Notices by Rod Hilton (rodhilton@mastodon.social), page 5

Young Progressives: "We won't vote for Genocide Joe no matter what! His opponent may be worse but we're sitting out the election in protest!"

(time passes)

Young Progressives: "Why is Joe Biden adopting conservative policies on the border in order to sway centrist voters?! He's not even trying to court my vote!"

Pro-tip for first-time voters: if you publicly state as a group that you're not voting for someone no matter what, you left the table.

@Migueldeicaza Yeah, exactly. He's courting conservatives because a good enough chunk of progressives have bowed out of the election.

@Migueldeicaza @swelljoe I had a "red line" issue too and it was "supported the illegal invasion of Iraq"

That's why I didn't vote for Clinton in 2016 and abstained from that election.

I was made to regret that decision, and I wish I hadn't made that choice. Now I don't have single-issue red lines anymore.

@Migueldeicaza @swelljoe 🙄 I don't support genocide, I'm against what Netanyahu is doing, and I wish Biden would stop helping.

I also recognize the reality of the election, that Netanyahu is HOPING for a Trump victory, that this would remove any and all pressure for a ceasefire, as well as implement a number of backwards policies in other areas.

3rd party votes aren't viable, there basically IS no vote against genocide on the table right now. It sucks but that's the reality before me.

@Migueldeicaza @swelljoe fundamentally politics in the US is a fight between two parties for control.

One party is made up of people who agree on very little fundamentally, and will abstain from voting if a candidate doesn't pass their litmus test, and everyone has different litmus tests. Herding cats.

The other party is so far in the opposite direction that there is literally no test, you could be a convicted felon and they'll all still show up and vote just the same. Herding sheep.

@Migueldeicaza @swelljoe Democrats, far more than Republicans, are a coalition of people with wildly different goals for the country. The more of us have breaking-point issues, the harder it is to turn 46% into 51% without losing a different 5%.

Sounds like people just wanted him to accept that he's going to lose, I guess? I don't know, there's a vein of "not accepting reality" that seems to cut through a lot of this discussion.

@Migueldeicaza @swelljoe again, agreed. But I'm sort of not surprised he's adopting policies farther to the right of what I'd like to see, given how much of the progressive left has very publicly stated he's crossed their red line and cannot get their vote. Which is all I'm saying in the post. I don't know what we all expected him to do, there's no electoral incentive to appeal to a block that refuses to vote for him.

Difficult to imagine a level of desperation greater than "post hole"

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/3/24170352

ChatGPT is down, wonder how many "now with AI!" integrations just got broken. Logitech was stuffing OpenAI stuff into its mouse drivers last time I looked so I imagine the blast radius here might be substantial.

How many days do you suppose we have before Dropbox announces they are selling everyone's documents to OpenAI?

I'm still holding out hope that Barron turns out to be a Ron Reagan Jr figure who fights against everything his father stood for.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68992293

When Jack first started talking about Bluesky, in the very early phases it involved the blockchain. I remember suggesting that I thought the reason he liked the idea was that he could theoretically build a version of Twitter where no tweets could ever be deleted, and therefore there'd be no pressure on him to moderate or ban anyone. He wanted to not have the power.

People always thought I misunderstood Jack's motivations but it turns out I was right about him all along.

https://www.engadget.com/jack-dorsey-claims-bluesky-is-repeating-all-the-mistakes-he-made-at-twitter-234326121.html

Same energy #Necronomicon

Dunno if some dipshit will call me posting this FUD again, a mere week after the last time I said it. But once again: if you build your business on top of anything offered by Google in virtually any way, you are in "fool me seventeen times" territory here. No company has indicated its disdain for the developer ecosystem to the degree Google systematically does.

Everything that doesn't pull the revenue of Ads is eventually killed, and nothing pulls the revenue of Ads.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/google-fit-apis-get-shut-down-in-2025-might-break-fitness-devices/

Honestly at this point I don't understand how anyone puts Google-operated services on their critical path in basically any capacity. I guess it makes sense to target Android given the ubiquity but aside from that I think you just have to assume any Google tech you invest in is going to just vanish one day without warning.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/29/google-lays-off-staff-from-flutter-dart-python-weeks-before-its-developer-conference/

The right simply does not understand how the left views the world, I'm convinced.

So frequently they will post this unhinged "gotcha" shit where they think that if they just apply what's happening to someone on the right to someone on the left that we'll just fold once we see the same standard applied to "our side" and every single time everyone on the left is just like, yeah, sounds good.

loser shit

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/3/24120602/x-free-premium-verified-blue-checkmark

Right now on X, there is a 'Key Bridge' trending topic, Francis Scott is missing. It's trending under "Politics"

The entire feed is:

1. This is Buttigieg/Obama/Biden's fault
2. Conspiracy theories about how this is similar to the Obama-produced 'Leave the World Behind' movie
3. Something about the missing/dead workers being Hispanic that I honestly can't even follow
4. Accusations that this is DEI's fault for "lowering standards"

What an absolute irredeemable shit hole that place has become.

Used to be that if a giant bridge collapsed, you'd be able to hop on Twitter and read all about it, the rescue efforts, what happened, all as information was being uncovered. It was the place to go for a major news story, people would be tweeting new info and it would all be gathered under the heading 'Francis Scott Key Bridge'...

Someone with a blue checkmark and a history of white supremacist Likes on Twitter is going to convince Elon to buy out Truth Social

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/29/truth-social-lawsuit-trump-media-founders/