Notices by Sean Kleefeld (skleefeld@mastodon.social)

Well, if Hegseth manages to personally piss off most of the US military's top brass with this stunt and get them to subconsciously if not consciously disregard him entirely just on GP, I won't be upset. I mean, if you're trying to set up a fascist government, I'd think you'd want to ingratiate yourself to the military, not alienate them, but what do I know?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/09/26/hegseth-generals-meeting-warrior-speech/

#3GoodThings

1. Got a Muppet News Flash reporter Kermit action figure yesterday, and was quickly/easily able to mod him into a private investigator
2. Was able to fairly easily convert a battery-powered light strip to one I could connect to a smart plug
3. Brief concern over possible lead in our water pipes, but the city website provided much more detailed info than I was anticipating & quickly found we have no such issues

I'll point out -- because news media are PHENOMENALLY bad at mentioning this -- that recessions can only be declared retroactively BY DEFINITION. Meaning that when one is officially declared, you've already been in it for at least six months.

I'd bet we're already in one right now.

https://www.newsweek.com/recession-probability-surges-93-ubs-2125230

These numbers would be from the Labor Department who lost their chief economist when he reported numbers DJT didn't like last month? So these numbers are ones that are artificially inflated so DJT won't get pissy?
Oof.
https://apnews.com/article/jobs-economy-unemployment-trump-firing-f686eab61f7d6b702ca10b12b0250498

If Victor was Frederick Frankenstein's grandfather, and had been dead long enough to have become a skeleton, who owned the Frankenstein estate as the movie started? If it was either of Frederick's parents, why are they never mentioned?

And if Frau Blücher was Victor's girlfriend... how old is she anyway?!?

#DebateAMovieExtraneously
#HashTagGames

Do you want giant mutant kaiju wasps? Because this is how you get giant mutant kaiju wasps.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/science/radioactive-wasps-nuclear-savannah-river.html?unlocked_article_code=1.a08.E9c7.5IlVJoisFgbR&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

“It is unprecedented for the leader of FEMA to be absent from the public response to a disaster that has killed over 100 Americans.”
https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/fema-david-richardson-missing-texas-flood-response

It's kind of bonkers to realize that "muck monster from the swamp" is an entire comic book genre. (And yes, I know I'm not even highlighting the more famous ones like Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, and The Heap!)
#Comics

When I was a kid, WMMS used to kick off Friday evenings with a guy screaming, "Friday! FRIIIDAY!! FRIIII-AI-AI-AI-AI-AIIIIII (breath) Day!" and then launched into this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Tcggo45TQ

On this day in 1967, Loving v Virginia was decided and rendered all US laws banning interracial marriage as unconstitutional. I'm over a decade into a marriage that could not have existed before then, and I remain grateful to the Lovings for standing up for what's right.

Ha! I actually got cited as a source on the Wikipedia entry for Lois Lane!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Lane

Dropped a "... and knowing is half the battle" joke in a meeting just now, and it went completely over everybody's heads.

If anyone needs me, I'll be crumbling into dust over here. 💀

A brief history of Mexican political cartoons...
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/a-history-of-mexican-political-cartoons/

@multiverseofbadness @thudfactor Wait -- I didn't know it *could* be implemented thoughtfully!!

@RickiTarr The creative dissonance that always struck me was that these books have the same author...

#ACAB
#DefundThePolice

https://truthout.org/articles/fbi-and-police-raid-homes-of-pro-palestine-student-activists-in-michigan/

Oh, look -- *yet another* UBI test that worked as intended with none of the down-sides critics worry about. It's almost as if every one of these literally hundreds of UBI experiments all telling us the same thing are on to something.

https://www.wbez.org/cook-county/2025/04/08/cook-county-leaders-are-touting-the-success-of-their-guaranteed-income-pilot-program

When I was a kid, WMMS used to kick off Friday evenings with a guy screaming, "Friday! FRIIIDAY!! FRIIII-AI-AI-AI-AI-AIIIIII (breath) Day!" and then launched into this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Tcggo45TQ

#3goodthings

1. The custom housing I made for one of my motion sensors works better than I expected; helps hide the sensor & prevents it from being triggered by just the door itself
2. Got a note from my brother that he'll be in town in May; will be the first time I've seen him in maybe 3 years
3. No real agenda for the weekend; should be able to relax a bit

@futurebird Years ago, I worked at Kenner and did some of the packaging design for the Sparkle Spirograph. I had to create my own designs on the computer because the actual spirograph art with the glitter didn't reproduce well enough. What I found interesting is that they had their engineers reverse calculate my design to ensure that it could indeed be created using an actual Spirograph. (I did have to change my design slightly; I think I mis-measured the inner diameter & had one loop too many?)