I have seen articles on Snopes that I personally find a little too conciliatory, but they don’t “lie”. I think they’re just really dedicated to fact checking. Do we think that Me-lon knew exactly what he was doing? There is no doubt in my mind. Can we know it as a fact? No.

We cannot read Musk’s mind to learn precisely what he intended by it.

I can see how this can be disappointing to some people.

BTW I suppose you are refering to this article: https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/01/20/musk-nazi-salute/

They quite clearly state that the salute had the (desired) effect anyhow:

Even so, Wired published that “the response from the neo-Nazi community across the globe was instant and unanimous.” Rolling Stone also noted much the same, with both publishers citing specific neo-Nazi accounts and other far-right users praising Musk’s gesture.

And there is plenty of fact that supports that Musk is a nazi, which Snopes also addresses.

Common sense confirmed. Thanks.

no-knock warrant

a horrible euphemism. That’s a raid.

This is what I do. I keep the old ones around for a while, and every time I realize that I’m not missing anything, and delete them.

Worst case, I’ll have to root around in my backups. But it has never happened wrt browser bookmarks.

This is the context I was missing yesterday.

Snopes said the image showed protests in Los Angeles following the death of George Floyd in May 2020.

Isn’t it still fake then, if they claim they’re from yesterday? Politicians have to use simple words.

Also, they were already showing fake images back then. Or images of faked situations. Or fakely escalating situations, then taking pictures of them.

One day we are going to feel nostalgic about those crude beginnings of generative ai. I suspect we’re going to be well and truly fucked by then.

zsh

How is this not bigger news?

FWIW I just logged on and the first thing I saw was this story on German TV (edit: twice).

And if anybody has doubts about the political motivation:

Officials said they located the suspect’s vehicle, which had lights and sirens as if it were a police squad car, and found a “manifesto” inside with the names of other lawmakers and officials.

edit: the politician killed was pro gun control

‼️

I once did some research & measurements about power consumption; my takeaway was that as soon as the screen is off any ol’ laptop (with the charger constantly attached) consumes pretty much the same amount of energy as a RasPi with identical storage attached.

I used a 2008 hp consumer laptop as a server between 2015 and 2021.

testing

Does that mean if viewing numbers plummet they won’t roll it out? wink wink, nudge nudge!

I have yet to see my first ad on any youtube video.

🤷 https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases

You mean like desktop backgrounds IRL? 🤯

☝️ And it works, I can confirm.

Leave it at home.

I can understand the wish to film things; I recommend buying a cheap camera, maybe one to strap on your forehead (starting at $20) or an old compact digital camera. Something without any sort of connectivity. Something you can leave behind if the going gets rough.

A federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing parts of his sweeping executive order overhauling federal elections, including by requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and barring states from counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston issued a preliminary injunction at the behest of 19 Democratic-led states who had argued that the Republican president lacked the authority to mandate changes to elections and the states’ voting procedures.

This is what really happens while the clowns are having a fight. Let’s just hope these 19 states do a little more than “argue”.

“The largest public gathering of centrist Democrats.”

WelcomeFest consisted of professional consultants telling politicians, ​“Don’t sound like you listen to consultants!”, followed by politicians saying ​“Ya know in my district there in the Midwest, I talk to regular folks, not consultants.”

Derek Thompson, coauthor of the new centrist Bible ​“Abundance,” jumped in with an inspiration. ​“Stories are for children,” he said, channeling the voice of a politician. ​“What Americans need is a plan.”

“I’m not a storyteller,” he declared, modeling a bold man of action. Then he pulled back from his speech, to pundit once again. ​“What I did there is also storytelling.”

This is how people sound when they’re just talking. Talking and talking, with nothing to say.

I always thought this book was more a techbro nazi utopia sort of bible.

Oracle, Amazon, Coinbase, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir, Meta definitely until '22, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram, Coinbase, Coca-Cola

The list goes on. Never has it been more obvious who profits most from stroking his ego.

Just read the whole article!

But I cannot resist quoting some bits that stood out to me:

While some organizations reported from inside the protest itself, most did not: They set up camp behind the police line, or reported using drone footage, or simply asked the cops what to say. “Dozens of people were arrested Sunday and accused of attempted murder, arson and other crimes during a day of violence and protests in Los Angeles,” NBC Los Angeles declared in an article based exclusively on LAPD sources. It’s an understandable decision on their part. Just look at Lauren Tomasi, a reporter for the Australian Channel Nine news service who got “caught in the crossfire” and struck with a rubber bullet while reporting—by which I mean an LA police officer aimed directly at the reporter from close range and shot her. (…) As of Tuesday morning, the LA Press Club documented over 30 injuries to members of the press. Easier and safer to parrot police talking points than face down their guns.

(…)

The idea that cops were just reacting to protester provocation is absurd. Cops occupied intersections in an attempt to split the protest, then occasionally charged the protest lines that surrounded them to force the crowds to temporarily retreat. These assaults seemed unrelated to protester action or lack thereof. At one point, while the cops were unloading round after round of blue-tipped rubber bullets into a crowd hunkered down behind a barricade, a different group of protesters approached from the side and threw a firework into the center of the police line. The cops turned their fire against the group, which ran off, but did not pursue them. Thirty seconds later, the cops were back to shooting at the barricade.

(…)

When I arrived on the scene, the cops were seriously outnumbered—thousands of protesters, a couple hundred cops. If there had truly been a riot, those cops would have found themselves overrun, disarmed, brutalized. But it was a protest. So they were fine.

And yet, the anti-protester framing is relentless, even from otherwise balanced sources.

I like that the writer doesn’t try to gloss over the occasional violent act from the protesters’ side, but instead always points out cause and effect, how understandable a reaction it is when you’re being shot at for - well, protesting.

Trump can call these protests invasions all he wants: I know what I saw. As the sun began to set, riot cops from the LA county sheriff’s department showed up on trucks, fully kitted out with shields and gas masks. The rapidly shrinking protest saw the writing on the wall and, rather than confront these militarized enforcers, turned and walked away, into the night and into the city. For hours they marched, blasting mariachi music and old-school West Coast rap and chanting their simple, reasonable demand:
“No ICE in LA!”

Damn. As a German! That’s shameful. And of course utterly nuts.

I found this question on reddit with a really good reply, if someone’s interested:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230605123206/https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/58doy0/ive_seen_a_number_of_conspiracy_theorists_and/

Sadly, Weigelt does not stand alone in the Linux community. I used to frequent one of the oldest and largest Linux forums, and there were all sorts of crazies. But more importantly, the general tone was more conservative than you’d think. Or rather Libertarian.