Phil Landmeier @shuttersparks@qoto.org

@troglodyt @mjf_pro @mattblaze Fascist ideas have always been around. It's base-instinct for a lot of people. Modern communications just made it easier to appeal to and organize people quickly on a large scale.

Technology is just an amplifier of what we already are.

@mattblaze Yes, I used to think that. Infinite faith in the human species.

I was wrong.

@flockofnazguls True. Unfortunately, my kids (grown) are all in that category and now questioning whether they should have had kids. Hell, if I knew what I know now, I wouldn't have had kids.

@mjf_pro @mattblaze Yes, I've said this for many years. I hope it's only one-third. My estimate is a bit less than half.

But yeah, this is built into human nature, ready to be awakened by any despot who knows how to work a crowd by appealing to base instincts.

The only countermeasure is education, I believe. But that takes a long investment of time and effort.

A Brief History of Birthday Celebration

https://shuttersparks.net/a-brief-history-of-birthday-celebrations/

#history #birthday #cake #calendar #time

@opsnlops Seems very spendy. Fuses are pretty low-tech devices.

For ATO fuses I use these:

https://www.amazon.com/Nilight-NI-FH01-Automotive-Holder-10-Warranty/dp/B07426WCLM

For 5x20 fuses I use these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0813Q4S6P/

For PC mount 5x20 fuses I use these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074N1NMMX/

@ClaraListensprechen4 Yes, well, it's an honest recommendation.

I've been on Masto for quite a while, on a very small and only somewhat interesting instance. In October, when I realized the Birdsite was going down the tube and that Masto was the likely place for migration, I decided to look for a better Masto instance. I searched and searched, used the mapping tools, and scratched my head. I'd like to credit myself with finding qoto on my own but it came to me through a recommendation from a friend.

I checked it out, read everything, immediately liked what I saw. I found that it's run by a competent rational person who is "on the ball", paying attention, participates, and is easily reached for questions or discussion. On my previous instance I sometimes ran into a ridiculous 500 char post limit and saw that qoto limits posts at 65k -- way more than I would ever use. The instance is hosted on real servers, not on an old desktop in someone's closet.

Well, that was that. Been active daily here six months now and have had no problems or issues whatsoever.

@opsnlops Yeah, within your own world, you can do as you wish. But if a friend drops by, they'll assume a red/black Anderson is 12 volts. Haha. They've become *that* common. Also, products like power supplies come with Anderson's right on the front panel to plug into.

They take a little practice to assemble, but are easy. They are also stackable in X and Y to any number of contacts, limited only by your strength to plug it in. Hahaha.

If you really want to stay with red/black for 5 volts, one thing you could do is stack the two connectors in Y instead of X.

I'll also mention that red and black housings are cheap because they're so common. Other colors are spendy.

@opsnlops The standard is red/black for 12 volt stuff. I use other colors for other voltages. I use sky blue/black for 5V regulated power, and yellow/black for 20V unregulated or semi-regulated power.

Obviously, you can do as you wish, but I'd avoid using red/black for anything but 12V. They're so common now (power supplies and batteries come with Andersons built into the panel) that people assume a red/black Anderson is 12 volt power.

@opsnlops I'm not into solar (yet). But, in my opinion, Andersons is what they ought to be using. Hah.

When I first encountered them in 1994 I was surprised that it was even possible to make a genderless polarized connector with no exposed contacts. Blew my mind. They were too cool not to use. They were immediately adopted by my RACES group in Southern California and then rapidly spread throughout the whole ham community.

Gendered connectors are okay when there's a clearly defined power source and power sink or user. But what about a rechargeable battery? When it's charging it's a sink, when it's powering something it's a source. This is an unsolvable problem with gendered connectors.

@Sassinake @riastradh @threetails @pluralistic We're already long past that point and before there were LLMs.

@opsnlops Yeah. Fuse everything according to the gauge of wire. High current and melting copper wires is not fun. Plus it can start a fire and it smells bad. Hahaha.

Anderson Power Poles are fabulous connectors. I've used them for all DC stuff since 1994. Check out the ham radio standard way of assembling them and you'll be compatible with everything too.

@nazgul My wife and I met playing Space Invaders in 1978. I was a master at the pinball game Mata Hari. I was pretty good at Missile Command, Berzerker, Asteroids, Tempest, Star Wars, QBert, and one other I can't remember the name of just now. My wife was quite the expert at PacMan which I never got very good at.

@ClaraListensprechen4 Just got back from a 12 hour shift at work with another coming tomorrow.

WELCOME! Glad to see you here.

@nazgul I was quite good at that game. :-)

@opsnlops How quick is quick? I use Anderson power poles in various colors for all sorts of DC applications. They disconnect quickly enough for me. I fuse everything so I don't have to grab wires with the insulation melting off in order to effect an emergency disconnect. (Been there, done that, learned to fuse everything.)