I don’t care if you’re volunteering your time; if you build something whose implied purpose and success depends on other people using it, you emphatically have a duty to those people not to silently destroy stuff that was there before your software was.

I'm not a mathematician. Can someone explain to me how this approach gets you beyond the rational numbers?

Also, this was formatted as a blockquote, but as far as I can see, this blog post is the only instance of this formulation online.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837&si=srD8...

I have not found a modern resource that explains it better.

Micropayments are friction, and if you put friction on top of the work of discovery, I will do something else with my time.

Requirements:

  * macOS
  * Zoom
  * Home Assistant
  * A signal light/sign on a smart switch (like [0])

First, create a script that checks whether you're currently on a Zoom call, and then turns your signal light on or off accordingly. Remember to chmod +x!

  #!/bin/sh

  if [ $(lsof -i 4UDP | grep zoom 2>/dev/null | wc -l) -gt 1 ]; then
    curl \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer ${HOME_ASSISTANT_ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -d '{"entity_id": "${ENTITY_ID}"}' \
      https://${HOME_ASSISTANT_DOMAIN}/api/services/switch/turn_on
  else
    curl \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer ${HOME_ASSISTANT_ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -d '{"entity_id": "${ENTITY_ID}"}' \
      https://${HOME_ASSISTANT_DOMAIN}/api/services/switch/turn_off
  fi

  
  
  
  
      Label
      local.${USER}.on-air
      ProgramArguments
      
          ${PATH_TO_SCRIPT}
      
      WatchPaths
      
          /Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/zoom.us/data
      
  
  

  $ launchctl load ../Library/LaunchAgents/local.${USER}.on-air.plist

I would absolutely never do this in a public place, much less a crowded one.

This guy’s figured it out though.

https://evantravers.com/articles/2023/04/06/magsafe-tenting-...

For a little history on this design, see https://athinkingperson.com/2010/06/02/where-the-big-green-c...

That is: in preparation for a decrease in global demand for energy from fossil fuels, the industry is ramping up production of plastic to compensate so that it can maintain profitability (instead of, you know, just slowing down the extractive capitalism). Plastic production is set to triple over the next few decades as new facilities are built to support this transition.

(Source: Paraphrasing from my vague recollection of A Poison Like No Other by Matt Simon, and also articles like this one https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-production-pollution-foreca...)

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Anduin

I'm not an expert, but baking telemetry into the hardware (or at least the kind of telemetry that I assume Google is interested in) seems like skipping a few levels of abstraction, and thus more trouble than it's worth.

"I've leveraged my home automation system to limit my access to social media to 15 minutes at a time, no more than once an hour. Using the built-in adblock feature, my router black-holes DNS queries to social media by default—which I can now disable temporarily by pushing the button on any one of several smart outlets around my house."