Brian Beach has moved @bwbeach@qoto.org

The biggest problem we face right now is not climate change or AI or intrusive government or biodiversity loss.

Our biggest problem right now is polarization - our inability to have meaningful conversations across political/tribal divides.

We think the Aspen Proposal is distant enough and general enough to provide a useful starting point for those conversations.

Please feel free to use it for that purpose.

http://www.aspenproposal.org

#politics #sustainability #culture #Justice #Nature #biodiversity #ClimateChange

“The reason most public transportation is seen as ‘losing’ money is precisely because it charges for trips. If you don't charge fares, suddenly it can't ‘lose’ money. It just costs money, the same as the roads.”

This random comment has given me my new favourite argument for removing fares from public transit.

#science

Let's ponder for a moment that the computing resources on the Voyager spacecraft are from the 1960s, with clock speeds measured in KHz and RAM in kbytes, running hand-crafted software, crammed into 4 Kbytes of plated-wire memory.

The hardware and (upgraded) software are still functioning after 46 years in space.

history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch6-2.html
https://www.wired.com/2013/09/vintage-voyager-probes/
#Voyager #Space #Science #Computers
4/n

I've been trying to find the right way to articulate this-- but the folks on the right have it backwards about who is driven by "white guilt" --

This impulse to cover up and distort the history of slavery reeks of shame. It's, frankly, weird. Nobody has perfect ancestors, what sort of crisis of identity leads one to lie about the past.

It's just the things that happened. You learn about them you learn from them. You do better. Don't make it so emotional and personal.

If this is the summer you've decided "climate change is here and it's bad", welcome to the movement(s). We need you. There's so much to do, and much that can be turned.

I hope that Mastodon folks who like to scold newcomers will realize how off-putting -- and damaging -- that behavior is.

Please be helpful, not scornful. Let's reduce the genuine risk of poisoning fediverse growth, and thereby giving social-media oligarchs indefinite control over online discourse.

Read this essential post from @kissane to understand more. https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt

The pitch for your country shouldn't be "With the lowest taxes".

It should be "Worth paying for."

And that's a functional health care system.
An educated workforce.
A safe place to make a family in.
Decent infrastructure.

All stuff you pay with taxes.

OK, very interesting. I am a strong no. Here are my thoughts:

- Misattributing a quote denies the actual author the credit due.
- It keeps the reader from evaluating the quote in the real author's context.
- It put words in the mouth of someone who did not say them.
- It tricks the reader into evaluating the quote in the misattributed person's context. It lends false credence to the quote.
- It downplays the importance of ideas and authorship.
- It shows that you re-share posts uncritically.

This photo is the Norman Rockwell moment for SF 2023:
#innersunset #goodneighbors

Last term, I had a final assignment option having students use #ChatGPT to write their final essay, then critique the results. It was great, and I'll be doing it again. Everyone in #academia should do something like this with their class if they can. Short 🧵 on what we found.

My husband and I started e-biking just last July and even though I’m not at my ideal weight and suffer from osteoarthritis we now cycle everyday and even do much of our groceries on two wheels 🚲
I’m sharing this picture to encourage all of you who may once have cycled that whatever your age, weight and physical condition (with few exceptions) you can get back on a bike and actually enjoy the breeze on your face 😃
#ebike #cycling #biking #mobility #sustainability #biketooter

I feel like far too often, we write about how to handle scaling and growing teams with topologies, microservices, and domain boundaries, and we ignore or do not write enough about how to stay small and all the success that extremely small teams have had building and delivering value that outpaces the giant tech orgs...

It’s REALLY important that #Vancouver’s Downtown Business Association, who were originally AGAINST downtown bike-lanes, later became one of their most vigourous supporters, because of EVIDENCE that bike-lanes are better for downtown business than any street parking they replace.

#cities #bikes #downtowns #cars #BikeLanes