despite possible first impression, not just a robot posting links! in fact just a human with a terrible memory posting links to reference later. i don't necessarily agree 100% with all views expressed in linked articles, but unless specifically noted, i probably agree with most of them.
we gotta get back to torrent distribution, i just watched someone eat eight grand in bandwidth charges because they ran a direct-download piracy site with local file hosting through cloudflare. torrents were invented literally for this exact reason
i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3
unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it
i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map
i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs
this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.
crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.
Not meaning to be snarky here but british trans people have been reporting on this for ages and it's only really making a splash in the US now that erin reported it. I'm glad that she's taking on the morally necessary international perspective but we've been pretty fucking loud about it. I just sometimes feel like americans don't appreciate that everyone else keeps up with your news out of necessity but the reverse is much rarer.
Trans Kids Deserve Better, the under 18s direct action group that do legitimately more than the vast majority of cis or trans adults, vandalised the NHS headquarters with bloody handprints and "release the trans suicide youth report" because they knew just from being trans kids that there was a massive spike that wasn't coming through in the numbers
TransActual and the Good Law Project have reported on the suicides quite extensively, doing FOIA requests and doggedly pursuing the people responsible who have repeatedly tried to cover it up with no real answers for even the incomplete data that could be accessed which disproved the claim of no rise in suicides. I don't remember which weeks it was now because it was so long ago but on Red Planet we've talked about this several times and keep an ongoing update on Wes Streeting's war on trans kids.
There has been extensive reporting in outlets even as liberal and wet as Pink News about clinic wait times, bolstered by the data accessing and reporting by QueerAF, WhatTheTrans and others.
Even Erin's article is largely just repeating what the Good Law Project's press release said. She hasn't done anything wrong there to be clear, it's just the lack of people broadly paying attention to this story has been a little frustrating is all. The UK getting treated like the 51st state is ingrained by reactionary political currents like the anti-trans movement and it needs to be called out very loudly especially when children are literally being killed by it.
I guess it would've been cool if more people believed the kids from TKDB and reported on it a lot sooner is all. I hope the links are helpful to people
Like there are so many things about this that are not just violent but insulting and dehumanising that will be easily forgotten if nobody is paying attention until it's a story deemed worthy of americans.
Wes Streeting indefinitely extended the ban on puberty blockers the day before what would have been Brianna Ghey's birthday. He was doing it in early November 2024 so that everyone would be too distracted with the US elections to care, and it worked. A sense of international shaming of Britain for being so transphobic was impossible because US elections sucked all the air out of the room
The relationship between the UK and US is actually a very core part of what is being done to us here and I don't want to leave that unsaid.
A historical book and bible have been removed, there are concerns about the sit-in movement lunch counter being next.
WASHINGTON — The Smithsonian Institution has begun quietly removing some artifacts from the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), according to two museum employees and at least one high-profile donor.
Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, a longtime civil rights activist and pastor, tells WUSA9 he was notified via this month that several artifacts he donated — including a Bible he carried during civil rights demonstrations — were being returned to him.
The email he shared with WUSA9 from the NMAAHC says:
"Dear Reverend Brown,
I wanted to alert you that the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) will be returning your Bible and book we borrowed for our exhibition, Segregation. Both books have been on display at the NMAAHC since we opened our doors to the public in September 2016. We are grateful for the loan of these important objects and the ability to share them with the public. In order to preserve them and not display them for too long, we are now returning them to you."
Brown said he doesn't believe it's about the conditions of the books and says a museum should know how to preserve them.
“The flimsy excuse was because they were under too much light,” Brown said in an interview.
Brown said he never requested the return of his items, which includes a bible and a historic copy of "The History of the Negro Race in America," one of the first books to document racism in the United States.
“I had called them and told them how unfortunate and ideological it is,” he added.
Brown has been a civil rights activist for more than 70 years, marching alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The Bible and book, he said, have been on display at the museum since it opened in 2016.
When WUSA9 visited the museum Saturday, the artifacts were no longer in their previous exhibit space.
“It was right here to the left of the narrative,” Brown said, pointing to the empty display.
He also expressed concern that the iconic lunch counter from the sit in movement started by four students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. The lunch counter is one of the key features of the museum — Amos says there are discussions on removing that. WUSA9 has not independently verified that claim. During our visit, the lunch counter remained on display.
Visitors we spoke with say the news is both emotional and troubling.
“I feel like that’s crazy,” said Samiyyah Greene, who traveled from North Carolina. “That’s like taking a big part of our culture away.”
“It’s very frustrating,” said Wynter Barton-Brown of Boston. “I’m glad I had my glasses on because I didn’t want my children to see the emotion that was driven up.”
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the removal of “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from federally funded institutions, specifically naming the African American museum.
“That was the most unfortunate directive,” Brown said. “It’s about someone being against diversity, inclusion and equity for African Americans and all people who’ve been marginalized in this country.”
WUSA9 has reached out to the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of African American History and Culture for comment but has not received a response.
Brown says the lack of communication from the museum leaves him worried for its future.
“We aren’t going to let anyone tell us what we can’t read and celebrate as our artifacts,” he said.
@smithsonian can you explain this improper "lighting" situation / inability or refusal of your institution to preserve treasures of american history / put them in storage temporarily instead of purging items under the guise of safeguarding them ?
It’s one thing for Amazon to flip on the “tariff pricing” idea after a cranky phone call, but @smithsonian falling over themselves to self-censor is an embarrassment.
Unfortunately, Amazon is a private company, but the Smithsonian is owned by the federal government & the Board of Regents includes the VP, Senators, and the Chief Justice. This isn't an institution just "caving," this is deliberate destruction by the people in charge of the thing.
I do want to point out that this link contains the names of the Senators and Representatives who are on the Board of Regents, just in case one of them is yours. :]
No one compares other federal agencies to the Gestapo. No one is accusing OSHA, the FDA, or even the IRS of being the Gestapo. That should tell you everything you need to know.
They're being compared to Nazis because they're doing Nazi shit.
So I reblogged this earlier without commentary, but I reflected overnight and realised that in doing so, I might be giving the impression that I believe what's happening to immigrants in the United States right now is so utterly unprecedented in American history that the only parallel we can find Nazi Germany, which could then be construed as whitewashing America's own very ugly, xenophobic past.
Therefore, I want to make it clear that although I am gravely concerned about Trump ushering the country into an uncharted era of fascism, I do acknowledge this is not the first time the United States has done rounded up immigrants and deported or detained them without trial. One needs only to read about The Palmer Raids, Mexican Repatriation, and the Enemy Alien Control Program (including the internment of Japanese Americans), along with restrictive, often racist laws like Asian Exclusion (which, as I've mentioned in the past, impacted my own family) to know that this isn't merely a transplant of Nazism, but also something deeply and horrifically American.
"When a prison camp opens in your town…when a DREAMer is disappeared from your classroom…when the President destroys what’s left of the Constitution…They will all say they didn’t know this was coming. And I want the American people to know that they did.” AOC
"My colleagues and I are relieved and grateful to share that, after eleven days of uncertainty, our students and their mother are returning home," Sackets Harbor Central School District Superintendent Jennifer L. Gaffney said in an email to NPR. School and local officials say the family is on its way back to Sackets Harbor.
'We love them': Small N.Y. town embraces a family freed from immigration detention
This one family appears to be safe for now, largely because their community physically rallied for their release. Others are not.
By popular request (ones, nearly ten[s] of people are asking), here's my Republican-specific congresscritter tariffs script:
Hi, my name is [NAME] and I'm a constituent from [CITY/TOWN, ZIP].
I'm calling [REPUBLICAN REP/SEN NAME] to ask [HIM/HER] to save our economy.
The tariffs announced on April 2nd are taxes. The American Enterprise Institute says it's a tax increase that will destroy our economy. They say there are zero benefits, there will be zero benefits. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Cato Institute and Manhattan Institute all agree, it's just a wrecking ball made of taxes. There's no upside.
These tariff-taxes will cost American jobs—private sector layoffs are already starting—and destroy American businesses, short-term and long-term. This is going to ruin people. The stock market is already cratering.
If we as a country are going to make sweeping economic changes, it's congress's job to draft and vote on those. We need review and oversight, not to be handed down dictatorial decisions, no matter who's president.
So, I ask that [REPUBLICAN REP/SEN NAME] intervene by backing a joint resolution, or by any means available, to stop Trump's misuse of emergency powers. Put a stop to the tariffs, rein in the overreach, and return financial and economic decision-making to congress where it belongs.
Thank you.
(For Democrats, 5calls has a very short script that will work.)
Find your representatives. Learn how to find and connect with them. Stay informed about their bills, committees, and contributions.
Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.
You'd be surprised how often I'm told there is no interpreter at an event, there are no captions at an event, and they act like I'm asking for something absurd.
This isn't a performative dance routine interpreting what is going on.
But hey, deafies, we're woke now because we require interpreters.
This is all absolutely true. Also, to add, many deaf people receive a much worse education because the schools are unwilling/unable to invest in proper education for deaf people. So there are deaf people out there who struggle to read English because the structure of English is completely different than the structure of Sign Languages.
Also, Sign Language is NOT international. Signing in London is different that Ireland, or Paris, Toronto, Mexico, New Zealand, India-- some of the signing may be similar or even related but they are all different languages. So if you see several interpreters at an event or a news broadcast or en EU summit, and they are doing different signs, this is why.
And for the idiots who still don't comprehend that for many people English is a second language, even signers who were born in an English speaking country-- and still argue 'you get captions what's the problem' - Have you ever watched the auto-craptions on the news or a live event, or even a film on Amazon that they couldn't bother to get a human to properly provide subs? Yeah. A good percentage of the time, it's just word salad that means absolutely nothing. There is a reason we call them ‘craptions’. You're likely to just get a pile of words that may or may not have to do with anything going on in what you are trying to watch.
Some time, put on the news with no captions or sound. Put on a film or show you have never seen before, and try to lipread what is being said. Try to figure out what the plot or context is from just the actor's faces. Just try to engage when the only queues you have are facial expressions and movement on the screen-- if you can even see them talk at all, a lot of films and shows are shot over a shoulder with the back of someone's head.
Wear ear-plugs when you are out having a coffee with a friend and try to figure out what your friend is even saying. No music, no nothing-- just earplugs and trying to figure it out.
Do all of this for a week and then tell me that craptions are enough. Then tell me we don't need interpreters. After two days, you're going to be angry and frustrated because you don't know what the fuck is going on.
Interpreters do more than just tell you the exact words. They INTERPRET English language and put it into sign. They aren't just randomly throwing around their hands and looking silly. And they do it on the fly, live, as something is going. A good majority of the times, Interpreters have no idea what is going to be said. In those moments they are hearing something in English (or French, Spanish, what have you), figuring out what the best way to sign these words back to a sign-user base, and they have to do it all in seconds. It's a LOT of work.
So if you are at an event or you see two or even more signers who keep switching off after half an hour or an hour, know that the money is NOT being wasted having multiple interpreters there. They are not being lazy. They are doing a whole helluva lot, and their brains and hands and faces occasionally need a break.
So if you are hiring interpreters for an event, don't be surprised if they say you'll need to pay more to have several interpreters there. The interpreters are incredibly skilled, and they work bloody hard. If they tell you they need more than one, don't have a fit at them and try to talk them into just having one interpreter, thinking you can pay less. Understand that they work their arses off, and it's a very intense job that requires a lot of brain power and body power. So please, PLEASE be kind to interpreters.
And for chrissake, STOP DOING THIS. STOP DOING THIS. STOP FUCKING DOING THIS.
this is an edited version of this image, made by Terry Forman of Fireworks Graphics Collective in San Francisco in 1983. learn more about the history of it and grand jury resistance here!
You can report this if you see it! This is a great way to help people in LA who are scrambling to find temporary housing. THOUSANDS of people are displaced right now and landlords and rental companies are taking advantage. Katherine Spiers shows you how to report.
Cite CA Penal Code 396 - "California Penal Code section 396 prohibits excessive and unjustified increases in the prices of essential consumer goods and services, construction services, hotel lodging, and residential rental properties during and shortly after a declared state of emergency or local emergency."
Report to DCBA.LACOUNTY.GOV or call 1-800-593-8222.
You can also call and shame the landlords / rental companies directly.
Donation centers are currently OVERFLOWING. We don't need more donations of stuff, we need more people attacking these landlords and not letting them get away with this shit.
Bob Bonta (CA AG) has been very vocally warning people about price gouging, putting out a consumer alert about it last week and promising to crack down on people who pull this shit.
You can report price gouging to the attorney general's office as well as making local reports. The DBCA direct link for reporting is here (select "consumer protection" at the top of the page and choose "price gouging" on the dropdown menu on the "Complaint Type" page); I think it's probably best to make the report to the state AG for enforcement.
Here are the limitations for rent specifically:
It is unlawful for any person, business, or other entity, to increase the rental price advertised, offered, or charged for housing, to an existing or prospective tenant, by more than 10 percent.
A greater rental price increase is not unlawful if that person can prove that the increase is directly attributable to additional costs for repairs or additions beyond normal maintenance that were amortized over the rental term that caused the rent to be increased greater than 10 percent or that an increase was contractually agreed to by the tenant prior to the proclamation or declaration.
This does not authorize a landlord to charge a price greater than the amount authorized by a local rent control ordinance.
It is unlawful for a person, business, or other entity to evict any residential tenant of residential housing and rent or offer to rent to another person at a rental price greater than the evicted tenant could be charged under Penal Code section 396.
It shall not be a violation for a person, business, or other entity to continue an eviction process that was lawfully begun prior to the proclamation or declaration of emergency.
Price gouging protections are in place for LA county until at least 1/7/2026 as a result of this emergency.
One week later, here are the things on the list above which have recently been partially or fully reversed:
Move trans women to men's prisons - Temporarily blocked by courts
Offer "buyouts" to federal employees - Paused by courts
Pause spending of IRA & IIJA funds - Partially blocked by courts, status still somewhat unclear
Remove de minimis trade exceptions - Temporarily reversed by the Trump administration
And here's what I added in week three (February 3-9, 2025):
Two of these new policies— DOGE's access to sensitive data + the dismantling of USAID— have run into barriers in the courts, but are still ongoing to a certain extent
Trump basically declared disabled people ‘unfit to work’ as he put it by revoking the Equal Employment Opportunity Law of 1965. It means employers no longer have to legally give accommodations to disabled employees. This will render so many Americans jobless and barely anyone is talking about it because disabled people like me are treated as expendable.
Please don’t comply in advance. Trump cannot revoke the Equal Employment Opportunity Act because it is a law passed by Congress. Executive orders are issued in accordance with laws already passed and must follow the U.S. Constitution. While they are enforced with the same power as a law, executive orders are not new laws, and as such can be challenged by the courts to assess whether they are legal and constitutional or not.
It is true that Trump revoked several executive orders that were issued to strengthen or expand the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. Whether or not these EOs will be enforceable long term remains to be seen.
However, it is blatantly untrue that employers no longer legally have to give accommodations to disabled employees. Trump’s EO does not affect equal employment requirements and protections for persons with disabilities. Many protections for persons with disabilities are established by law, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Randolph-Sheppard Act. [Source]
Specifically, Title 1 of the ADA requires employers with 15 or more employees make reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities. This has not changed. Trump cannot change anything about the ADA with an EO. Trump is attempting to dismantle the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which will likely have impacts on disabled employees. Its mission is to eliminate unlawful discrimination in the workplace, and to investigate alleged instances of discrimination, which will no doubt be impeded by Trump’s anti-DEIA mission.
But the ADA and all other disability related legislation are still in effect. You still have a right to reasonable accommodations and a discrimination-free workplace. Trump may try to impede that right, but not even he has the single-handed power to revoke it.
So we finally have a list of offending NSF grants. There are about 3,500 individual grants listed. It's stupid and frustrating.
Part of what sucks is that the spreadsheet is, i assume deliberately, really annoying to read. It's easier to hide what you're getting rid of that way.
I spent the time to make Illinois more legible, and if you feel inspired, please consider doing your state next!
I cannot stress enough to you that all American government agencies are falling apart at the seams right now and they will not be put back together for the foreseeable future. EPA DHS ED VA FDA NIH IRS CDC HHS NPS etc... Elon Musk is dismantling everything. Anyone who resigns or is laid off now, the word we (I am an agency employee) are receiving internally is that their position will be abolished, not backfilled.
Do you like eating clean, safe food?
Do you like having clean, safe air and water?
Do you want experts monitoring developing infectious diseases?
Do you like getting tax returns?
Do you want your children to have free, quality, public education?
If so, you need to write to your senators and representatives RIGHT NOW. Trump is not obeying the rule of law. He is illegally firing all the inspectors general of these agencies (they are literally being escorted by security out of their offices) so that there is no one left to stop him from doing quite literally anything he wants. He has bypassed the internal structure of all of the agencies by plugging in external email servers to push typo-filled emails and memos written by employees of the heritage foundation directly into the inbox of every federal agency employee in the country, threatening to terminate them.
The rule of law is dead. The only mechanism left to stop any of this is mass public outcry via convincing your state's congressmen & women to do something, because right now they are staying absolutely silent and none of us in these agencies can figure out why. A massacre is happening right now and every single American will feel the material, concrete consequences of this in their daily lives very soon if nothing is done.
The news is largely not reporting on what is happening.
Literally all federal workers are currently using this subreddit as our only anonymous gathering place (we all fear doxing and retaliation) and accurate news source https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/. If you want to know what is going on, keep up with this.
This is current breaking news coming from this subreddit:
We don't understand why no one is saying or doing anything. Elon musk is shoving federal guardrails aside to gain personal access to sensitive government systems and information of American citizens
Dudes healthcare is so fake. My ADHD meds are $940 without insurance. But they gave me a website of "coupons" which straight up looks like a scam website, and I got it today for $60! Just a coupon from a random website and it was $900 cheaper. America, I am confusion!! America explain!!
as a pharmacy technician i can share with you some websites that give you those "coupons" for your meds!
goodrx is the most well known one, but if i'm trying to find the cheapest price for a patient i compare it to scriptcycle, and use whichever is offering the best price. you just type in the medication (PLEASE make sure you're getting the right drug, dosage, and quantity) and your zip code and they will spit out some offers for you
some pharmacies may have their own discount card to compare to as well!
if you are getting a name brand medication, you can also look at the manufacturer's website to see if they offer any evouchers for you to use too
there's something very scary about the way we argue and entertain discourse on israel or on settler colonialism when, on the ground, israel has totally isolated northern gaza and is currently systemically liquidating jabalia (a refugee camp in northern gaza) just as they have, from the very beginning, said they would do. just as large swathes of israel came to be in 1948, to 1967, to the west bank today. there's something scary about watching indigenous people undergo a genocide in real-time in 2024 like they're squatters on some prime property while nobody moves except to argue about semantics. there's something scary about people being trapped and killed like fish in a barrel while you can text them and follow them on social media and watch their pleas in video as soldiers and tanks come closer. what the hell is this
jabalia in northern gaza has been under siege for over a week. no food aid in. constant bombing. journalists being openly targeted. the bbc describes israel's plan to use medieval siege tactics to ethnically cleanse and settle the north of gaza as a "controversial plan" while acknowledging that not only does israel not allow people enough time to use the humanitarian corridor to evacuate, they also shoot at people evacuating and are still targeting the south. they have also made it clear that whoever leaves will not be returning.
i don't really understand how the news can describe the process of genocide in such stark terms and call it a "controversial plan" instead of what it is: a horrifying crime against humanity.
anti-DPI programs can handle Discord
here's Goodbye DPI w/ GUI
here's ByeDPI, possibly nicest solution for Android
other variants can be found here
regarding VPNs - Windscribe is still the real one, w/ non-standard protocols and special "hostile network" switch, one problem though - limited traffic, so you most likely have to juggle it w/ some noname VPN apps or proxy add-ons
note that it's illegal in Russia to talk about blocks circumvention, so if you don't live in Russia, please share this post, so your followers, who live there could see it and use it
