This image has been circulating online for at least 8 years, (not always with the text at the top). Its original context is very probably antisemitic. It was being shared in conspiracy groups by the kind of people who think Jews secretly run the world. It was not made for the specific story referred to be the text at the top, and no one has any idea what that photo is actually of (but based on those monitors it’s probably much older). It’s just being used because of the presence of the flag in the corner. The claim that 90% of online trolls are paid professionals is, in that context, an antisemitic claim that Jews are trying to control the media. It is a bad thing to share. It is also, even without the antisemitic dressing, a very silly claim to make. Sure there are paid trolls, but most trolls are still just dickheads who need better hobbies, and when it comes to paid trolls the suggestion here, is that paying trolls is something unique to Israel. That is a problem.

The text at the top is probably referring to this story from 2016:

‘Some 13,000 Jewish youth are expected to come to Israel this coming year to participate in Masa, the organization announced on Thursday.

The program provides Jewish youth the opportunity to participate in over 250 immersive Israel programs ranging in length from six months to a year, which include internships, study abroad programs, and volunteer opportunities. These experiences aim to give participants practical academic or work experience while strengthening their connection to Israel.

“The youth arrive to Israel to participate in a wide range of Masa programs, from government, to economy and culture, hi-tech, teaching English, medicine and more,” Liran Avisar-Ben Horin, CEO of Masa said.

She noted that in addition Masa provides participants with tools to engage in hasbara (public diplomacy) for Israel, turning those who take part into informal ambassadors for Israel to the world.’

…

According to a recent survey conducted by Midgam Institute and released by Masa, some 87% of Masa participants said they intend to actively work towards strengthening Israel’s image in the world, while 81% of participants said their vision of Israel “changed for the positive” because of participating in the project.

Slightly more than half, 58% of respondents, said they would “certainly” act against the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.’

-

I think it’s kind of telling that ‘how do you feel about BDS now?’ Is one of the questions that was asked (and that Jerusalem Post’s coverage is focused on ‘have we managed to make young impressionable Jews more friendly towards the state?’) like, at least for J post, that’s what’s important. All the rest of it is redundant: all that matters is whether they will defend Israel in the public eye.

I also think it’s telling that the meme above misses out everything else to pretend that actually Israel is just going to hire 13,000 young people and train them and pay them full time to post positive stuff about Israel online. That is actually just a lie. Using it 8 years later to present this as something Israel is doing right now is also a problem.

This is an instance in which an 8 year old conspiracy-level antisemitism meme is being repackaged to make up a current story. The MASA program is still running, as true as it is that part of its contents/goal is to get kids to represent Israel positively online, it is still not what this meme is making it out to be.

How to improve your public image

Don't commit genocide.

That's it. That's the entire list.

‘Only about 3 percent of the FDS memory was corrupted by the bad chip, so engineers needed to transplant that code into another part of the memory bank. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety, NASA said.

So the Voyager team divided the code into sections for storage in different places in the FDS. This wasn't just a copy-and-paste job. Engineers needed to modify some of the code to make sure it will all work together. "Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the FDS memory needed to be updated as well," NASA said in a statement.

Newer NASA missions have hardware and software simulators on the ground, where engineers can test new procedures to make sure they do no harm when they uplink commands to the real spacecraft. Due to its age, Voyager doesn't have any ground simulators, and much of the mission's original design documentation remains in paper form and hasn't been digitized.

Y'all, the world is sleeping on what NASA just pulled off with Voyager 1

The probe has been sending gibberish science data back to Earth, and scientists feared it was just the probe finally dying. You know, after working for 50 GODDAMN YEARS and LEAVING THE GODDAMN SOLAR SYSTEM and STILL CHURNING OUT GODDAMN DATA.

So they analyzed the gibberish and realized that in it was a total readout of EVERYTHING ON THE PROBE. Data, the programming, hardware specs and status, everything. They realized that one of the chips was malfunctioning.

So what do you do when your probe is 22 Billion km away and needs a fix? Why, you just REPROGRAM THAT ENTIRE GODDAMN THING. Told it to avoid the bad chip, store the data elsewhere.

Sent the new code on April 18th. Got a response on April 20th - yeah, it's so far away that it took that long just to transmit.

And the probe is working again.

From a programmer's perspective, that may be the most fucking impressive thing I have ever heard.

So we all know that Tumblr is US-centric. But to what degree? (and can we skew the results of this poll by posting it at a time where they should be asleep?)

Reblog to increase sample size!

I reblog these things not because I believe they work (they don’t), but because I want my mutuals and followers to know that I’m wishing them luck with whatever they need. You’re seeing this bc I really hope everything’s going okay for you, and if it’s not, I really hope that changes soon.

the idea that restrooms, locker rooms, etc need to be single-sex spaces in order for women to be safe is patriarchy's way of signalling to men & boys that society doesn't expect them to behave themselves around women. it is directly antifeminist. it would be antifeminist even if trans people did not exist. a feminist society would demand that women should be safe in all spaces even when there are men there.

Saddest thing ever is reading an academic paper about a threatened or declining species where you can tell the author is really trying to come up with ways the animal could hypothetically be useful to humans in a desperate attempt to get someone to care. Nobody gives a shit about the animals that “don’t affect” us and it seriously breaks my heart

‘Their ancestors built the sugar plantation in the mid-17th century and worked it with enslaved people for 200 years. After the abolition of slavery in 1834, the family received more than £4,200 in compensation, a huge sum at the time.

Drax declined to comment. In the past he has said the role his ancestors played in the slave trade was “deeply, deeply, regrettable, but no one can be held responsible today for what happened many hundreds of years ago”.’

Motherfucker, not only did it not happen “many hundreds of years ago”, it disnt even happen “hundreds of years ago”. it happened less than 200 fucking years ago you piece of shit Tory.

Meanwhile, in the UK...

A Tory MP stands to make £3m from the sale of a slave plantation his family established in Barbados which he inherited.

I say this as a Brit and as a believer in reparations: he needs to give that land back for free. Because that is the MINIMUM he should be doing. His family held slaves for centuries. His wealth is built on the deaths of 30,000 enclaved people thousands of miles from his own country. The man owes his entire lifestyle to wealth gained during slavery.

He's not my MP but anyone who lives in Dorset GIVE HIM HELL!! You can contact him and make it clear you won't vote for a man (because otherwise you were certainly going to vote Tory *cough*) who continues to hold land gained under slavery and colonialism and expects to be richer for it.

“Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom … at 12. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine forest which divide Ravenna from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning. I don’t suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it… . [P.S.] I find that my enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective … . I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were before they were changed into these shapes.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley on the lifestyle of Lord Byron (via timemarauder)

Reblog for larger sample size. Feel free to indicate in the comments your generation, approximate region of residence, your length of experience with fan fiction, or when/where you first encountered these terms.

The thing in Germany was just for that summer. Now it’s back to a €50 ticket for the month and (as with the €9 ticket) you use it on ICE trains.

Edit: I meant you *can’t* use it on ICE trains -_- only on the regional trains.

When public services are affordable and convenient, people will always choose those resources. They are not supposed to be a capitalistic profit-seeking initiative, they are developed for the benefit of the people, for a better life, just as government resources should be used. (tweet)

Reblog if you didn’t write My Immortal

We’re going to find the author by process of elimination.

This is more punk than the whole of punk history.

mutuals im going to bug tesco what do you lot want?