Andy Lowry @AndyLowry@qoto.org
Retired SysAdmin living in the high country of Arizona, USA. I enjoy learning about physics, cosmology, genetics, neurology, and suchlike. Deeply confused by worldwide trends towards authoritarianism. I thought we'd already learned about that stuff. But I guess not.
Joined Nov 2022
Andy Lowry
boosted
Saying not to bother with the favourite button on mastodon because it doesn't affect any algorithm is like saying not to say thank you to someone because no one else will hear.
Stop thinking in those old social media ways of engagement and visibility and algorithms and reach and audience and start thinking about being social.
Andy Lowry
boosted
Today in 1983, 40 years ago: The ARPANET officially changes to using TCP/IP, the Internet Protocol, effectively creating the Internet.
Andy Lowry
boosted
This week #Mastodon will pass 9,000,000 users. Every day we're growing and each post you create, or like, or reshare helps us arrive at the future we want.
Andy Lowry
boosted
Sick of people calling everything in crypto a Ponzi scheme. Some crypto projects are Pump-and-Dump schemes, while others are Pyramid schemes. Others are just middlemen skimming off the top. Others are just standard-issue fraud.
Stop glossing over the diversity in the industry.
Andy Lowry
boosted
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, ‘Hmmm…. that’s funny….’"– Isaac Asimov
@alanthwaits@noc.social
Yes, sounds like something they'd do.
@vickyveritas
Thanks again! That's a useful observation which helps me think about things.
@vickyveritas
I've read a lot of Sacks but somehow was ignorant of that title. Thanks for the pointer. I will track that one down immediately; his writing is hard to beat-- the kind of writer I'll read even if the specific topic isn't something I'm all that interested in. 😉
Gratitude has been a big theme with me lately. Might sound odd to say, but I am very, very lucky in many ways both practical and otherwise and would not trade my current "spiritual" (always been a little iffy about that word as it's so vague) state for more years of life if that deal were offered. All manner of amazing things are just happening by themselves and I'm a bit boggled, though thankful, to be here to watch it happen without my actually doing anything to cause it.
@alanthwaits@noc.social
Mukherjee title is
"The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer."
Will absolutely track down the Gawande, thank you! Yes, Aurelius is good stuff. Was just having a conversation with a friend this morning about the first time I attended a UU church to check it out-- the "sermon" was on Aurelius, and the choir performance was from Bach's Coffee Cantata. My first thought was THESE ARE MY PEOPLE. 😎 Plus, they keep the local Subaru dealer in business.
@alanthwaits@noc.social
They're behaving amazingly well from their own perspective, regardless of whether I like it or not.
Have you read Mukherjee's recent book on cancer? It's a real tour de force, as his work usually tends to be. Two thumbs up and a hats-off from me. And while I'm being Mr. Book Review Guy, Tisdale's "Advice for Future Corpses" is really wonderful. Author is a Zen practitioner, which I relate to, though she doesn't actually bring up Buddhism except as tangential examples of coping strategies and such. Tisdale has worked in hospice care for a long time and has a really solid foundation in the cold hard realities, which she manages to get across in a non-scary way. Quite a trick, that. 😉
@hasmis
😃 Thanks, that made me laugh in recognition. I sure as hell don't worry about cholesterol any more. 😉 If I want some sausage gravy, why, I just have some sausage gravy.
Thanks for the kind thoughts!
@vickyveritas
I was really hesitant to say anything about the whole thing publicly, because it's something people would just as soon not think about, in the main, and I was concerned that it might be a little rude to bring the topic up out of the blue. But I think you're right, talking about it absolutely has a lot of value to me, and if someone else can get some meaning out of it, then it's something I should be doing, morally-wise-speaking. 😉 Still considering whether a content warning would be best or not.
Thanks for your continued kindness and thoughtful support. This Mastodon thing is amazing because it's made of a whole bunch of people like you. I can't imagine these sorts of conversations happening anywhere else. Pretty sure I would have already gotten hundreds of posts about how I should just kill myself or something at that other site I don't go to anymore.
Andy Lowry
boosted
@adrianhon
I live in a place where it's common to use evaporative cooling in the warmer months, and Dark Sky was the only app that made it easy to pop in and check the dew point so you knew how efficient the cooling was going to be. If the Apple app even has that, I can't find it. It's really annoying that Apple thinks it's okay to actually take something from me that I paid for and owned. Sure hope they never come by the house!
Andy Lowry
boosted
@alanthwaits@noc.social
As well you should! I mean, it's our own cells doing that, so it's hard to be mad at 'em for trying to do their very best at reproducing. 😉
@alanthwaits@noc.social
I think I've detected the same. This accidental sparky-connection thing has been happening a lot lately. A lot of "I don't know this person, but I sure do know this person anyway" going on, and I have no idea why. Not just here, in real life too-- enough that I almost expect it every time I leave the house. A lot of things I used to be certain about are being reshaped and changed, and not because I was trying to do that. Weird, eh? 😎
@jayarava
You know, sometimes the publishing industry thing is really annoying. It's like publishers would really rather not be bothered with little things like selling books. I've spent I don't know how much time trying to track down things even from (relatively) known names and have hit brick walls more often than I want to think about. The title will go out of print after 37 minutes, even though the reason it's out of print is because they sold out of it.
And then the less-well-known names, well, fuhgeddaboudit. Why the hey can't I just pop over to the website of whoever the publisher of Mr. Orsborn's book is and order a copy? It's not like it was written fifty years ago, it's recent. If it's published by a university, couldn't they at least support an in-house author? No wonder Amazon is so successful at providing self-publishing on-demand services! If, god forbid, I should ever want to publish something, that's the sort of setup I would want.
Though I'm a bit ashamed to admit to it, I have, after exhausting all other avenues, downloaded PDFs of books I'm desperate to read from countries that have different copyright laws and make it easy to do that. It shouldn't have to come to that.
Whew, rant over and I feel so much better now.
@alanthwaits@noc.social
Thanks for the boost on that Schwinn, "Alan Watts." Really took me back for a moment. I think we have similar tastes in things generally, as I follow just about everything you boost up! Hope your new year is fabulous and that the damn cancer stays in remission. You tell it I said so.
Andy Lowry
boosted
Retired SysAdmin living in the high country of Arizona, USA. I enjoy learning about physics, cosmology, genetics, neurology, and suchlike. Deeply confused by worldwide trends towards authoritarianism. I thought we'd already learned about that stuff. But I guess not.
Joined Nov 2022
