Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

freelance librarian

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npub1ahzrkz54q3fhcwe8tzjf8neq9xtdvxg2rv06qeewnjxlh70z3dyq2pnm83

NIP-05 Address

richpuchalsky_at_mastodon.social@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqswm3pmp22sg5mu8vn43fyneuszn9kkry9pk8aqvuhfer0ml83gkjqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qwtj7fj

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relay.mostr.pub

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npub1ahzrkz54q3fhcwe8tzjf8neq9xtdvxg2rv06qeewnjxlh70z3dyq2pnm83

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Last Notes

2024-08-13 23:42:51

Hackers now have the Social Security number or other identifying numbers of everyone in the US, Canada, or the UK apparently. The source, "National Public Data", is not a governmental agency, it's a business that collected and sold the information piecemeal.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hackers-may-stolen-social-security-100000278.html

2024-08-07 17:15:37

Comparing UK criminal sentences for nonviolent environmental protestors vs criminal sentences for violent racists who attempted pogroms is not saying that the answer is more prisons, cops, or prison time. It's saying that the British state cares about repressing environmental protest much more than it cares about repressing violent racism.

2024-08-06 20:40:50

The UK is fine with racists setting up barricades to stop cars and see whether people are white, but they are going to find and imprison every environmental protestor they can catch.
Don't do protests where you just let the cops catch you! Make plans to get away.
https://www.europesays.com/1385661/

2024-08-02 18:22:20

Did you know that U.S. EPA made a database of fossil fuel producing facilities and the quantities they produced but excluded coal mines because they thought that people could easily find the information on them elsewhere?
That's why I'm digging through three different databases on U.S. #coal mines.
#climate

2024-08-01 14:03:01

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@npub1zdp…vqv8
Your cat eats "human beef jerky" ?!?
Meow feed me, Seymour

2024-07-19 00:42:04

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@npub1uw8…88kr
Scapes are great if you eat them like a vegetable. Just boil them until they soften, then saute them in olive oil

2024-07-15 01:05:13

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@npub1zdp…vqv8
If all of the paint is about to flake off can't you dab her with the same paint again? You could try to get an extra-small amount on her, though I guess it could be an inherently risky process

2024-07-07 18:14:14

Yard/#garden report:
Breeding Smarter Wild Rabbits: A #Gardening Experiment
Can wild #rabbits be trained to overcome a minor barrier between them and bait? Experimental setup below: left side is the WILD RABBIT NEST, right side is the BAIT (strawberry plants, proven to be one of the rabbits' favorite foods). For experimental purposes (?) these were placed right next to each other.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/746/558/027/126/519/original/0f11532ffec250e3.jpeg

2024-07-02 23:31:18

Yard/garden report: there is actually a whole additional blueberry bush that I forgot we planted that has its blueberries ripen later so there's a whole bush left. Also I picked a pint of currants. Currants are good on breakfast foods (yogurt, porridge, cereal) for older people because they are fresh but sour and we tend to like a more sour flavor profile.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/719/495/334/294/523/original/9193c369652d4369.jpeg

2024-07-01 19:27:08

Me: "The whole concept of 'rule of law' is bullshit, the law does not constrain the President and would fail the first time people tried to use it."
(people try to use it)
Supreme Court: "The law does not constrain the President in their official acts".
Liberals: "How dare that anarchist talk that way about the rule of law."

2024-07-01 17:02:42

Subtoot: "What you would do when authoritarianism comes to America is what you're doing right now."
I am really tired of people holding up the liberal order as if it did not maintain the largest prison population in the world (either in % or absolute numbers), cops shooting kids at will, and an ongoing genocide. Authoritarianism came to America at its founding, and never left.

2024-06-24 20:15:20

the sickest burns are also completely accurate
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/673/422/509/591/357/original/673e268b85262ef2.jpg

2024-06-22 17:21:40

The cllickbait article about ChatGPT evolving Ph.D. level intelligence doesn't mean much except that you shouldn't trust anything from OpenAI (you already didn't), Mira Murati, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, Luke Larsen, whatever content mill "Digital Trends" is, or Dartmouth Engineering.
Time to start rejecting the entire life work of people who bring you this stuff.

2024-06-21 18:39:08

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@npub19uy…0n85
Still pissed off about this episode. So many authors writing "I love libraries! Support libraries" and then supporting this lawsuit and saying "but this library was bad"

2024-06-21 14:59:31

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@npub1mmf…eknq
I came of age in the 70s and the same lessons were socially available back then. Kind of a long lasting divide between people who can learn them and people who really don't want to

2024-06-17 15:01:19

All states are basically the same. There is no civilized Europe as opposed to uncivilized anywhere else.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vv717yvpeo

2024-06-13 16:03:09

why bother washing clothes -- they will just mysteriously get covered in hair again
#CatsOfMastodon
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/610/150/187/589/567/original/00b0cd160f629a71.jpeg

2024-06-11 00:23:06

"“Look at me, look at me. I’m German. I’m from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m gonna give it back to you. And there will be a way — it doesn’t have to be now — but there will be a way they will know. "
I did not see this coming.
(via @vickyacab.bsky.social)
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/supreme-court-martha-ann-alito-pride-flags-left-media-1235037338/

2024-06-10 23:28:11

I made the same reference to the technical use of the word in _On Bullshit_ as opposed to "hallucinations", but it's always good to have a scientific paper backing up a conclusion like this
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5

2024-06-09 23:09:59

Mastodon active users: 1 million
Bluesky monthly active users: 1.3 million
Twitter/X monthly active users: 500 million. Let's say 1/2 are bots so 250 million.
Mastodon == desktop Linux
(edited: this comparison is unfair since desktop Linux has a much larger share of users)
https://mastodon.social/@richpuchalsky/112587849272873743

2024-06-08 14:00:02

Thread count down, hair count up
#caturday #CatsOfMastodon
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/581/351/628/943/057/original/d2d6b45e3893c4fd.jpeg

2024-06-02 15:18:10

Holocaust survivor removed as speaker at Holocaust museum for protesting genocide in Gaza
https://forward.com/news/618082/holocaust-survivor-cut-museum-protest-gaza/

2024-05-17 17:42:04

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@npub1rkt…sqek
Police reports are not based on cops' memories of the events. They are based on who the cops want to incriminate. All cops lie.

2024-05-09 19:33:29

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@npub13q9…jsxy
Rather than positive action, people really need to do negative action as in stopping things.

2024-05-09 00:53:57

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@npub1zdp…vqv8
Cool, but it's not tool use. The ants are using medicine that they evolved to secrete -- that's different than using a plant leaf

2024-05-07 21:28:59

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@npub1zdp…vqv8
It's a D&D quest: they have to get together the fighter, the magic user, the thief and the cleric.

2024-04-26 15:04:05

“Shit, if only they’d have moved like that when my son was being murdered,” the father of a murdered Uvalde child tweeted above footage of Texas DPS officers in riot gear storming toward unarmed students at UT Austin. “But what do I expect….1 AR-15 keeps 376 officers at bay.”
https://www.momleft.com/p/the-kids-the-guns-are-for

2024-04-26 02:05:54

People may have noticed that universities all over the US are having cops beat up their students. The true purpose of a system is what it does. The university system trains students for industry, but that does not preclude more crude means of social control if those are necessary.

2024-04-23 21:58:08

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@npub1zdp…vqv8
I hope they go whole hog and try to set pi to 3 again

2024-04-11 15:06:18

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@npub1zdp…vqv8
How do you do the racing stripes with just one brush tap?

2024-04-01 19:09:11

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@npub1qzc…yetl
I did the research for the PERI site that this graphic uses (I didn't make the graphic: it's good that someone did). There's a 2021 data version up now.

2024-03-31 12:45:45

No need to feed children in camps at the border, says the Democratic administration
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/29/biden-administration-migrant-children-food

2024-03-28 15:59:43

#climate doomers and enthusiasts, a thread
A lot of the discussion about what to do about the #climatecrisis has to do with carefully calibrating how we talk about it. I think that this calibration is mostly a waste of time and an excuse for infighting. But since this is after all a social media site for talking, I thought I'd write a thread about the different kinds of doomers and enthusiasts.