Mike Agg @countingquoll@social.cleverlibre.org
I used to be be good at sums.
Feminist, skeptic, hermit.
Joined Nov 2022
Mike Agg
boosted
Discussing the British Press, and I'm reminded of the time when I had a moderate amount of celebrity in the UK LGBT community, and the press tried to do a hit piece on me.
Now here's the thing. There's a cheat code, and I'm going to explain what it is:
They will contact you for comment.
If you say nothing, they will publish the piece and say you were offered the chance to comment.
If you tell them to fuck off, they will publish the price and say your response was foul and unprintable.
I did neither of these things. I told them that this piece wasn't journalism. It was ridiculous tittle tattle and represented everything that was wrong with a failing and dying industry more obsessed with clickbait than proper reporting. I asked them if they didn't have proper news to report, and said that they should be ashamed of themselves.
They're basically screwed at that point. "We contacted Ms Brown for comment and she said that this was ridiculous tittle tattle and that the reporter should be ashamed of herself."
They're not gonna say that.
I'm struck by something one of my history teachers once said about medieval castles. They weren't meant to be impregnable. They were meant to be annoying enough that an invading army would decide to investigate other priorities instead.
The piece never ran.
If you're a trans person in the crosshairs of the British press, make yourself an annoying target. They're on a deadline, and if you make them conclude that life is too short, they will leave you the fuck alone.
Mike Agg
boosted
Hi. If you see "Biden only gave {tiny amount} to help {issue X} while spending millions on Ukraine" in any of your social media, that is propaganda. It's from Putin's disinfo shops aimed at convincing the west to stop supporting Ukrainian defenses against the Russian invasion.
You can and should report and block those accounts.
Dystopian fiction is when you take things that happen in real life to marginalized populations and apply them to people with privilege.
Mike Agg
boosted
Exactly 14 years ago , Satoshi Nakamoto designed the most pathetic / inefficient system ever invented by humankind : the blockchain.
Today, it weights 60 000 tons, wastes constantly 10 gigawatts .. to process less than 7 transactions per second :
Less than a 33 bps modem from 1990.
This could be joke if it didn't have such gigantic environmental impact, wasn't enabling billion dolllars ransomware industry and was not crushing thousands of lives in the process.
Mike Agg
boosted
‘If you really can't figure out which political party or which politician to vote for, just ask if they're on the side of libraries.
Are they voting to fund their libraries?
Are they voting to keep them free?
Then vote for those guys.
They're probably the good guys.
And by the same token, the book burners, the book banners, they're probably the bad guys.’
Mike Agg
boosted
Did you know that cacti can be a source of water in an emergency?
If you encounter someone who won't share their water, repeatedly hit them with a cactus until they give it to you.
Follow me for more desert survival tips.
Mike Agg
boosted
What is truly stupid about SELLING vaccines is that a major benefit of vaccination is to the OTHER people around you. It is a classic example of a PUBLIC good.
They should be free.
We can afford to do that.
We can afford to make most medical care free.
We're choosing not to, and for dumb, self-destructive reasons.
Mike Agg
boosted
Shamelessly stolen from someone who didn’t add alt text…
Mike Agg
boosted
Her: I don't even know what the cloning machine does
Me: well that makes two of us
@Garwboy Substack may be popular with writers but as a reader I much prefer Medium. Both Medium and WordPress are embracing the Fediverse, which is an attitude I think is worth supporting. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/13/wordpress-com-owner-automattic-acquires-an-activitypub-plugin-so-blogs-can-join-the-fediverse/
Mike Agg
boosted
Mike Agg
boosted
This is someting I wish I'd realized a lot sooner in life.
Mike Agg
boosted
Me: The earth isn’t flat!
fiat earther: correct
me: huh?
fiat earther: it’s the shape of an Italian car
me: what?
fiat earther: you read my name wrong didn’t you?
Mike Agg
boosted
Oh, that thing I’ve been putting off for days? That insurmountable, torturous task? The thing that’s been haunting me with every step like a malevolent wraith? It took two minutes. I will not learn from this
Mike Agg
boosted
When I'm reflecting on #Britain' trouble(s) I'm sometimes tempted by a form of #linguistic determinism.
#languages with complex tense/verb structures, require the speaker to form the whole sentence before starting to speak (#German would be my go to example).
But #English allows a speaker to start a sentence with little idea where it will end, with sentences rambling & developing while remaining grammatical.
Making it up as we go along' served us well for generations, now not so much!
@erzsebel Hard to tell, the leaves are not in focus, but I'd guess sweet chestnut
Mike Agg
boosted
#Capitalism is wild.
#Zoom, a company which came into it's own during the Pandemic now wants to destroy itself by going all in on 'AI' and also telling it's staff that "Work From Home is over"
Bye then Zoom....👋
Mike Agg
boosted
Mike Agg
boosted
I don't use #Zoom much, and I was tempted to just delete the app after reading this post. If I do use Zoom, it will be with the camera and the microphone off; I'll just watch and listen.
https://sfba.social/@MedievalMideast@hcommons.social/110838371669792161
I checked and the terms do indeed say they can use your image and voice for training #AI; see items 10.4
https://explore.zoom.us/en/terms/
I used to be be good at sums.
Feminist, skeptic, hermit.
Joined Nov 2022
