Shoq 🌿

I'm Shoq 🌿 (npub10cf…fmxr) from ExTwitter. Self-appointed evangelist for the #fediverse, working on open source projects that can help it become the communications backbone for the planet that Twitter might have been.

🌿#fedi22 #opensource #sidetoolz #USpolitics #liberal #invention

Legacy Blog: https://shoqvalue.com
Legacy Ideas: Networds™ (Keywords for the Internet); Powertools for AOL™
Legacy Needs: Cervical spaces, girlfriend, better tasting fat-free ice cream.

Public Key

npub10cfr0x4qn4expjs0tphdaeyl7c224t43uy6xlmrla2k33t0g575q54fmxr

NIP-05 Address

shoq_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs8uy3hn2sf6unqeg84smk7uj0lv99246c7zdr0a3l74tgc4h5202qpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsmuccyf

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub10cfr0x4qn4expjs0tphdaeyl7c224t43uy6xlmrla2k33t0g575q54fmxr

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Last Notes

2026-03-27 21:02:31 UTC

When/if we take back congress and the White House, if liberals talk about anything but the need for the CRUCIAL reforms needed to prevent another Trump, I will leave this country. America will have proved itself unfixable. So it can fuck right off.

2026-03-23 22:37:31 UTC

Like me and most sane people, you can’t wrap your head around the idea that perhaps they didn’t want to consider what could go wrong, because going wrong was the whole point from the start. They and their friends are making billions of dollars from the craftiest pump and dump scheme even invented.
https://stzl.ink/rap5hg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/280/882/006/769/151/original/a0a97a59ef5d866b.png

2026-03-14 14:13:24 UTC

I just wish I could understand what makes the Fediverse categorically different from the rest of social media in terms of respectful, socialized behavior. It’s not just the algorithms. That’s a pat answer. It may be a factor, but it doesn’t explain the sheer volume of reasonably intelligent people who choose disparagement, belligerence and acrimony as their response of first resort. I almost never see that kind of asocial neurosis on Mastodon, nor even that often on Bluesky. And yet I see …

2026-03-13 14:42:08 UTC

This lower back pain is now so persistent that my resistance to opioids is breaking down a little more each day. If I felt there was any long term solution to the pain, and I was just buying some time with the meds, I might go there. But just don’t think that’s my reality.

2026-03-12 23:43:39 UTC

The Strait of Hormuz has been Iran’s ace in the hole for decades. Trump’s fluffers didn’t understand that militaries don’t keep tankers afloat, insurance does. With thousands of drones, and only one hit needed for shipping to cease, it’s a cheap asymmetric war for Iran now.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/218/856/667/759/339/original/e7953ec675f0ab59.jpg

2026-03-07 17:02:02 UTC

Most of these posts are generated by bots, as are replies to them. We’ve stopped noticing or caring about this grotesque manipulation of the public that social media has made a fact of daily life. I resent it and want to harm to those responsible.
https://stzl.ink/8cou8r
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/188/965/868/960/863/original/cea49e182ccb56b9.png

2026-01-29 21:06:24 UTC

What a surprise! Who could have seen this coming?
Top Election Denier Had Key Role in FBI’s Georgia Election Office Raid
▶ A look at the warrant revealed a chilling detail.
https://newrepublic.com/post/205896/election-denier-fbi-georgia-election-office-raid

2026-01-29 20:00:53 UTC

“Cringeworthy “Melania” Trailer drops, as critics savage the movie mess and its notorious sex-pest director.
https://archive.ph/20260128191348/https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/melania-documentary-gets-brutally-review-bombed/

2026-01-29 19:32:10 UTC

BREAKING: FBI Director Kash Patel says seized election ballots show that Donald Trump won Fulton County, Georgia by 47.3 million votes in the 2020 election.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/980/050/761/230/956/original/1a9d455f69782b62.jpg

2026-01-26 16:34:58 UTC

Ever wonder exactly what would be a line that MAGA or its media-enablers would not cross for Trump and their weird, shape-shifting belief system? I mean, clearly we haven’t found one yet. What do these malignant citizens believe “American values” are?
https://stzl.ink/i2syv6
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/962/367/040/893/252/original/411e2342d2454418.png

2026-01-22 01:44:15 UTC

The world is waking up to the need for a social media not controlled by billionaires and toxic assholes.
W Emerges as X Alternative Aimed at Combating ‘Systemic Disinfo’
An option for Europeans who want to distance themselves from American services.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/w-emerges-as-x-alternative-aimed-at-combating-systemic-disinformation?test_uuid=04IpBmWGZleS0I0J3epvMrC&test_variant=B

2026-01-14 13:00:21 UTC

#MemeOfTheWeek
Pass it on.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/893/575/382/843/696/original/0cbbca9fffce4315.png

2026-01-13 22:18:40 UTC

Please answer this question honestly. I have good reason for asking.
How often do you actually read more than a handful of replies to any social post you’ve read?

2026-01-05 02:16:28 UTC

I’ve now been asked about a dozen times “what was the Monroe Doctrine actually about?”
Apparently the media isn’t interested in explaining this to anyone. What a shock. It’s history, but it’s not complicated.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/840/082/788/538/561/original/3bb4d8a90f639bd3.jpg

2025-12-31 15:50:45 UTC

Everything that is happening to America and the much of the world was foreseen by some prescient thinkers.
If you didn’t read them back then, please read them now. It’s important to be aware that all this was done to us by design.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/814/973/091/019/000/original/d3df8d9efe88f098.png

2025-12-30 18:26:17 UTC

RE: https://twit.social/@hydrian/115808671630449576
I doubt open source will be the primary motivation for most government actors to create alternatives. Those that deliberately want to help encourage the Fediverse are another story. The EU was promising, but I don’t know how much that is influencing others. Anyone know?
#note18t8…7v5h

2025-12-29 20:08:37 UTC

Carl Sagan called it over 30 years ago. And the saddest thing is that too many under 30 don’t even know what the fuck he was talking about. For the very reasons he was talking about. #WASF
https://stzl.ink/9wjruk
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/804/662/478/453/197/original/8c4b61fde6762cf2.png

2025-12-27 14:16:51 UTC

America has a genuine identity crisis. On the Left and the Right, all that seems to matter to most people are the views and goals of the group they feel most aligned with. I don’t see how any society can survive with such an us v. them ecosystem. And I doubt that we will.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/791/954/605/362/435/original/03af72f5bac04526.jpg

2025-12-26 23:35:53 UTC

Matt Gurney: ‘We will never fucking trust you again’
https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/788/490/495/801/341/original/602febe9ce2d104b.jpg

2025-12-18 01:29:40 UTC

Democrats should hold a shadow hearing and have Jack Smith testify in public to questions similar to what he was asked in closed session, so the American people can hear the details of his squelched case against Trump.

2025-12-18 00:09:00 UTC

I’ve had a perfectly shitty day. I’m sure Trump is going to make it worse. How much more of this insane motherfucker are we going to tolerate ?

2025-12-12 18:20:34 UTC

At the risk of being dragged as an apologist for criminals by people who enjoy lashing out on social media at any target of opportunity, it’s worth saying this plainly: we should not go full Salem witch trials over the latest Epstein photos. That would be illiberal, reckless, un-American, and just flat-out wrong.
As Hannah Arendt warned, “Guilt by association is not a legal concept but a political weapon.” And that’s exactly what’s being wielded here. …
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/707/978/292/701/512/original/eef90b8028c3bca2.jpg

2025-12-10 02:53:57 UTC

I said this to a friend at a coffee shop today, and two people at the next table burst out laughing. I really think this should be how we refer to MAGA, and deny them their insipid slogan, forever. NO ONE likes to be seen as “gullible.” Even morons.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/693/010/089/756/932/original/9a2f4d06ac9ac132.png

2025-12-06 17:34:45 UTC

Thanks for being the first one to comment. I was actually going to propose 4 months ago in a document I wrote that we should start referring to MAGA this way and start taking the word away from them. No one likes to be called “gullible”. Repeat no one,
https://stzl.ink/9na6jn
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/673/824/292/546/447/original/0b746167be9cfd83.png

2025-12-03 23:58:38 UTC

For literally my entire life, American conservatives have been demonstrably, if not empirically wrong about almost every single thing they ever advocated for. Meanwhile, American liberals have been obscenely incompetent at finding ways to make the public understand that.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/658/346/868/106/521/original/0b4621a3ccde5e7c.jpg

2025-11-24 17:07:52 UTC

THIS IS #CCD (Creative Commerce Disruption) and the kind of mass protests we can and should be doing day until the chaos gets too expensive for conservative oligarchs, pols, and shareholders to tolerate.
https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3m6ceweget22g
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/605/770/839/101/971/original/f53152885652a31b.png

2025-11-14 15:01:50 UTC

Exactly. And there’s virtually no effort by almost anyone to challenge any of it. We’re not even sheep. At least they make some noise when they’re led to slaughter. We just swipe left and wait for the next abuse. We don’t even seem to have the good sense to be ashamed of ourselves.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/548/652/120/469/770/original/307818feaf2ef3a8.png

2025-11-11 19:06:47 UTC

Now read something like 9 different hot takes on why the Dems made an “obviously” stupid mistake by “caving” over the shutdown. But each of them has a very different rationale. How can it be such an “obvious” unforced error if no two analysts even agree on its fundamentals?

2025-11-11 01:47:16 UTC

Huh, Tim Miller and I agree on something. Despite the press’s need to help Dems implode, the Dems got a lot more out of this shutdown than most will accept right now. There was not the smallest chance the GOP would fold. They WANT to crush the safety net. We had no game. But the Dems used the shutdown to show just how toxic these Republicans really are. And that’s going to matter.

2025-11-10 16:58:14 UTC

Nothing annoys me more than having Tim Kaine get his way on anything. But I won’t let that take precedence over those I’ve spoken to for weeks who have not moved their bowels due to the political terrorism threatening them. MAGA will never be defeated by just pounding the table.

2025-11-07 23:13:18 UTC

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4/5 it. Unless we smarten up and find a word that doesn’t scare off millions of people. And don’t try to tell me we can educate them to not be so scared of it, because most Americans are politically illiterate and very easy to scare. If you want them to understand …

2025-11-07 23:13:16 UTC

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3/5 right could figure out how to do it. So a lot of morons did. And it was almost a dead idea until Bernie brought it back. I’ll never forgive him for that. And now Mamdami is going to bring it back for another round and we’ll spend another 10 years trying to get rid of …

2025-11-07 23:13:13 UTC

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2/5 with words and labels are self-inflicted. But nonet were ever as bad as seizing on a European term of art and thinking it would fly in the Americas where “socialism” and “murderous dictatorships” are almost synonymous. That was so easy to attack even a moron on the …

2025-11-07 23:13:11 UTC

1/5 They can try. Let’s watch them attack “Modern” or “Democracy.” They successfully attacked “liberal” because dumb-assed DC liberals ran away to “progressive” which was already an old school, 1900s idea and easy to link back to Marxist sympathies. Most of our problems …

2025-10-27 22:36:45 UTC

I’m old enough to remember when social media seemed like a good thing for the world. That notion didn’t age well.

2025-10-19 16:05:33 UTC

My dad used to say “door locks are for honest people.”
And so are protests. Most autocrats couldn’t give a single fuck about them. Trump and his cabal clearly don’t, and never will.
https://bsky.app/profile/bushwacked.bsky.social/post/3m3knut43vs2s
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/401/682/641/560/255/original/9ac8ad960a00f3cc.webp

2025-10-19 15:58:09 UTC

The #NoKings” event was lovely poetry, but only a reminder of our problem. If we’re serious about stopping this fascist coup, there is one path: chaos.
Rotating strikes & boycotts that threaten wealth until this criminal regime is deposed. That’s all that has ever worked.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/401/653/550/651/164/original/67f8e83f766e4be9.webp

2025-10-18 22:01:40 UTC

I’m glad folks showed up today, but I still think this #NoKings message was the wrong one. Our problem isn’t a King. It’s an evil and corrupt fascist-facing movement controlling the GOP and our govt. Trump is a symbol and a tool of that much larger threat.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/397/420/359/982/469/original/7cd106d144655ed9.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/397/420/499/769/911/original/6051883c16df69c0.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/397/420/616/585/159/original/654b7ab283ae2a35.png

2025-10-17 02:03:16 UTC

The Trump Economy Is Here, and It’s So Much Worse Than Biden’s
https://newrepublic.com/article/201869/trump-economy-jobs-worse-biden

2025-10-11 12:59:31 UTC

Sorry, her handle was dropped from my post. She’s a really interesting follow because she sees no reason to be polite in the face of this MAGA moral catastrophe we find ourselves living in. That gets my respect.
Handle: https://www.threads.com/@heytocristina
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/355/652/630/835/124/original/7fc54e837ee49182.webp

2025-10-10 21:28:16 UTC

While I applaud the effort, I never liked the name #NoKings Day. It puts focus on Trump. And he’s not the problem. It’s the MAGA movement, the @npub1f86…c88l, the lawless corpocracy behind both, and this preposterous party primary system that’s the problem. The event should be renamed…
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/351/990/784/103/198/original/745ea17f92ee1a7c.jpg

2025-10-04 22:35:22 UTC

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because venture capital is chasing it is like writing off the internet in 1997 because of dot-com scams (which cost me my life savings).
We can hold the profiteers accountable and still use the tool to build something better. That’s not boosterism, it’s realism about a complicated human invention that isn’t going away because some of us don’t like it, whether justified in our dislike or not.

2025-10-04 22:35:20 UTC

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You’re not wrong that profit motives drive a lot of what’s happening, but that doesn’t make the technology itself illegitimate or meaningless. Almost every major invention in human history was developed, funded, or scaled by people seeking profit. What matters is how the rest of us choose to use it.
I’m not “proselytizing” for AI; I’m arguing that it’s already changing how people think, learn, and create — including those working on climate, governance, and reform. Dismissing the entire field …

2025-10-04 20:47:11 UTC

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to saying airplanes were a terrible invention because people miss all the scenery along the route.

2025-10-04 20:47:09 UTC

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that use it everyday and try it yourself to fully understand the dimension of what these tools are capable of for improving our daily lives, creativity, activism, and potential for actually rebuilding the quality of life that tech has been steadily eroding. This is the first tool since the word processor that I can honestly say is as important as the wheel, the cross-bow, the printing press, and the steam engine. To assess any one use case or context as trivial or unimportant is sort of akin …

2025-10-04 20:47:06 UTC

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completely miss the point. This technology is transforming how almost everyone I know works and is turning them into massively more productive engines of creativity and purpose. I can fully develop a spell-checked, fact-checked proposal or project in one hour that would have previously taken me 3-5 weeks if I was lucky. I honestly have to wonder if you have any real-world experience with these tools that you’re being so critical of. And if you don’t,I really think you should talk to people …

2025-10-04 20:47:04 UTC

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Well that was a bit of maximum reductivism. The average person doesn’t think about “brainstorming at all,” and most certainly don’t think about climate change. And nowhere have I suggested that grok or any other AI atrocity being used for politics and news manipulation is a good thing. I continually acknowledge all the problems and challenges. But strawman arguments like that, even in jest, ain’t going to solve any of them.
And to liked what I’ve been saying to mere “brainstorming” is to …

2025-10-03 11:07:13 UTC

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to subsidize it. Probably forever. And that may not be a bad thing. Perhaps it should be a utility. Then it can be better regulated. If we ever regulate anything again. Which I have severe doubts about.

2025-10-03 11:07:11 UTC

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I don’t think the costs are skyrocketing, but there is certainly pressure on prices building. And many of your points about the upside down nature of all this absolutely true. But that does not mean the baby has to be discarded with the bathwater. We are in for tumultuous times no matter what. If I had to predict where things will go it is that yes the industry as we know it will collapse, but AI will be so infrastructurally embedded at that point the government will simply have to continue …
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/309/912/419/156/799/original/003e2041e48737c1.webp

2025-10-02 16:29:40 UTC

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big-solar has happened much faster than anybody predicted (including me).

2025-10-02 16:29:38 UTC

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And then there’s a law of unintended benefits. While many panic about the energy consumption of AI, AFAIK, no cities or towns have yet had brownouts due to bitcoin mining or AI data centers. More likely than AI creating an energy crisis, it’s going to spawn much faster energy development boom where renewables, next-gen nuclear, and hopefully fusion, will happen much faster than anybody imagined in order to meet the demand AI is creating (at least until it gets more efficient). Just as …

2025-10-02 16:21:00 UTC

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worried about a lot of things, but my core worry is always the same: if we don’t fix broken government none of this shit is going to matter, so why single out the things we are least likely to affect. None of us have any control over the evolution of AI at this point. It’s way too big a beast, way too global, and there’s way too much money involved. I’d rather use it to tame it, than lose it to fear and hysteria.

2025-10-02 16:20:56 UTC

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I have little interest in those who pay their mortgages with doom saying. He’s been singing that song since 2020 and like End-Timers, keeps revising timelines as long as they keep selling books and newsletters. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have valid points or concerns. Most critics do. But like most critics, he’s a proven expert at nothing but his own speculations. I stopped investing in gloom and doom prophets with Paul Ehrlich’s population bomb and the peak oil fan bois. I’m gravely …

2025-10-02 13:09:05 UTC

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everything AI. I am simply a realist who knows that human Innovation never goes backwards, only forward. At the turn of the last century everyone was convinced that New York City would be buried 3 feet deep in horse manure. Things change.

2025-10-02 13:09:03 UTC

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tranches. It evolves. If anything, this resembles the railroad boom: speculative, messy, but in the end, likely to be foundational.
Are there massive trade-offs and challenges? Will it fuel inequality. Almost guaranteed. But we face those problems in many forms already. But AI is one of the few that gives us some tools to level the playing field, too. Political activism for example can benefit from these tools like almost any other playing field. I am not a wild-eye defender of …

2025-10-02 13:09:00 UTC

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that changes the fact that the tool itself is extraordinarily useful. There are hundreds of uses that don’t require massive data mining of the world. If the entire industry shrunk down to one that just sold “idea processors, ” I wouldn’t cry about it.
Also, interesting you chose the subprime crisis. That collapsed because its underlying assets (bad mortgages) were junk. AI isn’t junk — it’s infrastructure. Expensive today, maybe inefficient, but it doesn’t evaporate like imaginary mortgage …

2025-10-02 13:08:57 UTC

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You’re not wrong that AI hype has outpaced real-world enterprise ROI. But history tells us that transformative technologies almost always begin with exactly the same speculative overreach. That doesn’t mean they fail. It means they evolve, adapt and consolidate. The dotcom crash didn’t kill the internet. The subprime crisis didn’t kill real estate or banking. AI won’t collapse — it will recalibrate. The imagination reels with how many negative consequences can come from this. But none of …
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/304/728/945/859/374/original/6f58e0a2e240606f.webp

2025-10-02 00:16:33 UTC

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The dot.com bust cost trillions in loses as reality replaced hype. But the core ideas, tools, engineers, and the use cases didn’t go away. They were reimagined. AI will be no different. I’d pay 25 times what I’m paying now to not lose such a transformative tool. Not many technologies in the history of human race has had that kind of baked-in motivation to succeed.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/301/691/751/066/440/original/a61e6dc8a4e4bcc5.webp

2025-10-01 13:55:22 UTC

I don’t know how many times I can say it. Chat GPT is not very reliable at news, history or cultural analysis for understandable reasons. That isn’t what I praise it for. It is extremely good at reasoning and organizing and contextualizing thoughts, ideas, insights and details, and discovering or using things it was specifically trained on. (How to choose a backup generator; 3 ways electrical outlet boxes can be joined to a stud; how to map a REACT script to vanilla javascript. They are …
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/299/249/118/812/201/original/47d574b21a1c40ee.webp

2025-10-01 13:02:59 UTC

Unfortunately Jamelle’s opinion of whether he has a mandate doesn’t matter. Trump and MAGA believe that’s exactly what the election gave him the right to do. And the Left still isn’t doing much of anything to stop him. We talk a lot, post lots of memes and barbs to drive traffic to pay our bills, but largely propose nothing and do less. But for @npub1u0q…9mcc and Marc Elias, we are the American #DoNothingLeft. And our entire way of life is soon going to die if we don’t start doing …
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/299/043/173/417/737/original/0e069612037550ca.webp

2025-10-01 01:44:24 UTC

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notes, and logs into structured systems people can reason with.
Everyday reasoning: helping teams walk through problem trees, dependencies, or alternative strategies without needing a consultant for every question.
Programming: literally billions of lines of business code generated each year in business. Most of it total garbage that these tools can do better, faster, and cheaper. Are they perfect? Nothing this new ever is? It’s just started and it’s already amazingly good (at many …

2025-10-01 01:44:22 UTC

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serious argument about viability or sustainability. Here are a handful. Each of them massive markets for simple CHAT AI in their own right (before even getting into the heavyweight apps most will never hear about, except when they IPO).
Process automation: customer service triage, legal contract review, HR onboarding, supply-chain optimization.
Decision support: scenario modeling, financial forecasting, market analysis, compliance checking.
Knowledge organization: turning messy emails, …

2025-10-01 01:44:20 UTC

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I honestly don’t know what you and other critics are even talking about half the time. They all seem focused on a few narrow applications where AI is either dangerous or problematic, and most of the hype and press chatter lives. But those things are just mostly fluff the public and media understands. That’s not even remotely close to where the market for these tools are.
To not address this in discussions of an “AI bubble” is just risible to me and more hyperbolic and counterfactual than a …
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/296/374/590/356/567/original/821ab8aae29aaf61.webp

2025-09-30 20:54:56 UTC

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CEO, 2007.
“Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” — Darryl Zanuck, film executive, 1946.
“The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” — Western Union internal memo, 1876.

2025-09-30 20:54:55 UTC

Whenever someone tells you the AI isn’t sustainable, they’re probably right about many of the stupid business models right now. But be very wary of predictions that it “won’t last.”
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olsen, DEC, 1977.
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Attributed to Thomas Watson, IBM chairman, 1943
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” — Steve Ballmer, Microsoft …

2025-09-27 22:42:28 UTC

@npub1fdr…lvhs A great tragedy because there are phenomenally useful wins to be had. All could be washed away by greed-driven VC scams that are mauling their sustainability. I hope enough of it survives that we can start over with better models.
https://mastodon.social/@npub1dvx…gems/115278626240460990
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/278/672/555/483/921/original/6ae8a3e13cdd6563.webp

2025-09-20 17:19:48 UTC

“Fallout” has got to be one of the more off-the-wall concepts for scifi TV. I’m five episodes in and still not sure if I like it. But I keep watching, so..

2025-09-14 15:44:23 UTC

Folks a lot of this Charlie Kirk movement momentum is all propaganda and wishful thinking Don’t be fooled. Trump’s policies are more unpopular by the day, and if we just mobilize we can wipe these motherfuckers out in the midterms. But you need to help get everyone you know off their apathetic asses and into the game. Or it’s game over.

2025-09-14 15:12:48 UTC

Recall when Michelle Malkin called Obama “Dear leader” for showing up at an elementary school to “indocrinate?” Conservatives were always hypocritical monsters. Now they make no effort whatever to conceal it. We need to boycott them all; every fucking business-owning one of them. Immediately.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/203/294/365/000/634/original/df1ad51986fdf601.png

2025-09-14 15:06:31 UTC

Uhh, it’s been spiraling out of control since 1996.
https://bsky.app/profile/rbreich.bsky.social/post/3lyqzynluv52e
Again I ask, how much more of this do we take before we break their Golden Goose and rebel?
(Reminder: rebellion is NOT revolution)

2025-09-13 20:02:04 UTC

Weird I don’t know what this indicates but after hitting an all-time high of engagements last week, suddenly my fediverse community has gone very quiet since the Kirk shooting. I have to think about what might explain that. I hope it’s just coincidence, because I have no idea what that cause and effect would look like

2025-09-13 11:17:42 UTC

This morning, I was dogpiled by a group of Threads users, simply for asking for the source of a post about the “right leaning shooter,” when I was driving too fast to Google. As usual the information was conjecture, not fact. Sources matter.

2025-09-12 14:23:42 UTC

I received this by private mention. Is it real or a phish ?
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/191/776/607/930/762/original/c8e165c1281f3296.png

2025-09-12 13:00:38 UTC

We’re a nation of hypocrites. Conservative leaders know that Kirk was a hateful extremist and lie about it, and Liberal leaders know this was a entirely predictable event and pretend it was an outrageous tragedy. Maybe when we start telling the truth, things will change.

2025-09-11 19:52:09 UTC

I’ve been busy. Is Charlie Kirk still dead? I never trust anything that happens in America, these days. Especially what’s reported by our shamefully inert when not complicit “news media.”

2025-09-11 12:53:46 UTC

How Charlie Kirk Planned to Discredit Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Act.
“a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”
https://www.wired.com/story/charlie-kirk-tpusa-mlk-civil-rights-act/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

2025-09-09 00:12:01 UTC

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Having researched and wrestled with this problem for decades, I strenuously disagree. Sure, a good chair will wear out, but the problem is the human body wasn’t designed for sitting at all. A $3,000 chair, in the best of shape will often make absolutely no difference to someone with a spinal defect, or average musculature.

2025-09-08 23:55:50 UTC

Social media gives almost the same weight to everything. So the average person has no ability to parse which events, facts, or issues deserve more notice and understanding. This flattens mass attention and diverts focus from what should be the most important issues facing society. We have to find a solution to this or I doubt we can survive much longer as a free society. I’m not sure we’re surviving as one now.

2025-09-08 23:35:50 UTC

Social media and the creator/influencer industry had created an illusion that the American left is following and engaged on popular issues and narratives. In my own anecdotal research, I find that the average liberal-minded person is dangerously uninformed about most vital issues and events.

2025-09-08 22:51:18 UTC

Nearly half the respondents thus far say “frequently.” I bet that number goes up with a wider sample.
https://mastodon.social/@shoq/115170690797929745
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/171/123/372/754/187/original/4dc492557b91a62c.jpg

2025-09-08 22:49:08 UTC

Designer Henry Dreyfus studied reclining positions for the air force in the 1960s. As you’ve discovered, 127 degrees is the optimal angle for the spine. The problem is that it makes keyboard and monitor use extremely challenging. I’ve solved that, but the production and cost challenges are a bitch.
https://mastodon.social/@npub136p…taxv/115170818699852313
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/171/114/896/279/047/original/4211f1a6a3aac975.jpg

2025-09-08 21:01:17 UTC

If you’re a writer, programmer, or anyone that uses a computer every day, how often have you felt that your chair or sitting position was a big contributing factor to back or neck pain, but switching chairs or positions didn’t help much?

2025-09-08 20:41:33 UTC

Trump has declared war on the drug cartels and his concierge Supreme Court is enabling him. I have to wonder if Chief Justice Roberts is aware of how the cartels have historically dealt with troublesome judges?
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/170/613/161/516/167/original/e82ab6a46d510f4b.png

2025-09-07 13:40:29 UTC

I have nothing to add except this: the cost of creating a viable alternative has plummeted with streaming services. What’s needed now is a reason to watch. And that’s doable. If more liberals truly believed in improving civilization, rather than just virtue signaling to themselves and others about it, a few famous ones would band together, raise billions, and solve this fucking intractable infrastructural problem. It’s doable.
https://mastodon.social/@npub1zj7…lc9y/115160486133648135
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/163/294/989/186/166/original/42e3bba226661cad.jpg

2025-09-06 15:09:42 UTC

https://mastodon.social/@Chancerubbage/115157830584575193
That has been my ongoing question for a few years now. I think it’s the only practical way to create a business model that gets us to a new place that works for us. It doesn’t have to be exactly like the old, but it can share most of its core facets.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/157/983/641/286/779/original/c685c67880735f6b.webp

2025-09-06 14:23:40 UTC

Most liberals I know are living in a delusion, thinking there is still some political fix possible for our MAGA crisis. Until we focus on the fact that almost all local American media is just regurgitating venal, counterfactual conservative propaganda, every hour of every day, we are all just pissing up a rope thinking we are going to stop this methodical deconstruction of our society, if not the Enlightenment itself. Just pick up the front page of any local paper, or spin your radio dial in …
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/157/802/621/910/657/original/e9448fd5ee749649.png

2025-09-03 19:33:38 UTC

I’d sure think about it 😄
And I guess it isn’t just me because the tattoo removal industry is already a billion business in the US alone, and growing fast. Some GPT harvested facts:
https://chatgpt.com/canvas/shared/68b8978e3aac8191aa54d6197c0a08a2
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/142/034/553/948/780/original/7badf57621a207e5.jpg

2025-08-31 13:35:07 UTC

I’m glad she’s happy, but if I could decide these things, @npub1lfw…z55v would have fallen in love with some liberal brainiac. Given some new influences, with her storytelling skills, she might have come to write some kick-ass political songs that we need.
I doubt she’s going to get those insights hanging out on the Kansas City Chief’s bench, but hey, on any given Sunday, anything can happen in pro football, right?
Oh well, if only I could live other people’s lives for them. I’m sure I …
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/123/637/835/244/744/original/7dab5694bab42d6a.png

2025-08-30 21:15:59 UTC

Somebody on Threads just told me that Mastodon was “dead.” So why the hell won’t all you good folks roll over?

2025-08-30 12:23:03 UTC

WARNING: these messages are all bullshit. Do not click (i got 3 in one hour)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/117/692/176/463/680/original/39e749e0f90c0cb0.png

2025-08-30 12:04:16 UTC

@npub1p2g…rl0w, is this real? Never heard of it and comes off sketchy.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/117/618/352/794/405/original/40f1e36dd5c4a664.png

2025-08-29 16:26:50 UTC

My workers voted for Trump. Now they’re absorbing the impact.
▶ Business was growing for our aluminum foundry. Then came the tariffs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/29/trump-aluminum-tariffs-manufacturing-workers/

2025-08-28 12:01:47 UTC

Tariffs 101: Taxes for the Poor, Perks for the Rich
Despite the political hype, Trump’s tariffs aren’t some bold new way to raise revenues from foreign nations. They’re federal taxes on imports from over 90 countries—and the costs land on you at the checkout.
Like any sales tax, they’re regressive. Working- and middle-class families spend nearly all their income on basics—food, clothing, supplies—that tariffs make more expensive. In many cases, a LOT more expensive.
The wealthy hardly …

2025-08-25 19:43:32 UTC

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How is this impacting activityPub? Doesn’t it have the same problems complying with this bullshit verification law that bluesky does? Like everything else these MAGA motherfuckers do, the law was designed to create this disruptive chaos, not protect anybody.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/091/112/712/319/289/original/1d23fccdf52b83ad.jpg

2025-08-24 13:24:46 UTC

While I mourn for its innocent victims, Gaza is not an exception — it’s a symptom. The Holocaust was meant to make “Never Again” our permanent vow, yet history shows otherwise: Rwanda, Darfur, Yemen, Syria, Congo, the Rohingya. Again and again the world fails its most vulnerable. Until we build real global solutions, we’ll keep mourning in vicious cycles
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/083/960/985/978/617/original/ae5d254ff50a2b30.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/083/961/056/919/069/original/cffcc9771ea79d28.jpg

2025-08-22 13:43:27 UTC

Social media would be substantially calmer, more civil, and more enjoyable, if more folks did 15 seconds of homework by browsing the existing replies before posting the same take that’s already been answered, clarified, or debunked.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/072/709/870/197/458/original/0351db66d3951f35.jpg

2025-08-21 00:30:44 UTC

All of you people that avoid looking at Twitter are making a huge mistake and putting us all at risk. Some of us warned 25 years ago to stop ignoring Rush Limbaugh, and the results of that have been disastrous. If you don’t pay attention, we’re all going to pay a price.

2025-08-20 18:20:29 UTC

As I've been warning for years, we're not going to vote ourselves out of this. Americans are far too influenced by ubiquitous extremist media, and lack the education to see through political propaganda they've perfected over decades.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/us/politics/democratic-party-voter-registration-crisis.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fk8.FGFn.sosiE22MWrjT&smid=url-share

2025-08-20 12:51:28 UTC

Another example of how I rely on chatGPT almost everyday. Rather than spend an hour analyzing the County Water Report, I just asked it to synthesize the PDF and in 10 seconds had all the facts I need? Is it reliable? Probably. But I wish we had an AI that vets AI.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/061/180/811/907/805/original/195d4f717308d8eb.png

2025-08-16 17:27:20 UTC

Would anyone in Europe like to help me do a simple price comparison between common household purchases? I ‘m convinced the public has no understanding that pricing is not competitive, but predatory, and long ago ceased to have anything to do with real costs, only the producer’s share price. It’s time someone documented this fraud. Journalists don’t seem to be very interested in doing this kind of work.