ShittyBeatlesFCPres

I think this whole concept speaks to how differently we all use social networks. For some, it’s a passive news source. For others, it’s entertainment. For others, it’s a place to be social.

Ideological balance is the least important feature for me in picking a social network. I’m there to joke around and talk to interesting people. In real life, my friends and I don’t go “You know what bar we should go to? That new ideologically balanced one down on 2nd St.” (and then my horny friend says we should go to the bar where he met a hot girl once and we end up at TikTok^1^, AGAIN).

^1^ That’s a joke. I’m 40 and my friends pick bars based on proximity, beer selection, and how long they have the baby sitter for.

I’m not a liberal — I’m a leftist — and I consider a Tankie to be someone who gets so wrapped up in hating the U.S. or West in general that they start defending the likes of Stalin and others who used a facade of Marx/Lenin to consolidate power and do horrible things. Like, you do not, under any circumstances, have to hand it to Stalin.

Incidentally, here’s Thomas the Tankie Engine:

I made that for a shitpost in 5 minutes using Midjourney so don’t judge all the obvious A.I. flaws or that I used machine learning. I’d pay a real artist if it wasn’t a throwaway bit.

Thousands of years before someone invented licking toads. Pretty impressive.

I live in New Orleans and the police on Bourbon St. ride specially-trained, very large horses for crowd control. I’ve definitely seen some drunk tourists try to resist an officer’s command to calm down by trying to push back on the horse and the horse just being totally unphased.

I wonder what the final nail in the coffin will be for MOND. It seems like there’s new observations every few months supporting Lambda-CDM (even if it’s obviously not complete) over MOND. At some point, MOND is just a clever idea that was worth exploring and didn’t pan out.

I read the Financial Times despite being on the left but I find that useful because they don’t cover DC drama unless it legitimately matters. I’m not at all interested in broadening my horizons by reading American conservative bullshit. I already know what they’re going to say. I prefer to read new perspectives. To give an example, I’d rather read a novel by an African woman than learn what propaganda Fox News is pushing. I just don’t care anymore.

“Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”

— G.K. Chesterton

I use Bitwarden as a password manager and 2FA manager. I like that Bitwarden automatically copies the 2FA number after filling a password — if you want it to — so I just hit paste and it’s all quick and easy. It’s a lot of trust to put in one product/company, obviously, but I use biometric, FIDO, or ssh keys for critical stuff (at least where I have the option).

I also use Authy, in part because I used it for years before switching to Bitwarden. I liked Authy a lot but it was just less convenient than using Bitwarden. Also, a few sites — Twilio (Authy’s parent company) ones, specifically — seem to require Authy.

Passwordless is coming along but pretty slowly. So, definitely setup 2FA. Tech companies can’t seem to wait to switch to passwordless. Other types of businesses are super conservative about logins and probably won’t adopt it for a few more years.

Fuck Meta but 16 seems a little bit old just because of the enforcement challenges. I’m not arguing social media is good for 14 and 15 year-olds. I’m just saying they’re often clever little shits who systematically test boundaries. They’re like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.

Basically, I think a better strategy would be something like a ban for 13 and under. Then, a harm reduction strategy for 14-17 year-olds. Like maybe sequester them. They don’t want adults on their timeline anyway and (normal) adults don’t really want teens on theirs. Maybe allow them to follow approved pop stars and athletes or something but not random adults.

Basically, social media training wheels for older teens so they develop some social media literacy before they’re just tossed into the cesspool of adult social media.

I don’t know that the relatively anodyne descriptor “conservative commentator” and simply “visa” are strong enough to provide an accurate portrayal of the situation. (The article goes more into it; I’m referring to the lede.) She wasn’t going scuba diving and visiting the Sydney Opera House on a tourist visa. She was applying for a work visa and she’s apparently frequently crossed the line into holocaust denial. A lot of countries wouldn’t grant that visa.

I don’t really know much about her — I just read bits of her Wikipedia article — but to me, this sounds more like denying Alex Jones a work visa than something like banning a random “conservative commentator” like Megyn Kelly from visiting Aukland on holiday.

I can’t imagine a full-scale war with Iran would end in Israeli victory. Iran’s population is 10 times that of Israel’s. It’s mountainous too. They don’t share a border. There’s no way Israel could do any sort of significant ground invasion even if the IDF wasn’t already stretched thin fighting on multiple fronts.

I’m not saying Iran would be the big “winner.” I’m saying no one would win. Both countries would probably just indiscriminately bomb the shit out of each other and everyone — especially civilians — would be worse off after.

Trump’s economic policies aren’t neoliberal so much as mercantilist. He wants tariffs and trade wars. (There’s obviously also a dash of fascist policies where he wants companies to serve him.)

You can all downvote me for making a joke about the WWE Attitude Era. I didn’t come here for internet points. I came here to layeth the smacketh down, jabronis.