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Maroon Bells

I seek out certain destinations that fill this desire of mine to seek out God's beautify of this land.
It actually wasn't too long ago where I can recall first hearing of this place. It is said to be the most photographed view in all of Colorado.
I was so thrilled to see these grand purple mountains showing their fall beauty with the yellow aspens.

pixels.com/featured/maroon-bel…

#MaroonBells #BillGallagherPhotography #BuyIntoArt #Colorado #RockyMountains #Autumn #YellowAspens #Nature

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Was talking to a young person today about careers and they seemed pretty sharp and switched on. But they're in a shit job.

And I wish more people understood that there are a lot of shit jobs out there. And this is by design. This is how the system was built. And the system relies on people not deciding "I can do better" and forging a different path for themselves.

It is true that not everyone can "do better" just because some nong on the internet said so. But it's also true that the current system relies on most people giving up before they even try.

I like to imagine a world where things are better, for lots of folks. Believing that it's possible is the first step.

Ewen Bell 📸 reshared this.

in reply to Ewen Bell 📸

I just learnt today that George W. Bush is the definition of 'failing upwards'. Apparently you don't need to be intelligent to hold a good job or be the CEO of anything. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Down with capitalism!
in reply to madame poolhair

@lacybarry

Ahhhh yes, the Peter Principle. The idea that you keep getting promoted into jobs until you are clearly incapable of that job. Works out great when you come from old money :)

in reply to Ewen Bell 📸

There's this thing that happens a lot when I'm staying in hotels. Happened again today.

Lady wants to know if I want my room made up. It's always a lady, can't remember the last time I saw a male hotel cleaner. I always say no. I don't need someone wasting their time to fuss around my room and make it neat, only for me to mess it up an hour later.

They're always so grateful. Half an hour of their day they don't have to waste. She gave me extra water and loo paper. Her gratitude was palpable.

That's how tough her job is. Getting a pass on cleaning one hotel room might be the highlight of her working day.

I think about this every time some poncey billionaire wants to brag about how hard they worked to convert their inheritance from a few billions to lots of billions. I think about the cleaning ladies at my hotel who have never been on a jet plane. The bus drivers in Kathmandu who can't afford to buy a car. The Sherpa in the Himalayas who don't have any retirement fund when they break a leg and have to stop working.

I didn't know how I ended up this lucky. But I do know I'm lucky.

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in reply to Ewen Bell 📸

I typically don’t meet housekeepers personally in hotels mostly because I don’t spend much time inside. But a few times I was asked whether I wanted the room made up and I always say yes. That’s because the housekeepers are paid by room and when my room is taken off the list, they get paid less.

So from my point of view it much about who is asking.

in reply to Arnd Layer

@iamlayer8

Never ever heard of house keeping being paid per room. That's a new one. Can assure you, the ones I've met were super happy to skip a room.

in reply to Ewen Bell 📸

Stayed in a hotel the other week where you had to opt-in for housekeeping, which I thought was a nice touch
in reply to Red Dog

I stayed in a hotel in Basel, Switzerland, recently where if you opted out of getting your room serviced you got a free drink token for each occupant. That was an offer I was more than willing to accept.
in reply to Ewen Bell 📸

YHA, the Rocks, SYDNEY:
they have male cleaning staff, and I told them no too :)



Strategie in Zeiten der Eskalation: Ein Diskussionsbeitrag zur Zukunft der Friedensbewegung pressenza.com/de/2025/12/strat…



Using frozen Russian assets is a declaration of war, PM says byteseu.com/1627212/ #Hungary


With it's dependence on anonymity, multiple tools to destroy transaction paper trails and built in conflicts of interest between brokers, dealers, issuers and exchanges, crypto is perfectly designed for financial fraud. And yet, under Trump, the sheriff has left town.


Sunday reading: I wrote about how the regime’s latest racist hate campaign is tied to the Right’s broader attempt to redefine citizenship and national identity in service of an exclusionary white nationalist vision.

A deep dive into the Right’s visions of blood-and-soil nationalism:

steady.page/en/democracyameric…

in reply to Thomas Zimmer

No tiered citizenship in America: That is what the 14th Amendment declares. But a polity that excludes anyone who doesn’t fit certain ethno-religious criteria or relegates them to lesser status is exactly the vision that animates the Trumpist Right.
in reply to Thomas Zimmer

It is the defining project of today’s Right: To vanquish the very idea that America should aspire to be a nation defined by equal citizenship in a pluralistic, multiracial society - and to fight instead for white Christian male supremacy at home and in the world.
in reply to Thomas Zimmer

they aren't Christians. They oppose every single thing that Christ stood for.

Yes, I know they CLAIM to be Christians, but we should not allow them to get away with that lie.

in reply to Thomas Zimmer

What is unfolding here is not just a sideshow, not merely a distraction from the Right’s plutocratic agenda (although they certainly care about that as well). This is the manifestation of the Right’s defining political project. They really mean it.
in reply to Thomas Zimmer

That is true for Donald Trump himself also. He is not just a grumpy old man indulging in racist stereotypes, but a politician committed to a worldview shaped and organized by racism and white supremacy. What is on display here is not just personal bigotry.
in reply to Thomas Zimmer

It is true that Trump is not an ideologue in a strict sense. He is, more than anything, animated by a set of grievances. But those are not random. They are related to his view of how status and power ought to be distributed.
in reply to Thomas Zimmer

Donald Trump is deeply convinced that powerful white men like him have a right to be at the top, that it is their prerogative to exert power over others. And how dare anyone object, complain, have the audacity to curtail the ability of men like him to do as they please.
in reply to Thomas Zimmer

To say that race is an organizing principle that structures the way Donald Trump perceives of the world is not to claim it is the only one. Gender is crucially important, as is wealth. What Donald Trump believes in is a political and societal order of sharp, brutal hierarchies.
in reply to Thomas Zimmer

That’s why Trump is so perfect as an avatar for today’s Right and their anti-egalitarian, anti-pluralistic project that runs on radicalizing grievance. The white nationalism, the patriarchal domination, the oligarchic control, the Christian supremacism: They are all tied together.

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in reply to Thomas Zimmer

As long as they acquiesce, some who don’t qualify as “real Americans” in this white Christian patriarchal ethnostate might be tolerated. But even their lesser status and second-class citizenship will always be conditional. And if they “bitch” too much, they will be punished, expelled.
in reply to Thomas Zimmer

The coercive powers of the state are being mobilized to curtail the rights of those who dare to deviate and entrench a tiered system of participation defined by hierarchies of race, gender, religion, wealth, and ancestry – to restore white male dominance across all spheres of life.
in reply to Thomas Zimmer

If they succeeded, what would America look like?

The Trumpists desire to drastically narrow the boundaries of who gets to belong and purge millions from the “homeland.” Those who are left would be living in a society that is not only unequal but has ostracized egalitarian aspirations as heresy.



Una cupola trasparente, pesci che nuotano, piante che crescono su quattro livelli. Zero terra e fertilizzanti. L'Expo di Osaka ha mostrato come l'agricoltura urbana potrebbe arrivare sui nostri tetti: un ecosistema chiuso dove gli escrementi dei pesci alimentano le verdure. Storioni, lattughe e fiori commestibili in 128 metri quadrati. Tra vent'anni forse mangeremo insalata coltivata sul tetto del vicino. Oppure no, perché nessuno vorrà pulire le vasche degli storioni.
futuroprossimo.it/2025/12/la-c…


Papst Leo XIV. hofft auf Straferlass für viele Häftlinge weltweit
Bei der letzten großen Veranstaltung zum Heiligen Jahr 2025 hat Papst Leo XIV. an Forderungen seines Vorgängers angenüpft und seine Hoffnung auf eine Amnestie für Häftlinge geäußert. Zugleich kritisiert er die Zustände in Gefängnissen weltweit.

katholisch.de/artikel/66348-pa…



> qwen0.5b fine tuning

:neofox_thonk: is.. is that viable on commodity hardware



Group J Preview: Argentina clear favourites as Austria and Algeria look to Battle for Knockout Spot – IND Vs SA T20 | LIVE Score | Sports News Portal byteseu.com/1627210/ #Austria




smarterkram.de/8764/smart-home…

Ein wirklich geiler Newsletter, der Smart Home Wntwicklungen einer Woche unterhaltsam zusammenfasst. Immer Sonntags frisch aus der Presse.

#smarthome #homeassistant #iot #homekit



Rank-and-file Republicans feel heat from constituents on health care (Karen Tumulty/Washington Post)

washingtonpost.com/politics/20…
memeorandum.com/251214/p18#a25…



YouTube’s AI is Breaking the Creator Ecosystem


Over the past four years, I've significantly reduced my social media footprint. There are countless reasons for this, all of which are beyond the scope of this article, but the point I want to make is this: despite my growing apathy and downright hostility towards social platforms, I've found YouTube to be an oasis of sorts.

I am not going to pretend that YouTube hasn't played its part in the global disinformation epidemic or that it has somehow escaped the claws of enshittification. What I will say is that unlike other social platforms, its feed (unlike those of its competitors) are maleable using browser-based plugins (tools such as subscription managers). It is one of my primary learning platforms; without its vast array of tutorials, there is no way that I, a non-programmer, would have learnt Linux as fast or become as comfortable in a FOSS-based computing environment, as I have since the pandemic.

But enshittification is, like death and taxes, a certainty now. Which brings us to the subject of this column: AI moderation on YouTube.



How politics, lobbying and transition periods keep a poison alive and what that means for Switzerland byteseu.com/1627208/ #Switzerland