The official reason for me getting fired were budget cuts, but I knew that the new department head actually wanted to hand my responsibilities to a buddy of theirs they had brought on board. Despite being there longer at the department than the new head and their buddy, as well as excellent performance reviews I had no chance to keep that job.

Yeah, you can put horses on any pasture and they will happily graze on whatever weed grows there. Gryphons (just one example of a popular fantasy mount) should be carnivorous. So how many cows do you need to feed that thing before it will fly someone safely across the countryside, without deciding that this someone looks awfully tasty?

Big flying mounts should be horribly expensive to maintain. Only the most wealthy nobles and wizards who can literally conjure money should be able to pay for them.

Personally I always have to suspend a lot of my disbelief whenever dragon mounts are being mentioned in fantasy books and there is absolutely no explanations how these creatures are being fed. Usually the topic is quietly sidelined or simply dismissed with “something something magic”.

For those wondering why Allen would care about praising Trump: Not only was Woody Allen Epstein’s neighbor; he and his “wife/adopted daughter” were “frequent dinner guests” at Epstein’s.

Strange how self-declared “”“libertarians”“” like Milei always turn out to loooove mass surveillance once they are in power. /s

I remember when Microsoft first attempted to prevent the standardisation of Open Document Format (used by LibreOffice and others) and then bullied its way into getting approval for own OOXML standard. Already back then, supporters of FOSS warned that Microsoft would use the overly complicated OOXML to maintain its stranglehold on users of Office-like software.:

Whenever applicable and possible, standards should build upon previous standardisation efforts and not depend on proprietary, vendor-specific technologies. Albeit, MS-OOXML neglects various standards and uses its own vendor-specific formats instead. This puts a substantial burden on all vendors to fully implement MS-OOXML. It seems questionable how any third party could ever implement them equally well, especially when a standard comes with 6000 pages of specifications without serving its minimalistic purpose.

These people can help.

It is very telling how much science backlash is rooted in the base desire of the rich and powerful to suppress any speech that contradicts them. It never was about (scientific) truth or facts, it was always about the power to impose their will on others and independent science challenges this totalitarian claim to power.

Since the first messenger who told Tigranes that Lucullus was coming had his head cut off for his pains, no one else would tell him anything, and so he sat in ignorance while the fires of war were blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him.

Plutarch, ~ 100 A.D.

It’s quite amazing how these people show their asses on LinkedIn and think it makes them look smart, instead of proving that they completely lost touch with reality. It fits the picture that one the very same day they laid of thousands, Microsoft also send out an invitation to hear them pitch genAI at GamesCom. That’s corpo brain on late stage capitalism.

I was once a fan of Nina Paley, because of her activism against copyright and even bought some of her merch. Then I found out that she is a capital-letters TERF.

You can find a “TERFy Archive” with all her transphobic writing on her website, she hosts a transphobic podcast with the subtitle “A TERF and a t-slur walk into a podcast studio” which she uses to promote the “autogynephilia” conspiracy theory, among so, so much more transphobia.

Paley would consider this comment of mine to be “censorship”. As usual with her type she wants to dish out, but doesn’t want to be criticized for it.

Also Mustelids, because Mustelids are hella cute and who can blame nature for wanting to create more cute things?!

Ah, well, better skip “Strange Days”, “12 Monkeys” and “Gattaca” then…

June 12th:

“I am pleased to confirm the 6th round of Iran US talks will be held in Muscat this Sunday the 15th,” Bad Albusaidi, the country’s foreign minister said on social media.

Israel struck Iran later the same day.

So why should Iran have any reason to believe that “talks” will stop Israel and the US?

The Guardian shedding crocodile’s tears? Boohoo, we spend years vilifying trans people and now look what happened…

Fun fact: The mouse was already invented in the 60s and was part of the famous “Mother of all Demos” which shaped modern computing like no other single event since then.

I can’t take articles such as this one seriously if they don’t mention right-wing terrorists recruiting through the same channels and means. That has been a known problem for more than a decade.

Treating online radicalisation solely as a problem of people with a migrant/non-European/Muslim/… background is very telling and borders on lying by omission.

The Wikipedia article about Jonathan

Consider this headline from Bloomberg in this context:

About 90% of Migrants Deported to El Salvador Had No US Criminal Record

Obligatory footnote: EvoPsych is mostly bunk, deeply intertwined with eugenics and riddled with homophobia, sexism and rape apologia.