i think we shouod terraform earth to make it completely flat because itd be fun

I do not feel fly like a G6 and have not for a very long time

Suggestion for something actionable folks in the USA can do (posted 3/11/2025):

U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin is encouraging all U.S. citizens to join him this week in filing formal demands for access to their personal data obtained by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has issued an injunction commanding DOGE to comply with citizen requests under the Freedom of Information Act. This law encompasses the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, which entitles any citizen to access personal information held in any U.S. government records system. Please find a fillable Privacy Act request form HERE.

Citizens need only fill out the form and mail it in to DOGE. This newly recognized federal agency, which has been systematically accessing government computer data systems, now has an obligation to respond to specific information demands from any of the 340 million U.S. citizens who exercise their legal right to defend their privacy and establish the security of their private information.

Reasons to do this: 1) it’ll flood DOGE with busywork; 2) if DOGE doesn’t do this busiwork, that’s grounds for getting sued.

More information:

Jamie explains: “Elon Musk should have been more careful in what he wished for. DOGE has recently dodged lawsuits about its seizure of citizens’ personal data by telling courts that it is a legitimate government agency entitled to extract this information. What Elon Musk apparently did not realize is that this statement triggers DOGE’s obligation to comply with citizen demands to see and—if need be—correct their personal information under the Privacy Act. It also allows every citizen to find out what other agencies or outside parties have been given access to their information.”

The Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(d)(1), gives each citizen the right to demand access to their personal records held by any government agency’s records system. This includes their Social Security and Medicare benefit entitlements, college student loans and grants, financial transactions, medical history, and criminal or employment history. The Privacy Act gives every citizen also the right to demand corrections of any inaccurate information that DOGE has put on file, and to find out which other agencies or outside third parties this information has been shared with.

The Privacy Act also prohibits agencies generally from cross-referencing any personal information with records describing how an individual exercises their First Amendment rights to free speech, association, protest, press, and exercise of religion.

“Millions of Americans can’t wait to see what DOGE has suddenly been doing with all of our data,” says Jamie. “I also can’t wait to see what the courts will do if DOGE refuses to comply with the District Court’s injunction. Maybe Elon Musk will have to redirect his computer hacker army to start answering millions of information demands from U.S. citizens whose nation this is.”

“It’s a double-edged sword, pretending that you’re the government,” Jamie observed. “In a democracy, as opposed to a dictatorship, assuming the powers of government carries real burdens and obligations for our officials as well as all the benefits and riches the billionaires routinely seek out. ”

I cannot overstate how much I love Tom Lehrer's story. It sounds so fake but is entirely real.

He's a goddamn genius- he started studying mathematics at Harvard when he was 15 and graduated magna cum laude. He worked at Los Alamos for a few years before being drafted and working for the NSA, where he claims to have invented jello shots to get around alcohol bans.

He then went back to Harvard for a couple years before starting to teach political science at MIT.

Through all of that, he was writing and performing both some of the funniest shit you'll ever hear (Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Masochism Tango) and absolutely scathing political satire (Who's Next, Wernher von Braun, Send the Marines). Until the mid/late 60s counterculture gained momentum. He didn't like their aesthetic, so he stopped making music.

Shortly after, he moved to California and started teaching math and musical theater history at the UC Santa Cruz for the next 30 years.

I don't know if non-Californians understand just how goddamn funny that is. It's where stoners and math (and now computer science) kids who couldn't get into Berkeley go. Leaving Harvard/MIT for UCSC is peak academic phoning it in. And by all accounts he had a blast.

Plus the whole putting all of his music in the public domain thing. That fucked.

Hopping on the bandwagon.