Eschew algorithms. Ban billionaires.
Support writers and musicians.
Vermont.
@cory Yeah, when they returned to high school, 9th & 11th grade:
1. I advised them to accept the Chromebooks, rather than use their own (macOS) laptops, and never do anything personal on the school computers.
2. Youngest was baffled by kids around him playing games, watching YouTube, etc, in the middle of class.
At least this year there's a no smartphones policy.
@cory When my kid was 8, I dreaded, and objected to, the introduction of Google Apps into schools, knowing we'd just keep normalizing more and more big/surveillance tech.
Then I homeschooled them for 6+ years.
@marcamos I offered a reasonable remedy, they couldn’t deviate from the script. We’re refreshing UPS URLs.
@marcamos I see the gold cartridge there. I got the set with the gun + Duck Hunt and R.O.B. + Gyroscope for Christmas that year and then my grandmother showed up with Zelda. Got Ice Hockey another year too.
We opened a DOA Switch 2 Christmas morning. To say I’m displeased with Nintendo this week is putting it mildly.
@marcamos Happy birthday!
RE: https://mstdn.social/@aworkinglibrary/115577764911445062
“I must be vigilant towards a screen, always on alert, suspicious.” 💯
Finished reading The Nineties: A Book, by Chuck Klosterman.
“No stories were viral. No celebrity was trending. The world was still big. The country was still vast. You could just be a little person, with your own little life and your own little thoughts. You didn’t have to have an opinion, and nobody cared if you did or did not. You could be alone on purpose, even in a crowd.”
“All my misgivings about AI really are to do with the fact that it’s owned by a group of people that I don’t trust at all. I don’t trust their taste, I don’t trust their morals, and I don’t trust their politics, and that’s a problem for me — that the whole technology is in the hands of the wrong people.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LneiTaz2QoM
Brian Eno, via @inevernu / Sentiers
Both my kids got to attend the GIV Arts Institute.
“After a decade of steady support, recipients at the Governor’s Institute were stunned the National Endowment for the Arts rescinded $30,000 that supports its immersive two-week summer arts program. The rollback has caused chaos as officials scramble to find alternate funding, Binginot said.”
https://vtdigger.org/2025/05/09/vermont-organizations-are-reeling-from-federal-rollbacks-to-arts-and-humanities-funding/
“The shortcuts we have today seem useful, in the sense they can get you closer to a finished product with seemingly less work than before. They have their uses. But they are also missing an undervalued emotional quality and, at the heart of it, curiosity.”
https://pxlnv.com/linklog/minimum-viable-curiosity/
@fastmail It’s awful. I’ve used this product for over a decade. This refresh is nothing but solutions in search of problems. Problems I didn’t have.
“America already has all the technology it needs to build a draconian surveillance society…Booting out the bureaucrats in favor of technologists may look to some like liberation from mediocrity, even if it may lead to repression.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/04/american-panopticon/682616/
“Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.”
– Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
https://citizenbooks.net/books/9780804190114/on-tyranny-timothy-snyder
Tomorrow’s Indie Bookstore Day. Visiting your local bookstore and buying something is good for you and good for your local economy. If you’re not out tomorrow or don’t have a nearby option, find the nearest on https://bookshop.org and place an order there.
Finished reading: 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s by Rob Harvilla 📚 A fun, nostalgic romp through the 90s. https://citizenbooks.net/books/9781538759479/60-songs-that-explain-the-90s-rob-harvilla
Finished reading: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder 📚 https://citizenbooks.net/books/9780804190114/on-tyranny-timothy-snyder
Looking forward to this one from @TheWarOnCars Life After Cars by Sarah Goodyear, Doug Gordon, Aaron Naparstek 📚 https://citizenbooks.net/books/9780593850725/life-after-cars-doug-gordon-sarah-goodyear-aaron-naparstek
