Desperate to distract from The Epstein Files, the actual President of the United States claims that China is somehow able to prevent Canada from playing ice hockey.
CoinDesk headline: Odds of Jesus Christ appearing in 2026 double, beating return on bitcoin The Polymarket bet is a reminder that the weirdest corners of crypto are sometimes the only ones going up. By Shaurya Malwa Edited by Sheldon Reback
Cover of the 1904 novel Black Friday by Frederic S. Isham. The olive-green cover shows the title in large gold letters at the top. Beneath it are three tall black pedestals, each supporting a domed stock ticker machine with visible gears. Long white ticker tape streams down from each machine into woven baskets. The author’s name appears in black lettering at the bottom.
I am shocked by how fast credit card issuers in Denmark block credit cards based on a hunch.
I have now twice had a card blocked, because their AI system saw a "suspicious usage pattern". Both times it was just me using my card normally.
It is deeply problematic, because you get no warning. You are just standing in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country, and suddenly you cannot pay the cab to the airport, because the AI God has spoken.
@gamingonlinux Nice, but you've got to wonder how Microsoft ended up owning the copyright, so I looked it up on Wikipedia.
Zork was created by students at MIT in 1979. The same year, they formed Infocom to commercialise it. In 1986, Infocom was bought by Activision, which became Mediagenic and then reverted to Activision. It created a holding company which merged with Vivendi Games in 2008 to form Activision Blizzard. Microsoft acquired Activison Blizzard in 2023.
Newsletter: Faced with blowback over his pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, President Trump has offered a curious defense: he doesn’t even know the guy.
@molly0xfff I thought Trump was above this stuff. I'm surprised he didn't just say "Changpeng Zhao paid me a lot of money so I pardoned him, what's the problem?"
Very frustrating that debates about Daylight Saving™* Time vs standard time are always "should we keep it or not" and never "why can't we just adjust our schedules for different times of year without forcing everyone in the USA to pretend time itself has somehow changed?"
*it's a lie! The amount of daylight is the same no matter how we set our clocks!
@SallyStrange The thing that most irritates me is when they say "let's go on permanent daylight savings time".
Of course it's completely arbitrary how you align a clock with the day-night cycle. Traditionally, you set 12:00 to roughly midday according to longitude. Setting it to 13:00 instead doesn't give any advantage.
Also, Trump said he wanted to abolish it, but has he even bothered to sign an executive order (that states could ignore anyway?)
Three signs the US fascist takeover is not yet complete:
— The Handmaid's Tale is still streaming on HBO
— Stephen Colbert has not disappeared.
— The White House has not been spray painted and renamed "The Golden House"… yet.
Missed my reading wrap-up for September and have been too busy to read as much as usual, so here’s a combined September/October wrap-up. Lots of litRPG, and James S. A. Corey’s Caliban’s War (The Expanse #2) was definitely a highlight!
September 2025 reads: The League of Frightened Men, Rex Stout (4 stars)
The Concrete Blonde, Michael Connelly (4 stars)
The Last Coyote, Michael Connelly (4 stars)
Trunk Music, Michael Connelly (4 stars)
The Rubber Band, Rex Stout (3 stars)
Angels Flight, Michael Connelly (4 stars)
Demon World Boba Shop #2, R.C. Joshua (4.5 stars)
Demon World Boba Shop #3, R.C. Joshua (4 stars)
Demon World Boba Shop #4, R.C. Joshua (4 stars)
Discount Dan, James A. Hunter (4 stars)
Caliban's War, James S. A. Corey (4.5 stars)
Cul-de-sac Carnage, James A. Hunter (4 stars)
Mage Tank, Cornman (3.5 stars)
Amazon is helping to fund Trump's $300 million ballroom. Small businesses like this one are raising money to feed hungry families. So today's Low Quality Ad is for this high quality guillotine bag.
Also, did you know the guillotine was invented by a French baker to slice bread? https://collabs.shop/b51zsm
A white tote bag with a guillotine that says "chin up" on it. It says "in these difficult times some cuts may be necessary".
Tuesday, Trump will be in Japan to talk to newly elected prime minister Sanae Takaichi.
This must be the biggest culture clash of 2025 — the Japanese are thorough, measured, intelligent, scientific, and they value calmness, respect and politeness.
Trump is a self-centered wrecking ball.
This is one meeting that will not be love at first sight.
@randahl I think the Japanese can make allowances for foreign barbarians, when it's in their interests. If it gets too bad, they can always kick him out.
"Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace. Where this is not the case, there is no help in any parliamentary Opposition or any Platonic appeals to the constitution."
-Rudolph Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice, 1938
@richpuchalsky
@CedarTea
@cedar What is the alternative to some form of democracy? All I can think of is "whoever fights the best gets their way." Is democracy a ritualised form of combat?
Situations like, one group wants to preserve a wilderness area, another group wants to clear it for timber / farm land. How do you even decide which group should prevail?
What they fail to realize is, this haircut has secured me more YouTube comments than any other aspect of my videos — the YouTube algorithm thinks my viewer engagement is through the roof. 😄
Trump now says he will meet Putin in Hungary… a country which is still a signatory to the International Criminal Court, by which Putin is a wanted criminal.
Orban has announced, Hungary will withdraw from the ICC, but the withdrawal is not legally in effect until June 2, 2026.
So I wonder how the EU will respond if a member state rolls out the red carpet for the enemy this way. And how is Putin even going to get to Hungary — a country landlocked between Ukraine, Serbia, and 5 EU countries.
The Trump administration is now openly fighting music artists.
Because Zach Bryan has written a song with the line "ICE is gonna come bust down your door", Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem has now given an interview calling the singer "disrespectful to this country".
That is how scared the administration is — just singing a song have them freaked out.
@pluralistic It may seem like a nice book now, but I'm cynically expecting the later editions to become more and more enshitified, cheaper paper and ink, entire chapters missing, worst cover art, a demand to make an online account before starting to read ...
What do you call a political system where those in power refuse to seat a duly elected member of the opposition party? Not a democracy that’s for certain.
Screenshot of a tweet from Rep. Greg Stanton (@RepGregStanton) on X. The tweet says House Republicans are shutting down the House to avoid swearing in Adelita Grijalva, calling it undemocratic and unacceptable. The image shows a mostly empty House chamber with several representatives, including Stanton, standing near the podium.
@georgetakei I think the term is "sham democracy", it's nominally democratic but rigged to favour certain parties. Like Putin's Russia, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Trump's USA(?) Obviously, there are all kinds of gradations between a pure proportional system of some kind, through to the first-past-the post district systems where only large parties can compete, through to gerrymandered systems controlled by the people in power, right through to the outright shams.
Every time I see the human transport drones, I get excited. We have so much mind-blowing technology coming our way — everything sci-fi movies ever showed us, someone is trying to build.
Very lovely and humourous actor Patricia Routledge, known for her role as Hyacinth Bucket in the British comedy series "Keeping up appearances", has died 96 years old.
Some will now say she "kicked the bucket", but I feel obliged to mention one last time that it is pronounced "bouquet".
"Our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America", says Trump and announces 100 percent tariffs on imported movies.
I am confident the EU will retaliate. France, the UK, Czech, Spain and other movie producing countries will not accept this.
Trump posting:
Our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America, by other Countries, just like stealing
"candy from a baby." California, with its weak and incompetent Governor, has been particularly hard hit! Therefore, in order to solve this long time, never ending problem, I will be imposing a 100% Tariff on any and all movies that are made outside of the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DJT
In my lifetime, China has not dared to attack Taiwan.
But in 2022 Putin invaded Ukraine — a war for which the EU countries have reserved a considerable part of their budgets and attention.
Then voters of the US elected an incompetent president who has zero understanding of military strategy; and he now wants to attack Venezuela with the risk of getting the US bogged down in a wider South American war.
If that happens, I fear China moves on Taiwan, knowing they will never get a better chance.
@randahl I think the only thing that stops China attacking is the amount of damage that would be caused to infrastructure, i.e., they'd prefer to take over quietly and get the manufacturing base including the TSMC facilities, and not just a pile of rubble. They could also take quite a bit of damage from counter attacks.
If they were determined to do it, they could lob missiles and drones at Taiwan endlessly. What could the US etc. do, assuming they are no more willing to bomb China than Russia?
In Danish, when I want the audience to form a mental image of something, I can say "Forestil dig at" which translates to "Place this mental image in front of you".
Similarly in English, I have noticed the use of "Imagine that…", as in "Imagine that an old man walks in the door". But I really dislike the use of the word "imagine", because it sounds like what I am describing is pure fantasy.
Could I instead say "picture that…" or is there an even better phrase?
@randahl
@JimmyB I don't know about character names, but my partner always knows most of the actors. Some guy will come in and she'll say "he's the bad guy" because apparently that actor always plays bad guys. I barely recognise any of them, even when she points out that it's the same actor who was in some other thing we watched, just with different hair and a beard, or whatever.
It took 247 days for this US President to realize Ukraine can defeat Putin's gang of prisoners.
We went from "You haven't got the cards" to this:
Trump posting:
After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form. With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option. Why not?
Give it two more weeks and Trump will have claimed to have ended the war between Denmark and Australia, because Vikings against Australian soldiers on big kangaroos, strong kangaroos, was a bloody mess, and Denmark took so many loses at Sydney harbour, they do not have a workforce in Denmark anymore, and the world is now running out of LEGO bricks — big beautiful bricks — strong bricks — because they just can't make them after the battle at Melbourne, where Denmark lost 7 million soldiers.
Denmark is transitioning to electric cars and it happens fast.
Out of 2,900,000 cars, 467,608 are now electric.
A whopping 180,000 of those were added in just the past 12 months according to the Minister of Taxation, and in August, 69 percent of cars purchased were electric.
The government aims to have 1 million electric cars by 2030. This initiative is promoted by car registration tax exemption and more.
Under the Trump regime, a group of Trump voters in Arkansas are building a whites-only community with no access for any minority (including LGBT), and with home schooled children, German sheapard dogs, a fondness for traditional German music, and Swasticas.
Trump and Stephen Miller must be popping a bottle of champagne tonight, because this seems to be going right according to plan.
(I am so glad I lived to see the wonderful America that was before the Trump regime)
@randahl On the face of it, it doesn't seem terrible if all the racists go and live in one place and leave the rest of us alone.
I'd guess however, that such people can't really live in their bubble and be content, especially when it turns out that life with only white people is really nothing special or exciting.
They'd need to keep the rhetoric going and demonise the people living outside their borders, making the whole area unsafe.
@randahl Norway has a strangely low population given that it's an old country with a large land area. It's going to be overtaken by New Zealand at this rate.
Before I go back to the pub, a bit of photography philosophy.
One of the things any budding photographer is bombarded with is "this is the best". Whether it be full frame bodies, or lenses, you are told from day 1 that whatever you have, as a beginner is shit.
Guess what? That's a lie. It's always been a lie.
Shoot with what you can afford. Whether it be a cheap compact camera, or a $50k body-lens combo, as long as you're shooting with a camera, you're doing the right thing.
Yes, I am specifically excluding phones. They take good photos because of their wizardry, but it's just not the same
@sortius
@static
@SeaFury
@jpm I wouldn't mind a replacement for my old Panasonic Lumix DMC-LF1. But looking at the specs, they don't really make cameras like that any more:
$264 AUD in 2015, possibly some kind of clearance sale
12 megapixels
28-200mm equivalent optical zoom
1/1.7" CMOS sensor
Raw support
Pocket size
Something like a Sony RX100 VII would do, but it's like $1600 ??
Even if I had a time machine, and even if I could bring this picture back to 2015 — even then, I could not explain to anyone that in the future, a convicted felon would become president of the USA, and he would invite wanted war criminal Vladimir Putin to Alaska to debate the future for our ally Ukraine — WITHOUT Ukraine present.
A few might believe I was from the future, but NO ONE would believe the picture of these two criminals in front of Air Force One was real.
For ages, scientists have argued if women are better at multi-tasking, but now I know:
I just saw the movie "A quiet place" in which the pregnant lead character Evelyn is cooking dinner, while her husband is away.
While cooking, her water breaks, and she has to give birth, but an alien monster attacks her house, she runs to the basement, steps on a nail, and now has to fight the alien while in labor and with a bleeding foot.
As a man, I could not have done all that without burning the dinner.
Emily Blunt playing pregnant lead character Evelyn.
@randahl aren't some women finding it a bit of a struggle now that everybody expects them to live up to such expectations? If she ends up burning the dinner, you know she'll get abuse on social media.
We all have challenges in our lives, but it is comforting to know that you are not Vladimir Putin at the airport, trying to decide if he should go to Alaska, because Trump is a true fan, or if Alaska is a plot to capture Putin alive.
@randahl Is that even slightly plausible? I understand that they arrest random travellers for a minor paperwork errors or anti-Trump sentiments, but somebody wanted internationally for war crimes is surely safe?
If I was Putin, be more worried about Ukrainians living in the US with access to guns.
Yesterday was my first bad day on Mastodon, and what happened to me could happen to you, so let me explain what went down, and how I got blocked by a lot of people.
In March, I wrote a post critical of Musk (picture 1). I then asked another Mastodon user (Harriett) whom I have found friendly, if she would help me translate a Danish phrase to English, and linked to the Musk post where the phrase would be relevant.
But yesterday — 4 months later — that blew up in my face. Here is how…
1/7
The original post which caused all the trouble. Here I am asking Harriett if she would be so kind to help me translate.
Fuck congress. This is the full, unredacted Epstein List.
Provenance:
The PDF is a photocopy of Jeffrey Epstein's "Little Black Book", obtained with the help of a journalist in connection with an FBI sting investigation. The handwritten notes and circled names are made by Juan Alessi, who was Epstein's house manager from 1991 to 2002. He circled the names to show the FBI which people were known insiders in Epstein's child sex trafficking ring. Juan testified to this under oath during the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted of sex trafficking minors on Epstein's plane to his island.
Donald Trump's name appears on page 80 of the book (PDF page 85), and is circled.
Oh and to top it all off the planet is still on fire and people are already dying because of climate catastrophe(s), so we've got that going for us as a species too...
@AnarchoNinaWrites The USA has a relatively low population density and probably sufficient farmland even with climate change. I don't think their was any shortage of resources that required immediate population reductions.
Extremely tangled diagram depicting relationships between LLCs, major companies, the Trump family, Bill Zanker and various other individuals, and various crypto projects including the $TRUMP memecoin, NFTs, World Liberty Financial, etc.
Collage of book covers showing the books I read this month and their ratings East of Eden John Steinbeck 5 Anathema Keri Lake 2 Cannery Row John Steinbeck 3 Alas, Babylon Pat Frank 3.5 The Monsters We Defy Leslye Penelope 3.5 James Percival Everett 4 The Buffalo Hunter Hunter Stephen Graham Jones 3.5 That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon Kimberly Lemming 2 The Eye of the Bedlam Bride Matt Dinniman 3.5 Falling Free Lois McMaster Bujold 4 The Hexologists Josiah Bancroft 4.5 Shards of Honor Lois McMaster Bujold 3 A Rival Most Vial RK Ashwick 4.5 A Captured Cauldron RK Ashwick 3 Legends & Lattes Travis Baldree 3.5 This Inevitable Ruin Matt Dinniman 3 Beware of Chicken CasualFarmer 4 World War Z Max Brooks 2
@molly0xfff um that's 18 books, or not even two days per book. How do you even do that and still have time for anything else? Are they very short books? Or some kind of speed reading technique?
#OnThisDay, 19 Apr 1967, Kathrine Switzer becomes the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon as a registered runner, despite the organiser physically trying to stop her.
Katherine Switzer running along a road in a grey tracksuit. She is a white woman with dark hair. There are several other men running alongside her, also in running gear. They are protecting her from a man in a blazer who is attempting to rip off the number pinned to her back.
During her run, the race manager Jock Semple assaulted Switzer, trying to grab her bib number and thereby remove her from official competition. After knocking down Switzer's trainer and fellow runner, Arnie Briggs, when he tried to protect her, Semple was shoved to the ground by Switzer's boyfriend, Thomas Miller, who was running with her, and she completed the race.
I suppose Jock Semple is the guy in black, and Arnie Briggs is on her left?
Zero Edge crypto casino founder Richard Kim has been charged with wire fraud and securities fraud after soliciting investments for his crypto casino and then gambling them away. He was arrested and released on bond.
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, ss.:
THOMAS MCGUIRE, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he is a Special Agent with
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and charges as follows:
COUNT ONE
(Wire Fraud)
1. From at least in or about March 2024 through at least in or about July 2024, in the
Southern District of New York and elsewhere, RICHARD KIM, the defendant, knowingly having
devised and intending to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud, and for obtaining money and
property by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, transmitted
and caused to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, and television communication in interstate
and foreign commerce, writings, signs, signals, pictures, and sounds, for the purpose of executing
such scheme and artifice, to wit, KIM engaged in a scheme to misappropriate funds invested in the
Zero Edge company, and sent and received, and caused others to send and receive, electronic
communications or financial wires to and from the Southern District of New York and elsewhere,
in furtherance of that scheme.
(Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343 & 2.)
COUNT TWO
(Securities Fraud)
2. From at least in or about March 2024 through at least in or about July 2024, in the
Southern District of New York and elsewhere, RICHARD KIM, the defendant, willfully and
knowingly, directly and indirectly, by use of the means and i
