Reach for the Stars @antares@qoto.org

Since I’m new to JavaScript, I wrote:

𝚒𝚏 (𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔) { 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔(); }

…like an idiot. Then, I realized I should be adapting to JavaScript culture and make it inscrutable, so I re-wrote the line to:

𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 && 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔();

But I suspected there was something even more nightmarish, and sure enough, of course. This is how _real_ JavaScript developers do it:

𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔?.();

And by “real JavaScript developers,” I mean “monsters”.

I love my smart TV. I love the way it takes a long time to boot up because it's trying to refresh the advertisements on the home screen. I delight in the way it randomly restarts because it's downloaded an update without asking me, each of which makes the TV slower and slower with every subsequent install. I adore the way it buries the apps that I want to use, and that I use without fail every single time, below the apps that it's being paid to promote and which I have never touched in my life and would never use without the cold metal of a glock pressed hard against my sweating temple. I am infinitely thrilled by the way the interface lags constantly, due to the need to have one thousand unnecessary animations rendered on hardware ripped wholesale from a ten year old phone. I feel myself borne aloft on wings of pure joy when I am notified that my data will be collected and analysed to determine my useage patterns. Even now I am writing this from a field of beautiful flowers and soft luscious grass as I lie and look up happily at the bright blue sky, smiling happily to know that this is the future of technology

@petersuber @chronicle @academicchatter

I’ve made a good living over the years ($100+) without having a college degree. I learned “on the job” and have been able to work my way into incredible and well paying employment. A degree shouldn’t mean a person is worth more $. How one does their job should be the reason for making a higher income.

A 25-year science wager has come to an end. In 1998, neuroscientist Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers that the mechanism by which the brain’s neurons produce consciousness would be discovered by 2023. Both scientists agreed publicly on 23 June, at the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) annual meeting in New York City, that it is still an ongoing quest — and declared Chalmers the winner.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02120-8?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=HariTulsidas%2Fmagazine%2FMind+and+Matter

No.

Any of these insider trading, safety net deleting, power hoarding, environment destroying, dinosaurs could have mentored the next crop of lawmakers and stepped aside.

Instead, we are left with a bunch of drooling, multi millionaire ancient-ones forcing us to vote for the lesser of two evils

Flagship Liverpool hydrogen buses out of action due to 'problems with global H2 supply' #ev #hydrogen
Green hydrogen is unaffected by this issue, but it highlights how much hydrogen is reliant on fossil fuels. Grey hydrogen is “more polluting wheel to well than diesel”
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/flagship-liverpool-hydrogen-buses-out-of-action-due-to-problems-with-global-h2-supply/2-1-1508528

@icanbob

He actually said the "least expensive" way to produce hydrogen is to crack the hydrogen atoms off hydrocarbons, and he's right. SMR is the cheapest, liberating all the H2 from the CH4 and all the H2 from the water.

Personally I don't care for hydrogen. Direct renewable electricity generation, its storage, use in domestic heating and transport is what I find exciting and enjoy reading about. Hydrogen is a distraction.

@antares

This market analysis makes sense to me. #Hydrogen is only a viable option for transport whenever batteries are technically not feasible. The cost of operating and maintaining #FCEV technology almost always outweighs the benefits – and there’s no reason to believe that scaling up will fundamentally change the outcome
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/hydrogen-will-almost-always-lose-out-to-battery-electric-in-german-rail-transport-train-manufacturer/2-1-1504868

#Statistics

Headphone jack removal in mobile devices is still one of the worst tech decision for consumers

this is what happens when you make a typed language without some form of generics 😆

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Last update from the on-site #BurningMan radio station is all entrances/movement still shut down, shelter in place, "it will get cold tonight". Also asking people either RVs to let people without RVs share their space (ie muddy tent dwellers). Also a message saying no one else will be allowed into the site for the remainder of the event, and not to come. #mud 2023-09-02 1230PM

SHOCKER: According to this DeSmog article, a years-long media blitz against heat pumps in the UK was funded by a gas lobby group.

Cue the surprise face!

(The good news is, even with the misinformation heat pumps are continuing to see double digit growth globally.)

https://www.desmog.com/2023/07/20/revealed-media-blitz-against-heat-pumps-funded-by-gas-lobby-group/

#heat #gas #sustainability #fossilfuels