My coat is black and the moon is yellow
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npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 Profile Code
nprofile1qqs0kp07vhfxl2lr8dl6r0q2vllccwencadr6wm4kkke85lzms4yhwgpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsyfj742
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2026-05-18T18:49:02Z Event JSON
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"content": "{\"name\":\"gregg r\",\"about\":\"My coat is black and the moon is yellow\\nHere is where I get off\\n\\nBoomer into #cycling, sysadmin from the early days, hardcore #SteelyDan fan. #MaskUp #CovidIsNotOver #ITMFA #ProtectTransKids #LGBTQ #Enshittification #FYYFF\\n\\n\\\"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.\\\" -- H.L. Mencken, 1916.\\n\\n\\\"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.\\\" -- John F. Kennedy\",\"website\":\"https://mastodon.social/@grheavyroller\",\"picture\":\"https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/110/493/594/396/953/503/original/af5a69fbc02c4c6d.jpg\",\"banner\":\"https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/headers/110/493/594/396/953/503/original/a88c1d541e20850b.jpg\",\"nip05\":\"[email protected] \"}" ,
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Last Notes npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Near La Push Beach, Washington. npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Your writing making sense of things is exactly why I look forward eagerly to every Pluralistic installment. Thank you, Mr. Doctorow. npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r No longer are they the 0.001% or the oligarchs or the broligarchs or the uber-rich or the zottarich—they are now and forever the Epstein Class. npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r America needs to be de-Nazified now just as did Germany after WWII. I've sent this @npub1fdr…lvhs link to my Senators and my Representative telling them I want them to institute a Nuremberg Caucus to hold accountable those who have committed the atrocities, those who directed them, and those who enabled them. npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r This is one of the best pieces @npub1fdr…lvhs has written. He rightly reminds us: "The question isn't merely 'How do we elect better leaders?' It's 'How do we make our leaders follow us?'" npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs writes the CliffsNotes of Capitalism: "America is not great. It has been gutted by the Epstein class, who robbed us blind, raped our kids, and are now selling us shitcoins and chatbots and the spectacle of protesters being shot in the streets. But it's not enough to know that the system is rigged. Everybody knows the system is rigged. To build a movement and save our future, we have to know how it is rigged and who rigged it." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs on tRump's trade policy: "The best summary of Trump's trade 'philosophy' comes from Trashfuture's November Kelly, who said that Trump is flipping over the table in a poker game that's rigged in his favor because he resents having to pretend to play the game at all." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs for the win: "All I've got is an idea for how we can make *insanely profitable products* that people *really want to buy*, that will insulate us from cyberattacks by US tech giants who are in thrall to Trump, and that *Americans* will pay us to use in order to free themselves from the tech giants who abuse them, too." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "For if AI code – written at 10,000 times the speed of any human coder, designed to work well, but not to fail gracefully – is the digital asbestos we're filling our walls with, then our descendants will spend generations digging that asbestos out of the walls." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs posits "an unstoppable coalition of activists, entrepreneurs and natsec hawks" will help bring about "a post-American, enshittification-resistant internet", a welcome trend in the War on General Purpose Computers. npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Perfect capper to the year: take a truncheon to "capital allocation" and the parasites who practice it. Thanks for a great year, Mr. Doctorow 👏🏻 npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r With the mega-rich funding the GOP to force "eight million student borrowers back into repayment" and sanctioning "the use of price-fixing algorithms to raise rent" and hoarding so much of the country's wealth that "most Americans can't afford to buy *anything* anymore", @npub1fdr…lvhs has, as is his wont, coined a marvelous phrase to characterize the kleptocrat class: npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs writes about middlemen enshittifying the internet, taking money from the makers. In 1997, Ellen Ullman's "Close to the Machine" predicted these rentiers: "Indeed, any content, any information, anything posted on the Web was now ripe for the skim. 'Every time someone clicks, someone makes money.' And it would not be the content makers who would be making the money. … the ones making the money would be the owner of the transaction itsef. The new breed of entrepreneur: Net landlord." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r The Firehole River at sunset, Yellowstone National Park npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs , July 2023: npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "Every device and every service should be designed so that the people who use them have the final say over how they work. Manufacturers' back doors and digital locks that prevent us from updating our devices with software of our choosing were never a good idea. Today, they're a catastrophe." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Lake Washington on a blustery blue-grey day. npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "To recoup their existing and announced investments, AI companies will have to bring in $2 trillion, more than the combined revenue of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia and Meta. … With 30+% of the S&P 500 tied up in seven AI companies' stock, the coming crash will _definitely_ escape containment and crash the whole damned economy." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "The idea that Apple is so committed to its users' privacy that it will exit a major market rather than expose users to surveillance risks is an obvious lie – just ask China. Why would Apple tell this lie? Because it wants to protect its profits – not its customers." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "The danger to society comes from the *existence* of billionaires – from the transfer of power (to decide who may speak and who may be heard) into the hands of a few very rich men whose collective cowardice can erase whole swathes of public discourse." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Oh, to be able to return to the not-so-distant past when the internet was new and free, where comment threads were meetings of the finest minds, and bloggers held forth on the great dialogues of the age wearing red capes and goggles and blogged from high-altitude balloons (well, @npub1fdr…lvhs did). npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "Shopping harder is no way to save the planet or your neighbors. Individual actions do not provoke systemic change. For that, we need collective action. … Make individual choices that make your life better. Take *collective* action to make society better." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "As Matt Stoller writes, 'if the voting booth isn’t a meaningful way to fix problems, people will find other mechanisms to seek redress, using uglier tactics.'" npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "Most of the people stuck in the mirror world are poor and powerless, because desperation makes you an easy mark for grifters peddling conspiracy theories." Force-feeding phony outrage porn ("They're Eating the Dogs") and raking in millions from the True Believers … now who/what does that remind me of? npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Purchased ebooks that can be taken away, purchased music that can be deleted, purchased products you are prevented from repairing that can be modified or entirely shut down at will. They get your money and your purchase doesn't buy ownership, a hallmark of Wilhoit's Law. I recall a pithy observation from a famous author, @npub1fdr…lvhs : npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Slow *them* down, cut *them* down to size, regulate *them*, tax *them*, impoverish *them*, make *them* pay, make *them* illegal. Redistribute the friction *upwards* ⬆︎ npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "Billionaires just don't think we're real." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs 's latest about MAGA's boss class being immune to the carnage they create (and profiting from it) is a perfect exposition of both Wilhoit's Law (which he cites) and of Ogden Nash's puckish observation: npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Each week @npub1mg0…jpme posts a new Threat Model: Covid with information and carefully curated resources to help you stay informed and stay safe: npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "There are plenty of Audible books that are recorded without a director or an editor or a proofer, meaning that inexperienced actor's mistakes and mispronunciations survive into the final product." I purchased an Audible audiobook that was riddled with such errors and Amazon could care less. I bought the audiobook on CD from eBay (a lucky find) & ripped it. DRM-free authors like Cory are the only way to go. npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r When @npub1fdr…lvhs explains, we benefit. Something good is coming this October. npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r The Methow Valley, Washington State npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r tRump et al., ICE secret police, co-opted MAGA racists, the GOP & the centrist Democrats who crush popular movements using techbro-supplied mass surveillance, the ultra-rich who bankroll it all ... To borrow @npub15l3…6wqx 's perfect phrase, they are antibodies protecting a disease. npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "After generations of increasingly oligarch-friendly policies and billionaire entryism into the Democratic Party, America may well be cooked, a total write-off for generations to come. The path to saving the world and our species arguably lies through strengthening other countries to resist American psychos and protect the planet from the consequences of their brainwormed leadership." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "Like many people of my generation, I grew up with The Blues Brothers. ... I can still just about recite those movies verbatim, more than 30 years later." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "It's not a coincidence that these guys went after the CFPB. It's no mystery why they've gone after every watchdog that keeps you from getting scammed, poisoned or maimed, from the FDA to the EPA to the NLRB." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r The #handsoff protests are truly nationwide -- Bothell, Washington turns out npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "Any good investor knows that anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. The only question is: will that halt is a controlled braking action, or a collision with reality's brick wall?" npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r This past February, @npub1fdr…lvhs recommended "The Murder Next Door", a graphic novel by Hugh D'Andrade. He characterized the story as "a haunting, beautiful meditation on masculinity, trauma, and fear." It certainly was, along with the recognition that empathy and compassion are hallmarks of both a healthy person and a healthy society. Our society is not overflowing with these qualities just now. npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r #SilentSunday #photography npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." -- Edward R. Murrow npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r "Authoritarian societies are inherently corrupt, and corrupt societies are inherently unstable. Rule of thieves brings collapse, eventually, because they can't stop stealing." William Gibson, '"Agency" npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : Surveillance pricing combined with cartel "IP rights" exemplify Wilhoit's' Law: npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Choosing stupidity is not a choice to be respected: npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r This passage from @npub1fdr…lvhs 's novel "Attack Surface" sums up how the technology we depend on has been turned against us: npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Sunset above clouds npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r The new NIAID Director is scared of masks: "Marrazzo goes on to say that she and her colleagues “don’t want to go back” [to wearing masks] because “it was so painful.” What was? Disease control? The thing public health literally exists to do?" npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1fdr…lvhs : "Any future worth living in is going to get housing right. We need to stop thinking of housing as an asset and realize that it is, first and foremost, a human right." npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1mg0…jpme 's Pandemic Roundup: npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r Sunset at Maui, looking west from Lahaina to Lanai npub1lvzluewjd747xwml5x7q5ell3san836685ahtdddj0f79hp2fwuslshuj3 gregg r @npub1mg0…jpme 's Pandemic Roundup:
