Notices by Mark Kraft (krafttea@mastodon.social)

This has nothing to do with Trump's policy or plan.

Trump doesn't have a consistent policy or plan on Russia... and Biden and most of NATO have made Trump quickly selling Ukraine out not a viable option.

So Trump has to, if not do a 180, then at least reposition himself, while Bessent has to talk tough, so the public will forget what a Putin apologist Trump was over the last year.

Our job is to keep them accountable to their tough talk, with tough actions.

Made a post to my old #facebook , letting friends know #zuckerberg is censoring posts re: #pixelfed, encouraging others to insist on #federation, on #opensource #socialmedia, on a massively customizable #ui, etc.

I showed them screenshots from my #mastodon, VISUALLY showing them you can still have lots of regular readers, comments, feedback, etc.

There is life after Facebook, X, Insta, etc.
And it's lookin' good.

Please like, RT, comment!
I'll share your comments & encouragement w/ them too!

As I've suggested for awhile, there is a worsening of the Russian KIA vs. WIA ratio, due to a lack & systemic breakdown of medical evac, the people and armored vehicles required to do it, wounded not being sent to hospitals, as they go AWOL, used instead in wave assaults, increasing drones w/ multiple strikes on target, etc.

Telenko puts the current KIA vs. WIA ratio as MUCH worse than WW1 levels, with herds of PIGS having learned, Pavlovian-style, that if they hear FPVs, that means food.

In practical terms, there REALLY should be an agreement between NATO countries as to how to discourage RUS spies & saboteurs. As it stands, they do horrible things, get exchanged - often for innocent people - then become national heroes.

At minimum, their possessions and all funds in their available accounts should be seized, and they should be tried and required to confess & cooperate first - in a way that would embarrass Russia and Putin - as a precondition to EVER being traded.

I agree. They should absolutely leave Russia and stop contributing valuable services to their wartime economy, before Putin rounds them up and sends them to Ukraine... again.

Putin is quite capable of screwing over Russia by himself.

@skinnylatte Yeah, the issue never was that H-1B visas were bad for the country, as far as Elon goes. (For that matter, neither are visas for migrant workers or simply letting ANYONE work in the country.)

The issue is that Elon is a hypocrite who broke the rules to work in the country, routinely violated labor laws, endangering his workers, moved much of his labor to Texas where he can screw his workers over harder, and is exactly the person who shouldn't be the poster boy for H1-B.

@mastodonmigration And no, it wasn't that I wanted to get rich. Rather, I thought that open source software should be more competitive, and try to break up the walled garden approach. And commenting / the ability to connect with others, while giving them control was something we had everyone beat at.

It likely would've driven a lot of people to use our site and support our general mission, which can easily be monetized in a non-evil manner.

@mastodonmigration In the case of LJ, it was just asking for help. A reliable percentage chose to became supporters.

We had memberships, but the bonuses we gave for it were nice little perks to say thanks, not significant features.

@mastodonmigration

@Infoseepage The Ursa Major was built in 2009, which isn't terribly old... the Russians certainly expected it to be around for longer, and are speculating heavily on their social media that it was a victim of sabotage, perhaps involving a member of the crew. But as for what it was up to, that is a matter of conjecture. What's known is how much its loss hurts Russia at this point in time.

But hey, whatever works! 😆

WarTranslated cites a Russian Telegram warblogger, mentioning that the Ursa Major was significantly irreplaceable, and that its loss has delayed plans to improve northern port infrastructure and exploitation of the Northern Sea Route, potentially allowing icebreakers to clear a path through arctic waters to the east.

...which might be awfully handy for shipping oil, gas, and goods to and from China, since the railway isn't working all that well.

Oh well!

@jcast The Russians are doing what they signed up for.

Fortunately, there are signs that fewer and fewer Russians want to be mulched, even at attractive rates.

As I was saying yesterday...
Russians and North Koreans outnumber the Ukranians in Kursk by 5-2... but their losses are 5-1.
(That ain't winning.)

But General idiot says "You never want to get into an attrition war with the Russians".

Why not? They're NOT THE SOVIET UNION! Russia's population is 2/3rds what the Soviet Union was in 1941, much older, with LOTS of old women!

Russia is gaining (some) ground because of human wave attacks.
They are also losing the war because of human wave attacks.

Russian diplomats: "Well, according to our treaty, we have a deal with the Syrian government for the naval base that should last for decades. Can't we be reasonable about this, increase our financial incentives to your state, and negotiate a compromise?"

Syrian diplomats: "Like you did in Sevastopol and Crimea, I presume?!
No. I think not. Take your sh*t and go, while we can still guarantee your safety..."

It's unrealistic to expect people NOT to comment on the basic facts:

UnitedHealthcare's plans of INTENTIONALLY doing end-runs around informed doctors, to seek out second opinions that only benefit their pocketbooks, is a form of legalized, amoral, for profit murder.

It really isn't hard for ethical health insurance companies to not do this, except in the case of EXTREME medical fraud.

Am I concerned about a few copycats? Not as much as I'm concerned about those UnitedHealthcare insures.

Gotta admit...
Brian Thompson is doing some really impressive, humane work lately.

AND I hear he's good with plants, too!

Likewise, if we do want #bluesky #starterpack - style solutions, what does that mean to #mastodon from a stability perspective?

I noticed @jwz recently, talking about serious performance-related slowdown issues, related to having an account that is VERY popular. So, what does that mean if we create solutions which greatly encourage account popularity, without actually addressing server issues first?

In short, the issue of starter packs isn't just a simple good / bad question.

@mekkaokereke "BlueSky users skew younger than Mastodon. Again, in large part because Black Americans are young, and white Americans are old."

In part, although the Hispanic/Latino population is about 50% larger now, growing faster, and about 2.1 years younger than the median age of Black Americans.

(This is why I tend to encourage MUCH more concentration upon helping minority groups to register themselves, based on the influence of people such as Steve Phillips.)
https://elk.zone/mastodon.social/@KraftTea/112889701096866096

@mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke It seems to me that people need to not just be recommended to, say, an author they like, but also to people they can legitimately befriend and interact with, who are followers / active commenters.

New users can't expect to generate a lot of friends, comments, etc. from professional content creators.

Generating a limited deck of varying but relevant people might be more useful for all concerned than a pure top-40 list.

@mekkaokereke If we REALLY want to encourage growth & diversity, we should realize we're inheriting some bad demographics here at Mastodon. Platforming aging developers and niche influencers is valuable, yes... but in a limited way.

We SHOULD be focusing on younger demographics.

Which is another reason why we should be careful of a solution that leans ageist, without showcasing diversity and youth, when they're a LOT of our future going forward.

We lost the short game. Let's win the long one.