Notices by Nazi trumps fuck off. (mikal@sfba.social)

@CrimethInc

Relaying this from people smarter than me about these things: It's a bad idea to normalize scanning QR codes un random flyers. At minimum, have the URL printed out so people can manually type it in.

@mercedesallen

An activist friend and I were talking about that this afternoon: "Play dirty. Don't get caught."

Blog post about Tuesday night's mini-epic, last-minute, storm chase.
https://www.mikaljakubal.com/october-surprise/

If you only want to look at pictures, scroll down. For some reason I felt compelled to write too much 🤷♂️😂

#StormChasing #Monsoon2024 #Arizona #Photography #Lightning

Somebody is mad that I am sharing her chair to eat my lunch and didn't bring mealworms. She keeps jumping on me and crawling up my shirt.

*Gets up to fetch some mealworms*

#Lizard #SpoiledLittleBrat #HarrietTheLizard

Even though Miami, Arizona is an otherwise cute little town in the mountains, I don't think I will be stopping there again. Right down the street from the Miami Police Department and their "blue live matter" flag is this weird gun fetish mural.

For people outside the US, or Americans outside of liberal city bubbles, this kind of weird gun lust iconography is really common all over the country.

I like taking back roads and detouring through small towns. Sometimes you see the most amazing things, like the Miami, Arizona police headquarters. The entire building is painted up in the Blue Lives Matter flag colors.

I don't trust cops as a general rule, but I would *really* not trust cops openly displaying their gang colors.

@aral @amydiehl

Sure, I mean, I get it. You don't become a billionaire without fucking over a lot of people. But once you are in this position, having a solid DEI program, respecting workers rights, treating people with respect and so on would not jeopardize your position in any way. It just shows how deeply entrenched white male supremacy is in these people. SMFH

@amydiehl

What always makes me shake my head in disbelief about things like this is that, as a trillion-dollar company, they can easily afford to behave ethically and pay everyone properly and avoid lawsuits and bad PR and still be a trillion-dollar company. And yet…

I think this has to be the best thread I have ever seen on Mastodon. Start at the top with the linked post and read all the way to the end. It is epically funny.
With this story, @sundogplanets has done so much to raise public awareness about the rain of space trash the tech bros intend to rain down on us. This needs serious regulation, and fast.

https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/112412755270980994

Y'all...please stop with the "scorpion and the frog" metaphors. Scorpions only sting when hunting prey or when threatened. They raise their stinger aggressively when threatened, giving any would-be predator or attacker ample warning, much the way rattlesnakes rattle or skunks raise their tails.

Scorpions are reclusive creatures and want to be left alone. So, not only does this BS fable pointlessly demonize innocent creatures, but it completely fails in a literary sense.

See also: "boiling frog." Just cut that shit out, k?

I've been thinking about what would make a better metaphor to replace the parable of The Scorpion And The Frog. How about this: The Capitalist And The Sea Turtle.

A capitalist is shipwrecked on a remote island. He sees a very large sea turtle on the beach and asks if it will carry him back to the mainland.

The turtle says "But you are a capitalist. If I let you onto my back, you will kill me and sell my flesh and shell for profit."

"But that would be foolish because we would both die," said the capitalist. "It is inconsistent with my own enlightened self interest!"

Accepting this logic, the sea turtle allows the capitalist climb upon its shell. Halfway across the strait, the capitalist tries to strangle the turtle. But the turtle, being at home in the sea, dives deep, forcing the capitalist to let go. Safely out of reach, the sea turtle asks the capitalist, now flailing helplessly, "Why did you do that?"

"I am a capitalist. I could not help myself," the capitalist replied, before sinking out of sight.

I always imagine this scene as an alien, mechanical lamprey latched on to the plane and sucking passengers out for a meal.

*sucking, slurping and screaming sounds*

Northern California and the aurora is going off! Pics later...!

This is so fucking coooooool!

I had been contemplating driving to someplace like maybe south of Mount Shasta so I would have that in the frame with the northern lights, but NOAA's map showed the aurora not being visible that far south. I went out on my rooftop this evening, snapped a couple long exposures, realized it looked kind of cool so I came up here on the ridge. And then it went OFF!

Giant sky-filling rays that are moving, with light colors. Very, very visible to the naked eye. I'm doing a time lapse with my DSLR and those pics look fabulous.

I saw it once in Northern British Columbia back in the '80s with waving sheets of color ripping across the sky. This is the closest I've ever seen to that. Completely did not expect it this far south.
#Aurora

Another big wave of pink rays!

Fuck. I'm not going to get any sleep tonight, am I?

After a lull, the aurora is picking up again. My iPhone SE doesn't pick it up, so you'll have to wait till I process my DSLR pics. I have my second camera but feel a little sheepish at not bringing both tripods 🤦♂️ I really didn't expect much. 🤷♂️

It's so cool the way the light moves from one part of the sky to the next. Now it has shifted off to the east of north. It was way off to the west earlier.

Imagine this aurora event, but 30 years ago. Only a very few dedicated photographers would be getting photos and it would've taken a few days at least to get them processed and printed and put "online", had there been an online back then.

10 years ago DSLRs sensitive enough to record good aurora pics were fairly common, but expensive. Now, cell phones are good enough to take shareable photos.

So, because of the democratization of camera technology, we get to have this fun, global, real-time shared experience of a beautiful astronomical event.

Wonder what would Copernicus think of it all?
#aurora

Took a little side trip from Slab City today over to Anza Borrego to check out the wildflowers. I'll post more tomorrow.
#BloomScrolling