Steve Mays @smays@mastodon.technology

"At a fundamental level, there aren’t separate “living things” and “nonliving things,” “things here on Earth” and “thinks up in the sky,” “matter” and “spirit.” There is just the basic stuff of reality, appearing to us in many different forms. […] We will ultimately understand the world as a single, unified reality, not caused or sustained or influenced by anything outside itself. That’s a big deal."

-- The Big Picture by Sean Carroll

#books
@SallyStrange

Cellblock where Pretty Boy Floyd served time. I love the picnic table.

"It's a nice day. Let's eat outside."

I'll go along with a wall if we can have guard towers every 200 feet.

"Where Orwell worried about the burning of books, Huxley argued that the greater risk would be citizen no longer wanting to read."

-- Zucked

As I read this book I kept thinking, the people who most need to read it are the least likely to do so. Is there a term for that?

"I'm a rhinestone rock star monster of a doll."

-- Bootzilla

Apple Music had the good sense to follow this with James Brown's I Got the Fellin'

Just started this book but can already feel the resonance.

Something as simple as leaving my phone in my office instead of the bedside table. Stay tuned.

http://calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/

#books

“In the 2012 documentary Crossfire Hurricane, Jagger stated that his influence for the song came from Baudelaire and from the Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita (which had just appeared in English translation in 1967). The book was given to him by Marianne Faithfull. [...] Rolling Stone magazine placed it at number 32 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathy_for_the_Devil

"Campaigns can buy a list of two hundred million voting-age Americans with fifteen hundred data points per person from a legitimate data broker for seventy-five thousand dollars."

-- Zucked

Based on the theory we never hear the bullet that kills us, there's no need to worry about the things we worry about.

It's almost laughable that the thing that destroys democracy is our addiction to social media and the bad players behind it. Not plagues or nukes or a fucked climate.

"Technology tends to reflect the values of the people who create them."

-- ibid

"Belonging is stronger than facts."

-- ibid
#books

"Facebook is the fourth most valuable company in America, despite being only fifteen years old, and its value stems from its mastery of surveillance and behavioral modification."

-- ibid

"Imagine a stew of unregulated capitalism, addictive technology, and authoritarian values, combined with Silicon Valley’s relentlessness and hubris, unleashed on billions of unsuspecting users."

-- Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe (Robert McNamee)

#books

"We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts."

-- Sam Harris

If I were the el presidente of Mexico I'd put a million folks on buses and take them to The Wall, position a man, woman or child shoulder to shoulder, looking through the (what do they call these?) slats. No yelling, just a silent protest. If the idea go legs, when someone got tired or hungry or had to go the bathroom... someone would replace them. Mexico might not be able to pull this off but I'll bet China could. How would you tweet that away?

You kids put those phones down and go outside and play!

My refrigerator circa 1975. Pretty much tells the story.

Avoid mixing myths whenever possible

We can't 'manufacture' peak moments but we *can* recognize them when they occur.

This photo reminds me there are dogs I would much prefer to have sitting on the next stool than many humans.

I'm not really a scooter kind of guy but this one has appeal.