New: we've obtained the guide Flock makes for police to try to convince cities to buy Flock cameras, even when there is widespread opposition to it. Encourages police to "own the narrative before someone else does," need to have a "carefully scripted presentation"
RE: https://aus.social/@rancoisse/117033849716232799
Happy "There Will Come Soft Rains" day for all who celebrate on August 4, 2026
Someone else online discovered that the #RayBradbury sci-fi story "There Will Come Soft Rains" - about an automated house after a nuclear war - published in 1950, takes place in the far distant future of......tomorrow, August 4, 2026.
Wow I can't believe that Mitch McConnell died tomorrow
So, #Shopify CEO Tobias #Lütke, whose company commands a market capitalization near $154 billion, told his social media followers this week that a tax-tiered voting system—one that would strip #voting #rights from anyone who pays no income tax—would be a “good system.”
Under this proposed system, the disenfranchised bloc would encompass all retirees living on Social Security and pension income, students, caregivers, disabled Americans, and millions of low-wage workers who owe no net federal income #tax after deductions and credits. All so billionaires could have many votes. Like lobbying doesn’t exist.
Tying the right to vote to wealth or tax contribution has a name: “census suffrage,” or property-qualified voting which entrenched the political power of the already wealthy and locked out workers, women, and minorities from any say in the laws governing them.
We’re not going back. Fuck all of that. #Guillotines to the front, please.
This is a great resource for disabling AI in various systems, apps, devices, etc:
RE: https://newsie.social/@TheAuroraSentinel/117032839251818593
good. qualified immunity is basically a minority hunting license for cops.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In alarming news for Republicans heading into the midterm elections, a new poll released on Monday revealed that Donald J. Trump is less popular than explosive diarrhea.
By a margin of two to one, likely voters said that they would rather suffer two years of the acute gastrointestinal ailment than the remainder of Trump’s term.
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/new-poll-reveals-trump-less-popular
Eastern Washington smoke is coming to Puget Sound today. Time to break out the Corsi-Rosenthal boxes for sensitive individuals.
EPA site https://fire.airnow.gov/#8/47.762/-122.302
PSCAA site https://map.pscleanair.gov/?lat=47.6768311&lon=-122.4756425&z=9&v=0
re: Spokane wildfire disaster, and people wondering about how to maintain situational awareness of when this might happen, I have my wildlife safety protocol pinned here as a thread on my profile right here.
The situation in Spokane met all the criteria (namely, Red Flag Warning, and wind). Unfortunately, we've moved into an era where SOMEWHERE in the US has been in this situation all summer, particularly the Rockies; so you've got to keep an eye on conditions in your area.
In Case of Fire: Read Ben's wildfire safety protocol pinned here on my profile.
The story of black holes has become more complicated thanks to JWST, which keeps spotting ancient black holes that are too big to explain with established theories.
Perhaps, “super-Eddington” accretion can lead to gas funneling in at extraordinary rates allowing black holes to grow tens of millions of times larger in the time available.
Or perhaps supermassive black holes were formed not from stars but from “direct collapse” of colossal clouds of gas.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/astrophysicists-puzzle-over-webbs-new-universe-20260702
#Science
2/n
New observations of early black holes and galaxies by JWST have generated a wealth of new theories.
"Perhaps the first galaxies converted gas to stars more efficiently than previously thought. Or they experienced periodic bursts of star formation driven by turbulent conditions. Or maybe early star-forming regions preferentially created massive, extremely bright stars."
“We almost have gone from having too many early galaxies to having too many theories."
https://www.quantamagazine.org/astrophysicists-puzzle-over-webbs-new-universe-20260702/
#Science
1/n
"I've devoted my life to this [career in the video game industry] and, to me, parenting is something you also devote your life to," Sam says. "I just don't have the mental space or the time to do that, or even the desire to." Click through for a pic of young dad surrounded by his loving family. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04kdk9v590o
Look at all the fleeced crypto idiots, say the people holding lots of cryptocurrencies (and who themselves have been robbed, rug-pulled or scammed multiple times over the years). The crypto noobs are doing it all wrong, they say: The only safe way to store your crypto wealth is in an offline hardware wallet that would require physical theft to steal your coins.
But this is now cold comfort for users of the hardware wallet Coldcard, which had a flaw that traces to a March 2021 firmware build which "routed seed generation to a predictable software randomiser instead of the chip’s hardware one, leaving a bounded set of possible keys that anyone with the disclosure and enough compute can reproduce offline, without ever touching a device."
"Galaxy Research flagged a third wave of sweeps early Sunday, roughly 208 bitcoin drained from 1,912 addresses between Friday midday and Saturday morning UTC.
That is just over a tenth of a bitcoin per victim. The July 30 opening wave averaged close to a full coin, 1,083 bitcoin from 1,196 addresses in 41 minutes.
Observed losses across all three waves now total 1,367 bitcoin, nearly $89 million, from 4,585 addresses."
Happy Herman Melville day to all who celebrate.
How many shots would a good ole boy shoot when he's out to stop Flock?
US House Candidate for Tennesse's 2nd district, Adam Heimerman is charged with carrying out the most based crime this year.
#FreeAdamHeimerman #Flock #ALPR #Axon #AdamHeimerman #Tennessee
The New York Times is now offering "How To" guides for its customers: The business/Epstein class, and obfuscation for the rest of us.
Paywall-free link https://archive.ph/mmpjZ
The Neo-Luddite Who Was Right
Dave Eggers spent years warning us about technology. Then OpenAI invited him to speak.
We used to think, myself included, that Eggers is a grumpy, neo-luddite complaining about everything technological. We were wrong. We now know he wasn’t being dramatic, he simply knew better.
https://marginalspace.substack.com/p/the-neo-luddite-who-was-right