Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏

Canadian, occupying land resulting from bad faith deals with indigenous peoples, between Toronto and Ottawa. @ 314.8 PPM CO² . Privilege is transparent to the privileged.

#3dprinting #AI #arcitecture #art #artist #CAD #cnc #climate #FOSS #FreeCAD #fusedGlass #glass #glassArt #Neurodivergent #php #photography #science #software #woodworking #writer #writing
#fedi22

Writing in progress: #SF/#cyberpunk and more.

I'm aphantasic. I process abstractions. Abstract algebra is intuitive to me.

Links to All the Places: https://alanlangford.com/places/
Pronouns: they/them/he/yo: Gender is a spectrum.
Just My Toots: Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏 (npub1jct…0vx7)">https://justmytoots.com/Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏 (npub1jct…0vx7)

Public Key

npub1jct7txuaac7hplgj3wy4pr6ad2hjmm2xqxx5gy0h60me5umt3dzs5d0vx7

NIP-05 Address

alan_at_mindly.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsfv9l9nww7u0tsl5fghz2s3awk4teda4rqrr2yz8ma8au6wd4ck3gpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds28u9gn

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1jct7txuaac7hplgj3wy4pr6ad2hjmm2xqxx5gy0h60me5umt3dzs5d0vx7

Show more details

Published at

2026-04-13T02:06:21Z

Kind type

0 Metadata

Event JSON

{ "id": "ea0a3a7b1620516aead9ee68074501fa2d69487ae9eb366c647ae17905d25792", "pubkey": "9617e59b9dee3d70fd128b89508f5d6aaf2ded46018d4411f7d3f79a736b8b45", "created_at": 1776045981, "kind": 0, "tags": [ [ "t", "art" ], [ "t", "foss" ], [ "t", "photography" ], [ "t", "writing" ], [ "t", "artist" ], [ "t", "fedi22" ], [ "t", "climate" ], [ "t", "science" ], [ "t", "neurodivergent" ], [ "t", "php" ], [ "t", "software" ], [ "t", "sf" ], [ "t", "3dprinting" ], [ "t", "writer" ], [ "t", "ai" ], [ "t", "woodworking" ], [ "t", "freecad" ], [ "t", "glass" ], [ "t", "cnc" ], [ "t", "CAD" ], [ "t", "fusedglass" ], [ "t", "glassart" ], [ "t", "arcitecture" ], [ "proxy", "https://mindly.social/users/alan", "activitypub" ], [ "L", "pink.momostr" ], [ "l", "pink.momostr.activitypub:https://mindly.social/users/alan", "pink.momostr" ], [ "-" ] ], "content": "{\"name\":\"Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏\",\"about\":\"Canadian, occupying land resulting from bad faith deals with indigenous peoples, between Toronto and Ottawa. @ 314.8 PPM CO² . Privilege is transparent to the privileged.\\n\\n#3dprinting #AI #arcitecture #art #artist #CAD #cnc #climate #FOSS #FreeCAD #fusedGlass #glass #glassArt #Neurodivergent #php #photography #science #software #woodworking #writer #writing\\n#fedi22\\n\\nWriting in progress: #SF/#cyberpunk and more.\\n\\nI'm aphantasic. I process abstractions. Abstract algebra is intuitive to me.\\n\\nLinks to All the Places: https://alanlangford.com/places/\\nPronouns: they/them/he/yo: Gender is a spectrum.\\nJust My Toots: https://justmytoots.com/nostr:npub1jct7txuaac7hplgj3wy4pr6ad2hjmm2xqxx5gy0h60me5umt3dzs5d0vx7\\n\",\"website\":\"https://mindly.social/@alan\",\"picture\":\"https://a.mindlycdn.com/accounts/avatars/109/288/721/393/429/157/original/bf75aa868bf759c2.jpg\",\"banner\":\"https://a.mindlycdn.com/accounts/headers/109/288/721/393/429/157/original/f76b4030c8072cbb.jpg\",\"nip05\":\"alan_at_mindly.social@momostr.pink\"}", "sig": "b02d144d750b38ace22b4fd4e7e5117969bc76c21ab3960e5e114973e60ffec687a152cee19e0a3ce145025be5d7c7c11f4ea5791eb65086ec314079d831196e" }

Last Notes

2026-04-06 12:44:05 UTC

- reply

I don't have one, but I think I'd be "okay, let's start with the fact that everything you take as axiomatic contradicts the actual evidence. Give me something you believe, and I'll prove to you that it's false."

2026-03-26 21:23:44 UTC

- reply

From here, it looks like a good cover while they annex a bunch of Lebanon.

2026-03-10 16:29:18 UTC

Easily the most insightful article I've read this year on AI. There's a lot more to this essay than the title lets on.
https://abiawomosu.substack.com/p/they-built-stepford-ai-and-called

2026-02-24 23:53:17 UTC

I guess some United States of Lower North America citizens are looking forward to this evening's State of the Donald Trump address as seen and delivered by Donald Trump, but I can't fathom why.

2026-02-21 13:22:36 UTC

- reply

I am amused, as the average lifespan of a cup of coffee here is about two minutes.

2026-02-16 14:41:12 UTC

- reply

Actually, an exploratory dive to see the Titanic wreck is a lot less expensive and less harmful to the environment. We can start a GoFundMe.

2026-02-13 13:47:41 UTC

- reply

I also think that generative AI has made people think that creativity is now just a form of industrial production.
There's no need to think about it, just crank out "one unit of Superbowl advert."
The quality of the work is not as important as maintaining the rate of production.
I for one am eagerly awaiting the inevitable "correction" in this line of thinking.

2026-01-27 18:16:26 UTC

- reply

Hey, I'm halfway between the two! Feel to drop in for a coffee/beer (alcohol free) on your way past.
A parachute might be required. ;)

2026-01-26 13:40:08 UTC

- reply

I had to chuckle. Today is wake up a little early, clear 15cm of snow from the driveway (at least the part that would allow an emergency vehicle to reach the house, the rest can wait), feed and medicate cats, dogs, self, get ready to record a podcast, after that's done do a little post-production on it, upload, update all the things to say it's there, then figure out the rest of the day.

2026-01-18 16:16:35 UTC

- reply

what I mean by losing (to use one of the oft cited examples from @npub1fdr…lvhs) is that if we don't do the same thing, then some company in the EU is the one that provides software to unlock John Deere tractors. In this scenario, "losing" has two main facets; first, that revenue goes to Europe, not to Canada. Second, it would still be a crime to install that software on a JD tractor, so we couldn't take advantage of the innovation.
Cooperation is always a good thing, but politicians in the EU have absolutely no reason to give us an economic advantage without getting something in return.

2026-01-18 15:05:17 UTC

@npub1fdr…lvhs This article on an EU response to TFP's latest tariff threat (https://www.euractiv.com/news/eu-trade-bazooka-back-on-the-table-as-greenland-tariff-threat-blows-up-us-deal/) has an interesting provision (subhead "the bazooka"): "The instrument provides for sweeping countermeasures, including investment restrictions, withdrawal of intellectual property protections, suspension of company licences and bans on access to EU public procurement."
Without diving deeper, I'm assuming "withdrawal of intellectual property protections" at the least covers DMCA provisions and at most simply rejects patent law... so yeah, maybe Canada will start to think about this if Europe does, otherwise we lose to both the US and the EU!

2026-01-17 16:06:40 UTC

- reply

Yep. Sadly dystopia has become much harder in the past couple of years!
We should rename the Kessler Syndrome to "Elon Musk's Space Condom"
[@Natasha_Jay](https://tech.lgbt/@Natasha_Jay )

2026-01-17 15:54:27 UTC

- reply

https://mindly.social/@alan/115282123150912027
#note1d7y…am6l

2026-01-17 15:03:59 UTC

- reply

Highly specific but I and many other Canadians are in the "anyone except UPS" camp for shipments coming from abroad. They'll tack on a $50+ customs clearance fee for anything, even when no duties apply. I set up with a broker who will do it for $9, but most don't bring stuff in often enough to do that. Others just write "if you ship via UPS, cancel this order."

2026-01-12 16:18:21 UTC

- reply

Gretzky is an honorary American anyway. Fucker is more of a Trump ally than anything else. As far as I'm concerned, his booze is reflective of his character.

2025-12-17 13:51:05 UTC

- reply

The number of times I've asked for something like a key that needs to go into a DNS record and received a screenshot in a word document in response is ludicrous. This is the sort of stuff that's error prone when manually transcribed (especially in the case where I receive a 6MB *photograph* of the web page.)
If only there was a way to select, copy and paste text information directly into an email...

2025-12-06 17:38:55 UTC

- reply

But what about a bicyclopean structure?? ;)

2025-11-17 15:54:42 UTC

- reply

You were. Meanwhile the rich were told to make their excessive consumption as inconspicuous as possible. Not all of them took that advice.

2025-11-07 19:45:01 UTC

- reply

It's an interesting asymmetry, though.

2025-11-07 12:45:18 UTC

- reply

However, you can use unwise.

2025-10-14 12:35:43 UTC

- reply

The day Slack announced that they were going to be acquired by Salesforce is the day I started moving my team to Mattermost. When Mattermost started to enshittify their free plan, I set up our own server on a VPS. My rule is that anything tainted by Larry Ellison gets dumped ASAP. This has served me well.

2025-10-11 21:31:54 UTC

- reply

Satellite manufacturing as a cottage industry. ;)

2025-10-10 12:27:12 UTC

- reply

The solution to a lot of this might be open hardware. A garage door opener isn't that fucking complex. It should be possible to build a prototype with a micro-controller and a couple of relays. Unless Chamberlain wants to make an argument that looking at the leads of a motor are proprietary, which would be absurd (and probably unsuccessful). Once that's done, we have the tools to create an open hardware controller on a custom PCB at a reasonable cost. Then one rips out the proprietary controller, drops in a replacement, and carries on. I seem to recall a group that was working on this with the infamous John Deere farm equipment. No right to repair? Well then, how about a right to replace?
Edit: fixed weird duplication of the text!

2025-10-09 15:11:27 UTC

- reply

Hell yes it is. I spent most of my carer in software development. In my experience, the field chews people up and spits them out on a regular basis, but it does so more quickly and more brutally with women. The women I hired were some of the best, as capable as their male peers and easier to manage. None of them stayed on the development side for long. Some stayed in tech, but not in a development role, and I blame sexist unconscious bias for a lot of that. I've had to go into meetings and repeat what a female developer said word-for-word in order for it to be heard. Now that. That really pisses me off. That's the "more destructive" bit.

2025-10-09 13:36:28 UTC

- reply

Personally, I love watching them expend energy on something like that. It's truly tedious, but much like keeping a scammer on the line just to waste their time, it keeps them from spending the effort on something more destructive.

2025-10-09 13:24:44 UTC

Spam call: "Hello, this is a phone call from CRTC. Your phone number is scheduled to be suspended within two hours..."
Me: Hysterical laughter. You had me at "phone call from CRTC!" The odds that the Secretary-General of the United Nations would be calling are far higher.

2025-10-09 13:14:53 UTC

- reply

One can hope, but I suspect privbros are gonna privbro.

2025-10-08 17:39:50 UTC

- reply

Oh dude. Never post that. Now you're on the "not cool" list and they won't sell you a ticket. Even if you get one surreptitiously, they'll have circulated your picture and as you walk by they'll point and whisper to each other.

2025-10-04 13:26:55 UTC

- reply

I am reminded that I recently caught one of these "reaction to first listen" videos from a fellow who caught The Animals "House of the Rising Sun" and who was repeatedly blown away by all aspects of the song and it's production. The really good ones float to the top.

2025-09-28 13:19:59 UTC

SF authors working on their story blurbs in 2025:
In a dystopian future...
STRIKE THAT.
In a future that's marginally more dystopian than the present day...
#Writing #WritingCommunity #a10d3

2025-09-19 19:31:17 UTC

- reply

Alt text: confused homeless man seems happy to be discovered by rescuers on ATV. ;)
[It's Friday. My brain goes a little silly on Fridays]

2025-09-18 01:08:46 UTC

Wow. From a newsletter written by people who help authors (mostly non-fiction) market their books: "We spent over $50,000 on Instagram Influencers last year and it resulted in (I'm not kidding) less than 50 books sold."
#Writing #WritingCommunity

2025-09-07 16:01:14 UTC

- reply

A few things. 1) If they can't get their shit together and make a contribution beyond managing the assets I've created then they don't deserve the assets.
2) I have seen too many "third generation rich" lives ruined to inflict that on my heirs.
3) If I manage to create compelling stories or characters that inspire others, those are the people I want to give an opportunity to.
Things like my blogs are CC-SA, but I do hope to have enough success to be able to keep doing this, so it's full © until after I'm gone.

2025-09-07 15:47:02 UTC

- reply

I'm not opposed to copyright by any means, but the current term limits are absurd. In the remote chance that I become a wildly successful author, I'll do everything I can to ensure that my work falls into the public domain just 20 years after my death.

2025-09-07 15:12:04 UTC

- reply

Oh and as for the copyright system, it might originally have been to protect creators, but now it's more of a scheme for corporations and the descendants of creators to protect their revenue streams. IMO current copyright terms feel like they limit creators more than protect them.

2025-09-07 15:01:57 UTC

- reply

Yeah, "sampling" the entire work is hardly fair use. As for suing the publisher, this assumes the publisher is still in business. I wager that there's a pretty strong correlation between failed publishers and publishers who failed to register copyright. Sure there's a personal responsibility to check, but now there's a cohort with no recourse whatsoever.

2025-09-07 14:10:16 UTC

- reply

The authors I feel for the most are the ones where their publisher failed to register the copyright.

2025-09-04 13:28:00 UTC

- reply

My standard response to things like this: It's almost like half the population has below average intelligence. 😉

2025-08-29 17:22:04 UTC

- reply

I just made it up, but it's probably the synthesis of many warnings I've received ;)
Now, that physics, math, philosophy, religion one I will take credit for!

2025-08-29 17:04:49 UTC

- reply

"We try to restrict the scope of activities to things that are survivable."

2025-08-13 03:47:18 UTC

- reply

LOL right now that's exactly what I'm trying to *not* do. I have sections with an excessive reliance on dialogue and action rather than ambience and scene. Maybe I'll keep some of that archived in case someone wants a movie version, but it makes for thin prose.

2025-08-13 03:11:47 UTC

- reply

I will read more random samples in the book. The absence of dense prose isn't a show-stopper, but I admire those who can pull it off. Usually their shorter paragraphs are of similar calibre.
I dare say right now when I look at my own longer paragraphs there's a good chance that I'm rambling. I am not that good yet. Not by a significant margin. One day though, in my dreams...

2025-08-13 03:00:33 UTC

- reply

I tend to read the first page, then look for a dense passage somewhere in the middle. If the author can carry a paragraph that runs to two pages (how I wish I could!) then I'm interested. If it plods, or if there are none, then I need a bigger sample and will read some more random pages.

2025-08-13 02:37:10 UTC

- reply

Roger wasn't sure when it made the transition from a hypothesis to a belief, or when it went from a belief to faith. Whenever it was, he regretted it as deeply as any thought he'd ever had.

2025-08-11 16:44:13 UTC

- reply

Oh that is so untrue.The 5PE is foundational to corporate white papers! Don't ask me how I know.

2025-08-07 16:27:06 UTC

- reply

Yep, the erroneous Citizens United decision set the framework for the collapse of the American Empire and greased the rails to boot.
Congress could have passed laws to address the problem, but that would have ended their political careers, so nothing happened.
I just wish we weren't so damn close. there's going to be collateral damage.

2025-08-07 16:12:56 UTC

- reply

All I was referring to in that post is that neither of the parties reflect the will of voters. I was not commenting on the madness of the Trump Regime, although I certainly have and will continue to.
I'm commenting on the flaws in the system that have set up the conditions for this to happen. The disproportionate influence of lobbyists and corporate donations mean that policymakers answer to them, not their constituents.
And yeah, the state of education, political and otherwise is a big factor, but I would assert that the erosion in education also comes from undue corporate influence. All corporations want is a compliant workforce of consumers, and that's what they got.
All of these things have set the foundation for the rise of a fascist state, and now we're seeing it play out in real time.

2025-08-07 15:56:46 UTC

- reply

That's good, because that's not what I said.

2025-08-07 15:39:16 UTC

- reply

Boy, if only voters got to set policy instead of corporations. What a difference that would make!
But when your choices are Corporate Controlled GOP vs. Corporate Controlled Dems, *shrug*

2025-07-31 02:24:01 UTC

@npub12s2…9gr0 I am not sure if this is under your control or not but it appears that farkascity.org has gone offline. I only notice this because I link to https://farkascity.org/nlowell/table-of-contents and my link checker reports it to be dead.

2025-07-24 12:58:05 UTC

- reply

But it's going to be a different kind of meltdown. This isn't some group who invented a way to bury extreme risk in something that looked like a stable investment as it was in 2007, it's more like the dot com boom, where the people responsible are VC funds and reckless billionaires who think this is the path to sentient AI (it isn't). But that's mostly their own money. Responsibility then lies with analysts and institutional investors who bought into this crap. Like any bubble, when people see the first investors getting huge "returns" (it's not a return until they cash out but I digress), then they want to hop in so they don't miss a good thing, and that's where "retail" investors get hosed.
I have friends who got quite rich in the dot com boom by getting the hell out as soon as their options let them, before the bubble burst. If we were going to hold anyone responsible when the AI bubble bursts, would it be people like that? People wise enough to see it coming and to get out?
It's just hard to hold collective stupidity responsible. Also, short NVIDIA.

2025-07-16 20:35:11 UTC

- reply

You are correct. oops.

2025-07-16 20:02:09 UTC

- reply

You are an executive at Microsoft. It is 1999. Your design team shows you a recycle bin tilting to the right. You could care less, it looks like a recycle bin.
You are an executive at Microsoft. It is 2007. Your design team tells you that a recycle bin tilting left tested better in focus groups. You could care less but agree so your designers don't take offers at Apple.
You are an executive at Microsoft. It is 2020. Your design team tells you that a straight-facing recycle bin will fit better with the design standards drafted by the same team. You could care less but agree so your designers don't take offers at Facebook.

2025-07-10 21:06:14 UTC

- reply

And wee little sites like mine get hit with a huge spike (typically 600-1000) of preview requests over a very short period of time, taking them offline unless they have some really specific caching set up (and even then there's quite a load spike).
So far this is the single drawback I've found for a federated network. All those monolithic networks request the link once and then distribute it through their own cache, thus load on my site is negligible.

2025-06-26 17:34:22 UTC

- reply

We could also name them after prominent climate change deniers "Hurricane Charles Koch is flirting with becoming a Category 5 storm as it heads for the Texas coastline" sounds REAL GOOD to me.

2025-05-20 15:42:36 UTC

- reply

Does anyone think that our collective near-complete apathy toward whether or not young people grow up on a habitable planet or not might contribute to their sense of isolation?

2025-05-18 16:23:26 UTC

I just heard someone call Trump "President Flip-flop" and I think that's a label that should stick.
#uspol #uspolitics

2025-05-06 05:28:52 UTC

- reply

Since Canada's regional trading bloc has been, or at least is in the process of being shattered, it puts us in an interesting position, to say the least. Our new PM has a formidable job on his plate.
A decade or two ago, I wrote a now long-lost note on how I thought open source tools and flexible manufacturing could impact global trade. I think only the Chinese were paying attention, and now we efficiently source highly customized small-run production from companies like PCBWay. If the US (or the UK, or Canada) wants to catch up, it's by adding that kind of capability domestically, not by building auto plants.

2025-05-06 05:09:41 UTC

On that feeling of dread I get when I see a new author all happy about winning a contest: https://alanlangford.com/2025/05/06/parasitic-author-contests/
#Writing #WritingCommunity

2025-05-06 05:06:38 UTC

- reply

What is certain for most of the rest of the world is that circumnavigating the US and US-owned businesses can offer a greater level of certainty in the medium term, and likely the long term. He's "restructuring trade" alright, but not in a way that advances the US or it's interests.

2025-04-16 22:38:15 UTC

- reply

Yeah. I took a lot of (and returned a little) grief for saying I wasn't going to have kids because it was environmentally irresponsible some 40 years ago. I still stand by that.
Also now that I think about it, that T-shirt should read "Save the planet, compost a billionaire." In hindsight that would be far more effective.

2025-04-16 22:32:50 UTC

- reply

Reminds me of a T-shirt I wanted "Save the planet: compost a politician."

2025-03-30 03:18:17 UTC

- reply

At the least, you are forced to deal with Discord's god-awful UX ;)
But seriously, they probably just try to get you into some crypto pump and dump or similar scam.

2025-03-24 23:33:49 UTC

- reply

The medium is the message.
I have seen other posts from you that confirm your active resistance, but a post that carries no context is a post without context, and that is the context that I'm responding to.

2025-03-24 23:22:57 UTC

- reply

I like most Americans. But please understand this: like it or not right now, your government represents all of you. Unless a post like this is accompanied by an accounting of the action(s) you're taking to resist/overthrow your government recently, it doesn't change much.
You bear the burden of fixing this, and just words are not sufficient. We need action.

2025-03-19 14:15:29 UTC

- reply

Oh Elon, Elon, Elon. You don't understand. They're not attacking Tesla. They're attacking YOU. Tesla is just a proxy. Divest and it will be just fine on its own.

2025-03-11 15:37:20 UTC

- reply

Right. Time for an immediate 50% export tax on petroleum. Then he can declare a state of "emergency" everywhere.

2025-03-06 18:19:35 UTC

- reply

I actually think (and hope) that this isn't correct. It seems to me that the path to authoritarian rule is one of increments, following the boil-the-frog parable. By attacking on so many fronts at the same time, I'm hoping we'll see a lot less of "that's bad, but it doesn't affect me so carry on" and instead a unified opposition, unified enough to stop him before he really consolidates power.

2025-03-04 03:35:43 UTC

- reply

We start with export duties on energy, so there's the ability to inflict a little pain as a warning shot, and then step it up until they come to their senses. After all the real goal is to exert political pressure without hurting individual Americans any more than we have to.

2025-02-16 13:14:18 UTC

- reply

What, we didn't figure this out when Harper destroyed a century of climate data? What are we, slow?? FFS.

2025-02-07 12:57:00 UTC

- reply

As is often the case, this is the result of an error in communication. The sign was supposed to read "No food, or I scream inside. Please!"

2025-02-06 13:29:23 UTC

- reply

I am now in [expletive] week [expletive] three of trying to clean my [expletive] desk, not to mention the rest of my [expletive] office! [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive].

2025-02-05 21:14:54 UTC

- reply

There are a lot of authors who post author stuff under the writing community hashtag, and if you haven't found @npub1ny7…uv57 yet (and the bookstodon hashtag), it's got some great content.

2025-02-05 21:09:55 UTC

Has a hashtag developed for Canadian Writers yet? Both #CanadianBooks and #CanadianWriters seem to have zero posts and my surveillance of Dark Side Social Media indicates that for some totally unknown reason, there's been a sudden upsurge of interest in Canadian books.
It seems to me that if we can get organized, this would be a great way to attract those people to the fediverse.
#WritingCommunity #writing #ReadingCommunity #reading

2025-01-28 16:16:44 UTC

- reply

I believe you're just asking Pages to export in Word format, which is much like me asking LibreOffice to store a document in Word format (Word has never touched by system, nor will it ever).
And yes, if the recipient of your document hasn't disabled the feature, it's open season on your document.

2025-01-17 15:33:57 UTC

As a sighted person, a 23-character long all-lowercase hashtag made from several words is hard enough to parse. For a visually impaired person or a screen-reader, it's friggin impossible. Use CamelCaseInYourHashtags! for the cost of a few shift keys, you'll make it SO much easier for everyone.
#Accessibility

2025-01-16 16:20:49 UTC

- reply

Oh how I wish I had that option.

2025-01-16 15:53:31 UTC

- reply

I think they're full of rage, and that when they discover that the person they appointed to fix things got there on a sea of lies and misinformation, that's going to boil over. Moreover, the impact of climate change and the non-response to more and more disaster will put fuel on the fire.

2025-01-16 14:54:51 UTC

- reply

Exactly. But as people start to see that there is little hope, that in an oligarchy the club actively tries to keep new members out, this will change. Probably not peacefully either.

2025-01-16 14:44:25 UTC

- reply

In the US, and especially in tech, everyone figures that they have a decent shot at joining the rich. The illusion is sustained by proximity; I have four friends who have each cleared the $100M mark, and one over $1B.
Adopting a more egalitarian view means giving up on that illusion. There's a lot of resistance to doing that. Everyone wants to win the billionaire lottery. Even a collective action like joining a union means giving up.
These are the attitudes that need to be changed, and it's not going to be easy.

2025-01-15 16:07:14 UTC

- reply

I'm looking forward to fun things like some agency trying to come in to a community to remove solar by force because some [pejorative] utility company has rules against it and the community says "go away because we actually are 100% self-sufficient, have our own storage system, and zero connections to Capitalist Power Inc.... unless you'd like us to dig up their unused infrastructure and hand it back to them. PS, feel free to cut the gas lines too."

2025-01-15 15:55:35 UTC

- reply

I see it as an extension of the fundamental architecture of the internet, "if part of the network fails, then route around it". I think it's infected society to some extent, and that's a good thing (case in point, "If Matt Mullenweg loses his shit, fork the code and carry on").
I expect to see this with government as well. I already see people making plans to achieve their goals by circumnavigating the barriers to come, rather than confronting them directly. Mass civil non-compliance, as far under the radar as possible.

2025-01-07 18:04:41 UTC

- reply

I almost joined this: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Society_for_Earthbound_Vulcans

2024-12-13 14:41:52 UTC

- reply

Consider adjusting the meds then. Although each of them helped, my stepson went through at least three medications before he found the one that actually clicked.

2024-12-13 14:32:04 UTC

- reply

This sounds like ADD/ADHD. As I wind down the part of my business that forced me to be engaged, I found much the same thing. I quickly found myself feeling adrift; the feeling that I fought through a very long period of medium-severity depression and caused me to get into a business that demanded a rapid response in the first place.
This time though, I went straight to my doctor, got ADD meds, and have returned to my nominal levels of procrastination.

2024-12-11 14:56:01 UTC

It's interesting to watch the super-rich making every effort to prevent an effective declaration of open season on the super-rich.
I expected that there would be violent push-back at some point, but I never expected that it would start this soon, or that the attempts to suppress that kind of thinking would wind up catalyzing that kind of thinking.
Interesting times, and not in a good way.

2024-12-06 00:42:25 UTC

- reply

My first guess is that they will catch the guy, and someone close to him will have died from a treatable condition where coverage was denied for some flimsy reason.
His defence will claim "justifiable homicide", not because they expect it to work, but to win sympathy with the jury.

2024-11-22 14:17:37 UTC

My morning so far:
1) A variety of people post news that non-profits in the US can be designated terrorist-supporting and lose status basically on a whim.
2) @npub1vc3…axsh notes that without an ad/popup blocker, news sites are borderline unreadable.
3) @npub19zy…rrny posts a link to an article where Chinese researchers have developed a method to detect plant type and health through sensors that mimic human touch.
4) Various posts documenting our effective non-response to a climate crisis.
5) Europeans start to consider the prospect of a flood of refugees from the US (meanwhile Canada is planning for it).
In summary: hopeful, totally fucked, incredibly advanced, and dark ages backward all at the same time.
We choose which future we get by the actions we take right now. Act.

2024-11-18 19:12:29 UTC

- reply

Ha, I just wrote this: Why I'm active on Mastodon more than other Social Media.
https://alanlangford.com/2024/11/18/why-im-active-on-mastodon-more-than-other-social-media/

2024-11-10 14:42:49 UTC

- reply

I'm not sure how to say this without sounding unsympathetic. I will never, ever click on an ad except by accident. If I am forced to be subjected to an ad, and the product interests me, I will open an adblocked browser and search for the product instead of clicking on the ad, then if possible I'll look for an alternative product that does the same thing.
My adblocker will remain in place. I hope you find alternative funding models.

2024-11-04 17:32:41 UTC

- reply

Ha. The legality of the "might be buying votes" thing is contestable, but the legality of a fake lottery where the winner isn't selected at random should be pretty clear. What a frigging idiot.

2024-10-28 18:07:32 UTC

- reply

Me in 1990 to friends: I think having kids is environmentally irresponsible.
Them: but you're intelligent and the world needs more intelligent people!
Me: If I wanted to raise the average intelligence on the planet, I would dedicate the resources that raising a kid would take to improving pre- and post-natal nutrition in the third world. That would be thousands of times more effective.
Them: [stunned silence]
I stand by this.

2024-10-08 15:54:08 UTC

- reply

I have a mail filter that deletes anything where the subject line matches the regex
/(black|cyber)\s*(friday|monday)/i
If the 'zon starts spamming me, they'll get similar treatment.

2024-10-02 16:19:03 UTC

- reply

When the latest climate change driven storm has washed the road out, it won't matter what power source your vehicle is using.

2024-10-02 14:23:00 UTC

- reply

Few actually have the ability to pack up and leave like that. They're the ones working primarily in financial instruments in the first place, and what they're talking about constitutes tax evasion anyway. Someone who has an actual operating business, serving real live customers would not benefit by moving their shop to a remote island with favourable tax rules, as the customers would stay behind.

2024-09-29 19:59:56 UTC

- reply

Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter, and I all thank you for that.

2024-09-29 19:53:43 UTC

- reply

Please label a drawer as "Drawer Labels"

2024-09-21 03:12:28 UTC

- reply

At the same time I know women who have unabashedly taken advantage of the proclivities of men to achieve their goals (although in one case I saw it end very badly with a full out assault; it is a dangerous game).

2024-09-21 02:41:29 UTC

- reply

Long ago I did a photo shoot for a Nygard event, with the asshole himself taking aspiring young women for a "tour" of his private apartment. All his staff knew what was going on. There were stories of him sending staff out late at night to buy condoms.
Thirty plus years it took to bring him to justice. Thirty years before these women see him get a sentence that's a fraction of what he deserves.

2024-09-07 20:00:43 UTC

- reply

The inciting incident is what gets mine into trouble. It's his dawning realization of exactly how much trouble, and his desperate attempts to return to his now former life that drives the story.