Yeah, I agree it’s weird. As an American who grew up in an area where sweetened tea wasn’t the norm, I hate having to specify. But I also don’t have any faith left in my fellow countrymen, and feel like I have to make it clear for them.

Unfortunately, most bioplastics are more like 300 years, which yes, is significantly better than 300 thousand years, and with industrial compost heaters you can push those 300 years down. But I’ve also had to come to terms that my failed 3D prints will likely outlive me (although I do collect the waste to hopefully recycle someday). I don’t print that much compared to most in the hobby, but it is something I consider before I print things.

That said, I’m not going to let perfect be the enemy of good, and the biodegradability of bioplastics is still exponentially better than petroleum plastic.

I beat the rush and stocked up in December, and I hate that that purchase is already feeling justified. One option to keep in mind as well is that tea is relatively good natural source of fluoride. So if things get bad enough, becoming an unsweetened tea-drinker might help.

I was going to say there’s no way they still are since Silverlight was discontinued by Microsoft in 2013, but it is Riot Games so ¯\(ツ)/¯

A bunch of Disney movie sites did for a while, back in the day when every movie had it’s own website with trailers, promo, and a link to buy tickets and/or the DVD release.

I wish I was joking, but he doesn’t like the straight line border on the map. He wants to “get rid of that artificially drawn line.”

You would think, I have a similar intramedullary rod in my leg, and my screws also stick out. Since the screws are there to hold the rod down the inside of the bone in place, they care more about that stability than the screws being a bit long.

I’ve been told that now that I’m healed, if the hardware is giving me problems, I can have them go in and remove it. Unfortunately, being in the US, that would probably be another 15-20 grand to have done (basically as much as I paid to have it put in when my leg was broken). So at least for now, even though I do have some hardware-related pain, it’s not bad enough for me to justify the cost.

I take one taco, and then go tell Mike Johnson that there are free tacos and where to get them.

I was absolutely on a version of the alt-right pipeline a decade ago. I was raised by far-right, Mike Johnson-style “Christians,” so I was already pretty far down that path before I was drawn into any pipeline.

Luckily, I ended up on a weird libertarian branch of the pipeline (LearnLiberty rather than Prager U), and somehow the YouTube algorithm steered me into Veritasium’s content on climate change, and clips from Adam Ruins Everything. It sounds a bit crazy, but those things started opening my eyes and expanding my worldview. Probably didn’t hurt that my favorite TV show at the time was Leverage, which had plenty of its own anti-corporate-grifting themes.

Eventually, I realized that the Libertarian utopia doesn’t work because greed is an unlimited resource, and that makes regulation important.

Of course, there were other things that helped me escape my upbringing and the alt-right pipeline during gamergate (I wasn’t into gaming at the time, so that probably helped), but looking back and seeing how easily I could have ended up being a January 6 insurrectionist. I’m so thankful for all the little things that nudged me out of that worldview, and helped me see reality.

I wish there was an easy way to show young guys that the people they are listening to are liars and grifters who are manipulating young men into believing that their real pain is somehow the fault of women. But if I look at my own journey, it was a thousand little nudges. I didn’t change overnight, but there was a day during the 2016 election cycle that I remember realizing that even though I had spent almost 8 years despising Obama, that he had been an alright president - especially compared to the Republican nominee, Trump.

If nothing else we should move all the current (over)investment in AI companies into carbon-free energy production for a few years. The fact that we essentially have coal-powered AI (along with other fossil fuels) is ridiculously stupid and silly - and way less steampunk than it sounds like it should be.

I bought a silicone soldering mat on ebay a few months ago, deliberately bought it on ebay to avoid Amazon. It was delievered by Amazon, in an Amazon envelope, the ebay seller had just used their Prime to have it delivered to my address, and charged an extra couple dollars over the Amazon price. Wasn’t very happy about it, but what a hustle that person is running.

JD Vance and Mike Johnson are strong deterrents to that though. Because both are equally dangerous as Trump in their own ways, and at least a tiny bit more competent. Vance would be more pro-oligarch than Trump, and Johnson would be more Christian Nationalist/Handmaid’s Tale. If anything Trump’s erratic nature keeps those factions off balance because he’s so self-serving.

Glad they clarified. To me the “selling data being defined broadly” argument made sense in the context of Google paying them to be included as a search provider. Because there is an argument that Google paying Firefox, and then the user entering a search and that being sent to Google’s servers could be legally seen as Mozilla selling data to Google.

I “broke” about 8pm ET to donate to Ukraine. I know we were boycotting Visa/Mastercard too, but after yesterday’s shitshow I felt like solidarity was worth more than my boycott.

Otherwise, it was fine. I’ve already been heavily limiting my spending since the inauguration anyway, after admittedly overspending at the end of the Biden term to prep for impending tariffs.

Gotta start somewhere with people. The point is that anyone can do this, and it’s easy to do, but it isn’t really any more difficult to show up to a town hall. And while yes, you and I can (and probably do) take larger, more effective steps, longer boycotts, etc. We need numbers, and that, I think, is the real value of this.

Another thing it does is helps people realize what power they have, even if one day of boycotting has zero impact on the economy or businesses. It gets those people who are participating started taking action, and thinking about their actions in the context of politics.

It’s a very easy first step, and if people find that they can do a day, maybe they’ll be okay with trying a week next time, or maybe showing up at a town hall seems easier. This is arguably more about getting people involved in the movement than actually sticking it to the corporations/oligarchy. That will come. But asking people who live paycheck to paycheck to boycott corporations for more than 2 weeks would be a huge ask without building up to it first.

Be kinda fun to hire a chopper service to bring a bunch of boats in. No trespassing involved getting in, but to leave would require trespassing. Play it like you’re being detained/forced to trespass to leave.

When I first got a Bluesky account, back when it was invite-only a whole bunch of the Physicists and Astronomers I used to follow on Twitter were already there. If anything it seemed like scientists were early adopters.

But why would it matter? A QR code works regardless of the technology used to display it (be that paper, a screen, or a bunch of rubix cubes). What would the benefit of requiring digital boarding passes be? Unless the airline wants to force passengers to use their app so they can sell customer data and sell ads, there’s no real benefit to the actual boarding process.

Yeah, but can we get Sony to re-release Morbius in theaters one more time?