I bumped into the name "Horatio Alger Association" but decided I couldn't be bothered following up. Slacktivist puts it in context:

Hard work and clean living were never enough for the street urchins and matchstick boys in his books. The ones who achieved success only managed to do so because they were assisted by older, wealthy, unmarried men who took those boys off the streets and into their homes.
If you think there might be a creepy subtext to that, you’re wrong. It’s not a subtext at all.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2023/08/11/ragged-dick/

slacktivist: Ragged Dick (Fred Clark)

Oops, maps.me finally went away. It used to be a good app, it worked offline and almost all the screen was map. They gradually cluttered the screen with more and more junk, and now you can't download more than ten regional maps, not enough even for a whole country. It's now useless as an application for, like, viewing maps.

Are there any free apps for viewing OSM offline any more? #openstreetmap

Meat Lego Gnosticism put on a good show, but anything after the first two albums is unlistenable. https://crookedtimber.org/2023/08/09/mary-harrington-on-the-family/

Crooked Timber: Mary Harrington on the Family

I see. We're going with "x-en" are we? "Du x-st". "Sie hatte ge-x-t". This is how it's gonna work?

https://ard.social/users/tagesschau/statuses/110800392909844182

This MS Teams parody account I follow never fails to disappoint. If you love kafkacapitalist cyberhorror with a surreal twist, you can't do much better. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/announcing-the-new-maybelline-beauty-app-in-microsoft-teams/ba-p/3877999

TECHCOMMUNITY.MICROSOFT.COM: Announcing the New Maybelline Beauty App in Microsoft Teams

#SixthTone: Checking in on Taoism Abroad

#SixthTone: Amid Twitter Chaos, Japanese Illustrators Flock to Weibo – And Welcomed With Open Arms

Been too long since I've been in touch with the music scene in Chengdu. So good to hear something new from 开山刀! #ElectronicMusic #ChineseArt #Trance

YouTube: Kaishandao - Return to Warp Room (Official Music Video)

Thanks @Charlie Owen for the tip to get a MH-Z19. I now know that the CO2 levels in here are AAAHH FUCK AAAAHH.

PyPI: mh-z19

Is There Any Twinge of Regret Among the Anti-Abortion Justices?

First thought was, Betteridge's law says "no".

Second thought, I bet the final paragraph says "no".

Final paragraph:

So no, I don’t think the Dobbs justices are sorry...

The great thing about the NYT is that it's so digestible.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/23/opinion/abortion-supreme-court-dobbs.html

The New York Times: Opinion | Is There Any Twinge of Regret Among the Anti-Abortion Justices? (Linda Greenhouse)

Didn't see anyone else mention this, so putting it here. The battery pack is Apple confessing that they didn't solve the nausea problem. If the battery is on your waist it can be as big as you like. 4 hours. 8 hours. It's two hours because if you use it more than two hours you'll puke, then sue Apple for making you puke.

Note that the device is mostly aimed at people who will use it for work. Work is the context in which people will keep using it long after they're starting to feel sick, because imposter syndrome makes them think they need to go a bit further to "pull their weight". And that's the best case. Some bosses will make employees wear it until they're permanently disabled, because you can replace employees but you can't replace a missed bonus. There will be lawsuits, and Apple's defense is that using the device while it's charging is against their explicit instructions.

I've been looking forward to virtual reality since the 90s. I always assumed the nausea problem was solveable. It's not. The idea is dead.

#VisionPro #apple

I would cheerfully pay $3500 to not be trapped in Apple's playpen. But Third Room is free.

https://mastodon.matrix.org/users/thirdroom/statuses/110503869279807173

Congratulations to Mark McGowan. When leaders cling onto power it's a warning sign that the political system is dysfunctional. Last election Labor won 53 out of 59 seats, which is also a warning sign. Mark McGowan's resignation suggests that maybe the system is healthy after all.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/wa-premier-mark-mcgowan-announces-he-is-stepping-down/uuj3lgn5r

SBS News: 'I'm exhausted': Mark McGowan steps down as WA premier

Voting in the Sozialwahl. It's not an especially consequential election, but it's the closest to democracy I've experienced for a while. Time was I'd vote in three countries: national elections in UK and Australia, local elections in Germany. These days I think I'm completely disenfranchised.

For the record, I believe in universal suffrage, in both the strong and weak forms. The weak form says that if you live in a place, you should be able to vote in that place's elections, without regard to age, citizenship status, legal status, or any other qualification. The strong form says that you should be able to vote without regard to age, citizenship status, legal status, or any other qualification.

Okey dokey, Bruce Schneier, of all people, and @Henry Farrell literally suggesting we make a LLM president. Now, finally, I'm starting to worry, since apparently LLMs have begun eating brains and replacing our friends.

A.I. chatbots could run national electronic town hall meetings and automatically summarize the perspectives of diverse participants. This type of A.I.-moderated civic debate could also be a dynamic alternative to opinion polling.

Hey, I just upgraded to 2023.04. (Relatively quick off the mark this time, for me 😛). I was a little disappointed to see that this change isn't in the release. And I can't see it in develop either. But I do have a credit in the release notes 🤣 Was it just a really bad idea to merge on April Fool's Day? 🤔

!Friendica Developers

• USA: You can't join up, but at least we won't kick you out. ❌
• Ukraine: Welcome to the fight, brother! ✅
• Russia: Go to the front or we'll cut off your ARVs. Here's your red bracelet so the medics know to avoid you. 🤯

The New York Times: ‘A Quick Death or a Slow Death’: Prisoners Choose War to Get Lifesaving Drugs (Andrew E. Kramer)

YouTube: HOLE CUTTING - The Secret Life of Components, a series of guides for makers and designers - 15

SBS News: Yachting and private jets: This US Supreme Court judge is under fire for 'cartoonish' behaviour