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davidaugust

@[email protected]

Actor. Writer. Acting coach. May have been in that thing you saw that one time (Dependent's Day, Jimmy Kimmel Live, 2nd City/Chicago Shakespeare).

ORCID: 0000-0002-8304-5874

#actor #writer #ActingCoach #producer #director #Shakespeare #film #tv #movies https://www.davidaugust.com/

Was @davidaugust on #Twitter
searchable on #fedi22

I sometimes write playful screenplays about very capable people in extremely high pressure situations often playing out their internal damage on the world.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

Ragnar Blackwolf Hypothetically if someone was accused of having sex with goats by over 30 different people and regularly denied it, but also dropped very public hints about how much he liked to have sex with goats for decades, and ran a goat pageant to find the best looking goats, and was best friends with someone who got convicted of fucking goats and trafficking goats to friends all over the world who also liked to fuck goats, and his name was in the classified goat fucker chronicles 5,000 times, and he wished other goat fuckers well in prison, what do you think the odds are that person is also a goat fucker?
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

“Google handed over a trove of personal data about a student and journalist to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in response to a subpoena that had not been approved by a judge…”

“…latest example of how the U.S. government is using a controversial type of legal request, called an administrative subpoena, to demand that tech companies turn over the private data of individuals who have been critical of the Trump administration.”

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/10/google-sent-personal-and-financial-information-of-student-journalist-to-ice/

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

https://youtu.be/wWKSoxG1K7w

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

"What sets you apart can feel like a burden, but it’s not. A lot of the time it’s what makes you great."

—Emma Stone

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

German naval commander Heinz-Wilhelm Eck was commander of U-852 and was tried, convicted, and executed (along with 2 others deemed responsible) after the war because on March 13, 1944 he ordered his crew to shoot at survivors who were clinging to rafts and wreckage of the Greek merchant ship SS Peleus after sinking it with 2 torpedoes. Eck was trying to conceal the position of his submarine, and so ordered his men to fire into the wreckage and rafts to sink them.

🧵 1/5

davidaugust OP ,
@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar

He’d violated international law regarding the rescue of shipwrecked sailors.

On Sunday, November 30, Eck and the others’ executions will have been carried out exactly 80 years ago.

American Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has not yet been tried, convicted nor executed for on September 2, 2025 ordering his Special Operations commanders to kill survivors, in this case clinging to their burning, sinking ship, after crippling it with a missile strike.

🧵 2/5

davidaugust OP ,
@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar

Adm. Mitch Bradley, who ordered the second strike to comply with Hegseth’s orders to leave no survivors, has also not yet been tried, convicted nor executed. Hegseth, in control of the largest ocean going navy on earth with massive rescue capacities, was trying to stop survivors and the boat’s cargo from being rescued by others.

He, and those who followed his illegal orders, violated international and…

🧵 3/5

davidaugust OP ,
@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar

US law regarding the rescue of shipwrecked sailors and the violent destruction of civilian boats and non-combatant civilians not posing an immediate threat, but lethally engaged nonetheless.

The September 2, 2025 killings were among the first of a so far 3 month sequence of US strikes suspected to have already killed 80 people at Hegseth’s order.

🧵 4/5

davidaugust OP ,
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

screenshot of a post by rumiwithaview: I just watched a video of someone in my community being chased by ICE. Instant flashback: me in Iran, running from the morality police, scanning for an open door, a wall I could climb, a place to hide, that cold terror of what they'd do to u if they caught u. The same nightmare I fled is now a daily reality in the US.
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them."

—Bruce Lee

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

A US Federal Judge ordered the release of the people DHS now plans to hold anyway, illegally under both US and International Law.

15 of the people arrested at Broadview yesterday were clergy, peacefully protesting; bringing assistance to and advocating for the downtrodden quite literally is their job.

But DHS/ICE/CBP brings only lawlessness and violence.

DHS and all its components and collaborators are a clear and present danger to the American People and the US Constitution.

screenshot of a post by Homeland Security @DHSgov: Nov 14 Womp womp, cry all you want. These criminal illegal aliens aren’t getting released. Like clockwork, violent rioters have arrived at the Broadview ICE facility to demand the release of some of the worst human beings on planet earth. Get a job you imbecilic morons. Nov 14, 2025 · 6:39 PM UTC
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@45names@mastodon.social avatar 45names Bot , to random

Gropenfürhrer

bot by @davidaugust
This is satire, not sedition: please don't extraordinarily rendition me to a black site.

davidaugust ,
@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar

@willie1foot why thank you! ☺️

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

Chicago is in Cook County and now courts are safer.

"Cook County’s top judge signed an order barring ICE from arresting people at court."

"...bars the civil arrest of any “party, witness, or potential witness” while going to court proceedings. It includes arrests inside courthouses and in parking lots, surrounding sidewalks and entryways."

https://apnews.com/article/chicago-illinois-ice-immigration-court-arresting-a1d9641502d6a97db077c973ec93a6e7

h/t @justinthenickofcrime

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

"Let me say this clearly: nobody in this country is safe."

"Federal agents detained American citizens without individualized probable cause this week. They handcuffed children. They sorted people by race. They treated an American city like occupied territory."

"This happened. In Chicago. In America. This week."

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-sufferable-evil

🧵 1/6

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

The gop controls all three branches of government, if their government shuts down, then the gop are the one’s who shutdown their government.

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

Some of the tilly discussion leads me to re-share this:

“Being human includes the foibles and messy parts. It’s not pre-Copernican to suggest that humans, after millions of years of evolution, are excellent at being human. This includes messing stuff up, hurting ourselves and also creating great things, beauty, connection, grace, mercy, cruelty: all of it.”

https://stuff.davidaugust.com/being-human-in-the-age-of-ai/

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

"The gratification comes in the doing, not in the results."

—James Dean

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

RE: https://mastodon.social/@45names/115288879612187650

Thanks to @shannamichelle[email protected] for the inspiration for this @45names :

davidaugust OP ,
@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar

Why didn't the quote post work in the post I am replying to?

It is from an account on mastodon.social I control, that allows anyone to quote post its posts.

Is quote posting broken/not ready for prime time?

cc @Gargron

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

“The [South Korean] Ministry of National Defense is pursuing measures to reward service members who contributed to the protection of the citizens by refusing to follow illegal and unjust orders during the emergency martial law situation on December 3rd of last year.”

https://wordkorean.com/soldiers-who-refused-illegal-orders-during-the-12%C2%B73-martial-law-will-be-rewarded-ministry-of-defense-soldiers-who-fulfilled-their-duties/

davidaugust OP ,
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@Nimbius666 I’m not sure how recognizing soldiers who did their duty well by protecting the public and not following illegal orders, or any deescalation in the DMZ suggest South Korea drifting away from the west.

But I suppose it might be possible.

davidaugust OP ,
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@kevinrns I’m so glad! I was hoping it would be heartening and I’m glad to read your words, thank you for them!

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

Asking “…all the soldiers of the army of the US not to point their rifles at humanity," is not having “…urged U.S. soldiers to…incite violence,” in fact seems to be the opposite of a call for violence (it is a call to be peaceful).

Petro is the current President of Columbia.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/27/americas/us-revokes-colombia-president-visa-petro-intl-hnk

screenshot from CNN world: "It (the global force) has to be bigger than that of the United States. That's why from here, from New York, I ask all the soldiers of the army of the US not to point their rifles at humanity," Petro is heard saying in a video posted to social media. "Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity," he added. Afterwards, the US State Department said in a post on X: "Earlier today, Colombian president (Gustavo Petro) stood on a NYC street and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence. "We will revoke Petro's visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions." In response, Petro said the United States' decision "breaks all the norms of immunity on which the functioning of the United Nations and its General Assembly is based."
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

“Hey everybody! I’m gathering all our most senior military commanders of the US military in one place at one time, so don’t, like ya know, bomb this one place or anything at 38.979896 North and 77.422607 West at about 10:30 in the morning on Tuesday. Thanks!”

https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-hegseth-meeting-military-commanders-4ceb8026bff7c652b08c08e8afb1df99

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

They're The Same Picture style meme. Two-panel meme based on a scene from the television series The Office in which the character Pam presents two pictures before Pam says they're the same picture in the second panel. First picture is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg trying on the prototype of the Orion augmented reality glasses at the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, on September 25, 2024. (Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters). Second picture is Groucho glasses, AKA beaglepuss, glasses with black frames without lenses with attached features of bushy eyebrows, a large plastic nose and bushy mustache.
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

The Pentagon is so clean on OPSEC that I’m learning National Guard in DC is canceling hotel reservations there to move to Chicago and Baltimore from the protestors planning to meet them.

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

From a Metropolitan Police Officer in Washington DC:

“I can’t say how this will end, but I can say what I will do in the meantime. I won’t be intimidated into silence about the failures and dangers posed to the country by the federal police takeover of the city. I will quit my job before I ever help Trump’s goons kidnap some random person for the crime of not being white enough.”

https://newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-a-dc-police-officer-heres-what

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

A cemetery with rows of old gravestones in green grass, overlaid with text: "Go to a cemetery. See all the baby graves there from before the 1950s & 1960s? Then, hardly any. That's when people started vaccinating their kids. If you are unsure, the answer is, literally, written in stone."
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

by @will_santino_illustration:

https://www.willsantino.com/

Cartoon by Will Santino of a rabbit with a mallet stomping through a group of mice. One of the mice is saying "I didn't see this coming when I voted for Little Bunny Foo Foo."
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@randahl@mastodon.social avatar randahl , (edited ) to random

US naiveté in two pictures:

Picture 1: While JD Vance is on Fox News praising Vladimir Putin as a "soft-spoken" leader who looks out for people…

Picture 2: Putin's soldiers drop a grenade on a civilian in Kherson, who was trying to fix a roof leak, before the grenade destroyed his foot.

davidaugust ,
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@randahl is that second picture description unrevised AI?

“…before they destroyed his foot.” Wtaf?

davidaugust ,
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@randahl I have never encountered the phrase, “destoryed his foot” used as a regular sort of phrase we may have encountered before.

At first I suspected it was a typo, since dropping a grenade on someone isn’t really an attack on just their foot.

If they did attack his foot, it is esoteric, but would make your description apt. Sorry if I bumped on it needlessly.

davidaugust ,
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@randahl @Laust fantastic! That is much clearly on a first reading. Thank you!

davidaugust ,
@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar

@randahl that makes good sense. You are typically, in my experience, so good in English I had no idea it wasn’t your first language.

And yes, English is easy to speak poorly, and very difficult to express well in, or to sound like a normal native English speaker. It is an odd language that way.

Thank you so much, and thank you for your patience with me.

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

screenshot of a post by Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie: A meme featuring two panels with captions. In the top panel, there is a scene from a movie showing a driver looking shocked inside a vehicle; caption reads: "Democrats leaving Texas to protect their district." In the bottom panel, there is an image of speaker of the house johnson driving the other way, looking out from a vehicle; caption reads: "Republicans leaving D.C. to protect the Epstein files." Aug 6, 2025 1:54pm UTC
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@w7voa@journa.host avatar w7voa , to random

White House publishes a list of new tariffs for dozens of countries. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/further-modifying-the-reciprocal-tariff-rates/

davidaugust ,
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@w7voa it has a severability clause 😝😝😝🤦‍♂️

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

"96% of bosses expect that AI will make their workers more productive;

85% of companies are either requiring or strongly encouraging workers to use AI;

49% of workers have no idea how AI is supposed to increase their productivity;

77% of workers say using AI decreases their productivity."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/25/accountability-sinks/#work-harder-not-smarter

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

The US Virgin Islands have their own territorial court system, and any crimes committed there may be territorial crimes, not federal crimes.

The prosecution of such crimes would not need US DOJ nor White House permission to proceed.

Epstein Island is in the US Virgin Islands.

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random
@w7voa@journa.host avatar w7voa , to random

We Transfer is a convenient way to move large files online, but the new terms of service grant it a royalty-free license to use your content "for the purposes of operating, developing, and improving" its service, presumably including feeding it into AI LLMs. https://wetransfer.com/documents/WeTransfer_Terms_20250623.pdf

davidaugust ,
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

Made a pass on this script, and see where I have two scenes/sequences still to write. But really liked reading it after a long time away from it. I needed that today.

Billy Shakes Is Out for Royalties Written by David August changes as of July 6, 2025
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

If the movie F1 gets sequels, can they not be F2, F3, F4?

Like, have some fun with it:

F off
F yourself
F the f’in’ f’ers

@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

In the future, “they took us on buses, soldiers. When we arrived I was surprised: didn’t smell like I remember Everglades smelling. Wasn’t that wet rain smell. Was…different. Piles, sinking, of what had been people…my stomach turned.

I turned to the soldier with a different flag patch on their sleeve and tried to explain, ‘I didn’t do this, this wasn’t me.’

In lightly accented English, soldier said, ‘yes you did, you voted for this,’ punctuated with a rifle gesture to start carrying bodies.”

screenshot of a post by @shannonvavich_theflyingkitchen: We're going to have to force them to walk through all the American Concentration camps one day, won't we....so they'll believe it was real.
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

Modern streaming.

screenshot of a two post thread by zorb @missinglore: Jan 7 It's on Tubu. It's literally on Heebee. It's on Poodee with ads. It's literally on Dippy. You can probably find it on Weeno. Dude it's on Gumpy. It's a Pheebo original. It's on Poob. You can watch it on Poob. You can go to Poob. zorb @missinglore: Jan 8 It was removed from Tubu. Heebee sold the IP. Poodee won't play it in your region. It's not on Dippy. You can't find it on Weeno. Gumpy lost the rights to Pheebo. Poob was removed from the app store. The FBI have issued a warning to Poob. 3 Poob executives were arrested today. Jan 8, 2025 • 10:20 PM UTC
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

Someone's gonna commit First Degree Glitter with Intent to Sparkle.

Screenshot of a post by The Halfway Post @halfwaypost.bsky.social: BREAKING: ICE agents are complaining that every time they go out wearing masks in unmarked cars with no uniforms or identification as law enforcement to abduct people, protesters keep dumping pounds of glitter on them so that everyone can tell they’re ICE for days afterwards. June 18, 2025 at 9:59 AM
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@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar davidaugust , to random

Remarkable healing on that ear too.

"Just one more thing, sir. Y'see, somebody was shooting at you, you'd already been hit, but you were calm enough to say you wanted to get your shoes. Then, with your life still in danger, you tell the people trying to get you to safety to wait so that you could stick your head and fist up in the open, back into the line of fire. I'm just wondering why someone would do that." [Peter Falk as Detective Columbo in a beige trench coat and tie, pointing his finger]
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davidaugust OP ,
@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar

@scooter @JessTheUnstill those are both remarkably plausible. The idea that the admin, which you are right leaks like a sieve, invented the entire thing and kept that quiet does strain credibility.

The possibility that a minor shrapnel injury got spun into more is entirely plausible.

That said, it is odd how rarely it get talked about by the one who is alleged to have survived and is now somehow anointed by god because of surviving.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

I am happy with my dinky little ThinkPad running Linux. I am happy with my dinky little homemade LISP which I am currently transforming into a macro system for assembly language.

I feel like maybe, if the world could stop distracting me with new horrible things, I could sit on my dinky little ThinkPad, and work on my dinky little homemade LISP, and I could play a bit of "Tetris: The Grand Master", and I could have a day where I just really, unreservedly enjoy myself.

Maybe it will be tomorrow.

davidaugust ,
@davidaugust@mastodon.online avatar

@mcc that sonds like a nice day.