It was hunting (considered pests) and DDT (pesticide that made the eggshells break too easily) that made eagles almost go extinct.

dammit

Look at those shoes she’s wearing. As a woman, I wish women would stop capitulating to society’s/fashion’s demand to wear shoes like this, that are made to cripple your ability to keep a sure footing, let alone run, and absolutely ruin your feet over time. Of course if you don’t do it you’re (gasp) not “fashionable”, but that’s only because these are the options you have to choose from unless you buy your own shoe factory or something.

I could go on a longer rant about it but I’ll stop there. But when you wear shoes like that at 84 it’s only a matter of time. Going down a marble staircase in them? very bad idea.

Congress basically believed what they were told by the warmongers.

The protests were amazing, nothing like it before or since. The media suppressed coverage of them as best they could. They couldn’t totally ignore them but gave almost 0 coverage. Masses and masses of people packing the streets. Wish we’d had drones back then to get some good aerial footage.

Kind of a combination maybe? Since Mastodon lets you find new people with similar interests by browsing what’s on your local timeline or hashtags of interest, and you can still follow people of interest without any chatting. I don’t know much about chat apps but don’t you have to already know the people beforehand, or come across them via a mutual acquaintance or invite to a chat room?

Of course, Mastodon can be and is used for broadcast/consume interactions, but not as much, since most broadcasters want a huge audience with little interaction, which means a big platform, while the ones on Mastodon are probably looking for a bit more interactive experience with a smaller audience.

Reading comments, it’s really something that people think >=1800 sq. ft is small! Probably because they haven’t really built houses smaller than that for at least the last 30 years, with very few exceptions. I currently live in a post-WWII 2BR, 840 sq ft house, which to me feels plenty big enough for a single or couple, but back when it was built, <1000 sq ft. was the size most people raised their families in . When I was a kid more like 3BR 1200 sq. ft. houses were the typical size.

I wish they’d build more smaller houses like this instead of only large >2500 sq.ft. or McMansions. More houses would fit in the same area and they’d be more affordable, to buy, take care of, and pay property tax on. Even before housing soared to total unaffordabilty, all newer houses were huge and out of reach for normal people. It feels like every aspect of our society from housing, transportation, clothing, any kind of shopping, everything! just gets more and more impractical and ridiculous. Who is making these crazy decisions? Not regular people. I know it’s stereotypical that when you get older you think things are getting worse, but they are getting worse, dammit!

Mastodon is more for people who like to have interactions or conversations back and forth with other people, while the big platforms are for influencers/broadcasters and consumers/viewers-- any back and forth interactions there are more between commenters than with the influencer/broadcaster. Of course there is some overlap and exceptions to that characterization, but that’s how it generally seems to me.

So IMO it’s not a competition, there’s plenty of room for both types of SM. Depending on a person’s preference they may use just Masto, just big SM, or use both, each for different reasons. The problem is when people expect Mastodon to be just like xitter/bsky/threads and get upset that it isn’t. Relax and use whichever platform(s) you like.

“Pete Hegseth vows to stay sober this time if you just give him one more chance.”

What statement are you referring to? The point that it’s far more expensive to travel from North America to a country in Europe for example, than it is to travel between countries in Europe? Maybe Thailand would be as expensive for both, though, I don’t know. Or the point that most Americans get much less vacation time than Europeans so again, only the more privileged Americans generally have the time off to take an overseas vacation.

Of course some regular people also take those vacations, but it’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime big deal that they saved up for a long time as a dream. Those aren’t the ones acting entitled, they are appreciating the opportunity.

Just remember that any Americans vacationing in other countries are Americans who can afford to travel to take a vacation in other countries (and can even take that long of a vacation at all), and that explains the sense of entitlement and rudeness you see which gives Americans a bad name.

Also except for Canada and Mexico (and even for them depending on where in US you live, to get anywhere is a very long, expensive plane trip).

I say it because every time I try to speak in someone in their language, they immediately switch to English. (even the one I’m pretty damn good at)

Because of the dominance of English, many people learn it and that’s enough to talk to people from many countries, but what are we supposed to do? We can’t learn all the other languages.

You’re making the assumption of one person per apartment and one deportation = 1 vacant apartment which is highly unlikely. Probably a whole family in the apt. so it may not even be vacated at all if one member is deported. Even if the whole family is deported that’s only like 1 vacant apartment per at least 4-5 or more deportations. So yes, more housing will become available but not as much as you are estimating. IMO the effects will be felt much more in the labor shortage than in housing surplus.

This is the letter of reference Hegseth presented to Trump to clinch the job.

I mean your hands have teeth who could beat that

Nice summary! I’ve been here through that whole time period. If it had stopped at the stage around 1995-2000 (before FB & web 2.0 took over the internet, before every business model became about bombarding us with ads and spying on us), our lives would be much better today.

Yes you are correct, it’s worse now. At first it was creative, innovative products that made things more convenient or fun, or at least didn’t harm its users. Now all the new things are made by immature egotistical billionaire techbros: generative AI which has ruined the internet by polluting it with so much shit you can’t get real information any more, not to mention using up all our power and water resources, the enshittification of Web 2.0, Web 3.0 that was pure shit from the get-go, IOT “smart” appliances like TVs, doorbells, thermostats, refrigerators that spy on you and your neighbors, shit “self-driving” killer cars that shouldn’t be allowed on the roads, whatever the hell that new VR Metaverse shit is, ads, ads, ads, ads, and on and on. It’s a tech dystopia.

He authorized Ukraine to use US missiles to strike inside Russia. Waited too long, but at least he did it. UK has followed suit. So remember, just because the media likes to show the things like going to the rainforest because they have video of it, doesn’t mean he’s not still doing stuff.

I’ve read that they’ve been doing a lot since well before the election to protect or shore up what things they can to make it harder for Trump to do some of his dictator stuff. Some things they’ve worked on since he first took office. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot that Biden can do on his own that Trump can’t just turn around and undo. But they’re trying to make it as difficult for him as they can bureaucratically.

As far as rallying a resistance, nope, he’s apparently not willing or able to do anything like that. He greeted Trump like everything was normal, which I found pretty irritating. It’s up to the people. I hope we can find someone charismatic to lead a movement. Charisma seems to be the most important or maybe even the only thing that matters these days.

Garland was the biggest mistake Biden made.