violetmadder

Blocking and Downvote Stalking (kbin.social)

Should blocking a user still allow them to vote on your posts? I'd rather have nothing to do with particular users, and it seems that they continue to show up in the activity for every single post I make around kbin.

ifixcoinops, 7 months ago to random

If you're in the US and you've also been idly wondering why "I don't like to drive at night" has become such a common thing to say in the past few years, stand near to a modern LED streetlamp and block it with your hand. In about two thirds of a second, the whole road brightens up as your pupils open.

You're not just getting old; between over-bright streetlights, over-bright headlights of oncoming cars, over-bright instrument clusters, over-bright porch lighting, nobody can see in the dark anymore.

Just in the last decade we've made it much harder and more dangerous to drive at night. Oh, and we also gave up the stars.

GossiTheDog, 7 months ago to random

Actors in the US are still on strike. The latest (and “final”) offer from studios says they want the right to make AI puppets out of actors after they die with no payment or permissions from the union or their families.

I hope actors reject the deal. It won’t be the final offer while movies and TV show production are all still on hold.

mattblaze, 8 months ago to random

This shouldn't need to be said at this point, but given the new Speaker's apparent beliefs, it bears repeating:

While there are weaknesses in US election infrastructure, there is simply no evidence whatsoever that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" or that technical attacks in any way altered its outcome.

58 of my colleagues and I wrote this shortly after these nonsensical conspiracy theories began to spread in 2020. It remains as true now as it was then. https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/election2020.pdf

violetmadder, 8 months ago to blackmastodon

@clayrivers @BigAngBlack @blackmastodon @BlackMastodon I thought I was doing pretty good. I try to be open-minded and sympathetic and work on my ignorance. But I still had no idea. I come from one of the whitest parts of the country, and I had no idea.

It took living in a big city in another state, then hearing Michelle Alexander explaining the New Jim Crow, for me to start to get it. The scale of it.

It took the movie Get Out, for me to start to grasp how my friendly whitebread liberal culture looks from the outside. The spine-crawling cringe of us, that I can't fully turn off even in myself, it's so built-in.

The vertigo is staggering. A lot of puzzle pieces start to come together.

I think a lot about James Baldwin, and the clipped, sharp, high-tension-wire exasperation in his voice. Already so sick of this shit, beyond tired, decades before I was born. Speaking as clearly as possible right into the faces of people who still couldn't see or hear him, and somehow not screaming at them. So tired.

The things we don't see, right under our noses, even when we think we've been looking.

aehdeschaine, 10 months ago to random

I really hate seeing that article going around about the grift of planting trees as carbon offsets. Yes, the grift is real and planting trees with that intention is disingenuous.

But KEEP PLANTING TREES ANYWAY. So many trees in my area have been cut down for often very little reason. We're losing shade, root structures, ecosystems.

I worry that these types of headlines enforce a belief that there is only one perfect solution and nothing else is worth doing.

#ClimateDiary