I recently joined ICM and was in Seattle (from Portland) for another event and pinged him about maybe, possibly getting let in to see things on a random Saturday — I’d stay out of the way, not touch anything, and at least see what’s going on there. Despite him preparing for the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, he spent an hour and a half with me, showing me around the place in detail. We booted up micros, we looked through books, we talked about decades of UNIX history, and we even played Spacewar on original hardware. What a generous curator.
The oldest coin in my collection is an 1838 large cent, which my dad says he found as a kid in a crack in the sidewalk. He was born more than 100 years after that date.
> First things first: I think you should read Mario’s post.
And from that:
> Despite its Tolkien-inspired name, Earendil is not a tech company with fascist tendencies. Quite the opposite. They are basically well-meaning hippies in my book, who think software, and specifically AI, should serve humans, not the other way around.
So, somewhat hopeful? I'm not sure I can take any more of this grossness.
I know nothing about Earendil and this is not meant to take away from them, but half of Alexander Karp's (Palantir CEO) book was "We are basically well-meaning hippies in my book, who think software, and specifically AI, should serve humans, not the other way around."
Have you tried creating a Google account without a mobile phone number from a public computer? Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Ok, so assuming he doesn’t want to spend $500+ for a mobile phone, he’s looking at an Android. Then, when he logs into a Google account, Google hoovers up his location, his associated credit card (if he has one, what if he does not and does not want one?), and countless other personal metadata at the very least that will likely never go away. Even if he does suddenly go from no smartphone to being a savvy personal steward of his digital privacy, you can bet that Google is scrambling to capture as much as possible, at all times, about its users’ personal lives and data.
- If he doesn’t want a Google account, /just/ create a new one
- If he doesn’t have a credit card, /just/ use a family member’s
- If he has Parkinson’s and can’t use touch input, /just/ have a friend do it
- etc.
The question is not whether these obstacles can be overcome (trivially, by “normals”). The question is whether we want these to be the default requirements for basic participation in society. And it’s a completely legitimate question.
Love Picol, and love this! When I first revisited Tcl, I was a bit miffed about needing [expr] but now really appreciate both it and the normal Tcl syntax.
I was skeptical that I’d find it useful since I can do all of these shell commands and such, but one feature I like is being able to effectively pare the feature set down to just what you need, making for a small but very useful menu.
Though I also have a home chest freezer in the garage, I take this approach to my camper van setup as well. I have a converted (vintage) van, which means it wasn’t intended as a camper, and part of my build-out strategy has been to use removable things that also serve me at home in the event of an emergency or an expansion need, things like a solar panel, LiPo battery, fridge/freezer, cooktop, and space heater.
The fridge is a Dometic CFX 35 which opens at the top and tends to allow for getting at things without losing a lot of cooling. At first, it was also nice to be able to set things on it or use it as a seat (horizontal surfaces are the biggest hard-to-find in a camper van) but that became annoying when needing snacks or other quick access. So I recently built a small cabinet with a pull-out slider on which the fridge lives. Then, I always have the top storage but don’t need to move anything to get at the fridge, but can also briefly use the fridge as a footrest or similar.
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