Zachariah Gibbens @[email protected]

Where are you on the political scale? Please boost wildly!* 😃​

(*) Yes I mean Wildly not just widely

To my North American friends east of the Mississippi:

Use N95 masks outdoors when AQI is greater than 100. And if you don't have air purifiers in your home, get them. Honeywell and Coway have reliable models I feel comfortable recommending.

Do not take poor air quality lightly.

We've become hardened experts at living with wildfire and smoke in California over the last 8 years. You don't have to learn the hard way.

Stay safe and take good care ❤️

#AirQuality #Wildfires #Smoke

Protovision, I have you now! David’s room from 1983 Wargames. Scratch built 1:12 scale model.

THIS QUOTE

“No one is teaching your kids to be gay,” she told the room. “Sometimes, they just are gay. I have math to teach. I literally don’t have time to teach your kids to be gay.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/01/hernando-county-ron-desantis-book-bans-democratic-governors/

I have not been seeing nearly enough discussion about what is poised to be one of the most dangerous bills to move through congress this decade.

For those not in the know, Senate Bill 686 The RESTRICT Act in its current form grants sweeping authority for the U.S. government to prosecute, fine, and imprison any person whom--among *many* other things--uses a VPN to access any "app" operated by a "foreign adversary" of the U.S.

The wording of the bill is so broad and vague that it can criminalize a wide range of technologies, and potentially even ensnaring U.S. citizens for conspiracy simply on the basis that they use a VPN that the US gov. can't snoop on and see what they're doing with it.

Let that sink in--you could face a minimum of 20 years in prison and from $250,000 up to $1,000,000 in fines, just for protecting your online privacy with a VPN, and your only recourse is to appeal in the D.C. circuit court.

The bill's sponsors pinky promise it won't be used for that, and it's only meant to catch foreign actors engaged in subterfuge etc, but the language to back that claim just isn't there. The anti-circumvention penalties and restrictions essentially put at risk anyone whom engages in any activity using these technologies due to the fact that if the technology is working, then the government can't see what you're using it for, and therefore simply using it could be used as the basis for charges of conspiracy to circumvent.

It is abundantly clear that if this passes, it can and will eventually be used to target anyone engaging in activities the government or its corporate sponsors don't like.

This isn't a slippery slope. It's a lubed up vertical waterslide straight to weaponizing the acting regime's list of potential "threats" against citizens engaging in protected speech.

Don't just write your representatives. Call them. Demand that they oppose this bill, and vow to actively campaign for their opponents if they won't.

If this passes, then ultimately no speech is protected in the U.S. It is 100% unconstitutional, but do you really trust our current courts stacked with political operatives to shoot it down?

Read the bill and see related info here:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686

Go here to find your representatives and how to contact them about it:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/s686/comment

Here's more reading on the bill and how it affects us:

https://reason.com/2023/03/29/could-the-restrict-act-criminalize-the-use-of-vpns/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a3ddb/restrict-act-insanely-broad-ban-tiktok-vpns

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/restrict-act-tiktok-jail-time-vpn/

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1497307-the-restrict-act-supposedly-to-ban-tik-tok-will-probably-not-put-you-in-jail-for-using-a-vpn-it-mentions-even-very-futuristic-technologies/

🖐️
🎤

Oh 💩

I've disabled "content cache retention period" because I didn't realise that it was removing posts from other servers even if they are direct messages or boosts or replies in a thread etc.

It was set to 7 days so if you've seen stuff vanish for no obvious reason, this might be why.

Thanks to @s0 for tipping me off to this and the related PR
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/23261
(Although I think there needs to be a middle ground here not just a warning)
#instanceAdmin

Why is GOP going after debt ceiling under Biden after voting to raise it 3X under Trump?

Because they can’t go after:
•billionaire tax cuts—as small biz struggle
•80% ⬆️ corp profits—as workers starve
•inflation—as its dropped 10 mo straight

So as usual—GOP chooses hypocrisy

New: Amazon is selling Android TV boxes laced with malware, security researchers confirm.

When reached, an Amazon spokesperson declined to comment. The malware-infected models are still for sale.

More: https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/18/popular-android-tv-boxes-sold-on-amazon-are-laced-with-malware/

With Nazis and Patriot Front holding a 50-100 person "unannounced march" on Washington DC with police escort today, it's a good time to remind folks that when we did that in support of BLM, it was:
- announced weeks ahead of time,
- received permits to be there,
- labelled a riot anyway,
- and the police that showed up weren't there to escort us.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12080939/amp/White-supremacy-group-Patriot-march-Washington-D-C.html

WordPress drops Twitter social sharing due to API price hike

https://mashable.com/article/wordpress-drops-twitter-jetpack-social-sharing