Notices by John Socks (john@socks.masto.host)

"Forty-two percent of debate watchers said Vance won the debate, while 41% thought Walz emerged as the winner. Seventeen percent called the debate a tie."

The thing that plagues us in politics is that people will often trust the person who seems most calmly confident.

They don't have the external knowledge, or confidence, to fact check thrm.

So Vance won on the economy, because he was confident about what he was saying, not because he was accurate. Or truthful.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-vp-debate-poll-2024/

As a side note on the whole jaywalking thing, I'll mention something else that I can't really understand.

I live in a hilly part of Los Angeles where people will walk for exercise. We have perfectly good sidewalks. There are people who won't use them. For some reason they prefer to walk outside the parked cars and next to traffic on what are really narrow streets.

The only thing I can think is that walking on sidewalks and then crossing streets, would take more attention on their part.

@murph @Dylan as a chemist I actually like the method that AAA used. Tailpipe emissions are going to be much more accurate than gas pumps, and certainly random gas pumps and conditions.

@murph I was wondering if someone would ask me this ;-)

It might be a weakness on my part, but I choose to believe the trip computers.

Partly because they are giving me numbers I like, and partly because I think the difference is probably small enough to ignore. Someone must be checking these, and I doubt they cheat more than 10%.

More on my particular fascination with MPG.

"According to fuelconomy.gov, the average new vehicle for the 2023 model year gets 28 miles per gallon (mpg)." A similar source said that the entire fleet as driven is still stubbornly at 26.5.

So it's funny that the Miata, even driven a little bit more like I stole it, is bringing up that average.

Oh wow. I was so happy that I got this 10-year-old Chromebook pixel up and running with Debian.

I maybe gave it a little bit too much work to do, building the Helix editor from source. It got a bit warm and the fan (which I've never heard) came on.

When I finish I look down and I have puffy battery syndrome. Yikes. I guess I drop this off at a fire station or something?

@murph I was actually rear-ended about a year ago because the guy behind me assumed that I would not stop for the pedestrian who was waiting at the four-way stop.

As I approached I saw the teenage runner just waiting waiting waiting for all the drivers that were rolling rolling rolling.

"'California Stop' Is Costing Californians Millions In Tickets"

More of this please. You may see on Mastodon commentary that right turn on red kills pedestrians. I don't believe that's true. I think it's blasting stop signs and those right turns that does it.

I have seen Teslas lunge across a four-way stop because they see me approaching and know I would have right of way. Never below 20mph.

https://jalopnik.com/california-stop-is-costing-californians-millions-in-tic-1851476211

Another safety advantage of stick shifts is that you have to pause long enough at a stop sign to put the car back in first gear.

@murph I would love for performers to benefit fully from streaming as well, but it's a tough nut to crack. I think most listening is still free and ad supported, which means it can be gamed by those who spin up fake listeners. The two solutions, no free streaming, or certified identity of listeners, are unacceptable to most.

@murph Right. We don't own them in the sense that we can exclude anyone else from using them or enjoying them.

When we buy a book, music, or movie, what we are really purchasing is ready access. Whether that's worthwhile depends on our consumption patterns. It's hard for me to watch most movies more than twice, which makes me a poor candidate for purchasing.

Is somebody with a multiple terabyte media library actually experiencing it?

“You see this goblet?” asks the master. “For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”

1/2

That's why we should not necessarily build a big ol' NAS to "own" content we did not write, act, sing, play, direct, or produce.

In what sense do we own it?

And in what sense will we no longer own it when it is gone?

2/2

"Senator Warren calls out Apple for shutting down Beeper’s ‘iMessage to Android’ solution"

That surprises me. I thought that Apple fans were the only ones paying attention or caring about this story (and that the actual market for such a thing among Android users was near zero).

I prefer open standards, and I would simply avoid messaging systems that are not open and (as much as possible) platform independent.

iMessage is what it is, and not open.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/10/senator-warren-calls-out-apple-for-shutting-down-beepers-imessage-to-android-solution/

They are covering this on CNBC business news now. I continue to be surprised by the interest.

Am I the outlier?