jolshefsky @jolshefsky@librem.one
Joined Jul 2019
Everyone knows those stories are fiction to some internal depth. But the consistent reinforcement of those stories ingrains the broad commonality between them. The dissonance forces you to choose between the messy truth of reality, or the idealistic fantasy of fiction. The fiction is very appealing.
Their hunches were right. The beautiful supporting actress loved them for who they were. They were the good-guy who fought or killed the bad guy. In fact, anything they did was the Right thing to do.
Another more tenuous "dot" I think connects is to how movies and TV created and reinforced the flawed story idea. In movies I saw in the 80s and 90s, usually the white man was the central character and did things others couldn't.
Meanwhile, the rational remainder (majority, I hope) understand that while my life is central to *my* story, everyone else also has an equivalently complex life of their own, and our society's job is to make a safe environment for everyone to have their lives.
I think this explains a lot of their behavior. For instance, "I'm not racist" = "I don't hate black people, it's just that they are extras in my story." Or "I didn't get the job because DEI made the company hire a woman" = "women are only supporting characters in my story."
After ruminating about @lindsayellis's video https://nebula.tv/videos/lindsayellis-bodycam-youtube, I connected a dot… Conservatives go through life thinking they are the main character in a story, so whatever they do is the Right thing, and everyone else is just supporting [characters for] their story, or extras.
So United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby donated $1,000,000 for dinner with Donald Trump to defund the FAA causing the ongoing Newark outages due to FAA underfunding. Person at fault: Scott Kirby. Moron!
jolshefsky
boosted
This National Library Week, we're celebrating the power of libraries to endure—even in the face of unprecedented challenges.
In our latest Vanishing Culture essay, @brewsterkahle shares why preserving the library system matters now more than ever: https://blog.archive.org/2025/04/07/vanishing-culture-preserving-the-library-system/
jolshefsky
boosted
The Trump regime will arrest some of you in the middle of the night because you spoke your mind https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-trump-regime-will-arrest-some?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon
jolshefsky
boosted
We should be more scared of measles. Worth noting that things are going downhill so quickly, I now need to update these videos in the days between recording and posting. In this case, a 2nd person died & the father of the dead child has announced he's still anti-vax. https://skepchick.org/2025/03/we-should-be-more-scared-of-measles/
Building on what Heather Cox Richardson @hc_richardson wrote a few days ago ( https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-26-2024 ) I thought I'd categorize Trump's campaign promises.
jolshefsky
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jolshefsky
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jolshefsky
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I accidentally said “hey Shirley” instead of “hey Siri” to my phone this morning and now it is stuck in airplane mode.
jolshefsky
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As I said earlier, true conspiracies are boring and mainly referred to as "business models".
Google and friends collect huge amounts of data not neceesarily because they are founded by CIA, FBI, reptilian aliens from Nibiru, whichever the case may be.
It's because they are capitalist companies in the capitalist society. They are not beholden to technical experts, they are beholden to bean counters who are beholden to shareholders who demand not just perpetual revenue stream, but perpetual revenue growth at any cost, and are pressured by the dog-eat-dog market environment. So they just HAVE to collect more and more data in order to sell more and more of it, lest they be either bled out by shareholders or devoured by the competitors.
Alphabet agencies just knew a good data source when they saw one, and politely asked to join in on the fun, which is easy for them, because they speak softly and carry a long stick.
This is surveilance capitalism in the nutshell.
jolshefsky
boosted
Today, I was trying to find (using commercial search engines) information about a topic. Maybe 9 out of 10 or more "relevant" results was about purchasing items related to the topic. Not ads placed in the result page, no, the actual results.
I remember how, when I was younger, I used to marvel at all the information out there on the web. How it was like a giant library.
I scarcely recognize the place now. If you want to search information about a topic you don't go into a mall. But that's what it feels like I'm forced to do.
I remember going to the library and pulling out drawers of index cards to locate the relevant non-fiction shelves with good content on topics I wanted to learn about. Imagine if those index cards had been mixed with cards with advertisements on them. Increasingly diluting the content with junk. That is the web of today.
jolshefsky
boosted
The whole e-bike categorization seems so simple to me. Omitting the "automobile" category (e.g. large-ish, enclosed-ish, fully motor-propelled, more than 2 wheels), a vehicle that is wholly self-propelled is a "motorcycle", one powered from a motor and/or pedals is a "mo-ped", one that powered only when human power is added (i.e. pedaling) is "bicycle" (or, more broadly, "human-powered vehicle") and one with an a boosting electric motor is an "e-bike." DMV categories already cover the first two.
jolshefsky
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The computer hardware industry’s job is to make networks, disks, CPUs, and memory faster and bigger. The computer software industry’s job is to squander as much of that improvement as possible by making software as slow and massive as they can.
If Elon Musk is worth $36.5B in 27 working years, that means he can do the work of 48,000 workers earning $28K/year. Why doesn't he just reopen Tesla all by himself?
Joined Jul 2019
