Trump’s shutdown threatens healthcare for 22 million, his speech to military leaders raises alarms, and ICE’s massive Chicago raid sweeps up U.S. citizens, including children. This week in the news: https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/october-3-weekly-news-roundup

Office 365 is finally catching up with the glassy icons Macs had a quarter century ago.

The canceling of ICEBlock is more evidence, were any needed, that the Web is the platform of the future, the only platform without a controlling vendor. Anything controversial should be available through a pure browser interface.

#USpolitics

Apple bends to Trump admin demand to remove ICE-tracking apps like ICEBlock
Apple nixes tracking apps after Trump admin claimed they put ICE agents at risk.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/apple-bends-to-trump-admin-demand-to-remove-ice-tracking-apps-like-iceblock/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#RFKJr fires top #NIH scientist weeks after she files #whistleblower complaint

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo’s complaint reportedly involved the Trump admin’s #hostility toward #vaccines

The US *#health* secretary, RFKJr, has fired a top scientist at the National Institutes of #Health (NIH) just 3 weeks after she had filed a whistleblower complaint against the Trump admin relating to its hostility towards vaccines, according to a report.

#science #medicine #OrchestratedShutdown
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/03/rfk-jr-jeanne-marrazzo-nih-fired

HBO Max subscribers lose access to CNN livestream on November 17
WBD is banking on people paying for a dedicated CNN streaming service.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/hbo-max-subscribers-lose-access-to-cnn-livestream-on-november-17/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

Video Clip: Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) | Shutdown Comes Down To The Price Americans Have To Pay For Their Healthcare | 0:50

https://youtu.be/JfGOP63vLFs?si=BPcGpNqD3e4X5XgA

"In my state, premiums are going to go up by $475 a month. 109,000 people in the state of Arizona will potentially lose their health insurance. That's what all this is about."

@renewedresistance

Did he share a “wonderful secret” with Donald Trump as well?

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Photo of two X posts. The first post by Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski ) reads: "Trump’s former 'spiritual advisor.'" The second post by NBC News (@NBCNews ) states: "BREAKING: Former Texas megachurch pastor Robert Morris pleads guilty to sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s and will serve 6 months in prison." The post includes a photo of Robert Morris and a link to nbcnews.com. Both posts feature profile pictures and verification badges.

Hmm, apparently my brake system *was* sludgy, glad to have the local shop flush it (they said it might need more flushing, but they said I need to drive it around a bit more first to dislodge more of the crud). #sludge

What you think your brain is supposed to do versus what it actually does.

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A person is talking to their brain and saying “hello friend your job is to keep me happy“ the brain replies “nah, my job is to protect you from real and imagined threats.” that night the person lies in bed awake saying to themselves “I’m home it’s bedtime. I am totally safe” brain replies “OK but what if…”

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, here is a list of houses built purely out of spite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spite_house

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Alameda spite house at Broadway & Crist St, Alameda, California. It is on the corner of a lot and is long and very narrow, and looks like it's blocking the view from the side of the house next to it which is extremely close to it. It's light green and has 2 stories with many sizes of different windows.

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"The Skinny House in Boston, Massachusetts, was reputedly built by a man who inherited only a small patch of land, to spite his neighbor by blocking his view." It is an extremely narrow 4 story dwelling crammed in between 2 larger buildings

I don’t care how bad you think you are at HTML (and CSS). A website that you wrote the HTML yourself is infinitely better than any template-based website you pulled from somewhere else.

If you think it’s going to be too much work, I promise you, fiddling with a template-based solution is going to—somehow—be more work, especially to maintain as the framework, template, or font changes without you knowing.

Write it yourself. One of my all-time favorite websites is this: https://vitalesbakery.com

I still think it’s backwards that every mass shooter owning an AR-15 is considered a right while their victims’ healthcare is considered a privilege.

Government services are necessary services offered to citizens. They shouldn't have to be profitable to survive.

(Can be applied to multiple organisations)

Mount Rushmore ... as(s) seen from Canada

#lego #netzfund

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as Bild zeigt eine Lego-Darstellung von Mount Rushmore, mit einer humorvollen Variation. Im Vordergrund befindet sich eine grüne, steinige Landschaft mit mehreren Lego-Figuren, die als Hüften und Beine dargestellt sind, anstatt der tatsächlichen Porträts der Präsidenten. Diese Figuren sind in einer Reihe angeordnet und sitzen auf einem felsigen Hügel. Kleine grüne Bäume sind um die Figur gruppiert. Vor der Darstellung steht ein Schild mit der Aufschrift "MOUNT RUSHMORE (CANADIAN SIDE)". Die Hintergrundumgebung ist einigermaßen unscharf, mit einem professionellen Umfeld, das auf eine Ausstellung oder einen Workshop hinweist.

😆😆😆

#archaeohistories

Ditch DocuSign! Use DocuSeal. It is a free, open source secure, and efficient tool to handle all your documents. Simply create PDF forms that anyone can fill and sign online using easy, mobile optimized tool and much more. Give it a try https://github.com/docusealco/docuseal

🤯

I just learned what a Billabong is! (oxbow lake in Australia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billabong

#billabong

"Back to work today, forgot my pass so locked bike outside Cannon Street station. Left work at 6pm to find just the cut lock and no bike, resigned to never seeing my trusty stead again asked the station if they have cameras. A guy appeared waving at me, asked me to put the code into my cut lock. He replied ‘I have your bike’ with a smile I will never forget!! His name is Abdul Muneeb and he works for South Eastern Railways, he was on a break and saw a guy bolt cut the lock and challenged him to give it back, he then took it inside and waited 4 hours after his shift finished to personally make sure I got my bike back. The world needs more Abdul’s, he is a legend of a man and a credit to his employer."
Story Credit: Steve Farmer

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The picture is of a middle Eastern looking man smiling and holding a bike. In the foreground is a cut bike lock.

My 9 year old and his classmates have started using “that’s AI” to mean “I don’t believe you.”

Me: we’re having dinosaur meat for dinner

Kiddo: that’s AI

😁 ✨

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"Be sure to bring up politics at Thanksgiving dinner. It's going to save you money on Christmas gifts. Follow me for more holiday tips."

Unicorns just leveled up.

HelloWorld salad:

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Photo of a food package branded Amazon Kitchen LOREM IPSUM DOLOR & CHEDDAR With lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, sed diam ek 3 nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt. PERISHABLE, KEEP REFRIGERATED

This has got to be one of the best. In Wales, UK, there is a legal requirement for road signs to be in both English and Welsh. So, in this case, the official of the Highways department emailed the English wording to the translator and, after receiving a reply, proceeded to have the sign made and installed.

Unfortunately, a few weeks later, Welsh-speaking drivers began to call up to point out that the Welsh reads..... "I am currently out of the office. Please submit any work to the translation team."

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The picture is of a road sign. The top part is in English and the bottom part in Welsh. The English part says, "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only."

BTW could point out that English-speaking Afroboricuas fought side-by-side with African Americans in their regiments during World War 2. or i could default to lauding the Air Force’s all-Black Tuskeegee Air Men.

why do so when i can talk about an AIR WOMAN who became one of the most successful spies for France, UK & USA whilst still working as, for all intents and purposes of burlesque and cabaret, the most famous stripper in the world?

this post is about the #antifa AF, Josephine Baker

🧵…

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1920s burlesque goddess and fashion icon, Josephine Baker, posing in a silk strapless dress with a gold chain & pearls necklace, 5-string pearl wrist cuff and chandelier earrings. her hair is in the Eaton haircut style and she has deep kohl eyeliner and dark lips makeup typical of the vamp style (some call it the flapper style these days)

Meta has used back-to-school pictures of schoolgirls
to advertise one of its social media platforms to a 37-year-old man,
in a move parents described as “outrageous” and “upsetting”.

The man noticed that posts encouraging him to “get Threads”,
Mark Zuckerberg’s rival to Elon Musk’s X,
were being dropped into his Instagram feed
❌ featuring embedded posts of uniformed girls as young as 13 with their faces visible and, in most cases, their names.

The children’s images were used by Meta after their parents had posted them on Instagram to mark their return to school.
⚠️The parents were unaware that Meta’s settings permitted it to do this.
🔥One mother said her account was set to private -- but the posts were automatically cross-posting to Threads where they were visible.
Another said she posted the picture to a public Instagram account.
💥The posts of their children were highlighted to the stranger as “suggested threads"
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/20/parents-outraged-meta-uses-photos-schoolgirls-ads-man?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Hello fediverse! We are Cambridge Community Kitchen, a mutual aid project based in a squatted pub in central Cambridge, UK.

We cook around 300 hot vegan meals every Thursday and every Sunday, 52 weeks of the year, and we deliver to literally anybody who asks, for free, across the city.

Nobody owns CCK. We have no managers. Nobody has a job title, or decision making power over any part of the operation. And it Works™.

#introduction #introductionpost #Cambridge #mutualaid #solidaritynotcharity

vi FTW

However, if the accessibility option to "Reduce Transparency" is not enabled, the text remains white when scrolling.

IT'S OFFICIAL: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York State, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and New York City have formed the Northeast Public Health Collaborative.

The collaborative will issue their own vaccine recommendations and coordinate public health efforts.

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Map of Regional Public Health Coalitions Northeast Public Health Collaborative (Blue) West Coast Health Alliance (Yellow)

#Jokes #Humour #Humor

A lost dog wanders into the jungle. A lion spots him from a distance and thinks, “Huh… never seen one of these before. Looks edible.

The lion starts charging. The dog freaks out until he notices some bones nearby. Thinking fast, he blurts out:
“Mmm… that was some tasty lion meat!”

The lion slams the brakes: “Wait… this little dude eats lions?! Nope, I’m out.”

But high up in a tree, a monkey saw the whole thing. He scampers over to the lion and spills the truth, hoping to score points. The lion growls: “Hop on my back. We’ll get him together.”

They storm back toward the dog. The dog sees them coming, panics harder… then yells:
“Where the hell is that monkey? I told him to bring me another lion an hour ago!

A kind Canadian sent me this and we will see how it holds up

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A flowchart titled "How to Measure Things Like a Canadian," guiding users through measurement choices based on categories like speed, distance, temperature, mass, and volume. It differentiates between metric and imperial units based on specific questions related to the measurement context

#Guns #Choice #Women #alt #Opinions #2ndammendment

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“If you don’t own a gun, you can’t have an opinion on the Second Amendment.” Cool take! Now do uteruses.

Something BDSM also taught me is that religious experiences aren’t about Sky Daddies, they’re about ritual and people unified in the ritual. So like the whole singing hymns and shit is just How Concerts Be When You’re Into Them and not the Divine Breeze cupping your balls or whatever.

Bill Whitehead

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Cartoon of two dinosaurs laying happily on their backs on a grassy hillside, with clouds in the background. One points at the sky and says, "That one looks like a giant asteroid." A shadow over them suggests that it actually is a giant asteroid.

Little known fact, but all phones have a little speaker at the top that you can hold to your ear. It means you can have a private conversation without the whole world listening to it

@miffyhelen @TheBreadmonkey

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English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks thew over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar,

(But if you want lightweight, Sumatra on Windows, and Zathura/MuPDF for *nix, and I think the latter can do Mac, too.)

(Looking for Zathura on macOS brought out Skim, which I had completely forgotten about: https://sourceforge.net/projects/skim-app/ )

#3138 - Dimensional Lumber Tape Measure

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Single-panel comic titled “Dimensional Lumber Tape Measure.” Top left text: “Dimensional lumber sizes are tricky. A ‘2x4’ is actually 1½" by 3½", and a ‘1x8’ is ¾" by 7⅞".” To the right, a lumber labeled “2x4” with dimension arrows: vertical '1½"' and horizontal '3½"'. Below left, two yellow tape measures: the first labeled “12'”; the second labeled “12'*”. To the right of them, text: “If you know someone into carpentry or woodworking, get them our dimensional lumber tape measure.” Middle: a long yellow tape labeled “Normal tape measure” showing inches 1 through 9 with tick marks. Below it, another long yellow tape labeled “Dimensional lumber tape measure” showing inches 1 through 10 with tick marks that are slight more narrow than those of the “normal tape measure”. Bottom caption: “Don’t tell them you got it — just leave it in their toolbox. They’ll appreciate the surprise when all their measurements work out!” Hidden text: "A person with two watches is never sure what time it is, especially if I got them one of the watches."

19 Episodes of Fractured Fairy Tales, From the Moose and Squirrel Show

https://youtu.be/pEHUMV0HjBM

#fandom #cartoon #tv #amusing