This is real. This is the actual letter, republican speaker Mike Johnson has sent to the Biden administration saying, he will not send aid to Ukraine, before the funds run out at New Years, unless Joe Biden magically solves the problems of illegal immigration and Mexican drug cartels.

These are problems which have existed for decades — under Reagan even. Now he wants them solved before Christmas, or there will be no aid.

The entire Kremlin must be laughing and dancing in celebration.

I wrote something new! It’s a UI design history essay about Mac’s Control Panel, and it uses emulation in some… maybe new and maybe interesting ways?

https://aresluna.org/frame-of-preference

🦠 We program a lot of things in this office but none quite as frustrating as our new sinks. yes, sinks.

the sink settings (!) are set with an infrared remote, which you have to place in front of the faucet IR sensor — virtually guaranteeing it immediately gets drenched in a spray of water. anywayyyy

Did Snopes really create an account here?

Fact Check: True

Source: https://www.snopes.com/faqs/#faqs_question-285676

What the actual fuck The Verge?! You have over 500 partners who need access to my "essential" cookies?

I mean, thanks for showing me the numbers on how insane data sharing is, but really? And those are the ones I can't opt out of?

Do they count like every employee as a partner, or is my data really being shared with hundreds of other businesses?

@alice

#Cookies #Data #DataPrivacy #DataBrokers #OptOut

🇳🇱Netherlands: Unvaccinated were twice as likely to die from COVID as vaccinated.

"In 2021 and 2022, COVID-19 was twice as likely to be the cause of death of unvaccinated people as in vaccinated people, according to a new study by Nivel. The side-effects center believes the COVID-19 high vaccination rate prevented many deaths, especially in vulnerable groups."

Source: https://nltimes.nl/2024/09/02/unvaccinated-twice-likely-die-covid-vaccinated-nivel

New study: https://www.nivel.nl/nl/nieuws/ondersterfte-bij-covid-19-gevaccineerden-en-oversterfte-bij-ongevaccineerden

@auscovid19

I am re-reading Dune. This quote by the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam is remarkable:

“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

It's not about a Terminator-style AI-apocalypse where the machines want to kill us all dead. It's just an accurate prediction of what actually appears to be happening.