Notices by Ciara (ciarani@mastodon.green)

@aral @overholt Worth every cent

My favourite thing in the whole Fediverse is when I get a notification that someone has edited a toot I favourited or boosted months ago. Like, something in that toot has been bugging them for half a year. A comma that could've been a semi-colon. A spelling mistake they belatedly spotted. Some good information they wish they'd put in the Alt Text. And thanks to the magic of Mastodon, they can just fix it now, all these months later. I feel happy for them, knowing they can sleep soundly again.

So many ordinary people in the United States are taking to the streets, turning up to protest at politicians’ meetings, contacting anyone of influence they can, are organising and doing and acting. But the media (there and here) are mostly ignoring them. The revolution will not be televised, it seems. And it’s distressing to see so little (if any) institutional backing or protection for the people. It's not new, but it's alarming that the US doesn't have a functional organised opposition party.

@aral This has made me think, not for the first time: our species doesn't deserve all that the planet and evolution has given us. We deserve what's coming and I hope all the other species are very happy and thrive on Earth once we're gone.

Casual conversations at ordinary social gatherings these days make us sound like conspiracy theorists.

‘What’ll happen first, an American civil war or a world war?’

‘Who can recommend a good solar-powered powerbank?’

‘It’s hard to store 27 litres of water and emergency food in a small flat.'

‘Are we still worried about the climate or will the world order collapse first?’

‘How much cash did the government say we should keep stashed?’

‘Ooh wait till you see my new hand-crank radio!’

Another sign that a 15-minute city is a lively mixed-use place: a hardware store opened on a main city square in the shadow of the cathedral.

It's the kind of flagship space where you’d usually find a designer bag store. It rents drills, sack trolleys and tools by the hour. That can only make commercial sense when a city centre is not just for businesses and the rich, but for ordinary people living just around the corner in ordinary homes.

#Aarhus
#LiveableCities

A visitor from abroad was surprised to discover that you can borrow an electric cargo bike at the hardware store if you need to carry bulky stuff home.

The first two hours are free. After that, you pay 99 kr. (about €13) per hour. Another nice sign, I think, of the advantages of walkable, bikable cities.

#Aarhus #Bike
#LiveableCities

There is too much Monday today. It had been a long week even before lunchtime. I can't believe it's still Monday. So much Monday. Here's a picture of a horse I met once.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, entry to the Gender Museum in Aarhus will be free all day on March 8th. Events include:

- a guided tour of the exhibition ‘How Dare You: Gender, Action and Climate Crisis'

- a salon with equal-rights activists

- an exhibition of activist banners

- drop-in crochet

- a singalong with protest songs from the Rødstrømpernes (‘Red Stockings’) campaigns for free abortion, equal rights and equal pay.

#Aarhus #InternationalWomensDay

https://konmuseum.dk/kalender/kvindernes-internationale-kampdag-2025/

“We’ve got to be a little aggressive with some of these folks here. Your voice is meaningless right now. I can talk over all of you.”

Said the Republican M.C. on stage as the event in a school hall continued while three unidentified men grabbed a woman from the audience, tied her up and dragged her away because she had spoken against plans to repeal Medicaid.

Pure Brownshirts. While police and politicians looked on. Chilling that it's not even headline news.

https://cdapress.com/news/2025/feb/22/chaos-erupts-at-kcrcc-legislative-town-hall/

#USPol

#SilentSunday

I thought the library looked nice in the luscious blue twilight so I snapped a photo. As I did, this swan silently appeared out of nowhere. I assume it had just sailed out of a storybook in the library and that it does this every night when it thinks we're not looking.

#Libraries
#Bibliotek
#Aarhus

A new-to-me Mastodon phenomenon: fake accounts with AI-glowy fake pictures of older white men whose bios typically mention their wives and children, their military service, and an instruction to God to bless America. I've just blocked my fourth in two days. It's so irritating and dull and unFediversy.

More than once, someone giving me (kindly meant!) advice on what I 'just' need to do has casually recommended that I use a 'spare laptop' while working out how to install the 117 mysterious software-thingies. It reminds me that we're on the same side, yet talking about enshittification in different languages. Lots of us don't have 'spare' computers or phones. We use computers like ovens or showers. They're functional everyday devices. If they don't work, we want a plumber, not to learn plumbing.

Many people just use their devices as tools to type words and use the internet. We aren't interested in or good at software. Spending hours of our leisure time learning how to set up and maintain something new or different on a computer is as interesting to us as unblocking drains or learning a sport we hate. Please let us moan about AI enshittification or express a wish for a Digital Deshittification subscription service without yelling 'do it yourself' and 'Linux!' at us every time.

I’m trying to put something off, so here’s a picture of a door.

#Procrastitooting

The only digital subscription service I want is a subscription to a real-life IT person in my real-life local community who will go into my phone and computer once a month to remove all the new AI features and other enshittifying features that companies have sneaked onto my devices against my will since the last time.

Seriously. If AI is so fanbloodytastic, why do they have to sneak it in and hide any off-switches?

#SilentSunday

How do I hate thee, AI? Let me count the ways.
I hate thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of my mind as I try and fail to find ways that turn off Copilot and predictive text and stop you changing the right words I typed into wrong words
And oh, how I hate thee for the ways you waste the planet’s energy and my time.
I hate thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my grown-up's faith that we should never have moved on from plain text.

Am dreaming of a day when some brave soul in some IT department in some back office somewhere stands up and shouts: "No! I am not going to be a part of this any more! No, I will NOT programme that button to say 'Maybe later' instead of 'No'. No, I will NOT programme this to install generative AI anywhere unless we include a gigantic 'Do You Consent?' button and a 'Remove This' one-click button in a gigantically prominent place."