@John@socks.masto.host
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

John

@John@socks.masto.host

I am retired in Southern California after working on the computational side of chemistry, medical electronics, environmental monitoring, motion pictures, and even some web commerce.

I am interested in hiking and the outdoors, exercise physiology (especially for someone in my age group), gardening, and old man projects in general.

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rodhilton, to random
@rodhilton@mastodon.social avatar

When Jack first started talking about Bluesky, in the very early phases it involved the blockchain. I remember suggesting that I thought the reason he liked the idea was that he could theoretically build a version of Twitter where no tweets could ever be deleted, and therefore there'd be no pressure on him to moderate or ban anyone. He wanted to not have the power.

People always thought I misunderstood Jack's motivations but it turns out I was right about him all along.

https://www.engadget.com/jack-dorsey-claims-bluesky-is-repeating-all-the-mistakes-he-made-at-twitter-234326121.html

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@rodhilton for sure, Jack was always very upfront about that. If people were pushing back to you it's probably because they weren't reading the original sources.

My read is that he has some weird, combination Buddhist and libertarian, idea about free speech.

The idea that everybody publishes and everybody else just filters seems to satisfy him.

It might of course be a lot of work for the filterers.

clive, to random
@clive@saturation.social avatar

As I behold "Crush!", the new Apple ad for their Ipad Pro ...

... I fluctuate, with heisenbergian indeterminacy, between "they are clearly trolling us" and "they are totally earnest and have no idea how completely sociopathic they appear"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@clive

Crushing things seems like a different energy, from say ..

"For years, he [Steve Jobs] arranged for a Buddhist monk by the name of Kobun Chino Otogawa to meet with him once a week at his office to counsel him on how to balance his spiritual sense with his business goals."

https://www.lionsroar.com/how-steve-jobs-found-buddhism/

docpop, to bluesky
@docpop@mastodon.social avatar

Jack Dorsey referred to Twitter, the privately owned company that blocked links to competing social media platforms like Mastodon, as "freedom technology". What a clown.

He also deleted his account on Bluesky announced he's no longer on Bluesky's board of directors. Jack's involvement was one of the reasons I was never excited about #Bluesky, TBH.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/05/jack-dorsey-says-hes-no-longer-on-the-bluesky-board/?guccounter=butts #JackDorsey

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@docpop it's possible he's referring to Twitter as a corporation with "you're on one," and freedom technology is an oblique reference to Nostr, his new thing.

I don't mind that Nostr exists, but it doesn't seem likely to become my thing.

https://coingape.com/jack-dorsey-pledges-21-million-for-bitcoin-development/

ai6yr, to Electronics

ABC: E-waste is overflowing landfills. At one sprawling Vietnam market, workers recycle some of it https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/waste-overflowing-landfills-sprawling-vietnam-market-workers-recycle-109892591 #ewaste #electronics

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr I have seen some YouTubes by some guys who seem to have a fun and useful business. They run those weekend recycling drop-offs, probably with a little cash flow from the government and the organizer, and then they sort it all. The best goes to eBay, the intermediate goes to materials handlers, but probably the worst is sent in bulk overseas.

eBay as environmental hero

ai6yr, to gardening

I appear to have a volunteer monkeyflower (mimulus) growing out of a crack in the patio.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr I think their algorithm has changed somewhat, so that it searches first through a list of proper names, and capitalizes everything it finds.

It doesn't seem to waste time looking at context.

Jonathanglick, to random
@Jonathanglick@mstdn.social avatar

Does anybody have a thought as to why tech thinkers and moguls who are convinced of a near-term AI, robotics and longevity utopia are also so worried about declining birth rates? In their imagined future, aren’t human births less important than ever?

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@Jonathanglick That has been my question for a couple years now.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@Jonathanglick chances are they are just holding two incompatible thoughts in their minds. Most likely.

Perhaps the darker view would be that AI's aren't customers?

With real AI (AGI), what some people have called "robot socialism" becomes possible. Everyone sleeps in and robots just do all the jobs.

But that's socialism and not compatible with the billionaire tech bro world view.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@Jonathanglick at some level they might realize that with human level AI they are redundant.

There is less reason to concentrate wealth with one individual.

ai6yr, to random

Dang, the church in "The Rock" (Sean Connery/Nicholas Cage) burnt down in August of 2005. It was in Saticoy, Ventura County, California. https://m.santapaulatimes.com/news/archivestory.php/aid/9510/Historic_Darling_Road_church_destroyed_by_fire_.html

Church with green fields around it
Same church, closeup, Nicholas Cage's butt

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr Saticoy is one of those streets in the Valley that kind of aspirationally heads in the right direction, but never gets to the town of the same name.

I didn't realize it was a Chumash word. Sheltered from the wind.

exador23, to random
@exador23@m.ai6yr.org avatar

Reuters: Elon Musk's abrupt decision to lay off employees who ran Tesla's electric vehicle charging business blindsided automakers gearing up to equip new EVs for customers to use the Tesla Supercharger network

That's what you get for buying into a proprietary standard (owned by an idiot with the emotional stability of a toddler) instead of an open standard.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@exador23 @ai6yr

"The North American Charging Standard (NACS), being standardized as SAE J3400, is an electric vehicle (EV) charging connector system developed by Tesla, Inc."

I guess this leaves the word "being" before standardized somewhat hanging.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standard

delong, to random
@delong@mastodon.social avatar

Tesla Needs Its Tim Cook Now!
What is Tesla, Anyway? And What Is to Be Done About Its Management? Now that Elon Musk is no longer a fundraiser, cheerleader, & sometime coach for engineers pushing forward remarkable & essential technologies and has become a meme-stock tech-bubble carnival barker, is he the right CEO for Tesla? No. What Tesla needs now is its very own Tim Cook…
<https://braddelong.substack.com/p/what-is-tesla-anyway-and-what-is>
2024-05-01 We

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@delong @Jonathanglick I had very parallel thoughts this morning. I was wondering if Elon's antics might actually end this era of founder capitalism.

And then I thought about how Google might provide the counter example. There professional managers have made money but degraded the long-term potential of the company. Arguably too much bean counting.

They should have put a Chromebook on every desk, not played their version of AI etc.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@Jonathanglick I think being the first logo everybody sees in the morning is a good business.

You don't want to immediately follow that by a splash ad, but it certainly has potential to offer value under your branding.

bruces, to random
@bruces@mastodon.social avatar

"There is great technology journalism being done today, but it tends to appear in specialist publications that cater to tech-savvy audiences," he pop-scienced, while writing a blogpost that wouldn't be seen by Google

https://asteriskmag.com/issues/06/debugging-tech-journalism

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@bruces that was an interesting article but I "can't endorse" the approach taken with self-driving.

Abusing math a bit, the denominator he described is not miles driven, it's who you're replacing. Humans vary widely in how awake, attentive, and sober they are. When a self-driving does better than them an aggregate it may just be doing better than the sleepy, inattentive, or impaired driver.

Thus it may be a bad recommendation for the better driver to adopt it.

MLE_online, to random
@MLE_online@social.afront.org avatar

I find it irksome that the dictionary on my phone defaults to capitalizing nouns that are also the names of tech companies.

If I text my brother that I need to clean the windows of my car, my phone should not change it to Windows.

If I text a friend that the grocery store is carrying some new kind of apple now, my phone should not change it to Apple.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@MLE_online that happens to me with Target and I think what the heck, how many people are using it that way?

Jonathanglick, to random
@Jonathanglick@mstdn.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @Jonathanglick a cynical answer would be that they see it as more a generational divide, and directly or indirectly rebellion against their parents.

    And that's largely true. The United States has been coasting on "support for Israel" for a long time, starting with [justified] post world war II guilt.

    See also MS St. Louis:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis

    Mark, to random
    @Mark@weird.autos avatar

    They really like the new EV macan. https://youtu.be/aG6EZr6uP00

    It sounds like they were paid four million dollars to praise this thing. He says the comfort mode with air ride is incredibly luxurious and in sport mode it feels like a super car. “It’s that special… It’s really that transformative”

    It sounds like the does everything car now does everything better.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @Basmitharts @Mark Miata/Macan would be kind of a fantasy two car solution.

    The Macan does bend towards ridiculousness, but that's the market now. A lot of cars that were "fast" for most of my life are now considered slow.

    My '81 Porsche 928 did 0 to 60 in 7 seconds. MKBHD just called the 7-second Prius Prime "slow."

    fkamiah17, to random
    @fkamiah17@toot.wales avatar

    WEEK 30: The State Troopers certainly brought plenty of ammo for the AR-15s with them to a student protest 🤬

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @fkamiah17 My dad was a Navy Seabee who was rounded up and sent to guard the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, California from 25 April to 26 June 1945.

    He was given a 38 revolver, and a holster, and then training, which consisted of a Sergeant yelling at them for 30 minutes that "no way in fuck should they take that out of the holster."

    My dad's line was that "to this day he did not know if it had bullets in it."

    Hope clips do not indicate live rounds.

    ai6yr, to delhi

    "It's a long day, livin' in Reseda, there's a freeway, runnin' through the yard" (a photo from last week -- traffic wasn't moving AT ALL when this photo was taken...).

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @ai6yr seeing that freeway reminds me of how much I've worked when I even try into my planning.

    An easy rule of thumb is 10:00 a.m. or 1:00 p.m.

    shoq, to random
    @shoq@mastodon.social avatar

    I guess I’d need a keyboard and monitor switcher to use both LInux and Windows simultaneously on two boxes, right?

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @shoq I could make a joke that you don't need a display or keyboard for the Linux box if you only ssh to it. But seriously, despite being a joke, that is the best answer for some situations.

    It all depends on what you're doing with the Linux box and how interactive you have to be.

    Or in some situations you run the Linux in a virtual machine on the Windows box.

    Update: I'm also big on using extra, old, PCs as Linux boxes, and so not worrying about dual boot or data preservation. A $50 PC.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @shoq I could tell a funny related story. I had a Debian installation I used in a spare setup. It was a scrounged Lenovo tower with an i5-4460 processor, 8g, hd. I upgraded it to a 120gb SSD and used whatever 19 or 20-in monitor there was.

    After a while I decided that I wanted a 4k monitor because they were getting cheap. I checked the manual on that old Lenovo and it said it couldn't do it. So I actually got a really good deal on a gaming PC at $600.

    1/2

    KiwiEV, to random
    @KiwiEV@mastodon.nz avatar

    How does one say, "I've been trying to tell you hydrogen was a scam for two decades now" in marketing speak?
    Just give up on this oil company-led nightmare and go pure electric already. Being tied to the pump is so 𝘧𝘦𝘵𝘤𝘩. 😂

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @KiwiEV @ZeKik The "four miracles" critique had a big impact on my thinking.

    https://www.technologyreview.com/2009/06/19/266486/challenging-chu-on-hydrogen-fuel-cells/

    It says something that it takes 15 years to overcome the inertia and face the reality.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @Hypx @KiwiEV @ZeKik what percentage of hydrogen sold in 2024 will be produced by reforming natural gas?

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @Hypx @KiwiEV @ZeKik I don't think you're making an incredibly forceful argument.

    What you're saying is, because solar panels and electric cars now work, because of that, we should use hydrogen cars that do not now work.

    Wake me up when they do.

    John, to 3DPrinting
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    This was one of my first successes at , on my first 3D printer, years ago.

    It still gets daily use.

    The design is not mine, it comes from Paste Pusher Animals by makeplace at Thingiverse

    https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:49263

    arstechnica, to random
    @arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

    So much for free speech on X; Musk confirms new users must soon pay to post

    The fee, likely $1, is aimed at stopping “relentless” bots, Musk said.

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/so-much-for-free-speech-on-x-musk-confirms-new-users-must-soon-pay-to-post/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @arstechnica Musk is no longer "speedrunning" old ideas about how to run social media, but he's still working through that backlog. "Nobody would spam if it cost money" is an old idea.

    I don't think it works in this age though.

    There are lots of people who will pay a dollar to be certified as "real." Perhaps more fake people than real ones.

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