Notices by John Socks (john@socks.masto.host)

I'm not sure who needs to know, but I think @CarandDriver is pretty broken, at least from the official Mastodon Android client.

I have to view in browser in order to get to the articles.

@clintruin @jgordon @samlitzinger I read him as saying something different, that there have always been the the kind of people who now follow Trump.

It's just that in the network tv age, with gate keeps, they were isolated, unaware of each other.

They were unorganized deplorables.

@clintruin @jgordon @samlitzinger

Yes, it was cool that the US did not go Nazi in the 1940s, as it might have done.

The problem now is how we resist those worst motives in a world without gatekeepers. In a world where the deplorables have overpowered them.

Nobody has an answer either, because they still do control one party in a two party system.

This morning, KamalaHQ posted the debate clip of Trump saying to the Proud Boys, "stand back and stand by"

It wouldn't surprise me that they are going to build towards an election crescendo organized around January 6th.

Remember there is a culminating clip of him saying that he would pardon the January 6 mob.

"Harris may have "won" the debate, but Americans "lost on fracking," climate experts say"

So sad, but this is the American contradiction.

The average American does want to solve the climate problem, and does want cheap gasoline for their big fast car.

https://www.salon.com/2024/09/12/harris-may-have-won-the-debate-but-americans-lost-on-fracking-climate-experts-say/

@br00t4c Dumb and Dumber, or Mad and Madder?

@thomasfuchs Right. Is it a classic collective action problem. But then, many problems in our world are even harder collective action problems.

@thomasfuchs I don't really complain. I just accept it. But the sad thing is that it brings my expectations down all over the place.

Compared to many of the problems in the world leaving Twitter is easy, possibly it is the easiest thing out there.

It's easier than solving environmental problems. It's easier than ending wars.

It is a supreme irony to me that people talk on Twitter about solving those bigger things

"A Palmer oak in Jurupa Valley is estimated to be 13,000 to 18,000 years old. The plant, which looks like a sprawling, dark green shrub, is now at the center of a development battle."

That's crazy to think a shrub you walk by, or mountain bike past, could be 13,000 years old.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-06-29/development-fight-centers-on-californias-oldest-plant

"J.D. Vance Wanted a Constitutional Crisis"

This rose to the top of Memeorandum today, so it must be getting fair attention.

Yikes.

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/jd-vance-wanted-a-constitutional

Vance, like Jordan Peterson, was introduced to me by "nice guy" and "low key" libertarians. I kind of worry that there was something non-accidental about their path after that.

Maybe libertarians, even nice ones, know they have to be remoras on some shark. Vance is their shark.

"How the recycling symbol lost its meaning"

Note that the 1992 picture in this article shows a recycling center sorting plastics by type. That's the way it would have to work, and it's really impossible at scale.

The white cap on a plastic pill bottle should go in one bin, and the yellow pill bottle should go in another.

When things scaled up to everyone just throwing everything they remotely hoped was recyclable into one "recycling bin," the system failed.

https://grist.org/culture/recycling-symbol-logo-plastic-design/

@Laplantgenetics @martinvermeer @CelloMomOnCars @mekkaokereke I'm really afraid the Chevy Bolt approximates what can be done with current technology, American safety requirements*, and cost structures.

I hope the '25 Bolt is good, because it's going to be what we have.

* - both legal and social. Legal requirements add weight, but Americans don't buy cars with two safety Stars either

@mekkaokereke @Laplantgenetics @martinvermeer @CelloMomOnCars Every importing country has climbed that curve though. Japan Korea etc. Not immediately, but within 10 years generally(*)

That the Dolphin can get 79% with Euro NCAP is impressive. It does look like a Bolt equivalent, which moves us then to differences in cost structure.

* - with the Polestars and electric Volvos already secretly here. Funny that.

@zeldman @tchambers

I think he just confused everyone by not explicitly naming his freedom technology. Possibly he's trying to be cool or possibly he has a deal with Elon not to name it. But it's not Bluesky. It's Nostr.

https://coingape.com/jack-dorsey-pledges-21-million-for-bitcoin-development/

"I increasingly believe this election will be a referendum on whether anything matters anymore." - @aaron.rupar

Yup.

Where we are at, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and EV sales over time (US market)

@Jfrites @mimsical @tchambers Right, and the people who do not carefully judge the results of the AI, but slam it out there, will obviously win on volume. They will be "more productive."

This is not a theoretical risk, it's something that's happening already.

https://www.popsci.com/technology/ai-generated-text-scientific-journals/

@_ now do VR ;-)

@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.

@kissane I think there is going to be a profit and loss column for each off-Threads interaction. Sure, it might enrich the Threads experience, but also every time it is a reminder of the alternative. That, for instance, someone might be enjoying a similar thing without ads.