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
One of the great things about retirement is that I can still be sitting around in my pajamas four hours after getting out of bed. One of the great dangers of retirement is that I can still be sitting around in my pajamas four hours after getting out of bed.
Andy Lowry
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Just finished night number 3 of sleeping with a #CPAP machine. On my sleep study before using this, I was having an apnea event 24 times an hour. I'm averaging 1.2 events per night now.
I can't get over how much of a life changing feeling it is to wake up and actually be awake. I'm kicking myself for not doing this sooner.
If you suffer from sleep apnea, it is worth talking to a doctor (preferably an ENT) to see if a sleep study is appropriate for you.
The MIT Technology Review published an article a couple of days ago regarding Twitter's current-- and likely future-- difficulties after having fired essential employees: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/
Andy Lowry
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For your “billionaire on billionaire crime” files.
RT @mcuban@twitter.com
@elonmusk@twitter.com, from one entrepreneur to another, for when you have your customer service hat on. I just spent too much time muting all the newly purchased checkmark accts in an attempt to make my verified mentions useful again. Hope this helps.
Andy Lowry
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A cuneiform keyboard, for all your modern communications.
Andy Lowry
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Initial impression of Mastodon…
(image source thanks to @jsit: https://www.instagram.com/p/CKrqzp-F420/)
Andy Lowry
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The self-effacing founder of Mastodon, @gargron , on how "toot" happened:
"Probably not a lot of people know this now, but Mastodon's web app started out with "Publish". In 2016 a famous YouTuber jokingly offered to support Mastodon's Patreon forever if I changed the button to say "Toot" instead. Needless to say, this was a really early, and not very informed decision. The first glimpse of attention and financial support. As a non-native speaker I had no idea there was another meaning."
Andy Lowry
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If I learned anything from this election it’s that Elon Musk doesn’t have much political pull.
He literally endorsed republicans to his 114m followers and they did significantly worse than they were expected to.
Andy Lowry
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Looking at the power of the anti-Dobbs vote I want to briefly shout out the protest movement that America seems to have decided to memory-hole bc "something-something-Pussy Hats."
The Women's March was organized in SIX WEEKS & was the LARGEST SINGLE-DAY PROTEST IN US HISTORY.
1/
Andy Lowry
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Andy Lowry
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@freemo @arinbasu @SteveZissou I’m very new here, but must say I’m loving this server! Excited to be part of such a great community which is not something I’ve felt on social media before! 🤩
Andy Lowry
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Tell me these aren't dinosaurs!
a Green Heron (Butorides virescens) chick.
Andy Lowry
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All politics is local
@amyfou @tom_streeter makes me think that every state should put abortion up as a referendum item.
The unintended consequences of that are probably too great, but Kansas and Kentucky have certainly been pleasant surprises.
Andy Lowry
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I’ve been following so many random people on here. The criteria seems to be “do you look like a sane person that isn’t going to start rattling off conspiracy theories” or “you look like you’ve taken a picture of a bird once”.
Andy Lowry
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An #introduction to eLife's new Mastodon page!
We're an #OpenAccess not-for-profit journal that publishes and reviews #research in the life and biomedical sciences.
We want to improve the way research is practised and shared in part by working with early-career researchers #ECR and supporting #OpenSource technology.
We also just announced our new publishing model that we hope will tackle an overreliance on journal titles and publishing decisions as quality measures for science and scientists.
As someone with Stage 4 cancer, I was really struck by this quote at the beginning of Mukherjee's "The Emperor of All Maladies:"
"Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place." -- Susan Sontag
Andy Lowry
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Kherson and mid-terms
Wife heads out for the evening with a spring in her step on the day that the red surge in the US fails to materialise and Russia abandons Kherson. Amazing how wearing a steady drip of bad news is and how heartening these pieces of news are!
If Hobbs loses the Governorship of Arizona because she was too high-falutin' to debate her opponent, maybe her party will learn something from that. But I doubt it.
It could be that I am bitter.
Andy Lowry
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US election summary
Oprah Beats Trump!
Andy Lowry
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Today’s poem is called ‘An Update to My Privacy Policy’.
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
