Month: August 2024

Mocking The Last Supper

Right wing Christians are always looking for things and ways to be aggrieved and insulted.  They glorify in being the victims of crimes that exist only in their imagination.  Not only are they sure only they only have a right to the Christian god, but they think only they control the Christian god and how he should be worshiped.  Hugs.  Scottie

Israeli Soldier BOASTS Of War Crimes – They Couldn’t Be Prouder Of Genocide

Never stop being shocked by this.

How to strip metadata from your files

https://getsession.org/blog/how-to-strip-metadata-from-your-files

You are being sold with every email, every picture, every blog post, every Instagram post, every thing you put on X or Facebook, you are the cash cow these companies want to milk.  I have been taking steps for years to reduce how much these businesses can strip mine my stuff data about me.  Here is a program I like, and here is a free tutorial on how to remove a lot of the metadata out of your images and files.  I recently realized how much information about myself I include in messages, so I looked into this program by Sessions.   Hugs.  Scottie

January 07, 2022 / Alex Linton

Metadata is a big deal — especially for people who are trying to protect their online privacy. For any files on your computer, there is probably a bunch of metadata about the file — such as location data, when the file was created, when it was last changed, or even what device created the file. If you ever give that file to someone else (or upload it to the internet), the file’s metadata will be transferred as well — which means they can see all that info. 

There are plenty of reasons you might want to share a file without wanting to share the metadata as well — such as preserving your privacy or anonymity. To do that, you’ll want to strip the file’s metadata. Stripping metadata from files removes all that extra information and leaves you with just the information in the file itself. Some messengers—like Session—strip metadata from your image files when you attach them to a message. This is because they can contain sensitive EXIF data, which contains device and location information. Other file types—like MP3s—might have less sensitive metadata (such as a song name or artist) which won’t be stripped.

However, if you want to be sure, you can always manually strip the metadata from your files. Here’s how!

How to remove metadata from files using Windows

Scrubbing your files on Windows is relatively easy, you can do so directly in the File Explorer without relying on any third party software. 

  1. Locate the file you want to strip in Explorer

  2. Right click on the file and select Properties

  3. Select the Details tab to see the associated metadata

  4. Click Remove Properties and Personal Information 

  5. Select the metadata you want to remove

  6. Select to either Create a copy (if you want to preserve the original) or Remove properties from this file

  7. Click OK

Ta-da! Metadata removed, now you can safely share the file without extra personal information being attached. 

How to remove metadata from files using macOS

Unfortunately things aren’t as simple on macOS. There’s no catch-all option for all file types, and you can only remove specific kinds of data. For images, you can remove location data using macOS’s built-in Preview application. 

  1. Open the image in Preview

  2. Hit CMD + i to display the image’s metadata 

  3. Navigate to the Info tab (circle with an ‘i’ inside it)

  4. Click on GPS to see the location metadata

  5. Click Remove Location Info to remove the GPS information stored in the image

For anything more thorough than this (or any file type other than images) you’ll need to use third-party software, such as Acrobat Pro for PDFs. 

How to remove metadata from files using Linux

Thankfully, things are much easier on Linux! Note: Instructions may be different depending on your distro.

  1. If you’re using a Debian-based system (such as Ubuntu), you can install MAT (which comes pre-packaged) using this command: $ sudo apt-get install mat

  2. You can then launch the MAT GUI using this: $ mat-gui

  3. Add the file you want to strip to MAT by clicking the Add icon in the top navigation bar

  4. Once the file is added, click Check to scan for metadata

  5. If metadata is detected, MAT will mark the file as ‘Dirty’, you can double click the file to see what metadata has been detected

  6. Click Clean to strip the metadata from the file

Simple as that! 

Keep your files safe

Stripping metadata from your files before you share them is a good idea — especially if you’re going to upload them somewhere public on the internet. If you want to be certain that the files you send are completely metadata free (even to the people you send them to) — make sure to strip them first! To ensure your files stay private, it’s also important to consider how and where you store your files. Make sure you’re encrypting your hard drives, and be careful about what Cloud storage providers you use and what upload. 

These days, it’s a normal everyday thing to share files on messaging apps and social media — but it’s important to be mindful about what exactly you’re sharing. Once those files hit the internet — they could end up anywhere! 

Celebrating Colors

Celebrating Colors (A Sonnet) | Abhijit Naskar | No Foreigner Only Family, 2020

Great news!

We’re happy for you! What a relief that some things will be so much easier for you, now!

Big news today!

A Prayer for Resistance. Please join, if you will.

This Is a Prayer for Lughnasadh. This Is a Prayer for Resistance.

The West Bank: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

“A MAN!”: Lies Spread Over Olympic Fight Between Algerian And Italian

One of the best examples of anti-trans being wrong, she was a born woman, and showing the bigotry towards trans people he debunks in this very short video.  I love it.  J. K. Rowling chimed in as she always does to hate on trans, yet again she was wrong this was an assigned at birth woman.  These haters against trans people do not care about facts or science, they want their hate, bigotry, and their feelings to be what is normal in society.  I won’t ever watch or read anything by Rowling ever again.  She doesn’t care, she is very wealthy and very rich.  But she also doesn’t care the harm she does innocent people with her hate.   Hugs.  Scottie

Correcting the misinformation around an Olympic boxing match between Angela Carini and Imane Khelif.

Some Hopium on Thursday

Winning The House w/Rudy Salas (CA-22), Good Week Of Polling For Harris, Trump Is The Ugliest Thing We’ve All Ever Seen by Simon Rosenberg

Join Us To Make Calls and Write Postcards for Janelle Bynum Tonight at 730pm ET Read on Substack

Happy Thursday all. Been a really good week for us. Got a few things for you today:

It’s A New, Bluer Election – 8 polls have been released this week showing Vice President Harris leading (all polls via 538):

  • 49%-45% (+4) Civiqs
  • 49%-46% (+3) Leger (was +7 Trump)
  • 48%-46% (+2) FAU (was +5 Trump)
  • 46%-44% (+2) Economist/YouGov (was +3 Trump last week!!!!!!)
  • 45%-43% (+2) Redfield and Wilton
  • 50%-48% (+2) American Pulse Research and Polling
  • 44%-42% (+2) Angus Reid Global
  • 47%-46% (+1) Morning Consult

Yesterday we discussed that a new Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll had Harris leading in the battlegrounds 48%-47%, ahead in AZ, NV, MI, WI, tied in GA and only down 2 in NC. A new set of polls by GOP/DeSantis pollster Public Opinion Strategies found good news in the battlegrounds, Harris-Trump:

  • WI 48-45
  • PA 48-46
  • MI 45-45
  • NV 45-46
  • AZ 43-48 (note Harris leads by 2 pts in AZ in the Bloomberg/MC poll)

We also learned yesterday that the Trump campaign has started buying ads in North Carolina, meaning they view it as in play (which it is!) and we saw very good polls in both MN and NH, consistent with Harris having modest national popular vote leads.

Let’s discuss what this all means. Right now the Vice President appears to be opening up a modest lead in the national popular vote. Battleground state polls this week have her leading in AZ, NV, MI, PA, WI and close in GA, NC. We still have not yet seen the full effect of the rallying around her, a week of campaigning next week with the new VP pick, our joyous Convention or what will now be the most powerful early vote/GOTV machine ever seen in an American election.

Trump and Vance continue to generate far more negative press than positive, and we are now on offense, playing hard and perhaps even beating them now on social media. Taken together I think it is reasonable to expect that we gain a few more points in the election over the next few weeks and enter the home stretch in a much stronger position than the pro-Putin, Project 2025-loving MAGAs.

Based on polling and our very strong 2022 performances I always felt it was likely we would hold the three Blue Wall states – MI, PA, WI – which gets the Vice President to 269 Electoral College Votes (note the UAW endorsed VP Harris yesterday, meaning we head into the fall with the most enthusiastic labor support a Democratic ticket has had in many years). Which is why here at Hopium we’ve focused on winning AZ, NC and the Nebraska blue dot. Winning any of these 3 gets us to 270. We currently lead in NE-2, and our friend Jane Kleeb the NE State Party Chair is as good as it gets. AZ and NC are in play, with extremists Kari Lake and Mark Robinson at the top of the GOP tickets in those states, and Ruben Gallego and Josh Stein running very strong campaigns for Senate and Governor. In addition to the $800,000 we’ve raised for Biden and Harris, our community has now invested more than $800,000 into AZ, NE and NC as part of what I’ve called our check – MI, PA, WI – and checkmate – any of AZ, NE, NC – strategy.

Here’s our friend Anderson Clayton, the NC Dem Party Chair, thanking the Hopium community for being the largest outside investor in NC Dems this year: (vid on the page)

Friends, we are not playing catch up any more. We are playing to win.

Here’s a new ad from the Harris SuperPAC, Future Forward: (vid on the page)

Trump reminded us yesterday what a racist pig he is, and once again did remarkable harm to his candidacy. But remember folks, here at Hopium, nothing he does or says is a surprise. We know he is a rapist, fraudster, traitor and felon. We know he is old, very old, profoundly unfit and deeply unwell. We know he is a modern day Bull Connor, a white supremacist, a bigot and a xenophobe. We know he is the ugliest political thing we’ve all ever seen.

Here’s Stuart Stevens with a great riff on Trump the babyman from MSNBC last night: (vid on the page)

And we know what Trump and Commander Vance want to do if they somehow get into the White House next year:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. Americans to lose even more rights and freedoms. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist’s baby to term, and for more women to die on operating room tables. Tens of millions to lose their health insurance. More dead kids in schools. Verified rapists in positions of authority. A restoration of pre-Civil Rights era white supremacy. Huge new tariffs which will raise prices on everything and wreck the global economy which has made us prosperous. Big new tax cuts for their wealthiest donors and tax increases for every day people. Books banned across the US. Seniors to pay more for insulin and prescription drugs. Foreign governments free to pollute our daily discourse and harass our citizens. Teenagers to work night shifts in meat packing plants and not go to school. The minimum wage to stay at $7.25. Mass arrests and mass deportations of immigrants long settled in the US. Insurrectionists to be pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.

The reason we are all here is that we are committed to not letting any of this happen. And this week while you all have rallied for the Vice President, raising more than $100,000 (amazing), we’ve also significantly stepped up our efforts to flip the House to give the Vice President the legislative partner she needs to advance her agenda next year. We heard from House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries earlier this week. We’ve raised close to $150,000 for our House candidates since Friday and almost $800,000 in the past two months. You can catch our 7th interview with our House candidates, Rudy Salas, above. Rudy is running to flip CA-22 and become the first Latino Member of Congress from California’s Central Valley. And tonight we kick off our Thursday night Hopium Winning the House phonebanking and postcarding Zooms, this one supporting Janelle Bynum in OR-5. I’ll be starting things off at 730pm ET and we will be joined by Janelle herself to give us a bit of motivation to go out and do good, together.

You can join us tonight by signing up here. You can learn more about this new grassroots collaboration project to win the House, including how to order postcards if you need them. Please consider giving us a shift or two in the weeks ahead. We can do this people!!!!

For those who want to support Rudy Salas, you can support him by donating to all of our 11 House candidates in one donation split 11 ways, or by donating to him directly. You can also volunteer for him here.

Here are additional ways to do more and worry less in the days ahead and help us win. All of our goals are by the first day of early voting in the Presidential election, September 20th (or maybe by the last day of the Dem Convention???):

  • Harris For President – $794,000 raised today, $1m goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $794,000 raised is both Biden-Harris and the $194,000 we’ve already raised for Harris for President
  • Winning The House – $727,000 raised today, $1m goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $55,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 11 or each one individually). Watch my recent interview with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It will get you all fired up to make him our next Speaker
  • North Carolina – $351,000 raised today, $400,000 goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
  • Arizona/Ruben Gallego – $308,000 raised today, $350,000 goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
  • Nebraska/Blue Dot – $127,000 raised today, $150,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

Here’s how you can do even more:

As Tuesday’s primary in AZ-01 is still too close to call, I have taken Andrei Cherny off our 12 way split for House contributions until we have a clear winner there. Thanks to all of you who have supported Andrei. He is a close friend, and truly one of the smartest and best people I’ve ever worked with. More on this soon.

Finally, please help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Use this link to sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack.

We are now over 97,000 strong – help us get to 100,000!!!!!

Keep working hard all. Lot’s to be excited about right now. Proud to be in this fight with all of you – Simon

Lost continent crucial in evolution of penguin wings

August 1, 2024 Evrim Yazgin

I love penguins!

New analysis of New Zealand fossils first uncovered in 1987 shows how penguin wings evolved.

The wing fragments were found near the town of Duntroon on New Zealand’s South Island, nearly 1,000km southwest of the Auckland.

The fossils come from a species called Pakudyptes hakataramea. It lived during the late Oligocene (34–23 million years ago). P. hakataramea is described for the first time in a study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand today.

Worldwide, the latter part of the Oligocene was characterised by a drying of the climate. Forests which dominated the continents, including Australia, were beginning to recede. Grasslands and prairies expanded, seeing the evolution of grazing animals.

New Zealand today is believed to be the lost, ancient continent of Zealandia breaking through to the surface. Tens of millions of years ago, Zealandia’s rocky shores and surrounding waters were a hotbed of evolutionary development.

Among the ancient marine and coastal life found in New Zealand are dolphins, seals, crabs and ancestors of tropicbirds.

New Zealand has also thrown up ancient penguin fossils. This includes the largest ever penguin which lived 55 million years ago, stood as tall as a person and weighed a whopping 150kg.

In fact, New Zealand seems to have been teeming with giant penguins. (snip-More)

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/palaeontology/penguin-wing-fossils-zealandia/