Ana Ulin 😻 @anaulin@social.coop

@brion in North America they call it canola oil

@garbados More generally speaking, experimenting with different ways to navigate and consume social media sounds a very useful thing to be doing in 2020. 💗

@garbados I like the idea of the alternative UIs. Seeing just one "most recent" post from each account you follow sounds super useful. Having some UI where you can see some who has been more/less active than usual also sounds pretty useful.

@garbados We all cope in our own ways.

@CaitlinWaddick I haven't ever tried anything like this, but I don't see an obvious reason why this would be a problem. As long as you don't get any paint into the laptop itself, and don't cover any vents, hinges and such, it should be fine.

And I'm assuming that whatever primer and paints you are using won't somehow eat a whole through the casing, but I have no idea about paints.

If more programmers read n-gate's weekly HackerNews summary, the industry would be in a way better place.

So read, y'all:

http://n-gate.com/hackernews/

I just published Book Notes: The Heart Goes Last: https://anaulin.org/blog/book-the-heart-goes-last/
#books

I just published Book Notes: Unfuck Your Writing: https://anaulin.org/blog/book-unfuck-your-writing/
#books #writing

Fascinating article about Soviet research that allowed them to cultivate citrus fruit in very cold (and sometimes too hot) climates. All of it without using greenhouses or any other kind of "active" processes to keep the trees warm.

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/04/fruit-trenches-cultivating-subtropical-plants-in-freezing-temperatures.html

@abliss Great question. I'd love to see such a directory or list, too. Not exactly RSS-based, but Kicks Condor has been sharing links to others that curate content / build directories, and generally talking about the "digital gardens" movement: https://www.kickscondor.com/

Personally, I follow the shared links from my old time college friend Chema, who aligns pretty well with my interests: https://rinzewind.org/shared.xml

@edebill Yes, thanks for mentioning it! 🙏🏼

@edebill And it unfurls a thread into a one-pager, and fetches linked content. I think I'm in love.

@edebill Oooh, feedbin lets me make a feed of my Twitter, which I've also been meaning to set up. I'm much excite.

@mc I tend to prefer web-based, but dunno. Maybe an app will do, too, if it's good enough.

@edebill Interesting. I've never tried a client app for reading feeds. I have an odd irrational avoidance of non-web-based apps. I'll give reeder a look.

I can't quite articulate why I find Feedly meh-inducing, but I do. Do we not have any feed readers that get closer to sparking joy? Or maybe just being unobtrusive?

@Greg Thanks for hanging with me until the end. It was rough reading.

Ah, now I get to the part where I see that Kantrowitz simply believes the broader liberal narratives around how capital drives innovation and "value".

He says: "Less entrepreneurial energy leads to less growth and less wealth to distribute." and "Capitalism is good at creating incentives for people to invent stuff."

I say: citations needed, good sir!

Should have seen it coming. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Third, this fabled automation often has been invented and built by free software and open source communities, by academia and by hobbyists, before making it into big tech "best practices" handbooks.

Fourth, they only automate when it is profitable. Will happily continue employing thousands of underpaid off-shore workers to e.g. do manual QA, if it is cheaper than figuring out how to get privileged software engineers to write automated tests.

And don't get me started on the idea that "the tech giants automate work that supports existing products".

First of all, the tech giants have armies of literal thousands of people whose jobs are to maintain and operate existing products.

Second, this "automation" of which Kantrowitz speaks is to a large extent inherent to software: you can run a reasonably solid server for years, without doing maintenance on it, and have it keep working.

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