Notices by Hein Ragas (heinragas@mublog.nl)

Looking at the news coming out of LA about the wildfires, I am reminded on a tweet I once read:
"You will experience climate change as a series of increasingly wild disaster videos, until one day you are the one making the video."

@jaelisp @halla No, please, don't do it like that. If you put the rag _in_ the bottle and light it, you run a very real risk of setting yourself on fire when you throw it as the fuel might splash out of the bottle.
The right way to do it, is to put a cork or other stopper on the bottle, and tie the rag around the neck of the bottle. That way, the fire only reaches the fuel when the bottle shatters on impact. This is much safer (for the person throwing).

@ErikUden I always understood Oracle to be an acronym for "One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison"

@Dana @mikako6 Oh, one of my cats is also called Yuzu! She is also very, very cute and even has the same colours in her fur as your Yuzu!

Best time of day is when you don't even have to leave your fluffy cat bed to enjoy the sun. #CatsOfMastodon #TortieCats

Looking at this list from @anildash and it's just like a bingo card for what happens on corporate-owned social media platforms.
https://www.anildash.com/2022/02/09/the-stupid-tech-content-culture-cycle/

@foolishowl @thomasfuchs HTML was perfect for what it was designed to do, and then someone decided to use it for something it wasn't designed to do, and now we get layer upon layer of cruft in so many attempts to "fix" HTML, all doomed to fail.

HTML doesn't need fixing.

@sabandijo @Alligator @foolishowl @thomasfuchs CSS is great because it applies styling to HTML. It respects HTML for what it is, and recognizes that different renderings of the information contained in the HTML have different needs.

The HTML stays device independent, the CSS renders it in an appropriate format for the current device used.

Let me tell you a story of long, long ago.

I grew up in a suburb, and right in front of our house was a field of grass surrounded by houses. Traffic was light, the houses were new so owned by young families (yes, it was so long ago that young families could afford a house) and so there were lots of kids always about outside. Across from us lived a boy my age who was also in my class, and I played with him a lot -- we were good friends. Eating lunch at each others' houses, etc. 1/

I liked him, when it was just the two of us. But at school, he fell in with the two worst bullies of the school. They assembled a group of followers to bully others. One day, a week before my birthday, I was their target, and this boy was part of the group that tried to bully me. (I wouldn't have it, and they moved on to another kid because I wasn't fun to bully.) So when I got home, I reported this to my parents, matter-of-factly. 2/

They got quiet at first. Then they remembered that I had invited this boy to my birthday party next week. "Do you think you want someone who bullies you at your birthdaty party?" my dad asked. I had to think about this for a bit -- of course I hadn't invited the two main bullies, so he'd be OK at the party, but what did it say about our friendship if he would play with me in one context and try to bully me in another? "You should un-invite him," my dad said. 3/

So that evening I would go to his house and tell him that he was not welcome at my birthday party anymore. I think I wandered the streets for quite some time (it had gotten dark already, this was so long ago that seven year old kids could still wander around alone after dark) because I didn't know if I could do it. It was one of the hardest things to ask of a child: go to your friend and tell them you don't want them around you anymore. 4/

But then I thought: "It is _my_ party, and I want to celebrate my birthday surrounded by people who like me in _every_ context." So I rang his doorbell, his parents let me in, and seated in their living room, with his parents present, I un-invited him to my birthday party because of his behaviour at school. When I left, he was very quiet, and I think his parents were impressed with how I handled it. They did not interfere in any way. 5/

When I returned home, I reported that I did go through with it. Later, my dad told me that they had not expected me to actually go through with it. They were impressed as well -- but if you think about it, it totally makes sense: you shouldn't invite someone who bullies you to a space you curate, that is about you and about the way you want to treat people and be treated by other people in return. 6/

Later, after the birthday party, we sort-of made up in that casual way children can do. We never spoke of it again, but I don't think he ever forgot that incident. He never bullied me again, but our friendship never was the same as it was before. Because he had broken my trust, and you can't just casually get back from that. 7/

Now that a fascist party won the election in the Netherlands, there are calls to not treat everyone that voted for them as a racist, because maybe they voted for this party for other reasons. "Love and understanding begets more love and understanding" and all that. To which I say: fuck that. They decided that the racism, homophobia, islamophobia and fascism was not a reason to vote something else. 8/

So many profile pieces in the media about MAGAs after Trump won in 2016. Did they become milder? No, they disgusting fascism just became mainstream. We know where this ends.

_They_ are the bullies, and _we_ get to decide if we want them at our birthday parties. And we don't. I have no empathy for those who lack it completely. 9/9

@welshpixie I admire how opinionated you are, and all the work you put in to make .art a safe place for your users. Thank you for your hard work, I (and my users) benefit from it through the Oliphant blocklists.