This is a very good piece on the nature of Russian political talk shows - the agitament, as the author dubs the genre, which is grotesquely modeled on partisan cable TV/radio in the US and not in any way analogous to Soviet propaganda. By @MaxAlyukov
https://t.co/qHMMuJGoSh
The person who stole a raccoon, a lama and a donkey from Kherson zoo turns out to be Oleg Zubkov, owner of Taigan lion park in Crimea. He is a former Ukrainian politician who supported the occupation but then ran into trouble with the Russian authorities.
I’ve just chanced again upon the word ‘shotclog’ (16th century): an unwelcome member of a group who is only tolerated because they’re buying the next drink.
Last bit on mastodon. Initially it's a bit disorienting because there's no algorithm sculpting your feed. You have to find the right hastags and people to follow. A lot of newbies from twitter don't realise how sculpted and siloed they've become because of Twitter's algorithms.
I like some of the design choices on mastodon. A quote from one of the developers
"I've made a deliberate choice against a quoting feature because it inevitably adds toxicity to people's behaviours. You are tempted to quote when you should be replying..."
The MAGA movement, based on aging white boomer victimhood is a bell curve. That bell curve has peaked for the simple reason that boomers, of which I am one, are dying off. -Boomers were wholly unprepared for the blunt manipulations of Fox News, in bundled cable of the 90s