I’m writing a scene set on Xmas Eve 1990. I’m looking for a cultural event (film, TV, music, current affairs, whatever) that could trigger an argument between a deeply closeted young man and his homophobic father.
Can be something current or even a few years old, but can’t be later than that.
Submission should be from 2-3 words to 3-5 paragraphs, graphics and images welcome, include the authors Holy Name (Discordian or Otherwise) and other pertinent information (cabal, titles, link(s), etc) for Copyleft Digital/Print DIYorDIE publication.∆
Just send an email to PghOEE@protonmail.com and begin the subject line with "OM"
Hanukkah 5786, Night 1: How does one keep the blessed flame of resistance and resilience burning? And against the relentless horrors of a world on fire—a daily, deadly conflagration that tonight, just before I was supposed to walk up a hill to meet other rad Jews in a public park, seared new pain in my heart with one word: “Sydney”?
It should be such a simple thing: to light Chanuka candles facing outward—bright beacons to show that we are still here, still creating sacred spaces of life against death machines, still fighting whatever fascisms rear their ugly heads. It should be such a simple and sweet thing: to commune together outside for Xanuka in temporary, do-it-ourselves “temples” that feel more holy than any fixed building—with stars above mirroring our candles below, with songs leaving our lips to fill the night sky. It should be such a simple yet joyous thing: to tend to little sparks of light together, keeping the candles lit against all odds (such as the evening breeze, the rustle of random passersby, or even our own laughter and movements), noticing how the two candles on this first night seem attuned to our friendly banter and melodic harmonies, as if they too are participants in the magic of how ritual interweaves us with each other, ourselves, the universe, and other inexplicably beautiful miracles.
Yet nothing is simple these fraught, fragile, christofascist days. Chanukkah reminds us not merely of the wisdom that can be gleaned from light and dark—an inseparable pair of muses—but that the gray areas between them will continue to haunt us—the complex gray-hearted ugliness that causes a shooter(s) to target a public Hanuka gathering of Jews in Australia for murder, extinguishing the light of at least 11 lives.
How does one keep the blessed flame of resistance and resilience burning? By mourning our dead, of blessed memory, and fighting for the living by not giving up on being freedom seekers—in this case, doing Hanukkah in public here tonight in Athens, where another conflagration not so long ago, dubbed the holocaust, means there are still almost no Jews here in Greece.
(photos: small rad Jew crew savoring a happy hanukah interlude on a hill)
The meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as well as the Ukrainian and U.S. delegations, lasted more than five hours. — Ukrinform.
Acquired a big stash of about 100 old tubes on an estate sale, that I am now cleaning, sorting and categorizing. Mostly from the 1960s, some newer. Some boxes have remarks about the performance, some don't. I guess often a new tube was bought as a replacement and the old (defective) one might have ended up in the box... Guess I will have to find a tube tester now! #electronics
Snapscope by Alan Pope lets you scan Snap packages to list CVES or security vulnerabilities in any bundled libraries, giving you more insight into Snap security.
Golfer Bryson DeChambeau bending the knee to #Trump telling everyone how he has created the greatest economy we've ever had (FOX News). Also Golfer Bryson DeChambeau: Takes over $125 million from the Saudis.
Meine Lieblingsrecherchen 2025 Platz 1: Von wegen, Bargeld ist anonym: Meine Lieblingsrecherche des Jahres beschreibt, wie Geldscheine anhand ihrer Seriennummer getrackt werden. Teil eins beschäftigt sich damit, wie Sicherheitsbehörden das Instrument nutzen: netzpolitik.org/2025/bargeld-t… Teil zwei zeigt, wo überall die Seriennummern erfasst werden: netzpolitik.org/2025/reise-ein…
Bargeld gilt als anonymes Zahlungsmittel. Dabei ist anhand der Seriennummer durchaus ersichtlich, welche Routen Geldscheine nehmen. Die Infrastruktur zum Bargeld-Tracking wird immer weiter ausgebaut.
mit EC, Master., VisaKarten, rassistischen bezahlkarten oder gar dem Handy zum bezahlen wird man natürlich nicht überwacht. Was für ein Titel 😅 „Du hast Überwachungsinstrumente im Portemonnaie“
@autonomysolidarity Wie ich bereits auf eine andere Nachfrage antwortete: Bargeld ist trotz Tracking-Ansätzen deutlich privatsphärenfreundlicher als jeder digitale Zahlungsweg. Besonders drastisch sieht man das am Fall PayPal: netzpolitik.org/2025/fintech-u…
PayPal ist im Frühjahr ins Werbegeschäft eingestiegen. Der Finanzdienstleister hortet umfangreiche persönliche Informationen über Menschen, die ihn nutzen, und stellt solche Daten Werbetreibenden zur Verfügung.
Oracle reportedly delays several new OpenAI data centers because of shortages — tight material and labor supply frustrate expansion plans, possibly by a year or more.
Explosions have been heard in the town of Kashira in Russia’s Moscow region, with reports indicating air defense activity amid a drone attack. — Ukrinform.
A una conversa a prop meu es parlava d'allò de què els immigrants 'espanyols' anaven a Alemanya sempre amb contracte. Des de menut que ho havia sentit així.
Però fa unes setmanes una persona gran em va explicar amb claretat que ell se'n va anar a Alemanya sense papers.
Em va faltar preguntar-li si això que va fer ell era comú. Quan el torne a veure ho faré.
We are the Haecksen, a group of over 1,000 FLINTA (FLINTA: women, lesbians, inter, non-binary, trans, agender) individuals interested in technology.
Our goal is to anchor intersectional queerfeminist – and thus socially relevant – viewpoints i...
It will be interesting to see what happens in Australia now that they have started enforcing the under-16 ban for social media. Teens want friendship and connection, and today that happens on social media; banning them will simply drive this desire elsewhere, perhaps to Discord or other “not social” media, or into private direct messaging groups, e.g. Signal. Worse, it might lure teens into Tor/darkweb services that can be much more dangerous.
PS I'm very sorry but I have no idea if some metaphors are cross-language. Here we say "look at the elephant in the room" when people are talking or acting about less relevant (or even wrong) issues, while the huge and complex question is just in front of them and they willingly avoid it. As a non-native English speaker I know my own languages expressions and rarely match the meanings. Here, when you criticize others for something you are just doing, we say "bull calling the donkey horns-headed". The donkey has no horns on his head, while the bull does. But English expression changes in "the pot calling the kettle black". Like when I (blind person) tell the sighted "please use your eyes and be careful of where you go!"
@elettrona Oh don’t be sorry! I find the metaphors fascinating. The “elephant in the room” metaphor is also used in English, although it’s usually in the negative, for example, “Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room.”
In general, I’m skeptical that this ban will do much good. For one thing, “banning under-16s” necessarily means “identifying over-16s” online (how else would you implement the ban?), which massively expands surveillance of online activity for adults. Yes, there are ways to perform age attestation without identification, but any germ of surveillance will breed more surveillance, just you watch. Second, banning *algorithms* will help everyone, not just teens. Third, maybe educate teens to be skeptical of online manipulation. After all, turning 16 doesn’t magically make you wiser.
Growing up in an Internet-by-default world requires novel skills. Parents need to take a more active part in their children’s online activities, and teach them how to navigate online traps, and make them aware of the ways they are manipulated by social media algorithms. Governments need to prevent harm by banning addictive or other harmful algorithms at the source.
Let me translate what I said in an Italian Fediverse network discussing the same topic. Banning teens from social network, or better saying: age verification, is doubling a problem while assuming to be solving one. It's admitting defeat, with this move politicians, schools, and people in favor of it, are saying "we have failed". Education is the solution, because let's stop pretending, and let's look at the elephant in the room. Commercial social networks are manipulating adults, even worse than minors. Fake news, romance scam, I could fill in the whole space to list all of them; algorithm is a problem, social engineering is a problem, schools basing education on notions rather than culture, is the root of it all. We have become passive viewers/listeners and if you ever pose a question, you're labelled by default. Educating is a long-term method but it takes knowledge, time, and moderation. Extremists can't educate. But now, governments are behaving with Internet like doctors did decades ago with teeth. Investigating on what's the issue? No. Let's take all teeth away. Or in certain cases even stomach, even arms or legs, etc. Eliminate the problem because you're not able to face it. And, in case of Internet, the truth is even more difficult to face: Internet is developing faster than laws. Who thought what could happen in 3 years? Now scams and illegal material (including racism) has acquired definitely another level thanks to automated content generation. Which politician is capable of keeping themselves updated? They're mostly over 60-70 years old. And younger want to push votes than worrying of their country.
@elettrona Personally, I think Australia took a step in the right direction. Next, I'd like to see the majority of social media companies get a total ban.
Most countries place limits on the amount of foreign-owned traditional media companies (television/newspaper). The same needs to be applied to social media.
@txtx The problem is that this social media ban can easily turn into mass surveillance. I never support those ideas. eff.org/age - Electronic Frontiers Foundation explain it effectively
Age verification (or age-gating) laws generally require online services to check, estimate, or verify all users’ ages—often through invasive tools like ID checks, biometric scans, or other dubious “age estimation” methods—before granting them access …
@elettrona Nearly all adults are giving away their names and addresses to these platforms. We are under mass surveillance today, and these corporations are feeding us garbage based on their spying on us.
I just don't know what a 13 or 14 year old child gains from watching cartoons created by Russian disinformation factories, shown to them by Meta or Google.
@txtx I think we should defend our privacy rights in any way possible, but IMHO Internet's anonimity is still a value. It is hypocrite to say that, "anonimity brings to hatred" because we have politicians all over the world who hate people showing their proud face while they say "latin / black / trans / whatever, are unhumans". The issue doesn't stay on Internet as Internet is the mirror of what we do in real
@elettrona I agree with that, but there still seems to be a complete lack of ideas on how to fight the severe problems anonymity and disinfo create.
To go back to the dentistry analogy you made earlier: We've let things fester for years; now we've all got rotten teeth and the infection is spreading to our brains.
At this stage, teaching people to brush their teeth, sure, education is important. But isn't it superficial considering the severity of the patient's illness?
@txtx @elettrona It is undeniable that social media, rotten as it sometimes is, provides real services that people enjoy, otherwise they will have no customers left. Remember that enshittification is a continuum, and we are still somewhere on that spectrum.
I think lumping “anonymity” and “disinformation” together is not a good idea. Anonymous accounts can spread disinfo, but they don’t always. Anonymous accounts also allow vulnerable people—some targeted by the state—to connect to others without “outing” themselves to a surveillance state. People should be empowered to provide as little or as much information about themselves online.
Much of the damaging effects of social media is directly caused by the desire for advertising revenue. Addicting people and feeding them disinfo literally makes money for the operators, so I think that phenomenon should be regulated.
@elettrona If you, like me, live in a working democracy...and this democracy is being targeted by multiple powerful state and corporate actors who leverage anonymity to turn people into nazis...what are we defending here really?
@txtx @elettrona I think it’s important to preserve what’s good when fighting evil. Will banning anonymity lead to a better nation? Or will it give corporate actors and an authoritarian government even more surveillance powers?
@txtx I think it's the second option. As an HIV advocate I know what the importance of anonimity is. First, eliminate stigma. Eliminate hatred. Eliminate violence. Disinformation. Then, MAYBE, talk about eliminating anonymous communication!
@txtx When defending anonimity I am also talking to all those people who can't talk about their condition -disability or HIV or LGBT or whatever- in the countries where they are born or they'd be killed. Anonymous communities where they can freely talk are a safe space where -at least on line- they can feel they are not alone. Anonimity brings even the other side, people spreading hatred and stigma feel free to do it? True. But the root of the problem is education. Education is missing. About solution? Without breaking anonimity, to access the Internet everyone should be enabled to write into communities after an anti-hatred and anti-disinfo license, updateable every 6 months. WIth blockchain or whatever private key making every course and exam unique so that you can't share the solutions of questions with others.
@elettrona The dilemma with anonymity is that we're choosing which lives we want to protect, and which are collateral damage. It's a gruesome problem.
In my view: my anonymity is not more valuable than someone's life in Southeast Asia. Nor do I want to take away someone else's ability to safely communicate in unfree countries.
Hey all, @yoginho and my workshop has been accepted to the Haecksen CfP! We consider it important to reflect upon the initial acceptance of Joscha Bach/Plinz' talk at #39C3 as well as his previous talks at chaos events, in the context of discussing fascist trends in tech in general.
However, we still lack a ticket for Yogi. We're of course monitoring the official ticket resell system, but if anyone has a spare or comes across another ticket, please let us know!
The tech-libertarian transhumanist narrative is nothing but a hypermodern salvation myth. It is used to propagate a feudalist model of society in which a select few reap all the benefits. We discuss this ideology and how to oppose it.
@pascal Yes, it’s reminiscent of the group of rich kids who consider themselves entrepreneurs and they started talking about. Why don’t we like get together and agree on some sort of group funding for service that we need.
They were very proud of themselves that they had created something new to solve a problem
We got a bit of snow overnight (not much, about 4–5 cm), but it's quite cold today with high winds — -4 ℃ with a wind of >27 kph, making it feel more like -16 ℃ — so I figured I'd post some shivery photos. These two are from the Antarctic about 11 years ago. #winter
I was trying to be artistic when I saw this tree had had one of its branches cut off to reveal this shape, so I made it a black and white photo and called it "Heartwood." Photo copyright 2014 by Mendur #photography #photo
Roman
in reply to Roman • • •