.

Mom can write, but much (not all) is jumbled or wrong. She wrote 'cunt' which was hilarious to me because she's never uttered that word in my presence, almost certainly never written it either. Ever.

I realised she was talking about Irish money which before 2001 was the 'punt'. We were 'talking' about a gift I'd brought for her.

Even in moments like these it never hurts to have a laugh.

I'm back home from mom's. She is out of hospital and recovering from her stroke. It was a clot, not a bleed. I'm told this is 'better'. She has a dropped face and speech is really hard to impossible for her. But all her range of motion and fine motor skills were as before.

Nothing prepares you for dealing with a situation like this. And I've tried to fight the tears which just makes it all worse.

She's 88 and in a bad way. But she has nurse help, a treatment plan and is engaging with the help.

A post about project managers

I’ve had a huge health setback following my move.

My level of function is half what it was before.

The hospital said they would connect me with “resources” to assist with activities of daily living.

There’s a 1.5 year wait list.

MAiD was offered in under a month.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t want to allow the government to euthanize me.

But this is eugenics I’m always talking about.

I need assistance to survive. Help with cooking & cleaning.

The supports don’t exist unless you have a ton of money.

When you try and push your body to do it yourself, you get worse.

If you end up in hospital, they suggest assisted dying.

Am I “free” to say no? Of course.

Does it feel that way when nothing else is being offered?

Not at all.

I’m being denied the support to live while “offered” death.

That’s coercion.

It’s eugenics.

The system has decided I’m not worth saving.

I’m not alone in this.

Disabled people urgently need allies and support in this fight.

And I need some home care.

#eugenics #ableism #maid #disability #poverty #chronicillness #assisteddying

Found a Fediverse posting starter pack

#cats #catsofmastodon #asstodon

Here is an opportunity to send your name to space (to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrangian Point, 1.5 million km away, to be precise) aboard the NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space telescope, scheduled for launch on Aug. 30, 2026.

Add your name to the list by July 12. The list will be stored on a memory card and attached to the square at the bottom right of the plaque, which is mounted on the side of the telescope.

Let's pass it on to our young friends and family.

https://my.nasa.gov/specialevents/s/send-your-name-with-nancy-roman
1/n

The Government™ has made an ad about Palantir, and it's surprsingly honest and informative. https://youtu.be/mBW9QCVDSjY

@ptoothfish Not since the millennium bug has the IT industry been so focused on a single thing.

At the moment to question the idea that LLMs might not be the best tool for every job is heresy.

Legend ✊ 🇵🇸

"In early April, an unidentified Irish man climbed onto the roof of a U.S. C-130 Hercules military transport vehicle parked at Shannon Airport in County Claire, Ireland, and sabotaged its wing and fuselage using a hatchet, causing $75 million in damage."

https://mronline.org/2026/06/24/u-s-military-bases-around-the-world-are-facing-growing-protest-from-an-emboldened-antiwar-movement/

#StopTheGenocide #FreePalestine #WelfareNotWarfare

My FiL phoned at *5pm. My mom had a stroke.

<<<Measuring Quentin the guide dog puppy>>>

13 months 7 days old

7 days post op and doing well.

#IrishGuideDogs
#PupInTraining

#MastoDaoine
#DogsOfMastodon

RE: https://mastodon.social/@sjvn/116828624577961731

There's a spiel about job listings I regularly give to students who are going on the tech job market (an utterly miserable and exploitative experience, the way we treat new entrants to the field…seriously…ugh). The students never quite believe me when I give it, but I give it anyway — and I'll now be using this job listing as yet another piece of evidence (if it’s real, which it may not be!).

The upshot of the spiel is “job listings usually don't mean what they say, no matter how clearly they say it, and you can’t really read them literally.”

1/

I don't want to live in interesting times.
I want to go back to mundane times when we were living in a cozy hollow tree in the old forest, drinking tea, discussing books, and having adventures with sophisticated talking animals in little tweed suits.

There are two kinds of cat: murder and doofus.

#caturday #cat #cats #catsofmastodon #catsodon #humor #humour

There is no "gender war."

#Male #Female #Gender #Equality

I'm re-reading Neptune's Brood by @cstross and this quote hits a bit harder nowadays than when it was written in 2013, in the era before the slop engines:

"As I said, these things bore only a thin veneer of intelligence: Once you crack the ice and tumble into the howling void of thoughtlessness beneath, the illusion ceases to be comforting and becomes a major source of irritation. (Which is why I prefer my tools to be less conversational and more functional; there is less scope for self-deception if your spreadsheet is too dumb to massage the figures until they show you something pleasing rather than that which is actually there.)"

Fun fact: in Greek mythology the arrogant Narcissus, a man of extreme vanity and cruelty, is brought down by a reflecting pool and then dies.

My kitchen sink window looked out on a blank wall and walkway topped with a dirty debris filled gutter on the house next door. I added textured window film for privacy, an abandoned crochet shawl start, and a cute little homemade crochet valance. Each helps a little with heat loss from old single pane windows in foggy chilly Monterey peninsula. #Crochet #Fensterfreitag