Yeah, people are people. Call me crazy, but I don't feel like the answer to one of our collective vulnerabilities is to exploit it to the max :)

Maybe we should even take extra care that that not happen...

Yeah. Engagement needs a "governing philosophy" to keep the worker bees in line with minimal effort, and freedom is a great one.

Propaganda used to build the propaganda machine. We're getting recursive here.

The tough part for me that needs to be acknowledged is that some of these networks (well mostly Twitter) I find very useful for getting the best information from actual experts. If you are extremely proficient you can put a lot of effort into curating your follow list to build better news channels than our modern news platforms. Instead of NYT, CNN, Wall Street Journal, etc, you have a superior custom-made panel of experts who actually inform those other platforms (or write for them).

But I feel like using it productively like that is akin to making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, and running into an Imperial blockade if you don't.

I think that might be framing it perhaps a bit too kindly. I don't think they're supporting this (and they are) in the name of freedom as much as in the name of engagement, unfortunately for us. Even beyond easy onboarding. They know these propaganda networks exist, and they want them there.

I do think though that when it comes to individual developers (who don't matter for the purpose of culpability here imho), you're right and you do get more of the "in the name of freedom" line, but even then...I bet a subset of those espousing philosophy find it is an incredibly convenient one morally... :)

Is Twitter imposing a cost on society when they support disinformation and propaganda so they can extract value from society in the form of engagement?

To me, it doesn’t matter. When 50% (or whatever) of the “people” you are engaging with around a given topic do not exist and are paid propaganda channels, Something has gone wrong and “the deal” has been broken. Twitter is representing to me that these are people.

There's a large swath of society that no longer parses the content of debate. They put it on a scale and count the exclamation points. They have created a fact-free zone where the subject at hand no longer matters, what's important is the opinions that agree with yours and how deeply you all hold them.

For some of these followers, bringing facts into their political street fight is downright offensive. Like it could not possibly be a more odious or corrupt thing to do.

That turned out so much better than I expected it would.

Unfortunately, expanded surveillance initiatives only flow in one direction historically. Bums me out that amidst a crisis like this there are a lot of cynics among the people that are supposed to be serving us that are using the crisis to further deteriorate our rights.

Haven't seen anything as egregious as what happened after 9/11 yet though.

steve Nice work as well with the video!

A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

Very cool. To my eye, it has a kind of American mid-century vibe to it (which I dig) :)

I just opened gas buddy and the cheapest price in my immediate vicinity is $1.12

The average spread is 87 cents though so there is quite a bit of variation :)

Thanks for leading the charge on climate change for the rest of us tho

This pic very much has the feel of a triumph.

Ha, nice. Yeah, it's interesting. A lot of the cheap home roasters don't yield that much more capacity than a popper. I'm guessing at your mentioned price point you're looking at something like a Behmor, which actually will net you quite a few more grams per roast. If I was paying money for a home roasting machine, I wouldn't go any lower than one of those, else the popper mod is more compelling.

I actually have wanted to go old school cowboy-style and dry roast in a cast-iron skillet once I take my grill out of the garage. I think with this lockdown that is going to happen...

ButterflyEffect, not sure if you already have that $300 roaster, but I made instructions on how to quickly and easily mod a $20 popcorn popper to make a decent roaster:

If you're wondering if you'll dig it, might be worth dipping your toe in this way first. Cheap. Easy. Fun.

They changed the design of the popper I used in the tutorial, but not meaningfully. Same instructions should apply now.

https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3Af048c853-7e1d-4715-b73d-3b506b274a30

Interesting paper that suggest dry or steam sterilization at 121 C might be a kind of sweet spot for making masks re-usable. One hospital reported that 134 C deformed the masks, which is not desirable for re-use, but the 121 temp had good results.

Hospitals have autoclaves and could do this. Even a clothes steamer with mask in baggie would work nicely, though dialing in the temp might be finicky. I've seen some folks suggest dry heat from rice cooker as well. Even a pressure cooker I bet could get good results.

So my wife owns a women's clothing boutique, and everything is basically shut down due to Covid. It's a small business that carries a lot of seasonal inventory and pays a decent chunk in rent since she needs to be in a downtown corridor for the foot traffic.

In the midst of this, she's been posting and selling off of Instagram via DMs while her store is closed, and we spent yesterday morning and afternoon alone at the store packaging up purchases, adding in some free gifts and a handwritten notes, then driving around town leaving them on the buyer's doorstep.

And every single person who purchased something said the nicest things to my wife either directly or online after they got their items. My wife easily burst out crying 3 or 4 times yesterday from the love and support she's been getting from her customers. She just wants to take care of her ladies and make them feel great about themselves, and they've definitely returned the favor.