Reach for the Stars @antares@social.cleverlibre.org

Since I’m new to JavaScript, I wrote:

𝚒𝚏 (𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔) { 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔(); }

…like an idiot. Then, I realized I should be adapting to JavaScript culture and make it inscrutable, so I re-wrote the line to:

𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 && 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔();

But I suspected there was something even more nightmarish, and sure enough, of course. This is how _real_ JavaScript developers do it:

𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔?.();

And by “real JavaScript developers,” I mean “monsters”.

I love my smart TV. I love the way it takes a long time to boot up because it's trying to refresh the advertisements on the home screen. I delight in the way it randomly restarts because it's downloaded an update without asking me, each of which makes the TV slower and slower with every subsequent install. I adore the way it buries the apps that I want to use, and that I use without fail every single time, below the apps that it's being paid to promote and which I have never touched in my life and would never use without the cold metal of a glock pressed hard against my sweating temple. I am infinitely thrilled by the way the interface lags constantly, due to the need to have one thousand unnecessary animations rendered on hardware ripped wholesale from a ten year old phone. I feel myself borne aloft on wings of pure joy when I am notified that my data will be collected and analysed to determine my useage patterns. Even now I am writing this from a field of beautiful flowers and soft luscious grass as I lie and look up happily at the bright blue sky, smiling happily to know that this is the future of technology

Good rule of thumb: When proposing a law, always consider what might happen if the worst possible person got into power.

Speech restrictions are an excellent example of that. When we set the precedent that the government should be in the business of censoring speech, then we run the risk that terrible people will use those laws against us. #freespeech

That's not to say that we can't engage in content moderation ourselves. There's NO reason we cannot, or should not, protect our own spaces from terrible speech. In your home, your instance, or your business, you can and should set the rules of participation. No one is owed a platform, much less YOUR platform. Just.., try to remember what happens when we start using the threat of violent government intervention to censor speech.

@petersuber @chronicle @academicchatter

I’ve made a good living over the years ($100+) without having a college degree. I learned “on the job” and have been able to work my way into incredible and well paying employment. A degree shouldn’t mean a person is worth more $. How one does their job should be the reason for making a higher income.

I see we have some very predictable #democrats starting the "its your fault if we lose" attacks on independents and third party voters.

Protips: Field better candidates. Stop working with Republicans to keep us off of the ballots and deny us a voice at the debates. If you want our support, it's time you offered us the same.

A 25-year science wager has come to an end. In 1998, neuroscientist Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers that the mechanism by which the brain’s neurons produce consciousness would be discovered by 2023. Both scientists agreed publicly on 23 June, at the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) annual meeting in New York City, that it is still an ongoing quest — and declared Chalmers the winner.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02120-8?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=HariTulsidas%2Fmagazine%2FMind+and+Matter

No.

Any of these insider trading, safety net deleting, power hoarding, environment destroying, dinosaurs could have mentored the next crop of lawmakers and stepped aside.

Instead, we are left with a bunch of drooling, multi millionaire ancient-ones forcing us to vote for the lesser of two evils

Absolutely disgusted that #biden still calls #mitchmcconnell his friend. THIS is why when people say "oh but Biden is better now, he loves the #lgbtqia community and supports #womensrights " I have a hard time taking them seriously.

The president calling McConnell's bigoted, hateful stances "political disagreements" is insulting, appalling, and suggests that behind the scenes Biden has not changed as much as his supporters believe he has.

Sorry, but if my 'friend' wanted to kill people for daring to love someone, or wanted to imprison them for owning their own bodies... we would no longer be friends.

THIS is the guy you want me to vote for?

Flagship Liverpool hydrogen buses out of action due to 'problems with global H2 supply' #ev #hydrogen
Green hydrogen is unaffected by this issue, but it highlights how much hydrogen is reliant on fossil fuels. Grey hydrogen is “more polluting wheel to well than diesel”
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/flagship-liverpool-hydrogen-buses-out-of-action-due-to-problems-with-global-h2-supply/2-1-1508528

@icanbob

He actually said the "least expensive" way to produce hydrogen is to crack the hydrogen atoms off hydrocarbons, and he's right. SMR is the cheapest, liberating all the H2 from the CH4 and all the H2 from the water.

Personally I don't care for hydrogen. Direct renewable electricity generation, its storage, use in domestic heating and transport is what I find exciting and enjoy reading about. Hydrogen is a distraction.

@antares

This market analysis makes sense to me. #Hydrogen is only a viable option for transport whenever batteries are technically not feasible. The cost of operating and maintaining #FCEV technology almost always outweighs the benefits – and there’s no reason to believe that scaling up will fundamentally change the outcome
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/hydrogen-will-almost-always-lose-out-to-battery-electric-in-german-rail-transport-train-manufacturer/2-1-1504868

#Statistics

#Democrats asking me to vote for the candidate feels a lot like going to lunch with that one friend who is always "forgetting her purse" when we go to lunch.

After decades upon decades of "we'll get you next time," the promises to help third parties / independents with access if we just help them just ONE more time ring laughably false.

So my #democrat allies, are you going to finally step up or are you selling the same nonsense again?

(Don't care what you think, #republicans, you've permanently lost your right to talk to me about anything outside of how you're going to shut down your party and spend the rest of your life making amends.)

Headphone jack removal in mobile devices is still one of the worst tech decision for consumers

this is what happens when you make a typed language without some form of generics 😆