Alison Smaalders's Avatar

Alison Smaalders

@vividwings

Archaeology major, currently working in P&C insurance. Gamer, LARPer, general nerd, cat lover. Occasionally known as Fun Fact. She/her.

503
Followers
328
Following
1,295
Posts
21.10.2023
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Alison Smaalders @vividwings

Preview
From the linux community on Reddit Explore this post and more from the linux community

www.reddit.com/r/linux/s/jf...

Mega thread on who is behind these age verification laws, spoiler alert it’s Meta.

13.03.2026 11:01 πŸ‘ 2648 πŸ” 1532 πŸ’¬ 32 πŸ“Œ 85

This is beef Wellington adjacent, maybe? If baked all together. Otherwise, it's like... If a burger bun was a bread bowl with a lid.

13.03.2026 08:11 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

the stink of gender resentment coming off Silicon Valley has been obvious for a while. these men hate women because they hate being told no.

12.03.2026 22:14 πŸ‘ 5433 πŸ” 1683 πŸ’¬ 125 πŸ“Œ 29

No Democrat should be talking about tax cuts. They should be talking about executing Elon Musk for treason and seizing every dollar he has.

13.03.2026 02:35 πŸ‘ 768 πŸ” 169 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 7

I understand that it’s terrifying to think that the emperor has no clothes when the emperor is running the most powerful military in human history but he is on the biggest stage imaginable and he is doing the helicopter dick and at some point you’ve gotta face reality

12.03.2026 17:13 πŸ‘ 429 πŸ” 53 πŸ’¬ 14 πŸ“Œ 1

Friendly reminder that Disabled people still can't legally get married without losing their benefits! Certain states have workarounds, but if you require federal assistance, you're out of luck. We still don't have access to the same rights as others 36 years later

12.03.2026 21:16 πŸ‘ 122 πŸ” 73 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

Narratively having Ever Given getting stuck in 2021 to set up Hormuz in 2026 is great foreshadowing. You want your audience to understand the basics of international shipping in a lower stakes context so you drop the real plot without a lot of saggy exposition about the minutiae of cargo logistics.

12.03.2026 13:08 πŸ‘ 5906 πŸ” 1565 πŸ’¬ 43 πŸ“Œ 53
Preview
Grammarly Is Facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over Its AI β€˜Expert Review’ Feature The feature, which Grammarly shut down Wednesday, presented editing suggestions as if they came from established authors and academicsβ€”without their consent.

I'm suing Grammarly over its paid AI feature that presented editing suggestions as if they came from me - and many other writers and journalists - without consent.

State law requires consent before someone's name can be used for commercial purposes.

www.wired.com/story/gramma...

11.03.2026 20:55 πŸ‘ 7946 πŸ” 2413 πŸ’¬ 119 πŸ“Œ 205

And update it! A relative passed with a will, but it had not been updated after his wife died. It was designed just to leave everything to each other.

Anyway it took six years to finish probate.

12.03.2026 17:35 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

This is the best lede I've seen in a tech story in...years? There should be an award just for ledes.

12.03.2026 15:55 πŸ‘ 3405 πŸ” 1262 πŸ’¬ 32 πŸ“Œ 42
Preview
Iran War Exposes America’s Unfixed Supply Chains - The American Prospect We have a trillion-dollar military without enough bombs to fight for more than a week, and none of the critical components needed to make more.

β€’ 5 main military contractors strangle capacity
β€’ trillion-dollar budgets for planes that can't fly
β€’ only a 2-month supply of rare earths for military purposes
If we have a trillion-dollar military that can't supply itself, then we really only have a contractor enrichment factory.

12.03.2026 14:36 πŸ‘ 83 πŸ” 27 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 2

This is part of a pattern I've started to notice: There are people out there who are loudly committed to off-loading their work to chatbots and come seeking my validation for their position.

>>

11.03.2026 13:16 πŸ‘ 720 πŸ” 103 πŸ’¬ 26 πŸ“Œ 11

Everything is gender, because I do see this happening to professional/expert women a lot. At least some of this is β€˜surely you, a woman, can’t be right when this LLM is saying otherwise’

12.03.2026 08:43 πŸ‘ 252 πŸ” 58 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 4

girl are you the Straight of Hormuz because I see a lot of men greatly overestimating their chances of getting their ship into your channel

12.03.2026 00:58 πŸ‘ 1058 πŸ” 268 πŸ’¬ 13 πŸ“Œ 6

It's like they're trying to speed-run all the reasons Kissinger is finally in hell

11.03.2026 02:19 πŸ‘ 194 πŸ” 15 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
11.03.2026 13:58 πŸ‘ 525 πŸ” 95 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1

Go on LinkedIn right now and you’ll find people with advanced degrees and decades of experience facing homelessness. It can happen to anyone. Your β€œgood decisions” aren’t permanent protection from your life going off the rails.

11.03.2026 17:28 πŸ‘ 608 πŸ” 241 πŸ’¬ 12 πŸ“Œ 15
Post image Post image

Great. So if you write to BlueSky support about a violation of your intellectual property, they reply telling you to contact another email address, which replies telling you to contact BlueSky support.

11.03.2026 06:52 πŸ‘ 341 πŸ” 89 πŸ’¬ 30 πŸ“Œ 7

Fair play, 'the mad emperor started compulsively buying shoes for his court, guessing their foot size & his courtiers were too scared not to wear them even when they didn't fit' is some classic, on the nose End Days Of The Empire stuff

11.03.2026 10:11 πŸ‘ 1485 πŸ” 361 πŸ’¬ 22 πŸ“Œ 11

It was never the rules-based international order that wouldn't allow us to kidnap leaders, invade other countries, or bomb the everloving god out of poor countries

It was that we agreed not to, because it led to very bad outcomes. And we created the rules to reflect this

The rules are not your mum

09.03.2026 14:11 πŸ‘ 218 πŸ” 54 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 7

If a judge ever talked to me like this and I had in fact fucked up this bad, I think I would just walk into the ocean?

11.03.2026 08:48 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Pretty crazy how important the blockade of a trade route is right now

10.03.2026 21:30 πŸ‘ 24824 πŸ” 6722 πŸ’¬ 216 πŸ“Œ 421
Post image

Well, this aged exactly how I was afraid it would

08.03.2026 23:12 πŸ‘ 14136 πŸ” 3661 πŸ’¬ 268 πŸ“Œ 85

about 95% of what my parents get up to at church would be fedposting if I tried to describe it to you

11.03.2026 00:32 πŸ‘ 92 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

The average American senior’s Medicare premiums last year were about 10% higher, or more than $200 annually, because of alleged overpayments to private Medicare Advantage plans, congressional investigators found. πŸ”— on.wsj.com/3PcusZX

10.03.2026 18:19 πŸ‘ 226 πŸ” 96 πŸ’¬ 9 πŸ“Œ 3

Holy shit - this would be very, very bad:
"The databases, called β€œNumident” and the β€œMaster Death File,” include records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names."

10.03.2026 19:33 πŸ‘ 2995 πŸ” 1481 πŸ’¬ 107 πŸ“Œ 69

I am on team washing machine, personally, but dishwasher is also very valid!

10.03.2026 09:14 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

On the one-year anniversary of his detention by federal authorities, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and First Lady Rama Duwaji welcomed Mahmoud Khalil, his wife Noor, and their baby boy, Deen, to Gracie Mansion to break the fast together.

10.03.2026 03:41 πŸ‘ 9059 πŸ” 1197 πŸ’¬ 92 πŸ“Œ 94

Thank you for this piece of information, I didn't realize swords of this style were produced for active use that late! Though it apparently was mostly used for practical uses like clearing brush, which makes sense.

Medieval knight themed machete, basically.

10.03.2026 04:29 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0