Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Was thinking i could maybe also just wire that up to sense the voltage in one of the batteries and to run a relay off that.

Running stuff at lower voltage from a battery in a larger voltage battery bank is something i try to avoid. In this case it feels like it shouldnt be so bad. Its a low draw, the system is only running up in summer months and should regularly be getting a good charge.

Anyone got any thoughts?

#electronics #offgrid #solar

Helping out with some offgrid power stuff on a community farm.

They have a 1kw 72v solar irrigation pump and controller which is designed to run without batteries. It runs when theres enough sun to start the motor.

They attempted to upgrade the system with six nice new 12v lead acid batteries and a 72v charge controller which worked OK for a bit until the low voltage cutout malfunctioned and the batteries got hammered so hard they died.

continued...
#electronics #offgrid #solar

The thing about Twitter is that it really lacks a lot of the features you'd expect from a true Mastodon replacement.

For example, there's no way to edit your toots (which they, confusingly call "tweets"—let's face it, it's a bit of a silly name that's difficult to take seriously).

"Tweets" can't be covered by a content warning. There's no way to let the poster know you like their tweet without also sharing it, and no bookmark feature.

There's no way to set up your own instance, and you're basically stuck on a single instance of Twitter. That means there's no community moderators you can reach out to to quickly resolve issues. Also, you can't de-federate instances with a lot of problematic content.

It also doesn't Integrate with other fediverse platforms, and I couldn't find the option to turn the ads off.

Really, Twitter has made a good start, but it will need to add a lot of additional features before it gets to the point where it becomes a true Mastodon replacement for most users.

#twitter #mastodon #twittermigration

I don't begrudge any writer who wants to keep writing for Substack. Make money however you can do it! But I am tired of people saying that there is nothing scammy or problematic about a publication that hides its financials, hides who it is paying, and then says that we should just trust that it is a neutral platform with no agenda. And on top of that, they now refuse to have any kind of coherent moderation policy.

My friend @afeinman (author of _Duplicate_ , _We Were Gods_, and _Philadelphia Story: Roughskin Magic_) is trying to figure out how to connect with readers of his in-development fiction stories.

Does anyone have words of wisdom on how to most effectively share fiction on Mastodon?

https://social.coop/@afeinman@wandering.shop/110199884213890632

I worked in a nursing home about 18 years ago, and even then, when they had no problem filling positions, the place was still "chronically understaffed." On the weekends, some residents had unanswered call lights on for half an hour or more before someone could check on them. The status quo ante was already bad, now it's even worse. 😡

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2023/04/13/the-red-lights-are-flashing-in-our-health-care-system-00092004

It's incredibly disappointing to see people I respect even thinking about replacing Twitter with another centralized company funded by right-wing tech bros.

Audience is the only thing that matters, I guess.

It's not complicated: Clarence Thomas, who shits all over the notion of "Equal Justice Under Law" every time he puts on his robes, took undisclosed bribes from the billionaire whose right-wing policies he's been championing through the court for decades. #SCOTUS #crime #GOP https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-real-estate-scotus

The government *always* exaggerates claims of national security "damage" when something leaks. Always.

It's sad so many news outlets who know better have been uncritically repeating this sky-is-falling rhetoric.

https://theintercept.com/2023/04/13/pentagon-classified-documents-leak/

Join us on May 2nd for a conversation about worker-consumer #multistakeholder #coops.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/owning-together-worker-consumer-co-ops-in-conversation-registration-615930553867

Medical crowdfunders for Britons surge amid record NHS waiting lists - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/13/medical-crowdfunders-for-britons-surge-amid-record-nhs-waiting-lists-gofundme just what the tories want: destroy #NHS, drive people to private

‘I’m all for climate change’: Axel Springer CEO faces heat over leaked messages - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/13/axel-springer-ceo-mathias-dopfner-leaked-messages-reported what a vile and stupid individual...

Watching my post (which never mentioned Steve Jobs) spread and mutate into straight disinformation, entirely via Google News search alerts for my name, has been *fascinating*.

I wonder how many tens/hundreds/thousands of $billions Microsoft has received in 'royalties' (another name for coercive junk-software-patent extortion protection rackets)? Last I heard, they were getting about USD15 per handset manufactured by every Android OEM.

Here is a must-read post from children's author Maggie Tokuda-Hall on how Scholastic offered to publish her book — all she had to do was remove all mention of racism.

Sure, they're banning books in Tennessee and Texas. But it's not just the books that get published and then banned from the library. It's all the books that don't get published in the first place.

Those banning books know publishers like Scholastic pull this cowardly bullshit. It's their game plan.

https://www.prettyokmaggie.com/blog/2023/4/11/scholastic-and-a-faustian-bargain

Given all hype about #5G I wrote an explanation that (I hope) doesn't require getting into the technical weeds to see past the BS.
https://rmf.vc/5GHype

A tragedy catches our attention, we point to statistics to show it's an example of a distressingly common problem, and we propose laws to address the issue. Except the event is rarely representative of the larger problem, and so these policy changes won't help much with the issues reflected in the statistics. Instead, we should combine the anger and passion the tragedy evokes with a deeper interpretation of the statistics to identify what changes we most need. https://www.jefftk.com/p/outrage-and-statistics-into-policy

@waldoj @Npars01 @anildash I think part of the problem is thinking of it as "Mastodon" — you don't need a Mastodon server for announcements, you can bolt basic, one-way ActivityPub onto any simple server stack for a fraction of the price. That's enough for people to get updates on their Mastodon feed, wouldn't need any moderation, and there'd be very little point in even the most idealist instances defederating from a glorified RSS feed.

There are lots of nice, kind people at Microsoft (and Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon) - I have friends who work there. But what they're working towards is *all bad*. They work within a largely ethics-free machine (they just laid off their entire 'ethics team' as they were pointless): an autocracy ready to do anything to maximise shareholder value. They are not making the world better (nor will they 'improve it from within'). Their vision is clouded by their association & paycheque.

*chefkiss*