Roo reaction

[description: kangaroo checking out a Halloween display is scared by the cackling skeleton -- you can see the roo running away far down the street]

#kangaroo #roo #animal #halloween #humor #humour

Resurecting the ghost of Reagan turns out to be unexpected political dynamite. Since Republicans no longer believe in facts, but they do worship deities, this puts them in the irreconcileable position of having two of their gods issuing unequivocal and diametrically opposite decrees. Feel like we may be hearing more from the Almighty Ronny in the days ahead.

France : un dimanche matin en cuisine

India Rose Crawford
#embroidery #food #animation #cooking #art

Knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein was not the monster.

Wisdom is understanding that Frankenstein WAS the monster.

Enlightenment is understanding that I, the person who brings this up at every chance in every conversation, am the monster.

Why does the government tackle benefit fraud and ignore tax cheats? Could it be prejudice?
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/10/23/why-does-the-government-tackle-benefit-fraud-and-ignore-tax-cheats-could-it-be-prejudice/
The National Audit Office issued a report yesterday on efforts being made by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to tackle benefit fraud, and the rate of errors being made in payments of what I call social security.

@futurebird @sewblue

If you think the stock market is bad, wait until you look at commodities markets.

Originally, you sold commodities (wheat, steel, whatever) when you produced it. It turns out that it’s quite useful to know when you plant a field of corn how much you will be able to sell it for. It’s also useful if, for example, you are building a skyscraper and it will take two years to know how much steel will cost in a year’s time, so you can budget properly.

So the idea of a futures market came about. Rather than buying steel that exists now, you buy the ability to buy steel at a fixed price in the future. Or the ability to sell corn at a fixed price in a year’s time. And now both producers and consumers can operate with significantly reduced risk. Having a guaranteed ability to sell X tons of grain at a known price next year lets you plan the amount that you want to plant, and maybe grow a bit more than you know you can sell because you won’t make a loss if you can sell more. So far, so sensible.

(Aside: a lot of the antitrust laws in the USA exist because of one person who managed to achieve an onion monopoly. This is an amazing story, and well worth reading, but it’s most fun because laws are written as changes to existing laws, so a lot of the antitrust laws in the USA are of the form ‘onions, and other things that are not onions’).

The problem with this model is that it lacks liquidity. A lot of people (especially on the consumer side) don’t want to plan so far ahead. They will buy wheat if it’s available, but might buy corn if it’s cheaper. They may buy steel if it’s available, but might just put of construction to next year if it’s too expensive. And that makes it harder to plan. To address this, you allow speculation.

Speculation was quite controversial. A speculator buys and sells commodity futures, but does not want the commodities. They are selling a service where they take risk in exchange for profit. If they expect the price of some commodity to be $110 next year, they might offer to buy it for $100. The producer gets a worse price than they would probably get if they didn’t trade futures, but they get to guarantee that price. If their production cost is $50, they make a big profit, guaranteed. The speculator then has to find someone willing to actually buy the commodity for over $100. If they do, they make money. If they don’t, they take the loss, the producer does not.

There were a lot of regulations around speculation, including the ratio of producers and consumers to speculators that could participate in the market. It was viewed as a necessary evil to increase liquidity. And liquidity is important. Markets don’t function without it. But then some smart and evil people managed to convince the government (pretty sure it was Reagan, it’s a fair bet that anything bad in market regulation was probably his fault) that speculation existed to reduce risk (true) and that reducing risk is good (true) so it’s important to relax regulations to reduce risk for speculators (false, the entire reason speculators exist is to take on risks from people in the real economy). So now there’s far more trading between speculators than between buyers and sellers of the actual commodity. There’s no shortage of liquidity, but the flip side of liquidity is volatility (both mean, roughly, that prices can move rapidly. If you want that to happen, it’s liquidity, if you don’t then it’s volatility).

A lot of the same thing happened with the stock market.

The Māori people descend from Polynesians whose ancestors emigrated from Taiwan to Melanesia between 3000-1000 BC, and then travelled east, reaching the Society Islands 1000 CE.

After a pause of 200 to 300 years, a new wave of exploration led to the discovery and settlement of New Zealand.

#archaeohistories

I'm sure many of you have heard by now that earlier this week, IU k*lled the print edition of its student paper, the IDS. The issue that was supposed to print this week contained criticism of the Whitten regime and IUs further slide into Fscist control, and they couldn't allow that to happen during Homecoming, when all the rich alumni are in town.

Enter Purdue! The Purdue student paper, The Exponent, owns its own presses. Yesterday, in an act of tremendous solidarity with their biggest rival school, they printed the forbidden issue of the IDS. They then drove it to Bloomington overnight and stocked all of the IDS boxes on campus, just in time for Homecoming.

Solidarity is what makes us stronger, and solidarity will be what ultimately allows us to triumph, if we can ever truly get it together. I hope everyone has a fun, safe day if they're going out today, and I hope we can think about what acts of solidarity we can begin taking to really make this movement MOVE - beyond a permitted expression of upset into more active resistance.

-Sara Whitmer

Because we need good news: Gary Larson is drawing again (he bought a tablet, taught himself how to use it, and suddenly drawing was fun again): https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff/

About syntax highlighting https://tonsky.me/blog/syntax-highlighting/

My spouse and I now have an interesting experiment going: which enhances your 5G reception more, getting a Covid shot and a flu shot in the same arm on the same day, or getting one in each arm? Confounding factors: we have different length arms, and I'm not sure which is a better match for 5G wavelengths. Also, I use a computer a lot more, which means that the extra microchips I've just been injected with will help me a lot more.

I’m looking through my Macintosh user guide (the booklet that accompanied my 1984 Macintosh) for the first time in a while, and I’m a little obsessed with this graphic explaining scrolling.

Alt...

A page from the “Learning Macintosh” chapter of the Macintosh user guide. It says “Most of the time, a window on the desktop can't show you the entire directory or document all at once, even when you've made the window very large. There's often more information than can fit in the window at one time.” With a MacPaint-generated papyrus scroll featuring a square demonstrating the visible content.

½

Alt...

*Assortment of configurations of a half-filled water glass* Optipolygrafixs) half-full Pessimist: (it’s) half-emply Realist: it’s a glass of water. Physicist: (water) liquid, (void) gas Surrealist: *the water is split vertically* Relativist: It's both half-empty & half-full Utopist: *the half-glass of water is split with the water on-top* Skepticist: It's not water Artist: *stir water with paintbrush* via: polygrafix

tupperware

Alt...

pie chart of time spent using Tupperware: there's a small blue slice labeled storing fresh food. 20% or so is green and says storing rotten food. and the rest is red and it says searching for the right fucking lid. 

We’re getting to the point where as a tech company all you have to do is not be fascist or actively sabotage your own product with AI bullshit. You don’t even have to be good, you just have to not actively be bad

Inside of you are two wolves and now you're questioning the life choices that lead to you agreeing to shoot this Teen Wolf parody porn in the first place.

I laughed

there's a high correlation between having gay sex and writing good software; so my number 1 tip to people aspiring to write good software would be: have more gay sex

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

(Although it should be noted, the ICEBlock app is not quite the great equalizer it has been advertised as being. Further, that particular app has not been specifically shown to factor into the DHS claims of doxxing.

Also, we all knew this time was coming, so make sure that those of you who have the app don't delete it, because Apple is not removing it from your phones if you have it already installed.)

#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

Although, previously CNN used to be rather impartial and middle-of-the-road with their commentary, they are leaning more partisanly right. (Perhaps they are following the other mega-broadcaster playbook of bootlicking to secure favorable approval terms future mega-mergers.)

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

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

Alt...

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…”