This Ain’t No CNN.

Early Morning Thoughts.

It’s just after 6:00 AM as I write this blog entry. I will be working for the day in a little bit, but in the meanwhile, I like the moments of sitting in the Arizona darkness that’s typical at this time of year. Truman wants some treats.

There’s a lot coming out of Washington to distract you. Muskrot’s Nazi salute? Whether it was a true Nazi salute or not, it’s all part of the grand theatre staged by the circus acts to distract you and me and to keep us whipped up into a frenzy. These leeches in Washington feed on chaos.

Don’t contribute to the chaos.

By the way, that sentence is a reminder to ME more than it is a reminder to my gentle reader.

Trump is going to do some horrible things over the next week or two to bloviate and then he’s going to play golf. We need to get through this initial run of rampant idiocy and then he’ll lose interest or run out of drugs to keep him amped up like this and then he’ll play golf.

Social media is designed to keep us engaged, so don’t engage with social media. That’s easy for me to say and really hard for me to do. Luckily, I prefer Mastodon and that has lots of filtering options built into the chronologically based timeline. I have a whole bunch of keywords in my filtering system and lately my timeline has shown a lot of obscured posts with the words “uspol” or “the cast of idiots” instead of whatever latest tragic rumor is being bandied about this hour.

Filter your inputs and filter them really well. There is no reason for you to consume everything coming out of Washington.

Again, that last sentence is for ME more than it is for you. But I think it’s still good advice.

We don’t want to be here with Trump any more than Melania wants to be with Trump.

Melania is also a distraction and a leech, so don’t pay any attention to her either.

Frankly, and I’ve said this before when mentioning Trump, I am thankful for two things: 1. I have a memory that allows me to remember what the United States and society in general was like before this chaotic cult idiocy took over and I cherish to remember how good it was before this cancer infested everything and 2. I am really happy to be on the back half of my life. Who knows, maybe I’m on the final stretch. Hell, today could be the finish line.

No one knows when their end is arriving. Memento Mori. Live each moment as if it’s your last breath. The Great Idiocy should have no power over how you feel when you take your last breath.

Mental Health.

Today is a really good day to stay away from ~~state~~ social media. Little is to be accomplished by doomscrolling, and by all measures of intelligence you should stay away from properties owned by Meta: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsUp. Lean in on the opportunity to read a book or something.

The chaos officially begins in the U.S. today. I, for one, have better things to do than watch the idiocy commence on television or browse through hysterics. We’re all going to need to maintain our mental agility through these chaotic times. Don’t kick off the era by mentally burning yourself out.

20 January 2025 by J.P. This Ain't No CNN. 0

My Thoughts on Meta.

I released the latest episode to my YouTube channel this evening. While the main purpose of the episode is to highlight my hike to Hope Camp in Saguaro National Park here in Tucson, I also talk about my feelings around the content moderation changes/elimination at Meta, which will affect Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

I left Threads about a month ago when the place went crazy with bots and MAGA folks. While I’m not abandoning Facebook and Instagram, they have been removed from my phone and I have decided to no longer promote my YouTube channel releases on Meta owned platforms. If you’re curious as to my reasoning, see the first 90 seconds or so of my latest episode.

I’ll probably write more about it this week. I’m in a mood.

19 January 2025 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept Geek This Ain't No CNN. Video. 0

TikTok.

I don’t have a vested interest in TikTok. I don’t really go to the site that often, I don’t have the app on my phone, and I’ve never contributed to the platform. I know a lot of people that enjoy TikTok, and they seem to enjoy the experience very much.

Today, SCOTUS (they no longer deserve anymore than an abbreviation, as there’s NOTHING ‘supreme’ about any of them) decided that the TikTok ban can go through and apparently it’s lights out for TikTok in the United States come Sunday.

Personally, I think that’s governmental overreach, but I suspect the other minions like MuskRot and ZuckerPerm probably want to send their data to China, instead of a Chinese company extracting U.S. user data directly. In this day and age, if people want to send their data to other countries, that’s their prerogative. I don’t know that China is stealing data from Americans, they probably are, but again, I’m not that invested in the platform to care.

There’s a plenty of awful things coming in 2025. Banning TikTok is not going to stop, halt, or belay any of them.

Let the TikTokkers have their fun.

17 January 2025 by J.P. This Ain't No CNN. 0

Two Weeks.

Two weeks ago from the moment I’m writing this blog entry we were all at home celebrating the first day of the New Year.

Two weeks ago. That’s it. It feels like it’s been eight months and we’re not even half way through January.

2025 is off to a hoot and a half.

15 January 2025 by J.P. This Ain't No CNN. 0

Free Speech.

Editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit The Washington Post a couple of days ago. She had drawn a cartoon depicting what’s going on in Mango Mushpot land these days: corporate leaders are making personal donations to Trump’s Inauguration fund, apparently to gain favor with him during his upcoming ~~doom~~ administration.

The cartoon was killed by owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos. Bezos also owns Amazon.

Here’s Ann’s rough sketch of the cartoon in question.

Ann posted a full account of the story, and the subsequent reactions on her substack.

While it isn’t uncommon for editorial page editors to object to visual metaphors within a cartoon if it strikes that editor as unclear or isn’t correctly conveying the message intended by the cartoonist, such editorial criticism was not the case regarding this cartoon. To be clear, there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary. That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press.

The next four years are not only going to be incredibly exhausting and dangerous politically, but they have the very strong potential to screw up this country for at least a generation.

I’m still blown away that so many people either completely lack a moral foundation or are so incredibly selfish that they voted for a second Trump term.

This is not going to be fun. But apparently America voted for the felon it deserves.

6 January 2025 by J.P. Political BS. This Ain't No CNN. 0

Today I Learned …

Per the BBC, Apple has agreed to pay $95M in a settlement claiming the tech giant was recording users without their consent.

The tech giant was accused of eavesdropping on its customers through its virtual assistant Siri.

The claimants also allege voice recordings were shared with advertisers.

Apple, which has not admitted any wrongdoing, has been approached for comment.

In the preliminary settlement, the tech firm denies any wrongdoing, as well as claims that it “recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete, conversations recorded as the result of a Siri activation” without consent.

Apple’s lawyers also say they will confirm they have “permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected by Apple prior to October 2019”.

But the claimants say the tech firm recorded people who activated the virtual assistant unintentionally – without using the phrase “Hey, Siri” to wake it.

They say advertisers who received the recordings could then look for keywords in them to better target ads.

Per Forbes, Meta (the owner of Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and other things) has added “AI Generated Users” to their application user bases.

Connor Hayes, vice president of product for generative AI at Meta, tells London’s Financial Times, “We expect these AIs to actually exist on our platforms in the same way that [human] accounts do.”

So, now we’re going to have non-human users using social media owned by Meta, interacting with regular users. And let’s not get into my feelings around that profile summary shown in the screenshot.

Per Windows Central, Bluesky added nearly 23 million users in 2024, with half of those users joining the platform within the past six weeks.

Bluesky saw a massive surge in users in 2024. The social media platform has become one of the primary destinations for those leaving X (formerly Twitter). This year, 22.9 million people signed up for Bluesky. Over half of those new users (over 13 million) joined the platform in just the last month and a half.

Welp, look what happened after the idiotic results of the U.S. Presidential Election.

2025 is going to be a very, let’s go with interesting year, especially in the tech space. As FAANG* continues to use “A.I.” as a solution looking for a problem, we’ll probably see record temperatures as the “A.I.” industries continue to need more and more energy for these ‘solutions’.

^{* I also learned this week that FAANG stands for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.}

3 January 2025 by J.P. This Ain't No CNN. 0

Slipping.

I took a look at the news today and saw what’s going on with the U.S. budget and how the government will probably shut down tonight. I feel bad for all of the working Americans that will be affected by this action. Apparently there was a bipartisan bill to keep things moving but at the last minute Sissy Space X got the House Republicans to kill the thing, so now there’s a scramble.

There’s always a scramble.

I’ve been seeing inklings of how Musk appears to be calling all the Presidential-elect shots and basically telling Trump to do. I guess since Musk isn’t eligible to be President of the United States, he just bought his way to the top instead and is telling the old guy what to do.

That’s not how any of this works, but I gave up that dream at the beginning of November when voters decided one term of chaos wasn’t enough. I blathered on about it on Facebook just because I could. I really didn’t think the Co-Presidency would be so blatant this time around. I guess I’m not as smart as I thought I was. Or, I guess I had more faith in the system that it deserves.

For now I shall go back to keeping my head down like I’m sitting in Room 108 in the elementary school, waiting for the buzzer to ring so I know it’s time go do something.

In the meanwhile, I am focused on things that give me joy, such as my video production, geeky things like cash registers, visiting with family and friends, and trying to embrace the holiday spirit.

It’s time to shut the news back off and find some joy out there, anywhere.

20 December 2024 by J.P. Politics. This Ain't No CNN. 0

We Have Work To Do.

The American people have spoken. Instead of going to Costco for gas, they’ve elected a fascist with absolutely no respect for The Constitution as the next president of the United States.

You have two months to get your stuff together.

My blog entries for the next few days are going to politically oriented as I work through this in my head. I really thought the American people were better than this, but hey, at least they can keep being racists out loud.

My first recommendation: To my LGBT+ brothers and sisters, make sure your union is legally documented OUTSIDE of a standard marriage certificate. Get all the legal power you can with power of attorney, right of survivorship, inheritances, wills, everything.

The American people are going to screw us hard to save 30 cents on a gallon of gas. We need to have our legal ducks in a row.

6 November 2024 by J.P. This Ain't No CNN. 3

Ummmm….

I gotta say, I didn’t have “GOP Presidential Candidate simulates oral sex on a microphone at a campaign rally” on my bingo card.

I’m curious, if so many folks are simply aghast at explaining the whole gay thing to their children, how in the world will they explain Trump simulating a blow job on a microphone on national television?

3 November 2024 by J.P. This Ain't No CNN. 0

Early Morning Thoughts.

My Thoughts on Meta.

TikTok.

Two Weeks.

Free Speech.

Today I Learned …

Slipping.

We Have Work To Do.

Ummmm….

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