Dearly Beloved,

He's not changing direction.

We need to be able to tell the difference between PR strategy and reality.

As long as Miller, Vance, Noem, Vought are in this administration (and all of their little friends, too), and weirdo unfucked fash billionaires are still pouring money into their pockets to turn this world into a dystopic hellscape, they aren't changing direction.

They do not fucking care how many nice white people they shoot in the back or face. (I actually would not be surprised if the next nice white person they murder is a faith leader. Because it makes them look *hard* to their Nazi and Christo Fash base.)

They aren't going to change direction unless they are *forced*. And that force will need to be mighty and merciless.

I know we are all looking for signs that things are going to ease up.

This ain't that.

@Wtebbens Was talking about Spotify with colleagues and even at the usual rate it seems like it would be more worth it for small artists to not upload to Spotify since you'd likely be undercutting what you could make selling tracks on e.g. Bandcamp + social media.

If you want to grow your audience then Spotify might make sense but only if you know that you're undercutting yourself in hopes of growth. Even then, having a cult following may be more powerful.

Should small artists boycott Spotify?

ICE not only looks and acts like a paramilitary force – it is one, and that makes it harder to curb
https://blknewsnow.com/ice-not-only-looks-and-acts-like-a-paramilitary-force-it-is-one-and-that-makes-it-harder-to-curb/

@pluralistic You made me smile - thank you! Please keep the questions coming.

Went exploring old backups of old webroots and found this picture I took at work like, 20+ years ago

I thought it had been lost to time, but here it is, highlighting how JetDirect wasn't exactly a safe and secure protocol, and reminding me that the other admin got upset with me until I removed it

Fun times

@dangillmor

#MEGA

Make Epstein Go Away

@morph
> I think I even owned that on tape

I definitely owned Happy Hour on tape, and a couple of other King Missile albums too if I remember rightly.

There was a time when I only bought tapes and refused to get a CD player. But then indie bands I liked started releasing album as CD-only, many of them burned at home. Which made me revise my opinion and embrace the CD as a DIY music disruption medium.

#MusicFormats #CassetteTape #CD

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. - Sir Winston Churchill

Generated Lessons

#webcomic #krita #miniFantasyTheater

@7leaguebootdisk @notyourfanboy @molly0xfff @davetroy

Glad to hear you think Mastodon is improving.

Thing is, it is not so much about what Mastodon is now. It's about what public social media needs to be. And we all have a role in building it.

Manga is definitely a book, right?

@temptoetiam

Please enjoy the funny art I commissioned from mansand about this video:

(this is one of my favorite art commissions ever.)

And the lib establishment is not gonna see this coming, because they already know about voter challenges and they're relying on the structural limits of this strategy.

Except, between LLMs and having the voter rolls - all bets are off. They can do MILLIONS of people.

That is, my theory.

@lowqualityfacts
How about "Happy birthday! Here is a voucher for one free MEDIUM ice cream cone."?

@dsandler VERY related. That's a very thoughtful connection to my point. Thank you.

Pinky didn’t want to miss out on #whiskerswednesday #blep #CatsOfMastodon