Al-Shabaab has captured large parts of Somalia.

To understand what that means, imagine if Charles Kirk were leading an army that tries to capture parts of the USA and impose Christian Nationalism.

*American democracy might not survive another year — is Europe ready for that?*

*How a neo-Nazi cell infiltrated a martial arts school in Tennessee.*

The bully is trying to put California's national guard on the streets of Portland, Oregon. Governor Newsom of California is suing to block this.

The persecutor is firing experienced immigration judges who stick to the legal responsibilities of their job, and recruiting military judges who never learned those responsibilities and bring with them a military idea of "justice."

*The would-be autocrat threatens to cut funds for specific universities unless they sign away freedom of speech and academic freedom.*

*If Europe keeps placating its own far right, how can it possibly stand up to [the far-right bully in the United States]?

Scans of the brains of 10,000 children in various US localities found that greater inequality goes with certain differences in their brains.

I would be very surprised if there were only one possible explanation that fits the recorded facts. This experiment may be a key to an important phenomenon, but I expect it will take many more experiments to determine what that phenomenon is.

Meanwhile, we don't need brain scans to observe the harmful effects of inequality on society.

*Illinois governor JB Pritzker and others condemn the [fascist leader] for suggesting cities be used as military training grounds.*

He suggested that troops in cities was something worse than training — that it was war against the Americans in those cities.

The bullshitter was compelled to withdraw his untrustworthy nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

I expect he will nominate someone who is willing to lie for him but hasn't got a record that screams that perse would lie.

Previously, previously, previously.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

To be clear, what we use Basecamp for is task management, document editing and file storage, and that's about it. I gather that Basecamp is buzzword-compatible with all kind of other business-brain crap that we have never used, but I don't know what "Gantt" or "Scrum" mean and don't care to.

I think what we need is just a bug tracker and a wiki, whose UI isn't terrible, and that also works well on mobile.

Suggestions?

Things that should not need to be said but do:

• Do not suggest software that you do not use.
• Do not just Google it for me.

Previously, previously.

Please enjoy jwz mixtape 255.

Or you can call it 0xFF if you're nerdy.

Last night we did a screening of The Lost Boys, and it was epic. Amongst all of our Cyberdeliae, this was the one with the rowdiest audience: lots of screaming and singing along. Excellent costume contest entries, too.

For this one I did something a little different from the others: instead of DJ music over abstract visuals, I filled the pre-roll and intermission with music videos featuring VAMPIRES. I only needed 30 and 20 minutes respectively, but I immediately had way more than that, in fact, more than enough for a mixtape.

It has only been two weeks since the previous mixtape, but hey, why not.

So, in the immortal words of The Kurgan, "Happy Halloween, Ladies!"

OpenGL remains a masterclass in how to update an API in the most incompetent, user-hostile way possible. The cherry on top is that it is also best-in-show in the category of "Version Numbering: How Not To Do It."

Yeah I'm still mad about it, why do you ask?

Previously, previously, previously.

So, if you're online poisoned like me, you may have noticed that Bluesky CEO Jay Graber has been having sort of a slow motion, low-key public meltdown for the past several weeks. [...]

For the record: I think Jay Graber is a transphobe; I think there's just too much evidence in her behavior to not read that into her actions at this point. No normal person would go out of their way to court Jesse Singal. A lot of this stuff feels motivated by a glaring animus towards the userbase that Bluesky has attracted; and because this userbase formed around people who simply couldn't justify being on Twitter any more, said userbase is full of highly visible trans users.

But, we can also view it as just run of the mill stuff for any kind of corporate social media platform; you expect them to be unaccountable, to have vague policies that are enforced with no consistency, and so on. What distinguishes the Bluesky case, though, is that Bluesky has a very particular ideology that Graber and her cohorts push, which is that they are 'stewards of the AT Protocol'. She has repeatedly made this point: you can take your ball and go home.

Graber posts something like this basically every other day. So, let's examine her claim a little bit. [...]

ATProto's complicated architecture more or less puts running an alternative app into the realm of well-funded nonprofits and startups, as opposed to Mastodon instances which can easily be run by hobbyists on their own domestic hardware. [...]

AT Proto decentralization doesn't exist as a practical reality, and if it ever does it won't be for years. Most of the work driving effective decentralization is being done by third parties, who have limited guarantees about future compatibility with possible breaking changes on Bluesky's end.

Bluesky inc isn't really making 'a protocol', they're making Bluesky, the monolithic (to within a rounding error) social network that they operate. [...] at this point, AT Proto has become essentially a sort of ideological vaporware; a way for Jay Graber et al to run a social media platform while claiming they don't run a social media platform. [...]

As it stands, for users using Bluesky's app view -- which is to say nearly everybody -- alternate moderation services can only ever be additive. Which is to say, you can never see posts that Bluesky doesn't want you to see, but you're free to ban more posts or users beyond what Bluesky will ban. This system means that Bluesky inc retains the power to use their effective monopoly to suppress speech Graber finds distasteful or ban porn that the moderators think is gross.

But at the same time they can hide behind these third-party 'labelers' as an excuse when called out on their neglect in dealing with figures like Singal, a serial harasser and all-around scumbag.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Previously, previously.

We currently have 472 active members, but new sign-ups have slowed to a trickle. It's a pretty good deal, you know. And it also helps us out a lot. Tell your friends!

Today is the last day when you can vote for us in Best of the Bay, so if you haven't done that yet, please do! Voting for us is helpful for the business and we appreciate it.

We're getting Halloween started this weekend with Dark Sparkle, After Life, and our screening of The Lost Boys...

You gotta come to Lost Boys, it's going to be "hella rad". I added karaoke subtitles to the musical bits so you can sing along with Cry Little Sister and other hits. Vampire costume contest!