What does ULA stand for?

i know the situation in kansas right now is dangerous and terrifying. that said, i'm hoping to speak to someone who's had their license invalidated. i will do absolutely everything to protect your anonymity and maintain your safety.

i can be reached securely via signal at marisakabas.04

Huashan 1914 Creative Park 華山1914文化創意產業園區 with lots of pedestrians in the photo, looking and taking pictures at stores and sights.

Large image of Godzilla on the side of a building near Huashan 1914 Creative Park

It feels like a special time to be here. There’s a bit of the German “between the years” (Christmas to New Year) vibe: stuff is randomly closed, people are traveling. But folks are out doing stuff with their families: I went to Huashan 1914 Creative Park and there was a line for everything!

Crowded scene at the entrance of a Buddhist temple in Shilin/Beitou on the first day of the new year. The pillars of the main building are visible in the background

Dragon dance being performed around a pool at the temple. The zig zags of the orange dragon are reflected in the water. People are sitting on the steps down to the water.

A concrete walkway framed by gray concrete pillars which people are walking between. Red round lanterns are strung down the middle of the walkway above the heads of the people.

A multi-colored artistic horse cut-out of which only the head is visible, with red, blue, and green sections. People are somewhat visible behind the horse figure.

Monday (LNY eve) was dinner at my aunt’s house - food photo in previous post with the extended family. Tuesday during the day we went to a temple, which lots of folks do, it’s not family tradition I grew up with though. It was super busy, lots of people in line for food and other rituals.

Photo of a table full of different Chinese and Taiwanese foods served family-style on a table with yellow cloth, including scrambled eggs with shrimp, grilled salmon, dumplings, and various vegetables, and Taiwanese meatballs

View at night up toward a temple in Shilin in Taiwan, which is lit for Lunar New Year, and there are bright rows of red lanterns along the stairs leading up to the entrance.

Overhead shot of a very crowded market in an alley in Taiwan. Vendors line both sides of the semi-covered street, and the space is filled with people doing their shopping before Lunar New Year.

Night photo of a cherry tree with dark pink blossoms growing over a white wall.

I feel so lucky to be able to spend some time in Taipei with my family. If you’d told me in 2023 that I’d get to celebrate the next 3 Lunar New Years in Taiwan with my parents, I wouldn’t have believed it. Growing up, we never came - didn’t work w/U.S. school breaks and expensive of course).

I Would Start A War In Your Arms A Heated Rivalry Notebook

In which @alexanderchee.bsky.social writes beautifully (as always) about the way Heated Rivalry has become a fragment shored against the ruin of almost everyone's mental health, and the artistic and narrative joys of both its universality and its specificity. open.substack.com/pub/querent/...

9/ In exchange for a norm for severely limiting what it does do with its military, the US gets to live on a planet where most countries operate on the assumption that the US military isn't a direct threat to them.

That has a myraid of benefits far outweighing potential plunder or territorial gain.

10/ No amount of frozen islands in the Atlantic or bombing runs on Mexican border cities are worth turning the world into a place where everyone is paranoid about imminent US aggression and behaving accordingly.

/end

The last time I was in the U.S. most security lines had cameras that they used to do this, which I guess maybe gets around the faceblindness? (I've lived in Germany long enough now that I always declined and forced them a human to do it)

preview says 3, as of now the headline is updated to 6

Sorry I didn’t mean to imply you didn’t understand. Meant to offer context/commentary on the usage of the term when I have to do it

We use that term too (public funds) because we use procurement to pay for work on critical open source projects. Confuses the startup/VC adjacent folks though, since no shares or equity changed hands

Screenshot of a Tweet / Facebook post from 17 years ago on 7 Jan 2009: “finding that i like the trackpad better than the usb mouse. usually a mouse person”

Still tracks.

This means the VA won't cover abortions EVEN in the case of rape, incest, or serious threat to the health of the patient.

The DOJ memo was authored by Josh Craddock, one of the chief legal advocates for fetal personhood, i.e. imposing a nationwide abortion ban through the courts.

They know we were stripped of our citizenship, had our towns burned down, had our businesses destroyed, our houses of worship desecrated and attacked. And they know who did it 100 years ago & who’s doing it now.

First-of-a-kind study shows encouraging data for trans kids who socially transition Ninety-four percent of participants in a new study stood firm in their trans identity after five years, and "detransitioning" is rare.

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality.

And trans lives are grounded in reality.

We see y'all. No matter what.

www.popsci.com/science/tran...

Monkey Sounds, “White Power” and the N-Word: Racial Harassment Against Black Students Ignored Under Trump Since Trump returned to office, the Education Department’s civil rights office has not resolved a single racial harassment investigation. It sends a message that “people impacted by racial discriminat...

There is actual racial discrimination occurring and people are suffering but sure, let’s focus on the musings of a bunch of elite white men posting from their elite positions about how they are the primary victims of racial discrimination in this country. www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Just for shits and giggles, the top five reasons this story is as fake as the executions recorded in Dr. Wolf's dissertation:

Number 1: What the fuck is "a dean in the department"? How many deans were in this department? Follow up question: How many of them did it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Trump Administration Says Maryland Woman's Birth Certificate Is Fake In Dystopian Move Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales was arrested on Sunday. ICE won’t release her despite extensive documentation of her citizenship, her attorneys told HuffPost.

“They’re denying that any of her birth certificates, which are from Laurel, Maryland, her records of immunization, medical records — they’re denying the authenticity of them. It is something I’ve never encountered.” www.huffpost.com/entry/us-cit...

It’s not necessary to keep highlighting the qualities of exceptional immigrants as a reason for them to be treated well by their governments. We don’t have to be on our best behaviour to receive a basic level of human decency: that‘s why they’re called “human rights”, and not “human privileges”.

It has become received wisdom in Brussels and Washington that there is a new “euro-sclerosis”: that the EU economy is lagging the US

This view is wrong

A little primer on the measurement of productivity – and why reports of the economic death of Europe are greatly exaggerated🧵

You deserve all the medals -- and maybe a silent spa day or whatever your pampering of choice is 🏆

honestly, if i were trying to design a place for the political opposition to take a stand against trump, i couldn't have done better than abrego garcia. by trying to destroy basic constitutional protections, it was *trump* who made this a dispute over due process and the Constitution.

If you've ever been to a naturalization ceremony, you know they're filled with people whose palpable love of this country is twenty times stronger than the pinched "patriotism" of any native-born MAGA chud.

Just unspeakable assholery.

Sovereign Tech Fellowship Wed, Dec. 3, 2025

There are a few spots left for the event I'm hosting tmrw in Berlin for #SovereignTechFellowship. If you're interested in the work of folks like @hugovk.dev @icing.bsky.social @mklu.bsky.social, Sarah, Jan and others that maintains our digital infrastructure -> 🎟️ events.sovereign.tech/fellowship/

We got over 60 signups from all parts of German government.

Thanks for letting us making this exchange happen, @nextnetz.bsky.social!

The key to bureaucracy hacking is to reduce friction while STILL addressing the risk the regulations were attempting to address.

Steuer-Minesweeper Finde Deutschlands schönste Steueroasen! Aber lass Dich nicht beim Steuerfahnden erwischen … Das Steuer-Minesweeper basiert auf der gemeinsamen Recherche vom ZDF Magazin Royale und FragDenStaat zu Ste...

Schaffst du es, alle Steueroasen zu finden, ohne dass Dir jemand auf die Schliche kommt? Check Deine Skills auf FragDenStaat.de/Minesweeper!

A test run for #publicDesign jobs —

Here’s an experimental RSS feed for the German #GovDesign roles I am posting here and on my little, manually maintained job board*:

🛜 fetchrss.com/feed/aSDtgrm...

* currently listing positions at @digitalservice.bund.de, @sprind-de.bsky.social and elsewhere

It’s been a whirlwind getting everything together, but I’m excited: on 3 Dec in Berlin, come learn about the first year of the Sovereign Tech Fellowship—and get together with maintainers, the fellows, and public-interest tech folks.

I’d love to see you there!