@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.

Posts auto-delete after two months.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

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.

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/

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

If you know any practical young person interested in a steady and well paying career, point them towards COBOL.

https://www.pcmag.com/articles/ibms-plan-to-update-cobol-with-watson

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

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

"Living in the US is like having a super-dangerous job"

"Doing the math, the wage premium that would be needed to take on the extra risk of being a working-age American, compared to the EU, is somewhere between $10000/yr and $40000/yr."

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/04/23/living-in-the-us-is-like-having-a-super-dangerous-job/

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

It was Elon Musk who reminded me this time of this cartoon, possibly the most prescient of our time.

An article on its creation here:

https://www.cjr.org/q_and_a/new_yorker_cartoonist_trump.php

ai6yr, to random

Wow, it's the middle of the night in Pakistan and India, and the "feels like" temperature in Hyderabad is 106F. Earlier it was "feels like" 120F including humidity.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr @RunRichRun @LukasBrausch Pity the poor Europeans. And they have to bottle beer in 500 milliliter* bottles so they can have a pint**.

    • try it saying all the syllables.

** - for all practical purposes

coachtony, to random
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

This live and let live theory of platforming Nazi's doesn't hold water. For example, every time you link to Substack you are adding to the backlinks that help their SEO.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@coachtony I scrolled through the comments at The Verge. One that got a lot of likes seemed on the surface to be serious and thoughtful. It was well written, but in the end, it reduced to this:

"We can't be critical of bad things, because someday people will be critical of good things too."

That both a bad theory and somewhat late to the story. It's like, look around buddy, people are critical of good things all the time.

People are even critical of the minimal discernment that Nazis are bad.

ai6yr, to random

Remarkable how out-of-the-mainstream utilitarian cycling seems to be in my neighborhood. Strong car-centric culture in Southern California, for sure. (yes, I was, until recently, part of that). 🤔

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr we are a species where people will drive to the gym, push a button and wait for the rear hatch to open, take out a gym bag, go work out, come back push a button and wait for the rear hatch to open, put the gym bag in, and drive away.

I think if you understand that you understand everything.

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

The best thing about Roku from a consumer protection standpoint, is that they are weak.

They don't have, nor are they likely ever to have, any kind of monopoly.

The inserted ads thing might agitate people who "follow the narrative" on enshittification, but I'm not sure normies will care.

After all, when do we pause? Probably when we leave the room. So go ahead, show an ad to an empty sofa? It definitely won't get attention.

(If response to "play" again is slow, then people might get upset)

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

Ben Thompson ties the Apple "crush" ad back to "bicycles of the mind:"

"The apology comes across as heartfelt — accentuated by the fact that an Apple executive put his name to it — but I disagree with Myhren: the reason why people reacted so strongly to the ad is that it couldn’t have hit the mark more squarely."

https://stratechery.com/2024/the-great-flattening/

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

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

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

It really is amazing that Elon Musk is firing all these people from Tesla at exactly the same time he is asking shareholders to approve the $46 billion payout to himself.

Amazing on several levels.

ai6yr, to random

10.25 inches of rain in Topanga Canyon overnight.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr My rain gauge is overtopped.

ai6yr, to random

Hmm, finding a vegetarian Indian dish to make for dinner from scratch (which doesn't require a lot of ingredients I don't have and time) is an interesting challenge 🤔

Thus, why Indian restaurants and grocery stores here with takeout counters are appealing, LOL.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr finding a grocery store with a lunch counter was my favorite when working. If you're really lucky they have cricket on the TV.

ai6yr, to peppers

Hmm, big box hardware store with orange buckets had their vegetables on sale, so now I have way more Habanero (and Carolina Reaper) peppers than I expected, LOL. ($3.33 for the large multi-plant packs, vs. normally $4.98 or $9.99). #peppers

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr Sounds good. I will make this marinade with less than 100% of ingredients, but with 90-100% it's pretty good

Jerk Marinade for Chicken

~3 sliced habanero peppers
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped

1 T dry thyme
1 T ground allspice
1 T salt

1 t ground black pepper
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t ground nutmeg
1 t ground ginger

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup white vinegar

Juice of a lime if you have it.

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 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

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.

ai6yr, to gardening

With a dozen new grapevines in the ground here, now trying to figure out how to prune/train them somehow (ps. I have a billion additional grapes rooted for anyone in Ventura County who'd like one!) https://extension.usu.edu/yardandgarden/research/grape-trellising-training-basics

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr In my experience they love a chain link fence, and all you have to do is prune them back to the fence. Remembering of course the year old cane rule. (Grapes only bear fruit on branches that are 1-year-old so you have to keep sufficient numbers of those.)

ai6yr, to climate

Scripps News pushing this nationally... I'm wondering if the plastics and bottled water industries are pushing this. #disinformation #FUD #climate

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr I guess my ancient preference for loose leaf tea is confirmed there.

Seriously there are a set of things we could do to reduce our "last mile" exposure to microplastics. We could prefer to buy anything in glass that is available in glass as opposed to plastic. We could drink from glass, and when that's impractical metal.

We might have to hand wash.

But it comes down to how much have we done to ourselves as a species, and can we even recover at this point?

https://www.foodtimes.eu/food-system-en/dishwashers-and-release-of-microplastics-the-study

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr I worked with a guy who only refilled his water bottle, and one day I'm like wait a minute what is that .. he had a nice colony of green moss on the bottom. He sat close to the window. That must have helped.

I feel like best practices would be to use stainless steel and then only ever put water in it. Certainly never anything sweetened or with fats.

It is kind of a minefield though. Stainless bottles may have plastic sip tubes and then what about those..

coachtony, to random
@coachtony@me.dm avatar

So Substack is pro nazi now? I guess that’s good news for nazis.

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@coachtony This essay, at the Sunlight Foundation, talking about a famous quote, seems to capture the feeling of the web 2009:

https://sunlightfoundation.com/2009/05/26/brandeis-and-the-history-of-transparency/

One way to look at the Substack essay is that they are still back in that era, and haven't learned from the following 10 years.

Light shining on terrible ideas was not in fact enough to make them dissipate. Rather horribly, we learned that they can gather force.

Mark, to random
@Mark@weird.autos avatar

Rare x crossover post.
Did anyone know these existed?

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@Dylan @Mark it may not surprise you that I was off in my own direction even then. (standards based! expandable!)

I should check to see if the 512 mb USB stick still works.

ai6yr, to chemistry

Hmm, I wonder what this is. Don't remember that from high school chemistry, LOL. (Actually full of stinging nettle tea).

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr caffeine

ai6yr, to iPhone

Hmm, I wonder if this iPhone marked this person as "skydiving". https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/iphone-from-blown-out-boeing-737-max-9-found-still-working-in-oregon/

John,
@John@socks.masto.host avatar

@ai6yr it is a really amazing thing. I wonder if the geometry of the iPhone leads it to a maple seed type spin.

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/maple-seeds-and-animals-exploit-same-trick-fly-1540

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