Replying to
@MaryAustinBooks@mstdn.socialhttps://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/4/mock-republican-convention-website-redirects-users-to-epstein-files
Remote
Michael Kohlman
@NoRomBasic@mastodon.world
mastodon 4.7.3🙄 Eclectic and Occasionally Heretical CIO
✌️ Inaugural Gen X'er
🤨 INFJ
🙃 Frequently /S
📢 Talks about #photography, #infosec, #leadership, #technology, #diversityintech, #publicservice, #publictransportation, and well, other stuff.
🤔 Favorites and Boosts Don't Always Imply 100% Agreement, But a Thought or Conversation Worthy of Consideration.
🌞 Currently Hanging Around Monterey, California
😵 Posts Generally Expire at 1 Year
😎 And Personal Opinions are Most Definitely My Own...
236 Followers
349 Following
50 Posts
Joined November 20, 2022
VERIFIED:
Friendica (General):
Friendica (Photography):
As I personally come up on the 10 year mark of the collapse of Saint Joseph's College, today's post from Hechinger remains a reminder that the promise of advanced educational opportunities to anyone who wants it is disappearing in the U.S.:
https://hechingerreport.org/college-financial-stress-faculty-layoffs-increase-prices/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Half%20of%20all%20colleges%20face%20money%20problems&utm_campaign=Weekly%2009%2008%202026
Replying to
@jalefkowit
Short answer... No.
TL;DR...
WalMart is close, but I try to avoid them for many of the same reasons as Amazon.
Please Rewind on eBay is very close (pleaserewindadmin)
GRUV.com is more limited, but if they have it, they are one of the best.
Your better bet is to begin to move towards a curated handful of sellers, which is what I have done over the last 3 years.
MSTodon...
Forgotten Battles:
A lone man stands at the corner of the Pilcher & McBryde Rexall Drugs, with the Edmund Pettus Bridge visible off in the distance, on a silent and nearly empty July 4th in Selma Alabama.
Father Hennepin Bridge:
July 4th 2013, was my first in Minneapolis. At the time Evelia and I were temp living in Saint Louis Park as our long-term digs weren't ready yet (SOO Line Building)
Even so we spent the day downtown with a very festive crowd, eventually watching the fireworks from the Stone Arch Bridge.
By Midnight, things had quieted though, giving me the opportunity to take one of my all-time favorite photos.
Replying to
@emilymbender@dair-community.social Good thread, not sure if I am in alignment with every detail, but certainly with the overall philosophy.
RE: @NoRomBasic@mastodon.world
😵 Looks like Enrich9945 has knocked me out of the top spot over the weekend...
🥳 Congratulations! The really cool thing is everyone on Fedihosting Foundation servers win as well!
🤔 Any others think that they can knock me out of the #2 position???
"Delusion of Omnipotence" is now one of my favorite phrases.
Replying to
@jalefkowit They added SHOUT to their storefront page recently, as well as a west coast distribution point, so they seem to be expanding their operations. I would say at least half of my orders are from them now and the experience is consistently good.
Please Rewind has been a pleasant surprise. Large library, Frequent discounts, reasonably quick shipping, but new releases tend to cost slightly more. I preordered Avatar F&A through them.
Replying to
@SwiftOnSecurity@infosec.exchange It frightens me a little that I am now technically one of "The Parents" you could be referring to...
🎞️ 🍿 #MovieNight - WALL•E
I may be biased, as I will admit to an irrational love for this film, but as more time goes by, the more I think that this is the peak Pixar moment. The level of attention to everything, from the flakes of rust on our hero, to the subtle movements of light in the circuitry under EVE's skin is astounding. The story is flawless, with too many tiny perfect moments to count. It's simply a masterpiece in every measurable way.
Shepherd Book used to tell me, “If you can’t do something smart, do something right.”
Stuff like this pops up in feeds and I find myself wondering which dystopian novel is the best match on my Bingo Card. 🤔
https://apnews.com/article/hegseth-pentagon-testosterone-testing-troops-47333bbf3af9e4cac432722332ff1383
Replying to
@SecureOwl Small steps lead to big victories, grasshopper.
Now, can you tell me where your 10mm socket is?
Replying to on universeodon.com
@jaykuo@universeodon.com And... She departed from Monterey Bay, California...
Kesley Absolutely Rocks.
RE: @cmconseils@mastodon.social
I actually lived this. Had a person who was responsible for technology and cybersecurity oversight who could not open or save PDF board meeting reports.
Replying to
@SunnJax@tech.lgbt Clearly, they must have felt you were terribly wronged.
I only got $5.76...
Replying to
@rednikki@toot.boston @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io I hope to do as well at that age.
I bike to MST on Friday's (at minimum) and while I would not call it strenuous, it is no longer entirely pain-free.
It is so cute how the Google Play Store notifies me that I have notifications turned off.
Some days...
Replying to
But still, for me at least it seems so much like a microcosmic example of how we has a society and culture have lost our way.
This was a place that I was connected to in one way or another for 15 years.
Where, no matter who you were or what standing you had there, the founder and CEO (who for a while was one of the wealthiest people in the U.S.) was 100% accessible, ate in the company cafeteria, and worked out in the company gym.
An org where everyone knew him simply as "Bill".
Replying to
It probably should not have, as I left the org shortly after the founder and CEO died, and there were increasingly clear indications that the company was walking away from the culture that made them special.
That became really clear when they broke their 50 year core philosophy of never having RIFed 3 years ago with a 4% layoff in the "modern" US Corporate style (via email, and a demand that the RIFed staff train their lower-paid replacements on the way out to get their severance).
Replying to
@rednikki@toot.boston @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io
The article mentions she is lifting about 30kg, (66lbs) which is still pretty darn good.
I mentioned this to my 81 year old mom last night and got a response I won't repeat here.
Not the heroes we deserve, but the ones that we need:
https://www.deviantart.com/leopinheiro/art/Good-News-Everyone-454742490
🎞 🍿 #MovieNight
Legends Of The Fall
Director Edward Zwick has done a number of visually stunning movies, and while this one is not his best "story" I think it is his most beautiful. And the 4k remaster done last year is as good as it gets.
U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear challenge to Illinois law barring concealed carry of guns on public transit - The ruling leaves intact the state’s 2013 prohibition on firearms aboard buses and trains:
Replying to
@Gargron I suspect that Hoodie's will be high in demand, but a simple sweatshirt would be very welcome by this Central Coast California fan.
Regular sweatshirts are easier to wear over a collared shirt and provide more layering options.
Replying to
👏 And... Congratulations to Los Angeles Metro and all of the folks there who brought Open-Loop Contactless Payments online this week! It is inspiring to see agencies in our state achieving not just a critical mass of systems that are allowing folks to pay for transportation with the payment methods they already have, but to see it now covering enough service areas where it is becoming ubiquitous.
My S/O of 35 years referred to someone today as a controlling narcissistic man baby.
I am so proud to be married to her...
TriMet (Oregon) has finalized service cuts to buses and MAX, along with a historic reduction in staffing, set to go into effect this summer.
The cuts are intended to address a roughly $300 million structural budget deficit that TriMet first identified about a year ago. Although the agency reduced costs by about $150 million through staffing and service cuts last fall, the deficit has continued to grow amid rising operating expenses, officials said.
Replying to on lgbtqia.space
@vor@lgbtqia.space That is definitely how it used to behave.
But... Here is the updated tracking...
As predicted in my earlier thread, the 8/25 ETA remained constant as it passed through 3 distribution centers and did not update until it reached the final location (which for my area is the San Jose D.C.)
Only when it reached the last point did it update (incorrectly I may add) to today.
It looks like the logistics system has been "streamlined" to ignore the intermediate D.C.'s, which is a recent change.
Replying to
It was a place, where, in his final years and during the great recession, org leaders were given explicit instructions to find a way to temporarily reduce costs as, "under no circumstances would we be laying anyone off".
And, they didn't...
Say what you will about AI (I certainly have), but the level of sophistication with regards to phishing emails is very noticeably increasing. Had one passed along by our cybersecurity analyst this morning that fortunately still had "flags" that were identified by staff, but the content of the communication was really good, down to reasonably emulating the personalities of folks known to interact with our agency.
It's absolutely an indicator of things to come...
September 5th, 2014
Lived right at this spot, at the highlighted apartment for 3 years.
Minneapolis will forever be a place I consider "home".
(what should be an) Obvious Observation to No One in Particular:
Leaders can get a shitload accomplished simply by treating people like their voice matters and thanking them for the things that they do.
Replying to
🤔 As for where all of this goes next... Well... I might have some thoughts of my own on this in the coming days...
“At the institutional level, I cannot reconcile what I have seen on free speech, on the dismantling of diversity and inclusion infrastructure, and on the protection of marginalized students, faculty, and staff,” Fielding wrote. “The administration’s posture has been to absorb federal and state pressure quietly rather than push back publicly.”
Yosemite offers many wonders. Crushing crowds are now one of them:
"The Army used AI that hallucinated multiple times, creating the false impression that Trax’s bid was weaker than rival Southwest Range Services’ successful bid of roughly $450 million, a complaint filed in late July alleged. The filing comes after the Government Accountability Office denied Trax’s bid protest in May":
https://www.nextgov.com/acquisition/2026/08/contractor-alleges-army-inappropriately-used-ai-make-450m-contract-award/415225/?oref=ng-homepage-river
Apparently Cubic (aka Clipper Cards for the San Francisco Transportation Region) is not on Ryan Mahoney's "like" list:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ryan-mahoney-engineer_did-you-know-cubic-caused-a-27-hour-fare-share-7505706907307986944-az84/
"The Interior Department’s top technology official left the agency last week after falling out of favor with administration officials, according to a person familiar with the matter, ending a short tenure for a former SpaceX engineer brought in amid the Trump administration’s push to remake federal technology operations."
https://www.nextgov.com/people/2026/07/interior-cio-paul-mcinerny-exits-position/414612/
Meanwhile, in upside-down world:
"Even as the IRS says that it’s relying on technology to make up for a smaller staff size, its technology shop hasn’t been immune to staffing losses. The IRS has shed about 40% of its IT staff, and 80% of its (IT) executives. The agency also reassigned 1,500 employees from its IT shop to the office of the chief operating officer last year."
Replying to
@gcvsa@mstdn.plus @kev@social.catastrophic.horse +1
The "family" answer I give is generally the same.
For a desktop PC and Monitor, something that is "at least" 800VA/500W. From that point, go with as much as you can comfortably afford.
Both APC and Cyberpower are good brands with easily replaceable batteries.
If you buy one with a USB cable, plug it into the PC and run the software setup. This will tell the PC to shut down when the battery runs out.