This is the time to reach out to these new or revalidated officials and tell them this is the time to take power back.

I've sent emails to my new senator and house rep, but things like 5calls.org are probably useful too. The calls require (people like me) to be a little more prepared with what we want to talk about, but the time is NOW. Also set a reminder for 1/21 and remind them this was, in fact, a mandate to make things different.

If you've been disappointed with milquetoast dems... call them right now. Email them at the least.

Drown them in the proof that we demand accountability for the current regime and progress on the issues that we all want.

💯️

I feel old reading that text, but I completely agree with the content. I prefer to use words... but sometimes images can express the intention better than the words can.

(funny thought - Ideograms might be peak language since they can have temporal/cultural "intonation" baked in... Emoji is just western cultures catching up with Chinese/Korean/Japanese Kanji)

Semi-related. I switched to Firefox about a year ago, when the Manifest v3 was forced into Chrome. About 2 months ago, I started getting prompted to solve a captcha when using google search, since my traffic was "unusual". This appears to be a javascript issue where FF doesn't respond to some server-side tracking correctly.

I now use DuckDuckGo.

I'm tech savvy, but have sometimes been willing to sell my data for convenience (don't shoot me). But I'm not willing to sell my convenience for convenience: break my ad-blocker or make me captcha to search - fuck right off.

Getting off gmail is going to be hard, but I'm exploring options. Big Tech companies are doing a lot of foot-shooting right now.

They think they won, and can enforce their will, but I'm optimistic that they haven't.

My dog has no clue. She still wants a walk and will not be denied. Human timekeeping be damned.

Gotta say... The Playstation debacle and resulting backlash has somewhat changed my mind on AI as a coding tool.

I still don't like it, ethically and economically, but if "they" are going to use it to cut costs and punch down, then we can use it to invalidate them and punch up.

I doubt it will make the next great game or piece of software, but it can absolutely let us take a ps5 exclusive and run it on a PC.

Again, we still need actual developers who know what and why they do what they do, same with artists... but enabling a home-brew hobbyist to put mario kart in skyrim or whatever is pretty neat. Just wish it didn't seem to require clear cutting a forest.

I saw the ad, but I forgot most of it immediately... and I don't want to revisit it. so forgive me if that last line isn't quite correct.

Political ads:

✅️> Here's what I want to do

✅️> Here's what I believe

➖️> My opponent said or did something I think you'll disagree with

❌️> My opponent alleges they were assaulted, but I don't think they were so they are a liar

Corporate support can be a big deal.

In a previous life, I routinely blocked anything from a free cloud host or cert provider. There was rarely a business justification for accessing a site or service hosted on DigitalOcean or signed by LetsEncrypt. Sure, get an SSL cert and host for your personal project - so I wasn't mad at the services - but it was a signal that the endpoint was not trustworthy beyond the TCP packets.

I suspect that AWS/GCP/Azure has made that much harder.

That's pretty cool. Gets the point across - and the reason and results of why it matters to report instead of ignore. Kudos to your team.

We can choose a salad (or burger) without shit... but not next week at this point. Gotta pick one - or let others pick one for you.

Afterwards, please find your local precinct and be part of the discussion. "Both parties" have been captured by money/capital, but only because we let them. At least on the dem side, the rules we have allow us to outnumber the money, but only if we show up on November 4th.

Edit: Just to be clear - Show up on Nov 3 and vote for your preferred entree of the options available, but show up after too.

As a occasional bleeding edge buyer - I disagree with the motive of 'look at me'. (caveat: This post is entirely 'look at me', but I'm proving my point, not desiring attention, and have never even thought about my purchases this way until now)

I had an HTC Magic - one of the very early Android phones - not because I wanted to be cool, but because I wanted the tech and google was still this sort of open, consumer-friendly company at the time vs Apple. That phone was pretty solid compared to the candy-bar or flip phones of the era, aside from battery life, but compared to modern smart phones it was garbage.

I had an OG Rift VR headset (CV1). It did what it claimed, but it was low resolution, clunky, heavy, and unpleasant to use. But now we have Steam's Frame.

When I was a teenager, working retail at a tech store, I saved up to buy an early LCD monitor. Now you can't even buy CRTs outside of niche vendors.

I want quality EVs. I never bought a Tesla, but I wanted one before the crazy came out and just couldn't afford it. Now we have every auto manufacturer making EV options.

I want quality folding phones, but my normal shape phone is still functional and I haven't needed to buy a new one for a few years. When I do, it'll probably fold. I'll be v3 or so by that time, but still showing there's a desire.

I want to be clear that I'm not disagreeing with your 'let others work out the kinks', but sometimes I'm fine with having the first iterations because I want the resulting tech.

Consider this my investment strategy - but instead of personal profit, I'm investing in innovation.

Counterpoint: if you want version 4.0 of something. Someone needs to prove it's viability.

You can buy v1.0, just know it for what it is and only buy in if you can accept the risk.

I never bought a folding phone, but I want one and I appreciate the early adopters.

Hah. Neat!

For pedantry...

My understanding was that en-dash was a range, and em-dash was a change in topic or a parenthetical, so I've been using the wrong one but for the right reason. This may be an American style distinction, though. Time to jump into a new rabbit hole.