@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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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.

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

    This is an interesting set of charts. What they show is how conversations tend to get more toxic the longer they are on various platforms.

    Good old Usenet just started pretty toxic and stayed there.

    Mastodon is not shown but this seems a good argument for its commitment to non-virality. Keeping interaction small makes them better.

    https://www.techdirt.com/2024/04/11/no-the-internet-hasnt-gotten-worse-just-your-outlook/

    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).

    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.

    ai6yr, to random

    Still thinking about the guy I saw going probably 55mph on a powered unicycle downhill here the other day. Hope he has his life insurance paid up!! 😬

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @ai6yr @exador23 @tehstu I discovered that's a thing now when I saw a group of them going up dirt Mulholland in full leathers.

    ai6yr, to woodworking

    This piece of vintage woodworking equipment appears to be traveling (repeatedly) through Craiglist this week... 😂

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @exador23 @ai6yr it is the transformer of woodworking tools. It is fundamentally a lathe, but it has a table to make it into a drill press, a table saw, a disk sander, or even an attachment to make it into a bandsaw.

    My dad had one and did a lot of things with it, but as you can imagine it requires some transformation and some pre-planning about which operations come before the others.

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

    Never in the history of science fiction has artificial intelligence meant "as smart as the dumbest crew member."

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    It never even meant "as smart as the average crew member."

    Every time it meant reaching beyond, or at least outsmarting, primitive humans.

    It really blows my mind that in the 21st century we have dumbed down the definition of AI to where we should expect artificial intelligence to be dumb.

    It has become a foible we should forgive

    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)

    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

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

    @W6KME @ai6yr @ascentale @sam Ones I've seen are kind of a bottle type plastic (jug-like), but yes with more color.

    John,
    @John@socks.masto.host avatar

    @W6KME @ai6yr @ascentale @sam this is an older conversation, but for what it's worth I got a snapshot of what they look like in Costa Mesa, California. Much color.

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