Notices by David Njoku (davidnjoku@mastodon.world)

Sometimes I need to remind myself that while I despise the Russian govt, I have no beef with the Russian people.

Growing up in the small town of Jos, Nigeria, I devoured Russian literature - Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Pushkin, Chekhov and the likes. I loved it.

But those dudes were all from the 19th century. With the exception of Nabokov, I don't think I know any contemporary Russian authors.

Is the culture dead, or am I just out of the loop?

#literature

@mountdiscovery The race is this weekend?
Fantastic. Looks like I'm going to experience my first Formula E race 😃

@roadriverrail

While we're busy laughing at the fools who voted for the face-eating leopards, let's take a minute to remember all those who warned about this happening - but are still having their faces eaten.

And, following Trump's phone call with Putin, that seems to include Ukraine and all of Europe.

I can't see how the Western alliance is going to survive 4 years of this man. America is no longer a reliable friend - or, possibly, a friend at all.

@evan I'm guessing that the overwhelming majority of people who voted yes are American. I can understand why; you dislike Trump, hate that he's president, and wish there was a way the rest of the world could fix the problem your compatriots have caused by voting for him.

But we can't. America is the biggest, strongest country in human history. We hate Trump too, but using our military against him will be suicidal.

Sorry, you're going to have to fix this problem yourself.

@futurebird I remember a David Attenborough documentary about plants from a few years ago. They sped up plants' movements and it made everything they do seem intentional. Sped up, you can see how vines reach around "looking" for branches to climb, for instance.

It revealed - or seemed to reveal - that plants think and act, and the only reason we don't realise it is that they operate on a different timescale from us.

@wiredfire I'd love the honesty if people said, "I want an LLM that has the same biases as me." Instead we pretend that ours are good and theirs is bad.

A couple of years ago, Dall-E and Bard refused to generate images of Black doctors. They seemed to think that doctors had to be white. There were barely any complaints - until Google overcorrected and started generating images of Black founding fathers. And that made all the front pages. Hmm, strange.

I'm a little tired of people complaining that DeepSeek won't answer questions about Tiananmen Square. Where was this energy when OpenAI refused to answer questions about US politics? Try asking Gemini about Donald Trump's felonies and see what it says.

(I am not equating Chinese bad things with Western bad things. But I am tired of the intentional blindness that we all sometimes have.)

#DeepSeek #OpenAI #Gemini

All of us non-Americans should make cryptic posts about this super-amazing thing going viral on TikTok right now. Y'know, just to give them FOMO.

This is a long article so I'll give you some crib notes:

* The majority of people do not think we live in a racist society.

* (PS: The majority of people in this society are white.)

* Only half of white America thinks racism against Black people is widespread.

* (PS: half of white America thinks racism against white people is an issue.)

#blackMastodon #racism

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jan/18/keon-west-science-of-racism-book-extract?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Mastodon does not have an algori-

@mekkaokereke I used to volunteer with a homeless charity over here in Britain. One thing I learned from the experience is that we're all little more than 2 strokes of bad luck away from homelessness.

Yes, some homeless people are addicts. For some, the addiction led to the homelessness; for others, the homelessness led to the addiction. But you're right, they're us - people with homes are not superior to people without them.

@mountdiscovery I missed it? Shit. I thought the first race was in January.

Another problem I have is that I listen to races on the radio rather than watch them and I haven't found the station that broadcasts Formula E.

Was it a good race?

Every time I happen to glance at my phone and the time is 12:34 I feel a stab of excitement; I want to grab a stranger and tell them, or take a screenshot for prosperity.

I am 52 years old.

@mekkaokereke My pancake game is weak. But my kids don't know any better and so they demand pancakes every weekend. I don't know if that's a win - or just a fail masquerading as a win.

I almost never wish death on anyone, but I wouldn't shed any tears if I hear that Assad has been compromised to a permanent end.

#Syria

Assad's British-born wife, Asma, still retains her British citizenship despite helping to head a regime that has spent the last decade murdering its own people with chemical weapons.

Tell me again why Shemima Begum had to lose *her* citizenship.

(I know I should stop going on about what happened to that girl, but I don't think I ever will. I don't even like her, but what Britain did to her was wrong.)

@dansup Give me a Soulja Boy song to check out. I honestly only thought he did that one song.

@dansup I don't take any of the accusations seriously; I never do with rap beefs. I just mean that Not Like Us was a brilliant song that Drake didn't have a response to.

@dansup So much to unpack here:
1. I don't think the Kanye v 50 thing was real beef. That was just a marketing ploy to sell CDs.

Not beef, but still a battle for the soul of hip-hop. And I agree that Ye won that (he also won the sales one too.)

2. I'm not a big k.dot or Drake fan, but I disagree that Drake won.

Yes, he sells more records - and always will - but k.dot won the beef.

@dansup You can't just mention rap politics and then move on 😃 Tell me your best hot take.