Notices by Muro deGrizeco :toad: (murodegrizeco@toad.social)

@minorusaba

That 140 tons of Pu contains perhaps 10^19 J of energy?

@minorusaba

I know what you mean.

@minorusaba

Forgive me if I have already mentioned the 30th of February...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_non-standard_dates#February_30

@minorusaba

Lately, meaning perhaps the last several decades, it seems like there are more ways for calamity to catch us.

Perhaps this is from risks growing, perhaps from my slowly growing knowledge of existing risks.

Either way, what a grim way to live...

@minorusaba

Ah, interesting vaccine technology.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7402629/

I think about how my first comment sounded, as if I am just an independent maker of rational decisions, an informed American consumer.

There are much more grim aspects to this though...

Jumping to buy a Toyota before a new Trump admin attacks allied countries like Japan, with tariffs.

If I lose my job, and can't get another, how much driving do I need to do?

How much do oil dictators and oligarchs shape my possible options?

Will I even still be alive in 5 years?

@minorusaba

For me in California, my decision was shaped by the need for the most reliable and least expensive car.

That sends me right back to Toyota.

Since I plan to try to use the car for 15-20 years, I had to prioritize fuel efficiency.

Thus a hybrid.

I can not afford a plug-in hybrid.

An EV would be nice, my electricity provider, PG&E, has raised rates drastically. I would be scared to be dependent on them for transportation energy.

And a Telsa? No. Morally indefensible.

@minorusaba

That is marvellous!

Perhaps today I can find an opportunity to say to my own colleagues,

“I give instructions to my aide and so I don’t punch into a computer myself. But I am confident our work is flawless.”

Or perhaps it is something my cat should say...

@babbeltea @mike @pluralistic

I agree about that.

A century of pouring resources into a transportation infrastructure with no long term future, endless roads and uncountable cars, has been quite the mistake.

@mike @pluralistic

Oof, that's worth a bookmark...

So.

I worked at a tech startup and heard a talk given by a venture capitalist.

He was waxing poetic about the big future potential of self-driving vehicles, and was frank about why:

He hoped that this would destroy the jobs of 30 million people employed driving things...

To workers, the tech pitch to us, is that we will each get a cool robot servant.

To oligarchs, their hope is that workers are *eliminated*.

This time?

As an older teen, I remember going to the lake one summer with my friends, watching them drinking beer at a picnic table near the shore, playing in the tepid water.

As the dusk approached my drunken friends decided to swim across a bay to a distant shore.

They set out, laughing and splashing. A couple of them were drunk enough that they just sprawled in inner tubes and let the other swimmers tow them along. Into the failing light. Across the dark water.

I waited at the shore.

#memory

That time?

That time, my friends were able to hail a random ski boat who offered them a ride.

They piled in and were delivered safely through the dark water, back to their origin, still laughing and unconcerned!

The event stays with me, though.

I think about it now and then.

Think of it as a point of bifurcation in the world path.

In another path, confusion and sobbing.

We walked in the chill quiet of the last part of the day, listening to the water birds calling as they flew nearby, listening to the wind sweeping over the cattails (Typha latifolia).

#sfba #nature

@minorusaba

Manipulation methods, now supercharged by new technology.

For us, it was a terrible injury in 2016, and now our ongoing transformation into a fake "managed democracy" in 2024.

We do not have ways to defend against these attacks.

We barely have an understanding of what is happening.

To me, it seems likely that these techniques, "political technology", are now going to be used everywhere, globally, continuously.

@minorusaba

"Political Technology"?

(no words right now)

@minorusaba clearly, in demoralized times like these, I need some machine that helps me move my legs and just keep going.

I hope people get that "Mass Deportation" is not just about deporting masses of people.

It's about building concentration camps for the disappearance and mass murder of multiple groups targeted by a cruel new regime.

#fascism

oh yeah...

#espresso #coffee