I've been learning #Spanish now for 4-5 years, but far more aggressively over the last six months and shit does that progress feel good. I never thought I'd be able to hold a conversation for an hour in another language. 😁 Dime si hablan español; siempre busco a otros alumnos!
U.S. politics
The stacking of the judicial system, gerrymandering of state elections, relegation of individual rights to states, and the structural dismantling of democracy ™️ in the United States right now is terrifying. I'm lucky I moved to another country, but I was always hoping I could return some day. Hope all you folks are holding up okay down there. ❤️ And if there are tangible things one can do from outside the states besides throwing money, I'd love to hear about it.
I hope the #fediverse is proud of me: finally deleting my rotting Twitter account so that I can bring my coveted two social media posts per year here instead. You're welcome wooooorrrld! 😏
But really, I am gonna try to be more present here. I think Masto solves all of the problems I had with Twitter and connection online is neat. 🙂
@endocrimes Yoyoyo!! Good to see you're on here too! ❤️ I hope the world is treating you well. :)
Tim Russ never gets old:
wait, no. Tim Russ's May the Forth video. that's what never gets old. anyway it's great.
Thinking this morning about how there are some topics and concepts that can *only* survive in an environment where saying incredibly daft things is incentivized by an algorithm. Move the concept outside of that protected bubble and into a human-controlled space and the humans within it roll their eyes and mutter "Oh heck off" and the admin flushes it away. That's why NFT/cryptocurrency marks end up on a vanishing minority of the few Fedi servers that'll indulge them.
The University of Chicago made a program that makes your face undetectable in photos, but only to algorithms.
http://sandlab.cs.uchicago.edu/fawkes/
Do keep in mind that while it might be nearly 100% effective now, it's likely that the tech will improve to defeat Fawkes.
It still seems useful for ephemeral photos that are posted to private groups, especially on corporate platforms that might have code to do this type of thing in real time but might not be storing the data for the long term.
What are y'alls favorite, #decentralized competitors to #YouTube?
The fact that #OSX uses push notifications to advertise #Safari is obnoxious. Like, I get why you advertise to your folks, but give me a way to opt out! This paradigm shift to vertically integrated advertisements, i.e. advertising one of your apps in another, gets really old, especially when you can't easily tell the app to can it. 😅
I'm celebrating the end of #AdobeFlash by playing all my old favorite games. I'll miss you bud! 👋😭
"Ah yes, I would love for my neck to hurt at the end of the day and lose more space on my desk to monitors."
So I've been shopping for dual monitor mounts and it's annoying that most reviews don't mention the maximum height because these mother fuckin' monitor mounts are ALWAYS too low. The reviews seem to accurately reflect manufacturer's intent though if product photos are any reflection of that. Like, WHO WANTS THIS??
Did you ever think #WilliamShatner and #LemonJelly could collaborate and make beautiful music? This track is spectacular in regular Nick Franglen fashion.
ICE preparing targeted arrests in ‘sanctuary cities,’ amplifying president’s campaign theme
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-ice-raids-sanctuary-cities/2020/09/29/99aa17f0-0274-11eb-8879-7663b816bfa5_story.html
#Banking software that lets you change critical information such as PINs and passwords by only verifying your date of birth is horrifying. Hell to the no.
I dig music, video games, learning languages, and other random stuff. Sometimes I go outdoors.