“Web 2.0” was supposed to be a web of interoperable applications with features exposed by APIs, where you could assemble little pieces of functionality into new and novel configurations. It was cool for a little while, but it was never sustainable. There was an enclosure of the commons (they were never really the commons), and now we’re all digital serfs.

It was a beautiful dream, while it lasted!

- 32% of the citizen voting age population

- 44% of eligible voters

- 49% and some change of the people who actually voted

“America as a whole” did not vote for Trump

Thankfully, there is a paper on this that you can read, so that we don’t need to argue about this.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

We went through a cycle like this once before in U.S. history, and the amount of violence it took to correct the overreach of organized money was not 0.

I’m adding:

- A control hub that reads data from the batteries and the solar controller

- Remote and on-device UIs that allow a user to control all the hardware from one place

- A LoRa transceiver that allows monitoring the battery and solar status from a distance

Exploring all of this is fun — there’s a lot of DIY solar and battery hardware out there that needs to be able to sync and coordinate, but there’s not a great software solution for this.

Hit me up if you want to hire me, or give me money to work on this :)

Actions have consequences. I’m sorry. Read a history book.

The incentive structures are such that everyone sucks up to people in a position to give you a lot of money, so all these people with no real skills, talent or track record get regarded as “geniuses”, but like, even when you understand why this happens, it doesn’t make it any less rage-inducing.

What would have to change in this society for people who actually do shit to have a higher profile than people who just have a lot of money?

I agree that social problems should be exposed. One such social problem is widespread, entirely fabricated stories of crime and violence, accepted uncritically by people who don’t live in the supposedly affected areas, driving division and political discourse that lead to real-world harm.

There is an enormous amount of evidence that this propaganda, mainly spread through social media, is a product of a foreign government strategy to interfere in the internal politics of “enemy” nations. If this is true, it should be exposed and shut down.

“It dings all the time!” Yes, exactly, having a buzzer attached to my person at all times ensures I don’t miss appointments and that I leave to things on time.

Your thermostat that bothers you? It would be great if we lived in a world where energy was free, and there were no consequences for using as much energy as you want. That’s not the world we live in. And you probably don’t want to live in a world where the power company decides when you can and can’t turn on your AC. This is the compromise. I’m sorry you’re bothered by it — the consequences of other solutions to this problem are likely much worse.

It’s easy to forget that these things exist, and people buy them, to solve real problems. But writing a whole essay and just eliding that fact strikes me as lazy.