Aside from the politics of the #coup and deconstruction of the #US, I had a thought while reading today's newsletter from #HeatherCoxRichardson quoting @Wired
“[a] 25-year-old engineer named Marko Elez, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies [SpaceX and X], has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government.”
Where did they find a 25-year-old who can program #COBOL?
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-4-2025
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-associate-bfs-federal-payment-system/
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As much as my heart breaks for the victims of the #CaliforniaWildFires , having seen that some of the #RichAndFamous were unable to get fire insurance, how long will it be before the #USTaxpayers are asked to pony up for the bill? It's always been #socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the #poor.
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[#]mastodon still hits hard, even without an #algorithm
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@pluralistic has great thoughts about the recent murder of #UnitedHealthCare #CEO #BrianThompson and how they relate to a story he wrote a while ago:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/09/radicalized/
However, #Anthem's retreat from changing how anaesthesia is billed, was one a rare "Enemy of my enemy" moment.
In this piece:
https://www.vox.com/policy/390031/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-limits-insurance
@Vox explains how "[the] policy would not have increased costs for their enrollees...it would have reduced payments for some of the most overpaid physicians in America."
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@Mer__edith posts on @wired about the coming #devolution, and I'm here for it.
"Next year will be Big Tech’s finale...Why the fall from grace? One reason is that the collateral consequences of the current Big Tech business model are too obvious to ignore. The list is old hat by now: centralization, #surveillance, information control. It goes on..."
[#]bigtech
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@stablehorde_generator draw for me two men and one beautiful woman drinking west coast ipa on Lake Constance, surrounded by boxes while moving into a new house. Style comic book
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Seen on the wall at a high school (gymnasium) in #BadWaldsee. Maybe the kids are gonna be all right. #Germany #Deutschland #Capitalism
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@stablehorde_generator draw for me a man and a woman sitting at a table outside at a cafe in Konstanz Germany style gothic
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Another great deep-dive from @pluralistic into #enshittification viewed through the lens of #Amazon Prime #video .
https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/03/mother-may-i/#minmax
Cory notes the use of signing up for mailing lists as a tactic in the spiral of fuckery:
"The industry says, "Will you allow this many 'sign up to our mailing list' interrupters, pop ups, pop unders, autoplaying videos and other stuff that users hate but shareholders benefit from" and the ad-blocker makes a counteroffer: "How about 'nah?'"
1/2
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I've been reading @pluralistic regularly for nearly a year now, and he's finally written something I don't agree with:
"Given the recent panic at the prospect that the Chinese government is using Tiktok to spy on Americans, it's pretty amazing that American commercial surveillance has escaped serious Congressional scrutiny."
https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/20/water-also-wet/
I surmise that the reason #TikTok receives scrutiny and the the American #surveillance industry receives none is exactly the same. 1/2
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Over at #opensecrets, #Tiktok is on record as having spent just a little north of $200k on lobbying:
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2023&id=F329850
whereas #Google has spent close to $17 million since 2014:
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2014&id=D000022008
[#]Facebook, $20 million since 2009:
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2020&id=D000033563
[#]Amazon, $20 million in 2023 alone!
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/amazon-com/summary?id=D000023883
[#]Surveilance is fine, as long as companies pay for the, ahem, right to do it. And I bet if TikTok were to slop into the feeding trough, it'd be fine, too. 2/2
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@stablehorde_generator draw for me film still, style 1940s science fiction and post-apocalyptic with zeppelin spaceship style: dystopian
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@stablehorde_generator draw for me film still, style by 1900s and science fiction and post-apocalyptic style dystopian
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In the bad old days of #Linux desktops, setting up a printer was really difficult and driver support was very patchy. Thankfully those days are behind us!
It seems like the new irritation is reliable login on #wifi guest #networks using a login page. I think I get about a 50% success rate. As a backup #USB tethering with my cell phone works fine, but it is still irritating.
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