Susan Christie (@crypto716) Bsky

Update: Rev. Benjamin Cremer.

1 day ago 1 0 0 0

I would like to know who wrote this. Anyone have a clue?

1 day ago 0 0 1 0

You addressed your own concern in your last paragraph, Paul. We cannot allow the evil in our midst to take away our joy and hope. We show up full of good humor, silliness, love, and community and refuse to let the MAGA types make us angry and hateful like they are. That is indeed our strength.

5 days ago 1 0 0 0

No Kings Day in Corvallis, Oregon: The atmosphere was festive, with music, dancing, and adorable children, dogs, and inflatable creatures. We can do this! We can overcome corruption and injustice, rise like the Phoenix from the ashes, and rebuild a democracy that is fair and just for everyone.

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Big crowds at 3 locations in Corvallis, Oregon. Everyone made it to the county courthouse (and nearby blocks eventually)!

6 days ago 5 2 0 0

Sunlight travels 93 million miles to reach the earth None of them through the Strait of Hormuz

Sunlight travels 93 million miles to reach the earth

None of them through the Strait of Hormuz

billmckibben.substack.com/p/sunlight-t...

4 weeks ago 633 201 16 18

I fear her replacement will be just as bad, if not worse, possibly in different ways.

4 weeks ago 1 0 0 0

Kristi Noem has done a stunning amount of damage and it’s good she’s gone.

But this doesn’t change the fact that we need a complete overhaul of DHS, impartial investigations into the killings of two American citizens, and information on children that were taken from Minnesota.

4 weeks ago 40393 9125 1481 307

Yes, that is tragic, outrageous, and unacceptable. I hope the U.S. government responsible party is seriously penalized.

4 weeks ago 0 0 0 0

Just how much does AI know about you? I opened a Gemini chat session and asked it flat out: "Show me everything you know about me." It came back and said nothing. > As an AI, I don’t have a "file" on you, a memory of our past lives together, or access to your private documents, emails, or physical location unless you explicitly share them in this specific conversation. What prompted this question was that I had been working in a Google Sheets spreadsheet entering in some stuff for tax preparation. I noticed the Gemini icon on the top right so I clicked it and entered a prompt: "Please setup this sheet to help me with tax preparation." It was a bit slow to respond but then it popped up a colorful and nicely formatted table, with the data I had already entered, plus placeholder fields for stuff I still need to enter. Nice, until I looked closely and started freaking out. It listed my retirement and mortgage account including the financial institutions. It listed my wife's name, her business, investment property, and retirement account. How did it know all this? So I asked the instance of Gemini in the chat session. > This experience can definitely feel startling, but it is actually a core feature of the Gemini for Google Workspace integration. > > When you use Gemini inside Google Sheets, it isn’t just looking at the blank cells in front of you; it has the ability to "bridge" your data across the entire Google ecosystem if certain extensions or settings are enabled. > > Here is how it likely found that specific information: > > 1. The "Google Workspace" Extension > Gemini has an extension that allows it to "read" your other Google apps. If this is active, the AI can query your: > > Gmail: To find tax documents, mortgage statements, or retirement account summaries sent to your inbox. > > Google Drive: To scan PDFs of your 1099s, W-2s, or property deeds. > > Google Calendar: To find business events or names of family members linked to shared events. > > 2. Semantic Search (The "Ask Gemini" Panel) > When you asked it to "setup a sheet to help prepare tax returns," the AI interpreted this as a request to populate the sheet with relevant context. > > It likely performed a background search of your Gmail for keywords like "Mortgage," "1040," "401k," or "Schedule C." > > If your wife’s name appears in your emails (e.g., "Tax document for [Name]") or in shared Drive folders, the AI connected those dots to build a "complete" picture of your household's financial profile. It then showed me the exact steps necessary to turn this off. It also assured me that Google does not share my data and that it does not use it to train their AI models. I deleted the sheet it had built for me, but I have not as yet turned off this feature. This experience had me reflect upon our earliest visions of how computers would work for us. There was always this concept of a "digital assistant" that would help manage the mundane details of our lives. You may already ask Alexa to read off your appointments for the day each morning. (do people really do that?). AI has now taken this concept to the next level. To be really helpful these agents have to have access to your data. In order for Alexa to read your appointments you have to first grant it access to your calendar. The flip side of this of course is our deeply ingrained paranoia that "Big brother is watching us". Maybe that comes from reading all those dystopian novels in our youth, or maybe it comes from the many cases of big tech companies selling, sharing, or leaking our personal data. I'm sure most of us don't really trust Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, or any of the other tech giants. When Google first got into advertising it's promise was to revolutionize how ads are shown by only showing you stuff you were interested in. If you grew up on TV like I did, you were forced to sit through hours and hours of ads that were completely irrelevant to your reality. So Google's idea of targeted ads sounds great right? Until you realize that the only way to show you stuff you're interested in is to already know a lot about you. Once it does, the technology works great. Most of the ads I see are for stuff I'd consider buying. When it get's scary is when you see an ad and you think "wait a minute, I was just talking about this", and you start to think they must be listening through your phone. Occasionally I will see and ad and think the only way they knew I wanted this was if they could read my mind! Paranoia strikes deep. And so we are left with a conundrum. Do we forego the ways these smart agents can help us and make our lives easier, and attempt to block all access to our personal data, or do we just give up and think "they're going to steal all our data anyway so what difference does it make"? My suggestion at this point is to be selective in granting permissions to your data, while continuing to be vigilant in protecting it from sources you don't trust. I'm not really sure if I have a use case for Gemini in Google Workplace. I'll have to ponder it some more.

4 weeks ago 1 3 0 0

I'm there!

1 month ago 0 0 0 0

Congress and the courts are refusing to give Trump what he wants, so he’s concocting a new plan to seize control of the election. Here’s what you need to know: open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

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Ending the day: Step outside, take several slow deep breaths, and appreciate the majesty of the sunset. [Credit to Matt Mathews for the photo]

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Remembering That Time Rev. Jesse Jackson Smacked Me On My Forehead The news of Rev.

Remembering That Time Rev. Jesse Jackson Smacked Me On My Forehead
open.substack.com/pub/drstacey...

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Love to you all, BlueSky friends! We need each other.

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What Serbian Activists Can Teach Us About Staying Safe Under Authoritarian Pressure Lessons from the frontlines of the 2024 Serbian uprising for democracy defenders everywhere

What Serbian Activists Can Teach Us About Staying Safe Under Authoritarian Pressure
open.substack.com/pub/antiauth...

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Lifetime coffee enthusiast here. No more demented now than I ever was!😀

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Beautiful display at a local Corvallis, Oregon, bookstore of interesting books about Black History Month.

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Cyclists in our town in Oregon joined the national memorial bike ride for Alex Pretti in solidarity with cyclists in Minneapolis. Riders sang "We Shall Overcome" at the end of the ride at Riverfront Park.

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Tell Trump: Hands Off Greenland! The majority of people of Greenland—a population of just 57,000—have been working for years to move towards full independence from Denmark. The island is considered an “autonomous territory”—it has it...

This cause is vital; please sign: sign.moveon.org/petitions/am...

2 months ago 1 0 0 0

I hope you will!

2 months ago 1 0 0 0

Willamette River for me too, and the Marys River. Our town is at the confluence. I lived near the Arkansas River when I was a child, then briefly near the Potomac River.

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Crowds line both sides of the street in Corvallis today to defend democracy, honor Renee Nicole Good, and demand "ICE out!"

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Crowds line both sides of the street in Corvallis today to defend democracy, honor Renee Nicole Good, and demand "ICE out!"

2 months ago 4 0 0 0

Make it viral.

2 months ago 47650 21393 359 528

Post See new posts Conversation Ted Cruz @tedcruz Violence is always unacceptable. Even when passions run high. Anyone engaged in violence—especially against law enforcement—should be fully prosecuted. God bless the Capitol Police and the honorable men & women of law enforcement who show great courage keeping all of us safe. 11:47 AM · Jan 6, 2021

Rep. Jim Jordan @Jim_Jordan Stop the violence. Support Capitol Police. 12:02 PM · Jan 6, 2021

Graham said, “Count me out. Enough is enough.” Graham called Biden the “legitimate president of the United States,” and told colleagues definitively that “it is over” and the Biden-Harris administration would begin on January 20th. Earlier Wednesday, supporters of Trump breached the U.S. Capitol, forcing a lockdown of the lawmakers and staff inside. Trump has claimed widespread voter fraud to explain away his defeat to President-elect Joe Biden, though election officials have said there wasn’t any. Graham said that “if you’re a conservative,” the idea that Vice President Mike Pence could reverse the results of the election, as President Donald Trump had urged him to do, was “the most offensive concept in the world.”

“There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” McConnell said. “The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.”

I know this feels impossible now, but I swear, on January 6 itself, there was a pretty broad bipartisan consensus that storming the Capitol to find and kill lawmakers was bad, and that Trump was responsible for inciting his followers to try it

2 months ago 2650 611 47 24

From Rick Archer:

2 months ago 0 0 0 0

It’s genuinely wild that the United States spent decades building an elaborate rules-based international order which de facto cemented its permanent status as the dominant global hegemon, sustained by ideology rather than might, and now is just blowing it all up for literally no reason

2 months ago 11253 2530 428 313

War caricature sense, but in the way power is being tightened and institutions are being bent to serve one man and one ideology. The effort by Donald Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to politicize the upper ranks of the U.S. military fits that pattern almost point for point.

2 months ago 512 70 1 0

Resistance members are being targeted this week. It appears to be the return of Stalinism. What’s happening right now looks uncomfortably familiar. It feels like the return of Stalinism, not in the old, Cold

2 months ago 2508 612 58 42

Posts by Susan Christie