Hedgeiii - Searching For Sang-froid

This is critical for everyone to understand about social media.

Any engagement encourages the algorithm. It's a skill to cultivate only your stuff, and on most meta platforms, impossible by design. They sneak (and often sledgehammer) stuff in to just engage you, especially stuff you might hate.

An explainer for why I don't fuck with algorithmic social media

If you give a pigeon a little button to peck that releases pigeon food, it will push the button when it's hungry.

If you give a pigeon a button to peck that releases food every 5 pecks, it will peck it more often.

If you give a pigeon a button to peck that releases food at a randomly selected, always shifting number of pecks, the pigeon will peck that fucking button all day long.

Algorithm based social media is not set up to give you the best most fun stuff all the time, it is set up to give you a bunch of stress and nothingness with a randomized reward of something that actually makes you happy, because they want you pecking that button all damn day. It is a slot machine of content, meant to keep you putting in quarters made of your time and attention till you've nothing yet.

At least if I'm having a shit day on my own Tumblr feed it's because I've made a bad choice about who to follow and I can fix it.

“After being wined and dined for years — with one of his billionaire patrons buying his mother’s house and fixing it up and putting his grandnephew through a ritzy private academy — Clarence Thomas returned the favor by casting his tie-breaking Citizens United vote, almost fully legalizing billionaires and giant companies bribing politicians. Political bribery is still illegal in Scotland, The Netherlands, and Australia, which is why politicians in those countries could stand up to the fossil fuel industry. America, in fact, is the only country in the developed world that lets the massive, gravitational “dark force” of billionaires’ and giant corporations’ money be used to purchase politicians who put themselves up for sale. And that’s not only why we won’t see a ban on fossil fuel advertising any day soon; it’s why we won’t see a lot of other things that a majority of Americans want, as well.”

— What is the Invisible Dark Force Destroying Everything?

My absolute favorite cycle/ mechanic.

Crimson Muckwader

Artist: Steven Belledin TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

It's nice when you vote for someone and they do something extraordinary and good. I'm from NJ, and this was welcome.

Nice isn't enough of a word by several magnitudes, but it's the one that came to mind first. But it is also just nice.

Cory Booker has been talking in the senate for over 20 hours now

He’s not filibustering. He’s protesting the current administration.

This card boasts two Maddocks arts and two flavo texts. While it is three mana for a 2/1, first strike helps, and Regenerate - even at two mana - still helps me to love this card. I love skeletons, and this card did - are largely still does - feel like a *smart* card with decent utility whenever you drew it (regenerate always helps with this).

Lim-Dûl’s High Guard

“The Guard will forever stand ready. For them, death is merely an inconvenience, not an ending.” —Chaeska, Keeper of Tresserhorn

Artist: Anson Maddocks TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

Gulf of Mexico in Maps

As of me writing this, MapQuest shows GULF OF MEXICO, which is the correct name for a body of water named for Mexico. My knowledge of Mexico historically is a little dubious, and while I THINK most of Latin American ethnic background is a mix of Spanish, some Portuguese, a lot Native North and South American groups/ Empires (Mayans, Incans, Dine'), and dozens or hundreds of other people, that knowledge did stay my hand in calling a name change pure Colonizer Bullshit (as Mexico itself is a product of European colonizer and the name origin of Mexico I am unsure of), but I am certain the world does not need more American jingoism and/ or ethnocentrism and thus Gulf of Mexico should remain if for no other reason than that.

So... I'll be going back to MAPQUEST while Google and Apple boot lick. Waze seems to sidestep by showing (or not needing to show) bodies of water, as it is, in fairness, a driving-focused service.

I know I have, like, three followers, but to you three, I hope you enjoy this until I muster the discipline to get into small snippets of Magic the Gathering content that I derive joy from, interspersed with sharing things like this to try and display that we're not... alone.

So here’s the thing. News stations love to sensationalize the orange man for money. If you weren’t politically aware during his first term I have a few tips to help your wellbeing till 2025:

Do not engage with news media after 8pm. Nothing you learn then will help you before the next morning. You’ll just go to bed anxious and mad

You’re gonna see the worst possible people nominated to head diff parts of the govt. Understand that’s the point, to set everything in favor of corps, internalize that feeling and remember it for the next election, and move on. Dwelling on it only serves to hurt yourself

Learn to sit in uncertainty. Last term the orange man would tweet policy and expect it to manifest. This led to people never knowing if he was talking big game or passing legislation, so people did not know how the government was going to act. Chill. We don’t know what will happen.

Curate your social media experience, do not follow algorithms. Algorithms need you hooked and its easier to keep you hooked if you’re miserable. Be purposeful when you engage with political content, don’t do it on a whim

You are not responsible for the ailings of the world. Don’t put that on yourself. And don’t put it on yourself to keep up with every single wrongdoing about to happen. There will be far too many for one person to keep up with, you’ll exhaust yourself and make yourself miserable

Chill. Its not gonna be fun, but there are ways you can take care of your own well being to keep from spiraling.

Feb 4, 2025

Y'all we are down to the wire on "I hate vaccines and flouride, I love bird flu" RFK Jr's final appointment to Health and Human Services. 😬 I don’t want to panic anyone, so please quietly, calmly,

Contact your senators today so that someone sane will run HHS.

(Especially if you live in Alaska, Maine, Kentucky, or Louisiana!)

The Science and Families Engaging (SAFE) Communities Coalition has an easy call script and email template. Don’t worry abt what to say, it's not so much WHAT you say, it's HOW MANY of us say it.

Phone: Call the federal switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your state’s senators.

Email form via SAFE: Click here.

We can oppose this appointment but it's going to take a LOT of us. Trump, Kennedy, and their organized masses are pressuring the Senators who have doubts. Those doubtful Senators just need a quick call from us to give them some backbone -- Let's remind them we exist!

WaPo:

The Senate finance panel vote Tuesday morning fell along party lines, with the panel’s 14 Republicans voting to confirm Kennedy and its 13 Democrats opposed. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), a physician who had been openly wrestling with whether to support one of the nation’s most prominent vaccine skeptics, opted to vote for Kennedy in a decision that could foreshadow the upcoming vote in front of the Senate.

NBC:

Previously, groups including Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit Kennedy founded, and the National Vaccine Information Center had organized supporters to flood Cassidy's office with calls and emails urging his support for the nomination.

At the one of Kennedy's confirmation hearings last week, Cassidy acknowledged that his phone was being “blown up” by Kennedy’s “tremendous following”

WaPo again:

[RFK Jr's] nomination now will advance to a vote before the full Senate, which has not yet been announced but is expected to be scheduled for next week. If Democrats unite in opposing Kennedy, he can afford only three GOP defections. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) are viewed as pivotal swing votes, as is Sen. Mitch McConnell (Kentucky).

The final confirmation vote is expected next week. Don’t be silent.

Please folks, if you have even 3 minutes, do this thing. 🥹 For a healthier you, for the health of your friends and grandparents, for a regular boring everyday normal medical system where vaccines are just good practice.

Make the call to (202) 224-3121, or send the email. It's super easy.

And tell a friend to do the same.

Thank you so much for reading.

The cruelty of racist white men.

Every day is a reason to celebrate 🥂🥳