Notices by J. R. DePriest :verified_trans: :donor: :Moopsy: :EA DATA. SF: (jrdepriest@infosec.exchange), page 2

@jeffowski

Our two-party system sucks real bad, but I'm going to vote for fucking Biden because I'm a transgender woman taking care of a disabled woman and if Trump or the current crop of Christofascist Republicans obtain full power, both of us will be subject to the full might of the US government.

I have a very "shot in the dark" ask about my favorite Tarot card deck.

Have you heard of the Mage The Ascension Tarot?
I bought a deck in 1995 when it came out. I still have it and it is my favorite deck. It's been my deck of choice since I bought it. I even preferred it over my Rider-Waite-Smith deck and, when I went through my hyper-Christian blow-back phase, it's the one deck I couldn't bring myself to toss out.

Bad news: I damaged two of the cards while doing a reading. I dropped them and tried to catch them with my legs which creased them down the middle. They are now both unusable in readings because they stand out.

I am aware that you can order reprints from places like DriveThruRPG but those are slightly different cards on different cardstock. The original designs were lost in a fire, I think, so these are more like scanned reprints.

Does anyone, anywhere have the original deck or just the two cards I damaged and would be willing to sell them to me?

I only included a photo of the back of one of the cards since the crease is the same on both of them.

I know it's a bit silly to be so enamored of a novelty deck like this, but I played a lot of World of Darkness mostly Vampire and Mage with a bit of Werewolf. I had the book for Changeling and the supplement for Mummy, but we didn't play them much. A friend of mine had Wraith but we never got into that at all.
I still have all my books downstairs actually, mostly 1st editions save for Vampire which is 2nd edition now.

#MageTheAscension #MageTheAscensionTarot #OWOD #OldWorldOfDarkness #WorldOfDarkness #WhiteWolf #VampireTheMasquerade #Tarot #Pagan #Divination

@afeinman
$250 was the cheapest I saw last time I looked.
Nostalgia is a helluva drug.

@pettter
The Stock Market was a mistake.

@dgar

@AnarchoNinaWrites
That's either ignorance or dog whistling for trans misogyny. It's just close enough to the line to be plausibly deniable but still "put us in our place".
Kind of the same thing nazis and racists do all the fucking time. It's almost like all people are trash and have biases they need to fucking check before slapping someone else around. As someone else posted "check that beam in your eye before barking about the speck in mine, asshole". I think that's how it was in the Bible, anyway.

@anders @doot
To me, non-binary means that the existing labels, which are based on there being two, well-defined genders, simply do not fit. You are neither, but there is no universally agreed upon term for that. There is no single "third gender".
I call myself a transgender woman because I'm almost 50 and I do not have the energy to explain to someone what my actual, nuanced gender identity is. "Woman" is close enough for me.
It's not close enough for some people, and that's valid.

Neil Gaiman delivers powerful message at alt-graduation for DeSantis-threatened New College of Florida

@neilhimself

everentropy

Hi, I'm a New College alum. I have been following this closely, so I can give you a run-down. (Also don't worry, you sounded fine!)

Background: New College of Florida is a small liberal arts college in Sarasota. It has around 800 students, and probably less next year. It does not have grades, it instead has narrative evaluations. There are no required classes beyond what is legally required for Common Core. As an Honors College, everyone is required to do an undergraduate thesis and defend it in front of a Baccalaureate Committee. I studied Environmental Science and I was able to create my own major (known as an Area of Concentration). I even designed an Independent Study Project that went in-depth on cholera.

As for what is happening now, the simple answer is that Governor DeSantis appointed a bunch of conservatives to the Board of Trustees (or BoT). One of these is Chris Rufo, the guy behind the CRT scare. They have been trying to systematically tear down the college. This has included things like firing the president and trying to change the school's curriculum and entrance requirements, with a conservative evangelical Christian angle.

For a more in-depth answer, here is a list of things they have done or are currently planning on doing. (i had it under a readmore but it looks like that fucks up the formatting)

They fired the previous president, even though she was ACTUALLY solving many of the issues including enrollment and bringing in donors. By every measure she was doing a great job. Of course, you can't hire DeSantis's cronies if someone else is in the position!

They fired a queer librarian a week before finals.

They denied five professors tenure, including two from the "woke" specialization of... organic chemistry.

They are currently they are trying to change the school mascot. It is, according to the student government constitution { }, AKA the null set. They want a mascot to be more marketable, not because students are asking for it. Most insultingly, they sent out a survey asking for students' "opinions" and one of the options they had was the Conquistadores. It's 2023, it's hilariously out of touch.

They removed the "DEI Department". Which didn't exist. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion was part of the admissions and outreach department. New College isn't even big enough to have staff dedicated to that. They couldn't even fire anyone so they made a stupid show of "eliminating it" that did nothing.

They are trying to use the CLT, a Christian-based entrance exam, instead of the SAT. (Several alums have started adding an I after the CL.) Also, the formerly student-run cafe is now being run by a local business that has put (misspelled) bible verses on the cups.

They want to have a "classics" education, and require students to take specific courses. New College already teaches from "the greats" for many classes, but they don't actually know what the New College curriculum is. It will also almost certainly be from a Christian, western perspective, rather than the broader one that students currently get. New College teaches you HOW to think, it doesn't tell you to think a specific way.

They are trying to put in both a baseball and basketball team. That doesn't sound that bad on the surface but New College has barely enough students for ONE team, and that would have to be co-ed. It's a school of around 800 students. (Probably less next year). There's no way they qualify for competitive sports. It's a grift meant to give positions to friends of the BoT through cronyism. I genuinely feel sorry for any student transferring because they were promised a sports career.

Also, New College doesn't have sports and is proud of that fact. It's an attempt to ruin our culture by attracting students that didn't come here solely for learning. We even have a motto that our football team is "undefeated" (because we don't have one). They also want to make this a pipeline for students from Inspiration Academy specifically and are trying to make it easier to enter.

Finally, the cherry on top of the cake, and the reason that Mr. Gaiman gave this speech in the first place, is that they asked Scott Atlas to be speaker for commencement. He was one of the members of former President Trump's COVID taskforce and actively downplayed the threat of COVID. His speech was not about how students have a bright future and how they will do great things. No, it was full of self-congratulations, name-dropping, and lies about COVID. If I hadn't known what it was I would never guessed that it was a commencement speech. The only thing even remotely about the students was about standing up for your beliefs, even when people tell you you're wrong.

The people watching literally turned their backs on him and started chanting "Wrap it up!" which was pretty funny honestly. I enjoyed that. I'm pretty sure most people who attended did so to protest him. Also, the current president of the college didn't make a speech or hand out diplomas, probably because he knew how disliked he is.

Make no mistake, this is meant to be a test case. And when they are done here they will move on to other colleges, and conservatives will bring this to other states as well. That's why resisting is so important.

I will say a bright spot in all of this is the outpouring of support we have received. Thank you everyone who has reblogged this with a message of support. We appreciate it. Please feel free to message me if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

#SaveNewCollege #NewCollegeOfFlorida #ChrisRufo #ScottAtlas #RonDeSantis #NeilGaiman #WrapItUp

@gingerjet @daedalus
I disagree about #InfoSec being right-wing or authoritarian.
Corporate InfoSec? Maybe, but that's just the nature of being a money making enterprise, doubly so if you are publicly traded.
There are any number of "information should be free" old school hackers still out there hammering on open source projects. Granted they are a dying breed because this sort of thing doesn't pay the bills.
There are also those who see #InfoSec as a way into #CyberCrime and easy money.

I'd be really interested to see a true breakdown of who is working in this field, how they got here, and what they want to get out of it.

@horse @mainframed767
same here. that map was ragged by the end, though.

@mainframed767 that fold out "Legend of Zelda" map with the overworld on one side and the underworld on the other.