Notices by LostInCalifornia (lostincalifornia@spinster.xyz)

@sun @feld @thendrix Incidentally, that's not how it works.

There is a contract awarded to a large bank in Texas to issue debit cards for SS recipients who don't have bank accounts.

@sun @Leyonhjelm @polarisera Really? How AMAZING!!!

I was working with tech before Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. In fact, before he went to Harvard.

What's provably wrong is that a large number of 150 year olds are receiving checks and no one noticed.

Unless of course you have the real Trump Derangement Syndrome, and you believe anything the man says.

@Leyonhjelm @polarisera And i bET yoU'Ve wORKED WiTH sYStEMS aS lARGE As sOcIAL sECURiTY!!!

Or even the interfaces for ACA, which the tech industry totally fucked up by not consulting those with core competencies on what would be required.

@Leyonhjelm @polarisera Legacy IT systems exist, little ones.

@Leyonhjelm @sun @polarisera Trump appointee says you're both liars.

https://www.syracuse.com/us-news/2025/02/new-social-security-chief-contradicts-claims-that-millions-of-dead-people-are-getting-payouts.html

As he moved to cut foreign aid, he and Elon Musk alleged widespread waste and abuse, although they offered little evidence to back up their claims and may simply disagree with how the money was being spent.

With that in mind, consider what the Trump administration is now doing to Social Security, seeding the idea, which is not backed up by known facts, that millions of dead people are collecting payments.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/trump-and-musk-set-their-sights-on-social-security-by-spreading-rumors/ar-AA1zjqPI

@polarisera And there are just TONS of 150 year old people getting checks every single month!!!

HOW do we know this?

THE FUCKING LIARS SAID SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Leyonhjelm @polarisera "The challenge with COBOL is that it doesn’t have a standardized way to store and work with dates — unlike most modern programming languages. Instead, many dates in COBOL must be coded to a reference number, often using an international standard, Rege explained.

"The most common reference date number is May 20, 1875, under an international standard known as ISO 8601. That means if someone applies for Social Security without a birth date, they may be recorded as 150 years old in the database depending on how a programmer troubleshoots the issue.

"Programmers can overcome these limitations in COBOL’s functionality, but they may also opt to use 1875 as a placeholder for unknown dates if it aligns with the database’s purpose… For example, when the federal government began issuing regular monthly Social Security payments in January 1940, recipients needed to be at least 65 to qualify, meaning they needed to be born in 1875 or before.

"Those who crafted the Social Security database may have, therefore, set 1875 as the default birth year for anyone who lacked that information at the time."

@Leyonhjelm @polarisera I can think of zero competencies of the people looking into it, and zero credibility for the people who believe that shit.

@Leyonhjelm @polarisera Incompetencies include not understanding the date function in COBOL, and those are the Doods that Orange Dood wants to "verify records"

I do not understand why you think stepping on the third rail of US politics is good for your side --- unless you think starving seniors will Make America Great Again?

@Gelatinousrube According to the internet, which is never wrong, that catcus is a triffid. A tentacle catus looks like:

(PSST: I see the aliens have been visiting the botanical gardens in Phoenix again)

@1db113ebbf6dca151c2971fc8e61e378d2b2c95b5b029789a996ea47a775d16f No mechanism doesn't mean they can't create one. Or dissolve NATO, and set up a united European armed forces using the bones.

Man on my tv just lied his fucking ass off and pretended he was talking about world peace. It's the kind of thing that pisses me off.

@djsumdog @ninapaley IMO, there is little difference between the 2 styles.

Neither dealing in material reality but insisting others follow along.

@ninapaley I just really hate narcissists. All kinds.

They do a lot of damage.

And this is what I mean by Trump is a narcissistic asshat

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-5293524/ap-gulf-of-mexico-white-house-oval-office

@KeepTakingTheSoma FYI: The part that pisses authoritarian lovers, like Elon (and Assange) off is the part that promotes self governance. When Mubarak was kicked out, the Egyptians blamed an organization promoting democracy, not themselves for people who were fed up.

Authoritarians always have excuses for people not being happy, and it's never because of them.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/06/what-the-data-says-about-us-foreign-aid/

@KeepTakingTheSoma Not me, it doesn't. It would if you believe the bullshit being spread tho.

Vatican also denounced defunding USAID, calling it an act of cruelty.

Catholics v Christian Nationalists.

The fuckers in powers got us involved in a religious war.

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2025/documents/20250210-lettera-vescovi-usa.html

@KeepTakingTheSoma @WDI_USA Welp, I went straight at mermaids. Made the first terf BlockList.

It is a good thing I vary between impatience with stupidity and amusement. Well, maybe it's not, but I try to make it work.

@KeepTakingTheSoma @WDI_USA Personally, I was amused by people thinking fish biology explained primate biology, but right after I joined twitter, I knew I had to find the "adults in the room".

We have failed at education quite dramatically.