@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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blacklight, to voyager

The engineers who designed the probes half a century ago even thought of the possibility that a wrong sequence of commands may point the antenna dish away from earth (like someone did a couple of days ago).

And they implemented a self-adjusting mechanism that a few times a year scans the positions of a few known stars to infer the position of the earth, and point back the antenna in the right direction.

50 years later, these wonderful machines are still working, tens of billions of km away from earth, with only 69 KB of RAM, and even a wrong sequence of commands won't put them out of use, while nowadays 4 GB of RAM aren't even enough to start VsCode or IntelliJ.

The more I understand how they were designed, the more I feel like an early Medieval engineer looking at the Pantheon or other marvels or Roman architecture. Some amazing skills, knowledge and attention to details have been lost from that generation to ours.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@nf3xn @blacklight @rrwo @szescstopni @Threadbane I agree. In the old days I worked coding assembly language for medical instruments that would be in the field for decades. Certainly compared to today a lot of care was put into 64k. But as you say that's more about problem domain than technology

(I have also spun up MySQL instances for really trivial things, like organizing files at home.)

evan, to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar
John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@fifilamoura @evan I understand the logic of that claim, but I don't think it is universally grounded. Humans all over the world, since the beginning of time, have wanted of their essentials first, their luxuries second, and when they have all those, continue questing for status.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@fifilamoura @evan I posted that too soon, incomplete thought ..

To me it's the guy who wants the new iPhone, every time it's released, that makes Apple what it is, rather than that Apple making that guy who he is.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a rough parallel for what I'm suggesting, but not perfect.

John,
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@fifilamoura @evan I'm not sure I see the utility in this. It seems the primary function of "blame capitalism" is to free from responsibility the person who does buy the marginal extra iPhone or the marginal extra trip to Hawaii.

Or the marginal extra F150 Raptor.

Perhaps because if we do accept those as free choices it leads us in a very different direction.

We might also tie in democracy there, that our laws and restraints on business are the ones we want.

John,
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@fifilamoura @evan

Well I think when we look around, the thing we see really for all environmental problems, is human beings punting on individual responsibility.

It might be hard to accept that as a reality of human nature, it might be easy to blame that on an abstractly defined structure of society, but as my theme, I see it the other way around.

There is no get out of jail free card.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@RD4Anarchy @fifilamoura @evan if you are serious let me ask you a question.

Can you think of any civilization, and by that I mean a society that has advanced to actual cities and labor divided between farmer and brewer and candlemaker, but did not have hierarchy and status?

Can you think of any ancient civilization that had those and did not have greater luxury for those with greater status?

Thousands of years before the joint ownership corporation.

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

Livescience.com: Clearest-ever seafloor maps show deep-sea 'Grand Canyon' off US coast in stunning detail
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/clearest-ever-seafloor-maps-show-deep-sea-grand-canyon-off-us-coast-in-stunning-detail

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@bud_t @ai6yr

That was a very interesting story, and on a second level as well. I think this is the first time I've spotted an unretouched AI illustration in ad copy, in the wild.

The first thing I noticed were the not-quite-trees in the background to the left, then that the solar panels, especially by the girl's ear, are not quite right.

mookie, to TeslaMotors

“we need to be thinking in terms of radically reimagining and drastically shrinking the global vehicle fleet as opposed to just replacing todays fleet with an electric one.”

Agreed. I’m still thinking PHEVs are a better solution at this time. Kills the range anxiety. Gets more cars with batteries for the same resources as a full EV. PHEVs would most likely have same impact, outside of road-trips, who really needs an EV with a 200-300 mile battery?

https://jalopnik.com/what-if-americans-say-no-to-an-ev-revolution-1850657107

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@mookie I see it in conversations with people I know. Some are ready and willing to plug in every night. Some actively enjoy that. Some are not really interested in plugging in, and a lot of people are not in the situation where they can.

Given the constraints of infrastructure, I think we have to recommend hybrids, and plug-in hybrids, and full electrics .. basically going as far as the person and their situation allow.

(There are other accessible lifestyle changes: veg diet, reduced travel.)

petersuber, to random

I'm looking for a tool to save work files that I'm paranoid about losing.

It would be like Dropbox. But instead of saving the file to just one place, like the Dropbox cloud, it would make as many copies as you want and save them wherever you want.

You could save one copy to a laptop project folder, another to a back-up folder, and two other copies to two different cloud services.

If there's already such a tool, I'd welcome a pointer. If not, I hope some developer jumps into the niche.

John,
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@petersuber I don't know if you want to get this far into it, and this does exclude the cloud services, but I think I have like eight forms of backup right now? Redundant redundancy.

I back up to obsolete standby computers, usually powered off. I backup to old hard drives and SSDs, in USB loaders. I make DVDs.

Most of this just runs on rsync. It's an old standard, but it works. Easy on one local network. There are network bridges people use to go wider.

mookie, to USpolitics

I think the proper idiom here is: You've made your bed, now lie in it.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4098609-gop-senators-rattled-by-radical-conservative-populism/

John,
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@mookie Emphasis mine:

"Republican senators say they’re worried that conservative populism, though always a part of the GOP, is beginning to take over the party, becoming more radical and threatening to cause them significant political problems heading into the 2024 election."

How droll.

mookie, to Netflix

Remember when was a low-cost ad-free alternative to cable?

https://www.ign.com/articles/netflix-pricing-shakeup-removes-cheapest-ad-free-plan-in-uk-and-us

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@mookie I just got billed $10 on July 4th, and I've had no warnings by email that things might change.

Checking the web page it's true that new accounts are charged $15.

Weird.

glennf, to random
@glennf@twit.social avatar

@nickheer On Zuck and masculinity: Bezos used to be a stereotypical pencil-neck geek and then at some point I guess decided he needed to be ripped. Having worked alongside him for months (and known him for a bit before that), it always makes me side eye photos of him now. It’s such a strange performative thing, like, being a billionaire isn't enough (or being a human isn’t). I guess it’s probably tied to theories of longevity too. I wouldn't be surprised if he takes a slurry of 25 supplements.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@glennf @nickheer @jeffjarvis I'm no billionaire, but I hit a point where I realized I was spending too much time in chairs, looking at screens. I took up mountain biking rather than lifting.

I think the interesting thing is more generally human, that once you get into it's easy to fall further and further. For little guys that might be a YouTube binge, but for a rich guy with a private gym and a personal trainer it probably is a whole other level. Sure.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@glennf @nickheer @jeffjarvis IOW, if you pick a personal trainer who is a cage fighter(*), you might end up there.

Not to go completely René Girard on you all, but of course.

    • the key error
John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@glennf @nickheer @jeffjarvis Many do seem to be in some weird insular community right now.

But the publicity hounds might actually be a minority. Supposedly there are 724 billionaires in America(*), and maybe 10 weirdos we can name.

    • taxes could be higher
ai6yr, to outside
@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org avatar

Hmm, not aiming at the hiking/backpacking crowd so much anymore, I guess.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr Now of course things are worse. People who are afraid to sleep in tents get into "overlanding" instead.

I mean, if I may say so, what the hell:

https://www.overlandexpo.com/compass/best-overlanding-trailers/

petergleick, to random

New California environmental poll:
70% overall favor accelerating efforts to deal with , including majorities of ALL ethnic groups, ALL regions, ALL genders, and ALL income groups.

The ONLY group that doesn't favor dealing with climate change? Republicans.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@petergleick it is less pronounced, but it is pretty sad, that support for climate action falls with income.

John, to random
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

I was cut off on the freeway today by a VW ID4. I noticed that the car went off to the right lanes trying various tactics to get ahead, and failing, it caught up to me(*) again. I looked over to see who was driving.

It was a woman in her 30s or 40s with antlers on her head. I'm talking about Christmas reindeer antlers.

At that point I said to myself maybe I should stop expecting the world to make sense.

    • steady in one lane
MattHodges, to random

Friends who joined Mastodon ~8 months ago and decided to jump feet-first into a managed or self-hosted solo-instance — @danhon, @ken, @simon, @dansinker, @ben (who else do I know who did this?) — any retrospective worth sharing at this point? Thinking about things like patching... scaling... cost... discovery... anxiety hosting unpredictable content... blocking unsavory instances... managed services in various non-US countries... what else? Good choice overall?

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@MattHodges My small managed host via masto is casual. No problems at all. My federated/hashtag views are pretty thin, but I don't really feel a need to fix that. I can find interesting people through the interesting people I already know, or if I'm really motivated by Google, or browsing bigger instances.

I block very rarely, a handful of times, but then this is a small account, below the radar.

The reason I got it was that the price approximated Elon's $8. Paying directly appealed to me.

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

No shortage around here.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ke7yxz @ai6yr To dive into the arcane, the name Sriracha descends from the Thai town of Si Racha. That town had a history of chili garlic sauces. David Tran, kind of a perfectionist and nut (in a good way) started making his version with Vietnamese sensibilities (more sugar?) in 1975. He came to LA and the rest is history. As you say, he doesn't use artificial colors, and colors of the sauce vary month to month. It's always balanced to his taste.

Could someone else do that?

Maybe. I'd try it.

ben, to random
@ben@werd.social avatar

There has to be a search engine for Mastodon. Make it opt-in, make it tightly controlled, however you want it, but there needs to be a way to see news from across the network. That mechanism has powered countless social justice protests, grassroots disaster reports, and mutual aid. Equity requires discoverability. It's not optional.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ben @scottjenson I periodically drop a reminder about the size and cost of such thing. Twitter, which of course is large and has been running for years, has a searchable database of hundreds of billions of tweets.

I believe there is one experiment running, with optional sign up as you say, but I believe they limit search history to 30 days or something to keep those costs in bounds.

To do it we need the technology, but perhaps more the business model.

supernovae, to random

deleted_by_author

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

    @supernovae My doctor tells me I should prefer oatmeal, but I can dream.

    TradingPlacesResearch, to random

    Marc Andreessen: "what happens when basically very smart people who are taken very seriously in one field decide to branch out and decide to become experts on society and politics and decide to weigh in on the future shape of society, and basically it turns out they’re just horribly bad, they just have catastrophic judgment once they’re outside of their core discipline.”

    Yes, now please kindly shut the fuck up, Marc.

    https://stratechery.com/2023/an-interview-with-marc-andreessen-about-ai-and-how-you-change-the-world/

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @TradingPlacesResearch I saw that quote and I thought maybe it's the beginning of some kind of self-awareness?

    But no, the guy is still behind the curve:

    “Okay, obviously the Tesla is just a fundamentally different experience as a consequence of quite literally being now a self-driving car run run by software.”

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @TradingPlacesResearch On a whole number of levels Teslas are not self-driving cars (ht @adamjcook ), but Andreessen doesn't know, or doesn't care, or thinks he's flying at some crazy 50,000 foot level.

    It's all the same. Billionaire bros who are not serious.

    John, to random
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    People say that ad blockers make the internet better. I think the problem is that they are too invisible. What you really want to do, is keep track of who is advertising, and avoid sites that advertise too much.

    For whatever your definition of "too much" is.

    I am personally cool with the traditional bargain, a few ads for good content, but I try to bail fast from ad/content farms.

    John, to random
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    Some nice egg-like mudstone concretions, from the conejo hike yesterday. Would there be something inside? I don't know.

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