Apparently my ancestor's ship was built for the American Revolutionary War. That ship went everywhere. Not sure when he got on it. We weren't a family where those things are known. He is purely in the maritime museum because he survived when it exploded.

Well he got captured by pirates. The story goes he could speak their language so could plead for his life.

Wow. Just wow

That's so interesting and serendipitous. I was looking up my ancestor's ship in Wikipedia and its got a list of its "prizes". They were the capture of other ships. I thought it just referred to capturing the ship like in the capture the flag game. But if there's a reward as well... gosh

Sounds about right 🙄
Political argumentation to justify what government really wants to do is at least as old as sophistry

😭😭😭😭

I've been reading Mitchell Dean and Wendy Brown and very despondent about the liberal world order's inbuilt mechanism for war, despite its rhetoric of peace

Well there you go. Fascinating

My family always swore my ancestor lost his leg to a crocodile in Sumatra but the reality is more boring. He lost his leg due to bedsores later in life.

It's quite the story. My ancestor was one of four survivors when the ship blew up off the coast of Sumatra. They made it to shore, got captured by Malay pirates and sold into slavery. They were rescued from slavery but the Sultan of Lingga.

@garethknapman.bsky.social

Exactly. And anyone whose read Platform Capitalism will realise that reported losses are not real representations of the economic health in big tech. Losses attract government money so it's good business sense to report a loss, especially with the way it's embedding itself. They'll be bailed out

You can choose to opt out of betting* ads on SBS On Demand - help.sbs.com.au/hc/en-au/art...

(*Or alcohol or fast food, but only one of the three)

Ohhh coool

That's a good point

Definitely the vibe we all needed

Higher powers are fickle

Kid15 is really scared for kids that'll have their only friends ripped away from them because they've experienced that life. They are better now, but for a while that was their only social life. It's a trolley problem. Who do you save, darling?The kids currently in trouble or those who might be?

Agree. I'm conflicted. I am not a fan of the nanny state side of it either.

I've experienced all the good, bad, ugly of social media with Kid15. At the end of the day, they're being a teenager and no one knows what the consequences of this era will be. Everyone is making it up

I've been planting "why IG & Snapchat are bad" cultural studies arguments in their ears and slowly getting mine off those ones so it won't be such a shock. I 1. think it's dumb because it won't work but 2. Know Australia has done this before with tobacco and happy to see a govt stand up to big tech