The Discords I'm active in are all everyday conversations, like big group chats. Some of them are funny/interesting and occasionally someone gives useful advice, but the vast majority are forgettable.
I think that people should publicly share valuable information (like great conversations or useful advice) and some of their typical conversations (a context summary for outsiders and history). But privacy and ephemeral-ness make people more open. It may be better to have a space for most conversations where they're not expected to be saved, or (because "not expected" in Discord relies on weak evidence and today's norms) guaranteed not to be saved.
It's not really a good thing for technical discussion and support topics though. Information that others might hope to find by searching the web is no longer discoverable that way.
Without a trusted third party doing something like this on a large scale, it doesn't really matter - because 'nah, that's just a fake.'
My wife and I were recently talking about how we kind of luck boxed into dodging a bullet when we had kids (which was rather late). But it's no wonder so many people had or are having so many issues growing up in a public social media era. It's not only your right, but responsibility, to say, believe, and generally do stupid things as a kid and a young adult. It's an important part of growing up. Nobody should ever have to worry about this period in their life following them around forever.
> it doesn't really matter - because 'nah, that's just a fake.'
The point of this sort of thing is that whether it is fake or not doesn't matter. Because it is possible for someone to record a log of your activities, someone claiming they have an incriminating log of your activities will be believed (By a very large number of people).
It might not be believed in a courtroom, but for the other 99.99% of life, we do not apply the same standards for reviewing evidence.
Whether the platform keeps logs isn't important - the platform won't weigh in on this sort of stuff anyways, unless there's a subpoena.
Yes for social outlets. For niche hobbies? old photos of specific milling machines used in machine shops on board US navy vessels? For 80's european automotive restoration? For repairing and restoring retro-computing devices? Terrible. Terrible Terrible Terrible.
I've been playing Factorio and the base game is 100 hours easily, there are mods that ratchet it up to 500+. It's great brain exercise too, constantly refactoring, solving for bottlenecks, etc.
Heat pump dryers work at a much lower heat as well since much of the heating of a traditional dryer is lost out of the vent. The heat pump condenses the water out of the hot air so you don't lose the heat.
I've stopped needing to sort my clothes out as a result, I used to hate putting synthetics in a regular dryer because they get worn out so fast that way.
This should be the gameplay in Civilization, instead of the thing where you train and archaeologist who goes to excavate magically known locations.
Excavation of tunnels and such should just come with a chance of finding artifacts, but it only materializes with the right culture tech unlocked (before some point, buried treasures were just scrapped or sold, not put into museums).
My little village is built on the site of some ancient Japanese village [0] and any construction that involves digging up dirt often also unearths some kind of archaeological find that stops all work for half a year while the archaeologists do their stuff, if they can even be bothered to come.
It’s happened often enough that it’s a wink and a nod that nothing was found. Foremen and anyone ‘in-charge’ will not be on site until any kind of digging is complete.
Why did Alex Honnold climb Taipei 101 when he could just take the elevator?
I know the analogy is not perfect but it's the kind of project that wasn't feasible for a single dev before LLMs so now it just seems like a fun thing to try for some people.
Ignoring the obvious contradictory nature of the post (a trip to a place that is generally so expensive and time consuming that only the wealthy leisure class can access it yields polite people), what is the alternative to the fast news cycle?
I've been toying with different solutions over the years but haven't found anything great. Magazine subscription to something like the Economist? Weekly Sunday paper subscription?
How to keep up on the news without being jerked around by the engagement machine?
I switched to a weekly subscription of Economist (print) and it has been great. I haven't seen then news in a year (on phone, or TV). If there's something really important happening, then people around me generally tell me. At that point I check what's happening online, but that doesn't last more than a day or 2.
It has allowed me to escape the news cycle. I am yet to find an equivalent of the Economist for India (where I'm residing right now). As a result, I'm currently quite oblivious to the day-to-day in India, but honestly that hasn't been of much consequence.
Isn’t The Economist a super “rich guy” perspective though?
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard very good things about the publication’s quality and it’s admirable that it’s a weekly print.
I’d almost rather just read nothing over filtering down to a single perspective that is that specialized. Feels a little like getting all your news through Planet Money. Sure you’ll know what’s going on but through a single lens.
The only problem I have with escaping the news cycle is relying on other people for important information. "Today is shorts and t-shirt, tomorrow is freezing rain" has caught me by surprise. So I find myself following the weather more than I would if I were watching local news. But it's not just weather.
Regardless. It's good to feel disconnected from these things. But at the same time I recognize I have a responsibility to take care of the things within my reach.
Is this what people were doing in 1939 though? I really hope not.
You can check the weather by looking at the sky. I'm amazed at how many people can't do this. You can get an idea of what will happen for the next day or so. (Although if you are out on open water, always be prepared for bursts of bad weather).
Use Firefox with maximum tracking protection and use a PiHole with FTL as your DNS to block advertisement. Add uBlock Origin for the occasional cookie and WebRTC denial.
Then social media will be so broken, you'll automatically get so annoyed at it that you will just stop using it. Even youtube forces you for around 10 seconds to wait in a loading loop every damn video, just because they use anticompetitive measurements against Firefox users.
For the important things that you want to watch, I recommend minitube. It's using yt-dlp and mpv behind the scenes, and its interface is designed so you have to actively subscribe to everything or actively have to search for everything (e.g. when you want to learn about something there's no distractions on the way there which is super neat).
My smartphone is stored next to the toilet during the day, in airplane mode. This way I use social media only while pooping. After all, shit has to go where shit belongs, right?
you don't need to keep up on the news. reject the premise and be free. honestly we wish we could be more ignorant. how do you stop learning about the news when it is everywhere?
It hasn't 100% worked for me, but it's been progress for me to:
- turn on grayscale
- don't use any social media
- turn off all recommendations for the two indulgences I do have (YouTube, Reddit)
The no recommendations has been especially helpful because I only have my subscription feed, and I can curate that.
As far as news goes - Economist is a good one imo. Weekly news is a fast enough cadence that also filters out noise and nonsense from the knee-jerk, instant reaction news cycles. I've also found the New Yorker to be pretty great, since their pieces are so long that they're usually about events that happened weeks to months ago.
But +1 to others' comments: maybe you don't need to know everything, either. Reading books about history, even recent history, has been a great way for me to fulfill my need to understand our society.
Despite all that I've typed above, if you really want to get regular news consumption, I highly highly recommend Heather Cox Richardson. She distills the daily news and often adds historical context.
One probably needs an assistant that tells one news that said assistant knows is important to... one. What news actually is important? E.g. if Bitcoin is crashing? (Probably not just important for crypto-bros, but could affect the broader economy). If you're planning trip to Sicily and Mount Etna just erupted. Or if you have relatives there..
I guess the assistant should know whether a piece of news can be important or not, but if something happens to be a slow-boil (e.g. the fascist takeover of the USA), it could end up as a surprise.
Perhaps one of those planet-burning text generators can be one such assistant...
Just keep it in the front of your mind that most of the stuff you're reading is ephemeral bullshit. If you come across something that you think is important, make a note of it. I keep a small journal of stories I find notable and that may be important in the future. Everything else is lost to the wind.
My immediate thought is at what point does desalination tech + clean energy reach the crossover where building a 60 mile tunnel over 60 years not make sense?
It feels like very soon, and coastal cities can stop relying on hinterland reservoirs for water.
Probably never. The tunnels cost a lot to build but, once built run almost for free - they're powered by gravity and will keep running for close to a century before major maintained is needed.
Yeah that makes sense but if growth dictates another tunnel... And it takes another 60 years, your capital expense starts to look a lot like an operating expense. Not to mention one of the big stated purposes of this tunnel is actually to facilitate maintenance of the other tunnels. There is probably more operation cost hidden here than seems obvious.
The big reason for tunnel 3 isn't new population growth, it's so that the other tunnels can be shut down for maintenance and inspection. NYC's population is more or less stable over the last 90 years.
Today as in Ancient Rome the aqueduct terminates at fountains. It does not connect to the standard modern municipal plumbing. Whether that counts as being operated for "tourist purposes" is a matter of definition.
Capital vs operating is a big factor here. The tunnels operations & maintenance cost is probably far lower than a desalinization plant that could produce an equivalent volume of potable water.
> Desalination will be a West Coast thing. The East Coast has abundant fresh water.
It's not entirely accurate to say that the West Coast doesn't have enough fresh water. Oregon and Washington have a lot of rain, and many groundwater resources.
California kneecaps itself with perpetual deeded water rights and mismanagement/closure/lack of improvement to reservoirs and related infrastructure. There's a long history of this kind of stuff in the state (see the watering LA desert, the Salton Sea experiment, and many others).
Here's a quote I got for a solar install in the Philippines this week:
51.2v 314ah cells (15kwh battery)
16x 580-590w solar panel
Installed for 310k PHP = $5,275
I've also specced out 15-16kwh batteries using the Yxiang design for around the price of your Solix. The problem in the US is regulatory and a particularly predatory tradesman market at the moment.
Is that "regulatory" the problem or is it the solution? We'll know more 20 years from now, looking back at fire incident statistics.
(yes, I'm leaving it open if regulation makes a difference or not - for all we know it could even make a negative difference, helping companies that are better at regulation than at safety. But if I had to bet, I know where my money would be)
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