<unnamed>

Public Key

npub1qu3usny9twz8cdxppv0pyxn26cpgy7kgkh7thszqf77j4eqlzr0qxcnk4m

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsqwg7gfjz4hpruxnqsk8sjrf4dvq5z0tyttl9mcpqyl0f2us03phspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsds0zm2

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Last Notes

2026-01-13 23:47:02 GMT

- reply

That looks interesting. Maybe I'll give them a shot. Do you grow them from seed?

2025-10-28 16:24:09 GMT

#labor #teens
https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/115/452/690/063/318/305/original/875e3cfdf14750e8.png

2025-10-27 02:20:13 GMT

- reply

There may be some 'name inflation' going on here -- where hotels are using words that connote palaces. A web search for ballrooms in Atlanta showed some that were really swanky -- like on the upper floors of skyscrapers with a view of the city. The ones I've been in have had no windows ... that may be a dividing line between ballrooms for the holi poli and those for the elite. Not only do you have this interior space for your event, but you also control the surrounding space enough that you don't have to worry about gawkers.

2025-10-27 01:31:38 GMT

- reply

a few were in hotels, so kinda like these photos in the Ritz-Carlton downtown:
https://www.partyslate.com/venues/the-ritz-carlton-atlanta
Or at the Fox
https://www.foxtheatre.org/explore-spaces-at-the-fox
Basically big rooms with a bunch of tables set up, some mix of carpet and dancefloor, and maybe a dais
They tended to have extensive catering, unlike say at the VFW hall

2025-10-27 00:51:38 GMT

- reply

a couple wedding receptions, IIRC

2025-10-13 20:37:35 GMT

- reply

So the plan is to win an election by deceiving the people about the consequences of their vote. Seems familiar. Will they claim a mandate afterwards?

2025-10-07 11:41:07 GMT

- reply

to be clear, this is the opinion of the acting director, not official cdc recommendations (the vaccine schedule). it sounds like it would be a few years before these vaccines are even available, assuming that anyone wants to make that investment. I wonder if the separate vaccines are being used in any other countries.

2025-10-05 01:12:21 GMT

- reply

That's really destroying the trust between the email user and the email administrator... which maybe is the point. If my email administrator sent out emails under my name, I think I'd have to stop sending emails from my account anymore, and conduct all business by phone and paper. Or maybe from some anonymous service account used by a group of people.
It would be hard to get work done quickly, but that's probably what the administration wants for the Department of Education.

2025-10-04 01:47:04 GMT

Listening to Defiance Ohio, Petty Problems
https://archive.org/details/DefianceOhioTheGreatDepression/01Defiance_OhioPetty_Problems.mp3
#music #punk #folk #war #philosophy

2025-10-02 20:09:52 GMT

- reply

I hate this narrative that they are shrinking government . They are not and never have. They are just shifting what it does to emphasize their own preferences.

2025-09-30 11:05:24 GMT

Can anyone point me to some good essays on the consequences of replacing public spaces with corporate-owned spaces, such as the replacement of main street shops with shopping malls and supermarkets?
#urbanism #freespeech #publicgood

2025-09-20 18:27:58 GMT

- reply

Isolation seems to be the point. International relations will be limited to the elite... 'people-to-people' relationships must be too woke for some.
https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/people-people-program

2025-09-20 16:20:05 GMT

- reply

Scientists are also concerned about how this would effectively ban international scientists from taking academic postdoc research positions in the US.
https://mastodon.world/@davidho/115232909349476685

2025-09-14 19:14:48 GMT

- reply

"Tides of History" podcast had an interesting episode addressing "What is Collapse?"-- about the Bronze Age collapse (interview with Guy Middleton).
https://wondery.com/shows/tides-of-history/episode/5629-what-is-collapse-interview-with-professor-guy-middleton/

2025-09-07 23:57:41 GMT

- reply

bunch of control freaks

2025-09-07 02:11:56 GMT

- reply

https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/115/160/584/933/537/723/original/7ff52b706176c702.png

2025-09-06 00:02:57 GMT

- reply

"see, it's funny because they are afraid of us!"
"why don't those people like me? They must be horrible people if they don't like me"
(paraphrasing)

2025-09-05 23:54:02 GMT

- reply

apparently it's funny to scare fishermen away from their work.

2025-09-01 20:07:39 GMT

- reply

They way things are right now, I rarely get to watch a movie but drink plenty of coffee... but I still gave up on coffee for the poll because it's easier to think of NEVER having coffee than never watching a movie.

2025-08-30 19:18:45 GMT

- reply

I'd love to see how the purpose of trips change... and am wondering what the long term trend is. Will it be a a one-time drop as some number of people are turned off by cost and uncertainty. Or will it continue to grow each year - as students stop enrolling in college, as business people stop building relationships, and as tourists stop telling their friends about their great visits.

2025-08-30 19:16:31 GMT

- reply

I wanted to know what regions of the USA would be most affected (I can guess), but the International Trade Administration's website is broken.
https://www.trade.gov/us-states-cities-visited-overseas-travelers
https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/115/119/316/212/848/219/original/82c5fe1f7ed8028e.png

2025-08-29 18:21:11 GMT

- reply

That's just my own paraphrasing. Sorry that wasn't clear. These politicians clearly use "bias" differently than scientists do.. They seem to use it to mean "reflecting the opinions of the general population", though they really just mean "reflecting the opinions of my cronies".

2025-08-29 10:43:25 GMT

- reply

I think by bias they mean "demonstrable effects on symptoms while ignoring wild speculation and new age mysticism regardless of the profit opportunities"

2025-08-28 01:57:21 GMT

- reply

It sounds like that tweet was sent out before her formal termination notice was sent (and before she heard anything from the President). Tweets have no legal weight; this administration has repeatedly made claims by tweet that they did not follow through on (from Musk's 5-things demands, to Kennedy's covid-vaccine announcements). The question is first, who authorized this tweet, and do they have authority to fire her (sounds like it may need to be the President, but it seems like he's willing to support this move); the second is whether that person will follow through once they face pushback from other power centers (like the Senate).

2025-08-27 23:59:35 GMT

- reply

There's also rumors (form a lawyer on X) that Monarez has not been fired nor resigned -- this is apparently all based on a statement from the HHS X account.

2025-08-27 23:57:22 GMT

- reply

Three of the senior career staff have resigned.
https://www.statnews.com/2025/08/27/cdc-director-susan-monarez-ousted/

2025-08-27 06:50:38 GMT

- reply

Yeah, I'd say stagflation is the immediate concern with how the administration is throwing a wrench into the economy. Hyperinflation is a long term concern that depends on an alignment of failures: loss of trust in economic statistics (like inflation), low short-term interest rates as permanent policy, flight of capital from US due to above and arbitrary targeting of individual companies, rising long-term interest rates making the Federal debt unsustainable, and then deliberate inflation to make the debt manageable. Maybe the government could just directly confiscate a portion of the debt to avoid inflation...but that's bad too. In this scenario, there's probably a financial crisis thrown in on top of all that.

2025-08-27 01:40:10 GMT

- reply

hyperinflation, here we come.
https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/global-research/currencies/de-dollarization

2025-08-26 23:30:12 GMT

- reply

The quote is from the executive order telling police to target flag burners for any charges they can think of.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/prosecuting-burning-of-the-american-flag/
Flag abuse is rampant - either from those trying to co-opt the symbol, or those who are just neglectful/careless (like putting it on a car antenna, where it gets shredded). But I do wonder how the EO applies to destruction of those modified flags. At the end of the day, he's just telling cops to target people who they dislike...so there's no real rule to examine.

2025-08-26 22:10:19 GMT

- reply

By his own standards, flying the Confederate flag is much worse than desecrating the USA's flag.
"Desecrating it is uniquely offensive and provocative. It is a statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our Nation — the clearest possible expression of opposition to the political union that preserves our rights, liberty, and security. Burning this representation of America may incite violence and riot. American Flag burning is also used by groups of foreign nationals as a calculated act to intimidate and threaten violence against Americans because of their nationality and place of birth."

2025-08-25 00:41:27 GMT

- reply

Did you ever hear the album "songs in the key of X" -- it has some really interesting songs on there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_in_the_Key_of_X:_Music_from_and_Inspired_by_the_X-Files

2025-08-24 17:09:22 GMT

- reply

History Daily is a good podcast. The segments are pretty short, and cover all types of events, while still being well researched (with some story-telling embellishments).

2025-08-24 12:51:45 GMT

- reply

This attitude of "America as a brand" is a country where our past is buried and citizens are pushed to the sidelines, only given any attention when the elite feel they can get something of value from us. This is the vision of Madison Avenue con-men and the modern Robber Barons of Silicon Valley.
4/4

2025-08-24 12:51:36 GMT

- reply

This contrasts with the Chinese Communist Party, which continues to suppress discussions of the Cultural Revolution or the Tienanmen Square Massacre. In the interest of 'harmony', the CCP denies Chairman Mao's role orchestrating the violence of the Cultural Revolution as a means of silencing critics (with rhetoric reminiscent of 'drain the swamp').
https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2023-02/review-cultural-revolution-still-haunts-china
https://www.historydaily.com/the-murder-of-vice-principal-bian-zhongyun/
3/4

2025-08-24 12:51:23 GMT

- reply

Throughout my life, America has been relatively good about looking directly at the injustices of the past, even when committed by leaders who we generally respect.
For instance Theodore Roosevelt unjustly gave an entire army company a dishonorable discharge without any evidence of wrongdoing. This decision was revoked 60 years later:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownsville_affair
https://www.historydaily.com/the-brownsville-affair-1/
2/4

2025-08-24 12:51:06 GMT

Sunday ethics:
Honorable people question power. They demand that powerful people justify their actions. They study history to understand how powerful people in the past have contributed to injustices, in the hope to illuminate and avoid modern injustices. People who easily acquiesce to power are a danger to their own community. People who refuse to study our past burden us all when they insist on being heard.
This thread was inspired by:
https://mstdn.social/@dalfen/115058339641842773
@npub17xf…dzht
#ethics #honor #honesty #history #politics #usa #marketing #citizenship #philosophy
1/4
https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/115/083/805/252/696/382/original/2f1e0560134679b1.png

2025-08-22 02:56:56 GMT

- reply

He says the Smithsonian "has nothing about success"? It sounds like he has never visited the Air and Space museum, which is entirely an monument to success. It even has a "futures in space" exhibit! (despite his claim that it has "nothing about the Future" -- though this is new, so maybe a response to his complaints).
It's a shame that he's trying to ruin these museums and create conflict in the streets. I was hoping to take my kids to them soon.
I've long been confused by people who complain that media are 'too negative', because that's not my experience. It just shows me that they are paying attention to the wrong media, or maybe focused too much on the past, or their own narrow interests. I tend to read a good deal of science and technology news, which tends to be optimistic by nature. But any rigorous news source (like the Economist) avoids that 'negative trap' because they trust that their readers want routine updates and don't need charged emotions as motivation to read.

2025-08-22 02:35:45 GMT

- reply

Thanks for posting on this. I'm not aware of any Trump comments, but haven't really checked after the first few days.
The lack of comment on this event makes a stark contrast with the attempted assassination in PA last summer. I wrote up some notes comparing the two attacks...
Comparison of the CDC attack in GA and the Trump assassination attempt in PA:
- Both shooters used an AR-15. PA fired 8 rounds in 4 seconds. GA fired 200-500 rounds in 40 minutes or so, using multiple guns.
- Both shooters got guns from their father: PA bought it, GA stole it.
- Each killed one person: An on-duty police officer in GA; an off-duty firefighter in PA. Others were injured in PA.
- Both were hopeless young men from a hopeless culture that places faith in lies and seeks meaning in violence.
The media has treated the events radically differently. The PA attack became mythology, the GA attack became just another sad event in a long series of sad events.

2025-08-21 01:27:55 GMT

- reply

Some interesting context: "The Philadelphia Fed report found that about a third of all property investors misrepresent their status as owner-occupants. It found that doing so allowed them to obtain lower interest rates and higher loan-to-value ratios."
In other words, a substantial fraction of wealthy people are frauds.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fed-found-over-22-000-185047604.html

2025-08-21 01:21:54 GMT

- reply

Even if true. it sounds no worse than what Turmp was convicted of in New York... which had no punishment (neither legal nor career-wise)

2025-08-17 15:45:37 GMT

If anyone is interested in down-to-earth philosophical discussions (focused more on everyday ethics for regular people rather than abstract debates), please see the new Lemmy community I made for this purpose:
https://yall.theatl.social/c/philosophy_of_life
#philosophy #stoicism #ethics

2025-08-14 22:07:37 GMT

I'm enjoying Verissismus, the graphic biography of Marcus Aurelius.
https://donaldrobertson.name/verissimus/
#books #philosophy #graphicnovels #stoicism

2025-08-11 13:23:49 GMT

A fundraiser has been established to support the family of Officer David Rose, who was killed in the line of duty while responding to Friday's attack on the CDC.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/7xahr9-officer-roses-official-gofundme
Officer Rose spoke at his Police Academy graduation. A recording is at this link:
https://youtu.be/IN-LUt803kg?si=otukfiqEzPr8vKi1&t=2336
Several local news outlets have identified this GoFundme as the preferred donation site of the Rose family.
#atlanta #cdc #police #dekalkbga

2025-08-10 00:07:17 GMT

- reply

One big difference is that the Internet rolled out organically, over a couple decades, and was supported by the people who understood it, both as designers and users. Conversely, genAI is being pushed all at once by a few companies, who are misrepresenting the technology and its applications, while objections are coming from many people who know what's going on. A better comparison is not "the internet", but the 1990s dot-com boom, which did leave us with some important companies and services, but also a lot of silliness.

2025-07-20 23:21:16 GMT

My garden had some more surprises today -- three leafhoppers, all from species I don't think I've noticed before. The biggest looks like a "blue and gold" leafhopper, but I can't find a good candidate for the other two. The blue and gold one even glittered a bit.
https://bugguide.net/node/view/917498
https://naturalhistory.museumwales.ac.uk/sharpshooters/recordlist.php?-skip=0&-max=100&-sortfieldone=Taxon&-sortorderone=ascend
#gardening #insects #leafhopper #nature
https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/114/887/807/148/686/162/original/955afa8446537322.jpg
https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/114/887/807/247/773/069/original/ea51f5ecbb6e7987.jpg
https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/114/887/807/322/542/112/original/a3dec1dfdc3f9e00.jpg

2025-07-06 01:38:06 GMT

- reply

I just picked up a few classics from the library. Will watch "once upon a time in the west" when I get a chance. I hope I don't have trouble with it.

2025-07-04 19:29:33 GMT

- reply

To continue on that topic with the Stoics:
“It is equally faulty to trust everyone and to trust no one. Yet the former fault is, I should say, the more ingenuous, the latter the more safe.”
– Seneca the Younger

2025-07-04 15:04:21 GMT

The idea that "Every complex ecosystem has parasites" has stuck in my head since I read a now-classic essay about it some 20 years ago. I dug up the essay, and re-discovered that it's from Cory Doctorow @npub1fdr…lvhs
He revisited the idea in a recent blog post:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/24/hermit-kingdom/#simpler-times
It's got some good thoughts to keep in mind as we think about the direction of our country on this #independenceday
#philosophy #society #complexity

2025-07-04 13:11:49 GMT

In the morning, I listen to a Stoic meditation about wisely choosing associates who will encourage your own virtue.
In the evening, I go grocery shopping and notice that the store is laid out to direct traffic to the wine display and the shopping carts are decorated with junk food advertisements.
#philosophy #stoicism #shopping

2025-06-27 21:14:03 GMT

- reply

What do you mean by "class system"? I could interpret it a few ways:
1. mirroring socio-economic class hierarchy from broader society (e.g. reflecting professional, educational, and consumer status)
2. creating a specifically 'social media' class hierarchy. This could be based on engagement, resource/server control, or audience size (which will often connect to general socio-economic class)
3. simply having some sort of group structure
Or something else?

2025-06-07 02:57:03 GMT

I can't emphasize enough the excellence of the "Tides of History" podcast by Patrick Wyman. It's been running for 8 years now and never gets old. The series alternates between methodical, systematic surveys of broad historical themes and lively interviews with historians, anthropologists, archeologists, and paleontologists. In both forms, his enthusiasm, pacing, and knowledge reliably digs up interesting insights about the human past.
https://wondery.com/shows/tides-of-history/
#history #podcast #education

2025-04-23 01:26:11 GMT

- reply

We have ways to perform this kind of study, and it's not "throw everything you know into a pot and go mining for patterns".
As we've discussed before, other people are doing proper studies.
https://theatl.social/@DecaturNature/114128509814045353

2025-03-08 12:20:49 GMT

- reply

It'll be interesting to see how they investigate that. It's not something where a single study - no matter how big -- can give conclusive results. I don't think that even the CDC has the resources to properly investigate such a large question on their own (large as in having many potentially relevant variables, starting with the large number of vaccines to investigate).
For many vaccines, there won't be a good unvaccinated control group. Then there's also the consideration that people with autism are probably more likely to die from vaccine-preventable diseases:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9724198/#sec4

2025-03-06 23:06:15 GMT

- reply

A stunt that does not make meaningful progress towards the end goal. The end goal is frivolous if not unwise. But these could make novelty pets for those who like mice.

2024-12-08 12:52:54 GMT

So John Grisham writes legal thrillers for kids and am impressed at how it raises important social issues in a kid-accessible way. "The Abduction" deals with parental neglect and abduction. "The Activist" is centered on the construction of a bypass road and describes several social problems such as poor planning turning the previous bypass into an unusable stroad, the link between property speculation and government corruption, the tension between 'progress' and 'conservation' (and who defines these values), and the use of money to silence critics.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/309931/theodore-boone-the-activist-by-john-grisham/
#urbanism #carDependency #conservation #farmlife #strongtowns #smalltown #ethics

2024-10-29 11:46:55 GMT

Rideshare2Vote is proving rides to the polls in GA, TX, and a 17 other states. It's staffed by volunteers and offers wheelchair vans too.
https://rideshare2voteaware.org/request-a-ride/
Rides are also available from Lyft and the New Georgia Project (who pays for lyft and Uber rides, I think)
https://newgeorgiaproject.org/rides/
https://www.lyft.com/blog/posts/where-are-we-going-on-november-5th-lyft-offers-discounted-rideshare
#voting #disability #Georgia #Atlanta

2024-10-15 00:29:07 GMT

I found this decorated caterpillar on my tomato plant today. I'm guessing those are wasp eggs? Need to do some research...
#caterpillar #insects #parasites #tomato #gardening #DecaturGA #nature
https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/113/308/596/257/386/493/original/d102b1cdf5488d2e.jpg

2024-10-08 02:08:09 GMT

Shelter offer in MS:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DA1k5QrMEFz/
#Milton #evacuation #Florida
https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/113/269/355/215/142/362/original/ebfe33b3d1234553.jpg

2024-09-01 10:41:17 GMT

- reply

Mastodon relies on bottom-up advocacy. It doesn't have the backing of billionaires. I doubt that they have a PR team. So we need to promote it ourselves. Brazil-centered instances need to have their own outreach activities if they are interested in growing. There's very little that the core Mastodon can do except give interviews and maybe reach out to local instance administrators as situations arise... but that will be slow and haphazard.
For what it's worth, joinMastodon now lists three South American instances (one focused on Portuguese)
https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/113/061/862/603/935/407/original/d66ad11625cf9171.png

2024-08-30 23:02:07 GMT

- reply

I'm not sure exactly which discussions you're referring to, but I think many of the objections are driven by the perception that the speakers are insincere. Publications that emphasize "both sides" are still covering a narrow range of perspectives. The same elite people speak their opinion about every topic (or select who will speak), while the vast majority of us are ignored. To top it off, may of those professional pundits/spokesmen are habitual liars and bullshitters, or just ignorant on the topics they speak about. They deserve to be ignored, yet they get all the attention. We don't benefit from hearing the same nonsense again and again, just repackaged for the latest fad.

2024-08-21 21:32:05 GMT

The Atlanta Journal Constitution has been staying on top of the election administration drama in Georgia, as well as the state government in general. They currently have a 99 cent promotion to get online access for 12 weeks, which would last through the election (until Nov 13) - it's $3/week after that.
https://www.ajc.com
#georgia #atlanta #GA #news #journalism #elections #uspol
https://o1.theatl.social/media_attachments/files/113/002/029/914/369/394/original/dc23dc4618320665.png

2024-06-26 01:46:18 GMT

- reply

I just noticed that the UniHertz Atom L only runs Android 11, which doesn't even get security updates anymore (current version is 14). That feels like a deal breaker. Bummer.

2024-06-23 22:02:41 GMT

I'm phone shopping. Does anyone have experience with the UniHertz Atom L? (or XL)
https://www.unihertz.com/products/atom-l
#smartphone #android #MobilePhone

2024-05-31 22:10:55 GMT

- reply

Is that serious? I saw a comment on that topic recently... if you inactivate some seemingly unrelated services on Windows, you can't use Calculator.