The internet has always been a collection of social media platforms: bulletin boards, Usenet, IRC, people hosting little personal sites and making contact with each other via email, etc. It got bad when big money arrived and brought in the general public. First is was platforms like AOL’s chat rooms and forums, and later things like Facebook and Twitter. We are all living in eternal September now.

Exhibit A: this t-shirt from 1994

Side note: If worrying about climate isn’t enough, we can also worry about potential famine as we use up our fossil fuels.

We are able to feed the world because of the Haber-Bosch process. This process uses fossil fuels, usually natural gas, to produce synthetic ammonia for fertilizer. That fertilizer makes modern high-yield farming possible. “Without the Haber-Bosch process we would only be able to produce around two-thirds the amount of food we do today.”
https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/features/cewctw-fritz-haber-and-carl-bosch-feed-the-world/

In the US it’s roughly a tie between road transportation and energy generation (which lumps together both heat and electricity).

(Source: University of Michigan https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability-indicators/carbon-footprint-factsheet)

The global breakdown is similar: https://www.wri.org/insights/4-charts-explain-greenhouse-gas-emissions-countries-and-sectors

The solutions? Build mass transit, live in temperate climates, buy less stuff, …? Honestly, I don’t think we’re not going to fix the problem with simple, local improvements (though by all means do what you can). There are global demographic forces to contend with. A century ago there were 2 billion people on earth. Now there are >8 billion, and in my lifetime we will surpass 9 billion. Many of those people are climbing out of poverty, and they want cars and air conditioners and all the other energy-intensive things that rich countries have enjoyed for a century. IMO we’re going to need massive technological changes (like powering much of the world with nuclear very soon) in concert with a major population reduction and/or major changes to how people expect to live.

Same here. Paper ballots that can be machine scanned and stored for manual audits seem like the best possible method.

Not my language, but I like the Dutch word “peperduur” for “very expensive.” I like that the meaning has both historical and emotional aspects: pepper was once very expensive, and a high price can be considered spicy.

In English, “crestfallen” is a good one. When I read it I immediately imagine someone hanging their head in dismay.

Free is good, of course. But I also have some gripes about how Band functions so I’m interested to see what else is out there. Thanks for the Campfire recommendation; I will check it out.

If the mountain contains valuable minerals then the cost will be negative; you can make money by removing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining

Though, depending on the geology, you might not want to build a town on the resulting site. Sometimes heavy metals leach out of the disturbed rock, resulting in polluted surface water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_mine_drainage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit

That looks… uncomfortable.

It’s wild how many episodes have been edited or removed from circulation due to their content.

https://renandstimpy.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_banned/censored_episodes

Remember that interviews go both ways. You are trying to see if this company is a place you want to spend half your waking hours. Ask the interviewer where they see themselves in 5 years. Watch their reaction closely. Do they sigh, or hesitate? You might get a telling bit of honesty out of them.

Getting an accurate tally of the total number of privately owned guns is hard, but by any measure it’s ridiculously high.

As of 2017, American civilians own 46% (approximately 393.3 million) of the world’s 857 million civilian-use firearms.
https://ammo.com/articles/gun-ownership-by-state

Yes, the more rural and conservative states have more guns per capita. But even little New Jersey, with “only” 1.1 guns per 1,000 residents, has over 102k guns in the state. Nobody in the US is lacking for access to firearms.

Both are hosted in Europe.

—Eminem

I’m not sure this is a question of ethics. It’s a question of whether you agree with a particular parent’s world view. A good parent tries to set their child on a positive path in life, and they are going to pick a path based their personal knowledge and beliefs.

Even if you try hard not to “indoctrinate” your child with any particular world view, they will still see you as a model for what to believe and how to behave. You will tend to be your child’s baseline for what “normal” is, at least early in their life. Your beliefs and behaviors will affect your kids whether you want them to or not.

Materials for a home renovation project. I should have bought it all long ago, but better late than never.

Rain falling on a glassy smooth lake.

Sometimes I miss the ol’ switcheroo. That was a fun way to take a random walk through a bunch of communities I would never normally visit.

My wife’s family once baked potatoes in the engine compartment during a road trip, just to see if it would work. Enough fumes leaked out of the engine that everything tasted slightly of oil and exhaust. Car engines are much tighter now, but I’m sure you still get a similar effect.

@[email protected] is a meme god.

@[email protected] keeps history alive and the Confederacy in check.

@[email protected] is our resident owl afficionado.

There are many others, of course, but I seem to notice these three a lot in my Subscribed feed.