Curt Thomas

@conditional_soup
17 Followers
22 Following
527 Posts
Taken in Merced, CA today on a narrow-leaf milkweed, suburban area. I'd ballpark it as being a bit smaller than a European honeybee, and a bit larger than the average native bees I see here. Seemed to be a chill lil fuzzy. #WhatIsThisBug #Merced #california #bugstodon
Random memories: As a broke goth youth I was once walking home the long way around in cold weather (and that's -20 to -25 Celsius to count as cold) wearing silly clothes, and was freezing. On a whim I stopped by this pizzeria because I thought I might have enough change to purchase the polite excuse to sit inside for a bit...
The Turkish man behind the counter took one look at my miserable self counting coins, gave me a huge friendly smile and told me to get some coffee, it was free. I did!

Good news if you're a super rich tax cheat!

In the rare cases when the IRS has enough resources to audit you and detect your fraud, there will still be no one to enforce the law. Trump's DoJ is shutting down the entire tax division.

"If you make more than, say, a million dollars a year, paying taxes is probably going to be voluntary going forward.

"It’s a new feature of billionairedom."

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/doge-to-shutter-doj-tax-division/sharetoken/630d3e6c-3dde-40dc-8103-84d937693225

DOGE to Shutter DOJ Tax Division

I didn’t know this until this morning. And I’m surprised it hasn’t...

TPM - Talking Points Memo

Lurie is cutting transit service and replacing it with Waymo. letting rich people clog up the street with robotaxis that stall all the time while regular people in buses get stuck behind is terrible policy and undoes the whole point of car-free Market. absolutely catastrophic

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/waymo-market-street-lurie-20268233.php

Mayor Lurie to allow Waymo on SF’s car-free Market Street

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said Waymo autonomous taxis would be allowed to operate on portions of Market Street where other vehicles are prohibited.

San Francisco Chronicle
Let's play: find ONE spaghetti package that doesn't use plastic. Long after my great grandchildren die, these little spaghetti windows will still be around for them to pass on to their grandkids.
I'm excited to learn that I've been appointed to the #Merced bicycle commission as an ex oficio. I'm looking forward to doing what I can to make Merced a more bike-friendly city. #urbanism #bikes
Last night, I went to the city council and spoke about the #HighCostOfFreeParking including how the city of #Merced plans to surround the #CAHSR station with eight city blocks of parking lots, when those are otherwise highly desirable city blocks. I urged the city council to remove parking minimums and to seek private investment in developing those lots into mixed use developments instead. If I can do it, you can too. Go talk to your city council. It's free and the cops can't stop you.
#GirlScouts and #ScoutingAmerica troops are being honored at the #Merced city council tonight for adopting city parks to help keep them clean!
So, my wife was messing around with ChatGPT and got it to output social security numbers. This is a real person that really existed. She died in 1999, but ChatGPT outputting socials and names is a "should never happen" event, imo.
#AI #ChatGPT #privacy
@b0rk any chance instead of getting one for myself, I could get a copy donated to a public library?