ceoln @ceoln@qoto.org

There is a wild profusion of ways that society could be more justly and beneficially organized than our current morass. Some of them require a collection of tweaks to existing systems over time. Others require building up entire new systems and then managing a complex transition. Either of these can be the right call, depending on the problem at hand.

Destroying an existing system that people's lives depend on first and then hoping that your idea for a new system will turn out to work is basically never the right call, even (especially) if you're an activist trying to help society and not a company just trying to extract more blood from a rock.

#Garfield #music #KillingInTheName
#bot #lyrics

I was gonna start a website called MoreWrong to parody the "rationalist" website LessWrong, with randos calling themselves "AI researchers" without an iota of a track record, and joke about air strikes on GPU clusters. Then I realized that I'd get arrested rather having profiles and platforms on TIME magazine, NY Times and such, since I'm not a white dude.

The Day Windows Died

Link: https://thomasbandt.com/the-day-windows-died
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35415758

View from above the cave of the Makauwahi Preserve and Mt. Haupu beyond on the south side of Kauai. The photo includes most of the 50 acre preserve on old sugar cane fields, where ecologists & volunteers have been working for years to remove all of the pre-human plants (like 90% of what was there) and restore the landscape with endemic species. (Photo from last weekend.)

#Hawaii #Kauai #mountains #photography

#lakesuperior #sand, #dog, #shoreIce, #cobbles, #snow, #sky

#keweenaw #michigan #spring

Celestine, Sr(SO4)

Mass of tiny white celestine crystals at center.

Poudrette quarry (Demix quarry; Uni-Mix quarry; Desourdy quarry; Carrière Mont Saint-Hilaire), Mont Saint-Hilaire, La Vallée-du-Richelieu RCM, Montérégie, Québec, Canada
FOV = 1.2 mm
#minerals #mineralogy #mineralcollecting #crystals #Geology #earthsciences #mineral collecting

Cordylite-(Ce), (Na,Ca, )BaCe2(CO3)4(F,O)

Yellow crystal associated with quartz.

Poudrette quarry (Demix quarry; Uni-Mix quarry; Desourdy quarry; Carrière Mont Saint-Hilaire), Mont Saint-Hilaire, La Vallée-du-Richelieu RCM, Montérégie, Québec, Canada
FOV = 4.0 mm
#minerals #mineralogy #mineralcollecting #crystals #Geology #earthsciences #mineral collecting

Check ID

Student: “This class is always really interesting to me and doesn’t feel like ‘school’ and more like I am learning for fun, which actually assists in my learning process.”

Me: <swoon…>

#AmTeaching

Glorious, glorious, glorious #JoniMitchell, well on the mend from a nearly fatal aneurysm in 2015, sings "Summertime" and "The Circle Game" while accepting the Gershwin Award. #music https://youtu.be/PNwjFU2yEBM

Giving away your copyrights is harder than cancelling an internet subscription.

https://doctorow.medium.com/commafuckers-versus-the-commons-4e8dcdcf7dee

#CreativeCommons #Copyfight #Copyleft

Today would be a good day to help flip Virginia blue again. Donate today: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/vablue23

"Laughing at Elon Musk" is a democratizing social force that normalizes purpose-built platforms down to a common baseline of memetic mediocrity. Any data channel that can be used to make fun of Elon Musk will, eventually, be used to make fun of Elon Musk.

https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/commit/ec83d01dcaebf369444d75ed04b3625a0a645eb9