gregg r

Boomer cyclist, lgbtq ally, trans ally, hardcore Steely Dan fan. Mask up!

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npub1xpk8398p6qpuvzh22kxp4yvwzm6grh66ec64ml6rkyghxz08aeeqkzedk2

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grheavyroller_at_mastodon.social@mostr.pub

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nprofile1qqsrqmrcjnsaqq7xpt49trq6jx8pdaypmadvud2alapmzytnp8n7uuspzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgqg3waehxw309ahx7um5wgerztnrdaksvuq6wk

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nostr21.com

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npub1xpk8398p6qpuvzh22kxp4yvwzm6grh66ec64ml6rkyghxz08aeeqkzedk2

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Last Notes

2024-10-30 21:11:26

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@npub1vau…73yc "Please vote. Please do the minimum to not let us become the new Reich. Please see through all this noise to a signal we can hold onto. Please don’t let these goblin men write the history of this century."
Yes. Please.

2024-10-15 23:37:33

@npub1hyk…3p33 : "Once someone gets rich enough, they acquire impunity. They become too big to fail. They become too big to jail. They become too big to care. They buy presidents. They *become* president."
It's long past time to do something about The Billionaire Problem.
https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/15/piketty-pilled/#tax-justice

2024-09-15 15:44:34

@npub1hyk…3p33 succinctly describes the red cap crowd:
"You’re all poster children—and I *do* mean children—for ‘personal responsibility’ right up until someone asks you to take responsibility for your own actions."
https://craphound.com/category/lostcause/

2024-09-15 14:35:12

Looking west at sunset from Seattle over Elliot Bay to Bainbridge Island and the Olympics.
#SilentSunday #photography
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/142/047/593/278/589/original/b591a937db956167.jpeg

2024-09-08 14:45:34

A reminder that the Sun is a star.
#SilentSunday #photography
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/102/455/180/503/880/original/a1bd82e1d2932fd8.jpeg

2024-09-01 16:44:03

#SilentSunday #photography
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/063/276/275/734/173/original/3fc453b42d7af84a.jpeg

2024-08-26 19:54:25

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@npub1kmn…8cg8 I didn't know Dave Barry wrote for the Times

2024-08-11 16:42:32

Sunset at Maui, looking west from Lahaina to Lanai
#SilentSunday #photography
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/944/366/126/135/270/original/7b823dbd7fdfc1c5.jpeg

2024-07-22 19:13:25

"The cloud is many things, but most of all, it's a trap." Cory Doctorow, @npub1hyk…3p33
Software As A Service is another way of saying #enshittification -- Data stored in the cloud is data that has yet to be stolen.
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/22/degoogled/#kafka-as-a-service

2024-07-14 18:34:07

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@npub1kmn…8cg8 Presidents/candidates shot at but survived: Jackson, both Roosevelts, Truman, Wallace, Ford, Reagan, Obama

2024-06-23 17:19:44

#SilentSunday
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/667/071/190/146/054/original/ecf1674a49fec263.jpeg

2024-06-16 18:56:38

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@npub1ffl…tv7d Of course he was forgiven. In the believer's world, religion excuses anything and explains everything.

2024-03-23 23:04:30

I want one of these.
@npub1hyk…3p33 -- "We all deserve dark corners where we stand a chance of finding well-managed communities that can deliver the value that keeps us stuck to our decaying giant platforms. Eventually, the #enshittification will chase every user off these platforms – not just kids or sex-workers or political radicals. When that happens, it sure would be nice if everyone could set up in a dark corner of their own."
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/23/evacuate-the-platforms/#let-the-platforms-burn

2024-03-08 23:01:24

Capitalism has a Big Lie ("There is no alternative"), and it also has an organizing principle:
"There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." -- Frank Wilhoit
That sentence encapsulates our current situation; the looters and the bagmen rely on it to shield themselves and their profits from justice. cory documents a prime example:
https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

2024-03-01 16:16:27

@npub1hyk…3p33 -- "Companies have 'near total managerial discretion' to lump business units together and group their profits and losses in bloated, undifferentiated balance-sheet items ... The SEC lets Amazon – and other gigantic companies – get away with a degree of secrecy that should disqualify it from offering stock to the public."
One set of rules, enforced for the little guy, ignored for the behemoth. As George Carlin said, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

2024-02-16 15:34:28

" ... if you read a book you love, tell other people about it."
Absolutely: Red Team Blues by @npub1hyk…3p33 feeds my computer geek brain and my whodunit gut. Go get it.
https://craphound.com/novels/redteamblues/2023/03/26/red-team-blues/

2024-02-08 18:17:59

"Watching the CDC hide sensible, accurate replies and then un-hide ones they got *too* much negative attention for was really a special moment. Aside from it being a pretty tacit admission of knowing wrongdoing, that's such a rookie PR move. ... It's hard to imagine resenting and despising something as much as the CDC resents and despises the people it serves."
@npub1vju…8ulw is a pro; her Pandemic Roundups respect your need for honest info:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-98087707
#CovidIsNotOver #MaskUp
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/897/213/177/894/062/original/b2b03c62cb78539c.jpg

2024-02-01 14:17:31

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@npub1hyk…3p33 London pre-jackpot

2024-01-30 15:44:37

I submit that this phrase by @npub1hyk…3p33 should be above the fold in Mark Zuckerberg's epitaph:
"Facebook is a company that was founded to nonconsensually rate the fuckability of Harvard undergrads, and it only got worse after that."
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

2024-01-27 01:51:17

"Enter monopolization. ... From Boeing to Facebook, Cigna to InBev, Warner to Microsoft, it has been a catastrophe. The American corporate landscape is dominated by vast, crumbling, ghastly companies whose bad products and worse corporate conduct are locked in a race to see who can attain the most depraved enshittification quickest."
But @npub1hyk…3p33 says the long-dormant watchdogs are finally waking up:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/26/noclar-war/#millionaire-on-billionaire-violence
#enshittification

2024-01-25 17:51:47

Institutional covid denial has abandoned us to the disease. If they won't help protect us, we will do so without them.
"I guess I just want to remind you as much as I'm reminding myself that there's no map for this, what we're going through." With @npub1vju…8ulw 's help, we will keep ourselves safe.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-97166797
#CovidIsNotOver #WearAMask
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/817/850/156/145/725/original/21d490aa7ff55644.webp

2024-01-24 16:16:05

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@npub1gfd…7gg6 Bought one they introduced it. If Apple put today's hardware in that shell, I'd buy one. Call it the iMac Heritage.

2024-01-23 17:39:20

"Tell Ron, I want him to know it was me."
Data breaches, HP printer cartridge #enshittification , and perfidious prosecutions based on intentionally hidden software bugs ruining the lives of hundreds of innocent employees. Get your weekly dose of cybersecurity from @npub1vju…8ulw right here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/cybersecurity-23-97033007

2024-01-19 20:51:59

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@npub1kmn…8cg8 I was an SI subscriber from the 60s until fairly recently (yep, I'm old :) and vividly recall marvelous writers like Frank Deford, Curry Kirkpatrick, Dan Jenkins, Gary Smith, and Rick Reilly. With one or two exceptions (ex. Pat Forde), SI's excellence has been replaced by #enshittification

2023-12-19 00:39:49

The elven path through Mirkwood to the Woodland Realm of King Thranduil begins. #TheHobbit #LOTR
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/604/282/611/824/401/original/9b262f8b1257dfe8.jpeg

2023-12-03 14:36:46

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@npub1gfd…7gg6 Adstagram because Zuck

2023-11-24 17:43:46

"The virus is out of control, evolving into... something, rapidly. Again.
Year four.
It's easy to despair, but join me in not doing that."
@npub1vju…8ulw always encourages us to "Stay apart, stand together, mask up, and stay strong" -- this is the essence of combating covid. Stay smart and read this week's Pandemic Roundup:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-93389863

2023-11-21 15:50:37

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@npub1zj4…fyjh #enshittification

2023-11-10 17:11:30

I submit that no concept more accurately captures the zeitgeist of 2023 regarding corporations, governments, climate, and life in general than @npub1hyk…3p33 's *Enshittification*. It should be the Word of the Year for 2023!
https://pluralistic.net/tag/enshittification/
#enshittification #corydoctorow

2023-11-08 21:04:27

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@npub1ept…jcl3 Nice to read some good news about my former home state. Still have family and friends there and I'm glad for them today 👍🏻

2023-10-20 12:42:40

Literal enshittification: guaranteed one-day delivery of human waste direct to you from the world's retail Apex Predator who "puts its drivers on a quota that makes it impossible for them to drive safely, park conscientiously, or, indeed, fulfill their basic human biological needs". @npub1hyk…3p33 :
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

2023-10-18 12:51:32

@npub1hyk…3p33 :
-Term limits
-Age limits
-Tax the wealthy
-Limit political spending
-Automatic voter registration
-Abolish the Electoral College.
So let it be Written.
So let it be Done.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/18/the-people-no/#tell-ya-what-i-want-what-i-really-really-want

2023-10-02 14:57:48

I backed @npub1hyk…3p33 's new book "The Lost Cause" -- his novels are always excellent and supporting an author who refuses to knuckle to Amazon's heinous DRM is never a lost cause.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-lost-cause-a-novel-of-climate-and-hope

2023-09-08 23:36:45

There is no worthy tl;dr for this book. Buy it, Read it, Act on it.
"The Internet Con" by Cory Doctorow (@npub1hyk…3p33) -- how to disassemble entrenched, enshittified Big Tech and create an internet that serves us rather than the tech bros.
https://craphound.com/category/internetcon/

2023-08-24 00:56:20

@npub1vau…73yc -- "Because that [Pride] rack in Target also tells their son walking quietly alongside, the son who’s terrified of coming out, that it’s okay to exist and he can live and grow and get out of there. It’s what tells their daughter she’s not defective. ... It undermines all the hard work those parents have done to crush their kids’ actual authentic gorgeous spirit."
"Pride has made a level of acceptance possible that would be unimaginable even 20 years ago"
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/it-may-not-be-praxis-but-we-need

2023-08-16 20:18:12

Scummy scammers have always been that way:
"Equifax invented the business in 1899, when, as the Retail Credit Company, it used private spies to track queers, political dissidents and "race mixers" so that banks and merchants could discriminate against them".
Equifax "doxed every adult in America and was given a mere wrist-slap, and now continues to assemble nonconsensual dossiers on every one of us"
@npub1hyk…3p33 says they might be brought to heel:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

2023-08-12 05:48:57

"Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." When the reckoning finally reaches the wealthy, when the accounting eventually arrives for the plutocrats, when the people finally force the klept to pay up, they will say here is where that reckoning began.
@npub1hyk…3p33 details the Sackler's brazen bankruptcy:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

2023-08-09 01:43:52

Long before they became recently known for sucking Toys R Us dry, KKR drained what was then RJR Nabisco. Now @npub1hyk…3p33 explains how those vampire barbarians are at the publisher's gate:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/08/vampire-capitalism/#kkr

2023-08-09 01:43:52

2023-08-05 02:05:25

Keep this maxim is mind whenever a minority group is the target of culture war crap based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, etc.: "Cruelty isn't the point of culture war bullshit: the point is *power*. Cruelty is merely the *tactic*"
@npub1hyk…3p33 describes how the plutocrats (who actually control our society) use culture wars to con the "low-information" GQP zealots into voting for stuff that hurts them:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

2023-08-03 00:28:16

Trusted Computing and Remote Attestation are 1984-worthy doublespeak for computing that *you* can't trust, computing that will rat *you* out. @npub1hyk…3p33 : "As I wrote last week, giving manufacturers the power to decide how your computer is configured, overriding your own choices, is a bad tradeoff – the *worst* tradeoff, a greased slide into terminal enshittification"
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

2023-08-03 00:28:16

2023-07-28 19:46:38

A Malignant Narcissist + DRM = Screwed Customers
@npub1hyk…3p33 documents Tesla douchebaggery: "diversion teams" ran remote diagnostics on cars to convince car renters that they were fine, alter car software to prevent further remote service bookings by owners, not tell owners if the diagnostics found actual problems, all to protect Tesla's phony range scam that in some cases was less than *half* the claimed amount.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

2023-07-25 05:39:19

Technofeudalism has made us all serfs, paying usurious rents to obscenely wealthy techbros hellbent on extracting every cent from their customer-vassals for the privilege of enduring enshittified products and services.
"... every digital system in your car is a source of endless repair nightmares, costly recalls and cybersecurity vulnerabilities"
"That means that your car can track your every movement, and sell your location data to anyone and everyone"
@npub1hyk…3p33
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

2023-07-19 16:02:41

Extreme wealth begets extreme politics. The connections between the rise of oligarchs and authoritarianism have many antecedents, some of them forgotten. @npub1hyk…3p33 reminds that "Silence begets forgetting, which begets revisionism."
"We're currently in the midst of a decidedly unjust war – the war to continue roasting the planet, a war waged in the name of continuing enrichment of the world's already-obscenely-rich oligarchs."
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/19/stolpersteine/#truth-and-reconciliation

2023-07-15 03:00:24

"[Swivel-eyed loons] are right to be suspicious that a crisis – be it COVID or the climate – will be seized upon by opportunistic corporations to brutalize workers and gouge shoppers. But the answer isn’t less regulation, it’s muscular antitrust, shattering these companies into squabbling competitors who can’t coordinate to rip us off."
"... corporate power, and its capture of government, is our true shared enemy."
@npub1hyk…3p33
https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

2023-07-11 13:15:58

Promise Everything + Do Nothing = Perpetual Cynicism
"Deliverism is the idea that if you promise things to the voters, they will vote for you. It's the idea that if you deliver things to the electorate, that they will re-elect you."
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/10/thanks-obama/#triangulation
Cory Doctorow @npub1hyk…3p33

2023-07-09 21:58:18

"Let the Platforms Burn"
https://doctorow.medium.com/let-the-platforms-burn-6fb3e6c0d980
Cory Doctorow @npub1hyk…3p33

2023-06-05 21:17:58

If it feels right
Just drive for the light
That's the groovessential fact
Someday we'll all meet at the end of the street
At the Teahouse on the Tracks
#DonaldFagen #Kamakiriad