Sam Whited @sam@social.coop

Just gave notice at my day job! This might be the best I've felt since starting my day job. I don't think I realized how down it was getting me. Now if I can only figure out what the hell I'm doing before I go broke and lose my house. Weeeeee!

UK residents, answer a question for a curious American: does "respect and restraint" mean, "please do not realize how worthless we are, keep giving us tax money, and don't use this as an excuse to topple the monarchy"? Thanks for clarifying.

@alexc Welcome! I'm super jealous of the farm, beekeeping, and housing co-op! I've been chatting with some friends about doing something similar (but as with all my projects, can't actually find anyone seriously interested enough to join), best of luck to you!

That's not to suggest that we don't also need a simple messenger that doesn't require a phone number, of course, but having something that you can tell your non-technical friends to use and suddenly your conversation is encrypted without them needing to learn *anything new at all* was a big win.

People (including Moxie) seem to think of #Signal as a messenger like Conversations or WhatsApp. I keep seeing folks say "we need a messenger that doesn't require a phone number" or "to compete with other messengers we need payments" but the truth is that Signal is and should be 1 thing: an SMS "text messaging" app that transparently makes your conversation safer without most of your friends even knowing that it's happening. That was Signals big privacy win, and that's what they should focus on.

Started getting emails about CORBA (a program for continuing healthcare coverage in the U.S. after you lose your work healthcare). I'm either about to be laid off and it just hasn't been announced yet, or there were slight changes to our healthcare plans. Should be a fun morning.

And it's *cheeeeaap*.

I say "in the middle of the city". It's in an industrial area just outside the city, but the point is there is a major road bordering it on one side, factories or warehouses or something on two sides, and train tracks on the other side. It is surrounded by city like things, but is a tiny forested patch that feels completely isolated when you're down there!

The Silver Comet Trail (long distance bike trail) is nearby, it would be difficult but not impossible to connect it if we could convince other property owners to allow for easements. Maybe put a tiny home on it and rent it out as a nice place for bikers to stay the night and donate the profits to the trail foundation? Connecting it may prove impossible though.

Soliciting ideas: I might have the means to cooperatively acquire a 3 acre "unusable" piece of land. It's in the middle of the city in a deep valley that floods with no easy access by road and nowhere to conveniently park nearby. It has a very nice stream and lake taking up approximately half of it and it's heavily forested. Is there a way we could generate revenue with it somehow that we could donate? Using it to grow things comes to mind, but access for getting goods in and out is a problem.

I wonder if, when selling a house, you could put some sort of social good contracts in the terms of sale? Eg. "I'll only sell my house to you if you promise not to ever spray the lawn with pesticides", or something? Would this be enforceable? Or would it just be that no one would buy your house even if they weren't planning on doing that in the first place because it made them nervous to limit their options?