sam

sam, 23 days ago to solar

After a few false starts (oops, there were multiple more inspectors than I realized and they made me turn it back off for a bit) I finally got the permission to operate for my #solar install today! Of course for the first day I can operate it legally it would be cloudy and overcast, but it's also cool(ish) so my power requirements should remain low!

A graphic showing 8 solar panels. They all are displaying various What hours ranging from 5 to 7 depending on how much the individual panels have generated today. At the bottom it says "Production 0.04 kWh".

sam, 28 days ago to random

Is there a word for "creator owned" co-ops where the ownership isn't held by employees, but isn't held by the consumer either? IE. what is social.coop? Does platform co-op cover it, or is there something more specific in wide use already?

I guess creator co-op is fine, I just don't know if it's actually in wide spread use.

sam, 27 days ago to random

Hi all! If you're in New York City, the #REI union is planning a rally on Thursday May 23rd, go out and show them some support! They'd love to have a contingent of real cooperatives if possible, so get your co-ops together and show them some love!

They're also running this petition this week since it's REI's big yearly sale: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/tell-the-rei-board-stop-union-busting-bargain-a-fair-contract

#REI #REIUnion #RWDSU

sam, 1 month ago to random

What payment methods do people frequently use that can be signed up for without an app?

So far I've tried:
Zelle but it's not supported by my bank or credit union, cashapp but it doesn't have a webapp and requires iphone or android, venmo thinks my phone number isn't a mobile one (presumably they don't allow verification with VOIP numbers, but that's all I have).

This is why I'll never successfully be able to run a small business.

sam, 1 month ago to solar

Can you spot the difference? Yes, the day is finally here (well, technically it's not yet, the electrician is coming out to do the interconnect with Georgia Power tomorrow)! I'm so excited that GeorgiaBright (free loans for solar installs if you're below a certain income threshold so you don't have any upfront payment) made this possible for me, I never thought I'd be able to do it!

#solar #solarpunk

The same small white house, but now the right half of the roof is covered in solar panels.

sam, 1 month ago to GNOME

Every now and then I think I should go back to using #GNOME because it would be simpler than my own weird mix of Mate and i3 and look a lot nicer, and then I try one of their apps… I just tried out their official Markdown editor and it starts running noticeably slowly (menus don't respond, the rendering preview gets locked up, etc.). This is on a very fast laptop and this is just a text editor. This matches my previous experiences running gnome years ago. Maybe I'll go with something else…

sam, 1 month ago to random

The bike shops I've applied to have offered the same as I was making at #REI or better. Except one yesterday offered me less and no other benefits and then seemed shocked when I asked about healthcare. The owner seemed to care about his employees, but was also confused about not being able to find anyone. I get that bike shops as a business model just don't work in the U.S., but where do places like this expect to find workers with no rent to pay or other bills at all?

#MayDay #bicycles

sam, 1 month ago to random

I didn't realize how much work was depressing me until I quit. Today I:

• Cleaned the gutters
• Mowed the lawn
• Did a 30mi bike ride
• Built a truing stand
• Turned the compost
• Walked the dog twice
• Picked up trash
• Called a friend
• Did several loads of laundry
• Asked an acquaintance out on a date
• Taught someone about mastodon moderation
• and am going swing dancing shortly.

After work I was struggling to convince myself to get off the couch to make dinner even though I was hungry.

sam, 1 month ago to random

First day doing a full grocery shop with all four panniers on the bike! I also found the absolute best way to do the shopping by attaching them to the cart! The lady bagging at the checkout line thanked me for making things so easy when I wheeled the cart over to her and asked me who made bags designed to go on grocery carts because she wanted some!

#bicycles #CarryShitOlympics

A grocery shopping cart with four panniers attached to the wire frame of the cart as if they were the sides of a bicycle rack so that groceries sit in the panniers instead of directly in the cart.

sam, 1 month ago to fediverse

Is there any #ActivityPub / fediverse software for forums?

I am not looking for Reddit alternatives (ie. not Lemmy, although, to be quite honest, I'm not really sure if or why that's different, but they feel fundamentally different from eg. Discourse or phpBB to me, interesting thing to think about later, I suppose).

sam, 2 months ago to random

In open source wiki style projects there's a weird disconnect between the "expert" contributors and the casual contributor that I've seen a few times, and I think I might be bumping into again that I can't quite put my finger on. 1/…

sam, 2 months ago to Atlanta

The bike shop I work at, #REI, just got back to me to tell me that they are going ahead with their policy of installing cameras in the shop to monitor employees. They say these are not used to track productivity, but the CEO is a union busting ex-Amazon executive and he has given himself that power, so that's enough for me. My last day will be mid-May and I am now properly desperate to find a new job before I loose my house. Leads in the bike or software industry welcome in or around #Atlanta.

sam, 2 months ago to random

Do I know any cooperators who would want the domains cornergarage.coop and cornergarage.net?

They're due to expire in ~5 days and I'd rather the .net go to a co-op instead of getting slurped up by a reseller or something. I'm not selling them, I'll just transfer them to you if your cooperative organization wants them.

sam, 2 months ago to KindActions

My boss finally told me that having cameras in the bike shop to watch us with is non-negotiable, so I gave him my resignation. He asked that we not set an end date until he could get approval to make me an offer but I can't imagine it being good enough to change my mind. I'm still planning on doing frame building school to try and find a new way to pay the bills. If anyone wants to help with that, I'd really appreciate it.

https://liberapay.com/SamWhited

#mutualaid #biketooter #atlanta

sam, 2 months ago to KindActions

A friend of mine suggested I post online about a thing that I need help with financially and I've found myself extremely uncomfortable with the idea. I'm having trouble examining where that reticence comes from though. I can't tell if this is some ingrained toxic-masculinity around independence, a sense of failure because I gave up on a good tech career, or some internalized capitalist principal that asking for help is somehow bad similar to the stigma around panhandling. #mutualaid

sam, 3 months ago to random

I have on my "blog posts to write" list "Sci-fi is luddist fiction", and I just discovered "Science Fiction is a Luddite Literature" by @pluralistic from 2022, so looks like it's been done way better than anything I could do already!

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

sam, 3 months ago to motorcycles

Anyone have recommendations for Bluetooth #motorcycle headsets? As far as I can tell they're all terrible, or both terrible and stupidly expensive for something that's just a Bluetooth speaker with a plastic helmet clip on the back.

sam, 3 months ago to random

People talk about the "lack of an algorithm" on Mastodon a lot, but one thing I love about it that this doesn't capture is how my timeline is almost entirely bicycle and co-op related content and that this is by design. I've followed several hash tags, groups, etc. and heavily curated what I see. You can't do that on Twitter and the like because the algorithm will insist on showing you content that it thinks will drive engagement. Mastodon does have an algorithm, it's just a user driven one.

sam, 3 months ago to random

Listening to a podcast this morning where the hosts try to push back against toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and gender norms. Randomly in the middle of an episode specifically about toxic masculinity and how harmful it is one of the hosts made a joke in response to something one of the other hosts said about how they "probably ride a bicycle with a bell on it like a child in the 30s". Car culture is so absolutely ingrained that this was entirely passed by without comment or concern.

#WarOnCars

sam, 3 months ago to Atlanta

Apparently Georgia has a program now where low-income households can lease solar panels and have no up front cost for the solar install. After the lease and their power bill the monthly cost will still be lower than their old power bill. This seems almost too good to be true; what am I missing here?

https://capitalgoodfund.org/bright/

#Atlanta #Solar

sam, 4 months ago to Atlanta

The Jonquils and Carolina Jesamin are starting to peek out this morning, that makes it officially Spring in #Atlanta, I think! Yellow is everywhere!

sam, 4 months ago to random

For non-profits big donors can often make demands. For example: "I'll give $50 million for a new building, but only if you name it after me." Individual small donors don't have this sort of leverage.

What if we created a platform where a group draft a proposal and pick an amount of money. Everyone donates what they can to the pool. If you reach the goal, you send the donation intent to the company. If you don't (or they refuse the donation), it all gets returned?

sam, 4 months ago to random

The thing the crypto currency (and various other forms of tech salvation-ism whether it's AI or just the newest social media trend) folks don't understand is that you can't solve social and cultural problems with technology (and especially not Ayn Randian right-libertarian tech-bro technology).

sam, 4 months ago to random

I continue to be excited to see other bicycles at the grocery. Today there were a total of 3 bikes (which, sadly, means one of them had to be chained to a street sign because the grocery has only the pictured bike parking). One of the bikes was decked out with panniers, a trailer, and a child seat. So many groceries could be fetched! #bicycles

sam, 4 months ago to random

> 👍
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> [redacted] reacted via Gmail

Wait, is this a thing now? I absolutely hate Gmail even more than I already did. Why are we ruining everything? Why was this response necessary? I'm sure it shows up nicely there with terrible fallback behavior for literally everyone else. Proprietary extensions to email are not okay.