Lmst

Congratulations, Simon … that’s fantastic.

Can’t wait to watch it bloom on your timeline.

These people, and others at the #WashingtonPost, were heroes to me when I was 18 years old in 1974, watching their work bring down #Nixon and his cadre of thugs.

This was long before the movie, the accolades, and the judgement of history. I was still a teenager, but I knew right from wrong.

And I know Jeff #Bezos isn’t fit to scrub their toilets.

Which is a more honorable job than anything he has done, or ever will do.

Washington Post Publisher Katharine Graham, reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, managing editor Howard Simons and Executive Editor Ben Bradlee in The Washington Post newsroom.

These people were giants, and now the nation and the media are owned and run by malignant gnats.

The pump don’t work ‘cause the vandals took the handles.

Photo: Mark Godfrey

⛰🌲Randy Walters🌲⛰ boosted:

Yeah. A real shame.

"It would be a shame if protesters started wearing safety glasses, hard hats, respirators, and gardening gloves, all of which can be found at the hardware stores. It would be a shame if they started using traffic cones (the kind without the hole in the top), upside down buckets, or other improvised lids to contain teargas by placing them over the canisters. It would be a shame if protesters learned that police scanners are legal to own in the US, allowing them to learn where police are moving, and what routes they intend to take. It would be a shame if they discovered that these scanners can be used to send as well as receive, allowing them to flood the scanner frequencies with noise. All of this would be a terrible, terrible shame. *It would be an awful shame if you copied and pasted this, so that they couldn't delete the original and all linked posts (again)."

@gcvsa Ah … but every synth we get makes us five years younger!

Akk! My apologies … I edited my intro toots to bring them up-to-date, without realizing that would essentially re-toot them.

That’s really not what I had intended!

I’m adding instrument and cat photos as well, so apparently the same thing will happen again …

To those who have been kind enough to follow me, and have seen all this before:

please forgive these unintended repeat toots; they’ll quiet down shortly. Thanks.

@NanoRaptor @JuliaRez I just felt it worth noting that an acronym for “Cognitive Load Implications Of Acronyms Rerferring To Other Acronyms” is CLIO ARTOA.

Here’s a follow-up to yesterday’s humidifier toot …

as you can see, this thing really puts out!

Right now, the room is at 52% relative humidity,

which makes the guitars, recorders, kalimba, and guqin very happy.

(it’s good for Lola the cat, too … and any other mammals that happen to share the space.)

#humidity #humidifier #vaporizer #Vicks #cheap #steam

A cloud of steam rises over my little Vicks vaporizer, as it pumps much-needed moisture into the air.

⛰🌲Randy Walters🌲⛰ boosted:

A Minneapolis story:

Today, I took my kid to the neighborhood park to go ice skating. A beautiful thing about this city is that •everyone• has a neighborhood park: early in the city’s history, planners made it a goal to have a park within walking distance of every single residence. They didn’t have to shoehorn this goal in; they built up the city around it. There are little parks all over the city, many just a couple of blocks in size.

And in the winter, they flood the athletic fields: ice rinks!

1/

As you heat your home, the humidity drops. That’s bad for you, and terrible for guitars and wooden musical instruments!

If you need an inexpensive way to #humidify, this is it:

A Vicks Warm Steam unit, for $15-$20. It’s great, and it’s safe.

Please: NEVER buy any “cool mist” or ultrasonic humidifier. It will leave white mineral powder all over your home,

and worse – much worse – you’ll breathe in the microparticles, and soon you’ll be coughing up white crud. Don’t do it!

Stick with steam.

An inexpensive Vicks Warm Steam vaporizer. It holds about 1.5 gallons of water, and does a fantastic job of humidifying a large room.

You’ll need to fill it one or two times a day, but it’s well worth the effort for your health, comfort, and the safety of any wooden musical instruments you cherish.

I have no financial interest in these; I just want to save everyone from hacking up the mineral microparticles that ultrasonic humidifiers spew into the air. They get inhaled deep into the lungs, and it’s *awful.*

This warm steam unit will spare you that. When you clean it out every now and then, you’ll see the crud left behind that you would have been breathing with an ultrasonic unit.

These things are great! And at the price, there’s very little risk.

⛰🌲Randy Walters🌲⛰ boosted:

Dear #FOSDEM people. There is a massive #pixelfed server now in Europe: https://pixelfed.com open for everyone (just people, no organsations).

Hosted from the Netherlands under Dutch law and funded by the @fediversity project.

Please enter a human reason when onboarding (due to AI slop we must do that).

Do join and boost please. 🙏🏻

⛰🌲Randy Walters🌲⛰ boosted:

artist' self portrait
medium: paws on white snow
#catsofmastodon #cats #Humor

View from above on a simple, childish drawing of a cat made on the light snow on a city street.

Today marks the second anniversary of Lola Falafel’s arrival here at her forever home. She’s the sweetest cat, and I love her immensely.

She’s already had some of her special catnip, and she’s got extra treats and goodies for later on.

It’s absolutely frigid outside – 10º F – but she has a warm spot on the sofa, lying on her heating pad and basking by the portable radiator.

If you haven’t visited yet, she has her own website!

https://lookatmykitty.com

#cat #cats #CatsOfMastodon #notcaturday

Lola sits majestically on the back of a chair, looking out the window at the mountains of snow.

Her special warm place … a heating pad and a portable radiator make it the warmest spot in the house.

I’ve been making monthly payments (in Euros) on my beautiful German synthesizer since 2022. I have a year to go. (Yay!)

I rarely deal with spreadsheets, but when I started I thought I’d track the value of the dollar against the Euro.

My monthly bills are constant: €102.49. What I’ve paid each month in dollars over time is shown on this graph.

See the lowest point, marked 12.30 [2024]? That’s the end of the Biden administration; the dollar is strongest.

The rise that follows is all Trump.

A graph showing the value of the dollar against the Euro since the end of 2022.

Its lowest point – where the dollar was the strongest – was at the end of the Biden administration.

The rise of the graph that follows tracks the weakening of the dollar through the Trump administration. It means I have to pay more every month – in dollars – to pay my installment, which is in constant Euros.

Who knows how high it will go in the coming year?

A very strange dream this morning … (not kidding)

I awakened (in the dream) when someone rang my third-floor doorbell. Answering, I found the entryway and stairs blocked by hundreds of gewgaws, including:

• porcelain statues of Christ, in prayer

• holy spirit doves, alone or in formation

• stuffed plush elephants, carrying combat rifles in their trunks. The baby elephants had pistols.

My neighbor – who looked like Janet Reno – showed up, to take credit. I was furious.

And here I am.

⛰🌲Randy Walters🌲⛰ boosted:

There's a rarely heard song by Irving Berlin suddenly trending on YouTube, for, oh, who can say? I'm sure there's no special reason for a song called When That Man is Dead and Gone to trend right now...
https://youtu.be/XDkhzVw0yBs

⛰🌲Randy Walters🌲⛰ boosted:

This is going to sound a bit weird, but it might be a good idea to purchase a shortwave radio if you haven't got one already. They're quite cheap and small, you can buy one and store it long term just in case.

Shortwave is the only way to receive news and information internationally without relying on the internet or satellite. It might be a useful fallback to receive news from the outside world if your country's media and internet are ever restricted or closed down.

If you've never used one, it's like a normal radio but the frequencies reach around the world. Every country used to have its own station.

#Radio #ShortwaveRadio

⛰🌲Randy Walters🌲⛰ boosted:

Reminder that if you're arrested in Illinois for protesting ICE, I can represent you pro bono. Email me at sheryl@weikallaw.com. As always, I will take as many cases as I can.

@theleftistlawyer Your generosity and kindness is one of the brightest sparks on a day filled with darkness.

Thank you, from a resident of RI who appreciates what you do for the residents of Illinois, and all of us.

It occurred to me this morning that when #ICE and the #quislings giving them their marching orders are finally held accountable,

we won’t be having #Nuremberg trials …

we’ll be having #Minneapolis trials. #Minnesota trials.

The people of Minneapolis and other cities are standing up to #fascism, and in doing so, are defending the rights of people all over the USA.

Those #trials can’t come soon enough.

@MarkHoltom That’s all well and good … but how many Rhode Islands does that equal?

Client Info