On foreign policy, economics and law-and-order issues, I could possibly be persuaded to support the Republican point of view. It’d be a hard sell, but I’m a middle-aged, middle-class suburban white dude, so it’s possible.
But I have at least one trans friend, several gay and lesbian friends, and I support bodily autonomy.
So the harder the GOP pushes on those issues, the harder they push me to the Democratic side.
I expect I am far from alone.
I was blocked on Threads for most of the day. Whenever I tried to log in, I got a notification that one of my posts was deleted for praising or supporting an organization Meta deems as dangerous. This is the post.
I often see front yards covered in artificial turf around here. Is that common elsewhere, or is it particular to southern California?
I dislike it. Just put down indigenous plants, or (if that’s too much bother) gravel is fine, too. Artificial turf makes me wonder why you thought it was a good idea to carpet your yard?
I didn’t even notice how common this is here until I shared a photo online, and people who live elsewhere in the US commented on how weird it is. They’re right — it is.
[@MitchW](https://micro.blog/MitchW) The most true and accurate and wise words on the internet:
don't Google “Goatse"
I’ve been using RSS virtually every day for more than 20 years. My current favorite is Readwise Reader, which is a little pricy, but it combines RSS, newsletters, read-it-later, reading PDFs and ebooks, highlighting, note-taking and building a document library into a single, powerful application.
I’ve recently been struggling to find a decent news portal—something I can glance at and see if there’s any major breaking news, such as when hurricanes threatened Florida. I decided to add feeds for the NYTimes, Washington Post, Guardian, etc., to my reader, on the theory that if news is major and breaking, it’ll show up in the feeds when I glance at them.
I divide my feeds into folders: one for high-priority items, where I want to see every headline, and another for work-related news.
But mostly, I treat the RSS feed as a “river of news” and don’t even try to read every item. I read headlines every few hours. Often, I just mark an item to read later (tap the “L” key in Readwise Reader) and move on.
I’ve been using Vivaldi as my primary browser on the Mac for about six months, and I quite like it. My two favorite features:
A jury denied damages to the family of a San Diego Black man who was buried in the wrong grave for 22 years. The deeper you read into this article, the less legitimate the family’s case seems.
Elon Musk’s promise of free Starlink terminals for hurrican victims in western North Carolina was a cruel lie. The service is not free, and Musk is spreading lies about FEMA responders and jeapordizing the lives of people on the ground.
If Musk really wants to help, he can just donate money.
This is an article by my friend and tech journalist Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, who lives in Asheville and is one of the people displaced by the hurricane; his house is without power, water, internet and cell service.
“Following initial contact with victims on social media platforms, they first sent artificially generated photos using AI technology to create attractive individuals in terms of appearance, personality, occupation, education and other aspects,” said Fang Chi-kin, the head of the New Territories South regional crime unit.
According to the unit’s superintendent, Iu Wing-kan, deepfake technology was then used when victims requested video calls.
“This technology transformed the scammers' appearances and voices into highly attractive females in terms of looks, attire and speech, making the victims trust them unquestioningly,” SCMP quoted him as saying.
Scammers are also using deepfakes of corporate executives to phish employees on video calls to execute fraudulent transactions.
