Author: Mark Alexander

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Vintage Audio Pr0n

Technics SA-5470 Receiver (1977-1978)

I found this on Tumblr (or maybe it was Instagram) and it immediately sent me to eBay to see if any were available for sale. This is another piece of equipment that immediately conjures up memories of the Labelle’s audio showroom of the mid-to-late 1970s for me.

These were impressive receivers when they arrived on the scene, but like I’ve written about before, I was too enamored of the shiny new Sony V-FET amps to pay anything else much mind. The original lighting of the dial and meters on these receivers had a very subtle greenish glow (something not easily restored unless you can source the special green-tinted incandescent bulbs these shipped with) that illuminated the dial itself and not the just the numbers; something that set Technics apart from the black-out dials of Marantz, Pioneer, and Sansui.

There are several currently available on eBay at very reasonable prices, but the absolute last thing I need right now is another receiver, so it wasn’t a huge effort to eschew pressing the “Buy It Now” button.

But damn…it sure was tempting.

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It’s Obviously All Made Up

“This is actually the first time that tropical storm watches have been issued on the West Coast of the United States,” said Elizabeth Adams, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in San Diego. Typically, when a tropical storm makes its way to the southwestern U.S., it has severely dissipated, weakening to a depression or storm remnants, she said. The only tropical cyclone to actually make landfall in Southern California was in 1939.

Hurricane Hilary: SoCal on its first tropical storm warning

But I heard that climate change wasn’t real because one time it was moderately warm in Virginia. And that guy from Oklahoma threw a snowball in the House of Representatives.

Someone needs to tell this storm to turn around because obviously it’s all made up.

Source: Los Angeles Times
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Do You Remember?

The 70s were wild. I remember the fixtures (Kohler) and the color, but I’d completely forgotten the fad of sunken tubs…

I remember back when I was a young thing designing dream houses that I always used the Kohler fixture template—vs. American Standard (manual drafting y’know)—because it seemed their designs were so avant garde in comparison…and available in colors American Standard could only dream of.

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Holy Hell, Trump Did Use Twitter Direct Messages, There Were “Many” of Them, and the Special Counsel Now Has Them

From Daring Fireball:

Katelyn Polantz, reporting for CNN:

The special counsel’s investigation into Donald Trump and the aftermath of the 2020 election sought the former president’s Twitter direct messages, of which there were many, federal prosecutors and lawyers for Twitter revealed in newly unsealed transcripts from February court hearings about the search warrant. […]

A lawyer representing Twitter, now called “X,” similarly confirmed in court that Trump’s account had several private messages between users on the platform. “X” was able to find both the sent direct messages and deleted messages for prosecutors, according to the transcripts.

“We were able to determine that there was some volume in that for this account. There are confidential communications,” a lawyer for Twitter said about @realDonaldTrump’s direct messages.

Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman, reporting for The New York Times:

While it remained unclear what sorts of information the messages contained and who exactly may have written them, it was a revelation that there were private messages associated with the Twitter account of Mr. Trump, who has famously been cautious about using written forms of communications in his dealings with aides and allies.

The papers included transcripts of hearings in Federal District Court in Washington in February during which Judge Beryl A. Howell asserted that Mr. Smith’s office had sought Mr. Trump’s direct messages — or DMs — from Twitter as part of a search warrant it executed on the account in January.

In one of the transcripts, a lawyer for Twitter, answering questions from Judge Howell, confirmed that the company had turned over to the special counsel’s office “all direct messages, the DMs” from Mr. Trump’s Twitter account, including those sent, received and “stored in draft form.”

The lawyer for Twitter told Judge Howell that the company had found both “deleted” and “nondeleted” direct messages associated with Mr. Trump’s account.

I am not at all surprised that “deleted” DMs are not in fact deleted, but rather hidden. I am slightly surprised that Trump — famously averse not just to using email and text messages, but even to his own lawyers taking written notes in meetings, so as not to leave a chain of evidence for his lifelong criminal activity — would use, of all things, the infamously unencrypted direct messaging feature on Twitter. To be clear, this is a pleasant surprise.

Kyle Cheney, reporting for Politico, “Special Counsel Obtained Trump DMs Despite ‘Momentous’ Bid by Twitter to Delay, Unsealed Filings Show”:

Among the data the search warrant commanded Twitter to produce:

    • Accounts associated with @realdonaldtrump that the former president might have used in the same device.
    • Devices used to log into the @realdonaldtrump account.
    • IP addresses used to log into the account between October 2020 and January 2021.
    • Privacy settings and history.
    • All tweets “created, drafted, favorited/liked, or retweeted” by @realdonaldtrump, including any subsequently deleted.
    • All direct messages “sent from, received by, stored in draft form in, or otherwise associated with” @realdonaldtrump.
    • All records of searches from October 2020 to January 2021.
    • Location information for the user of @realdonaldtrump from October 2020 to January 2021.

As I speculated last week, nothing you do on Twitter is private. Not your DMs, not your “deleted” DMs, not your searches, not your location (if you’re foolish enough to grant Twitter/X access to it), not your draft posts.

Elon Musk comes out of this looking like he’d happily fellate Trump:

Ultimately, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell held Twitter in contempt of court in February, fining the company $350,000 for missing a court-ordered deadline to comply with Smith’s search warrant. But the newly unsealed transcripts of the proceedings in her courtroom show that the fine was the least of the punishment. Howell lit into Twitter for taking “extraordinary” and apparently unprecedented steps to give Trump advance notice about the search warrant — despite prosecutors’ warnings, backed by unspecified evidence, that notifying Trump could cause grave damage to their investigation.

“Is this to make Donald Trump feel like he is a particularly welcomed new renewed user of Twitter?” Howell asked.

“Twitter has no interest other than litigation its constitutional rights,” replied attorney George Varghese of WilmerHale, the firm Twitter deploys for much of its litigation.

But Howell returned to the theme repeatedly during the proceedings, wondering why the company was taking “momentous” steps to protect Trump that it had never taken for other uses. In the hearing on Feb. 7, 2023, Howell referenced Musk, asking: “Is it because the new CEO wants to cozy up with the former president?”

The unsealed court filing (PDF) is here, for your reading enjoyment. Hope you stocked up on popcorn, like I did, for indictment season.

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Someone Had AI Write A Bible Verse About Jesus Loving Trans People—And Wow

From Comic Sands:

Redditor Psychological_Dog527 was ‘feeling sad,’ and decided to ask ChatGPT to write a fake Bible verse about trans people—and the comforting result left readers speechless.

A Reddit user posted to the trans subReddit an AI-generated Bible verse about transgender people.

Reddit user Psychological_Dog527 asked ChatGPT to write a Bible verse about Jesus Christ’s thoughts about transgender people.

The results they received not only sound like they could have actually come from the Bible, but they present a different Jesus Christ than many Evangelical Christians promote.

Redditor Psychological_Dog527’s post reads:

“I was feeling sad today so I asked chat gpt to write a fake biblical passage about Jesus accepting trans people. Here’s what it came up with:”

The Reddit user then included the verse ChatGPT conjured up:

“And a woman, whose heart was divided between spirit and body, came before him. In quiet despair, she asked, ‘Lord, I come to you estranged, for my spirit and body are not one. How shall I hope to enter the kingdom of God?’”

“Jesus looked upon her with kindness, replying, ‘my child, blessed are those who strive for unity within themselves, for they shall know the deepest truths of my Father’s creation.”

“Be not afraid, for in the kingdom of God, there is no man nor woman, as all are one in spirit. The gates of my Father’s kingdom will open for those who love and are loved, for God looks not upon the body, but the heart.

The Reddit user went on to write:

“I know it’s not real, but it gave me some comfort.”

What’s perhaps most striking about the verse is how well it describes the way many transgender people say gender dysphoria feels–like a fundamental disconnect between “spirit and body,” as the AI put it.

For obvious reasons, the post quickly went viral on Reddit, where many described how much they wished more Christians felt similarly.

“I’m not religious at all. Quite the opposite.”

“But having read the bible myself, based on what is written there you don’t need to make up verses because Jesus did accept and love trans people. Because he preached about loving and accepting everybody, no exceptions!”

“If only all Christians got that memo.” —AmiesAdventures

“Jesus: Love and accept everybody, no exceptions!”

“Christians: So anyway we used that to hate people” —SavvySillybug

“I’m not religious, but I enjoy history, and what I know of Jesus the person (as opposed to the version that so many ‘Christians’ claim to follow), that honestly seems like something he would have been likely to say. After all, love and acceptance were his jam.” —FeartheWeresloth

Others pointed out the historical and theological evidence Jesus probably would have felt precisely as ChatGPT theorized about the transgender people of his time.

“The Talmud, the second most sacred text in Judaism, recognizes 8 genders.”

“Jesus was Jewish and although the Talmud was not yet compiled in Jesus’ time the texts were written and studied by the Jewish people.”

“There have always existed non-binary genders even before Jesus’ time and he preached to love and accept everyone.”

“Jesus was accepting of trans people even if this aspect of his teachings was erased in time by the bigots who call themselves his followers.” —JohnnyPoopynutz

“I’m very against religion, think it only causes problems in modern society, but: Galatians 3:28 pretty much says that everyone is equal regardless of everything.”

“As well as just his general message being to accept and love each other. Jesus would 100% support trans people.” —AnInsaneMoose

Some even dug up excerpts from the many writings excised from the Bible we know today over its centuries of revisions that make it seem like ChatGPT really does know a lot about Christ.

“From the Gospel of Thomas, one of the Nag Hammadi texts, which are arguably closer to the actual teachings of Jesus than the versions that were revised and censored by the ruling powers throughout history:”\

“(22) (4) Jesus said to them: ‘When you make the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside and the above like the below—”

“(5) that is, to make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female will not be female—

“(6) and when you make eyes instead of an eye and a hand instead of a hand and a foot instead of a foot, an image instead of an image, (7) then you will enter [the kingdom].'” —MillenniEnby

Given how much trouble there’s been with ChatGPT being pretty openly bigoted at times, it’s incredible to see it be able to provide some support and uplift to a community that is under siege both politically and socially.