“Nonviolent Communication” by Marshall Rosenberg.

The lessons for communication and non-reactivity will pay dividends in every aspect of your interpersonal relations. Work, friendships, romantic relationships, even dealing with customer disservice.

As a very young kid, I thought there was a very hungry monster that lived inside vacuum cleaners. The switch was just a lever to open a flap and expose the monster’s sucking hunger.

So… like running a blender in reverse? 😁

I see Robert Evans, I upvote. Really folks, Jobs was such a piece of shit that he got a 4-parter of coverage on Behind the Bastards. Highly suggested. https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=aEv08Zzunfc&si=xGHOjTXfizCplLDp

I see a lot of specific examples, but here is a good engineering guideline: do not skimp on physical interfaces. **Anywhere energy is changing form or if it touches your body, don’t skimp on those. **

For example

• tires
• bicycle saddle
• heaters/furnaces
• electrical inverters
• keyboard
• mouse
• engines
• shoes
• eyewear
• clothes (buy used if necessary, but always buy quality clothing)

Quality usually means more money, but sometimes one is able to find a high quality and low-cost version. In my experience though, trying to find the cheap version that works well means trying so many permutations; it would have been more economical to just get the more costly version in the first place.

We hoi polloi think in money numbers and what we can afford to purchase. For the Capital Class, it’s all about power. Money is just how they keep score.

I want to know who the hell downvoted Freddie.

I use a bar soda siphon.

According to Consumer Reports, Topo Chico consistently tested the highest for PFAS among carbonated waters. But they also said almost all store-bought carbonated waters tested positive for PFAS.

Our social media and blog are severely neglected, in large part because of surveillance and chokepoint capitalism (see: Cory Doctorow). But this would probably be the best entry point into our socials: https://youtube.com/@svcascadia

then we popped the stern tube during an engine test (40 years worth of copper corrosion)…

0_0 HFS! Glad you’re okay AND saved your necessarily minimal (because boat) belongings!

We live on an ocean-going sailboat. We make our own water and electricity. We have ~25 years of membranes, filters, and most parts. While we have the means to move around to cooler climes, going further northward means more severe storms and shorter working life of everything. So there’s that consideration.

Having the escape hatch of the boat does a lot to ease the anxiety.

Other coping mechanisms:

• fixing people’s bicycles for free and evangelizing micro-mobility
• monitoring and mapping marine health in maritime communities (kelp, fish counts, bottom conditions); yes this is “just” monitoring, but one measurement is worth 1000 opinions and hopefully helps to move the needle on getting everyone to pull together on environmental protections
• community education on aeroponics and micro-hydroponics
• community support on emergency preparedness

I’m sure I’m skipping over some of my other copium prescriptions, but those are the most salient.

Mashing the upvote for Shadow Tactics and Shadow Tactics:Aiko’s Choice. And agreed, their controller scheme is so spot on. Aiko’s Choice adds some deeply bittersweet context to the first game.

How do I subscribe to acoustic propagation facts?

Sailing, scuba diving, cooking a big meal for friends, having a lazy start morning sipping coffee with my partner.

Right there with ya. Oh, I tried so hard. Walking and junk collection simulators in a depressing, ugly setting. The humorous bits are way too infrequent to make up for the litany of misery.

Punch card stock makes amazing paper airplanes, both individually and laminated into larger stock.

You and me both! 😆 We continued to live together and were besties for another four years, and she would never talk about anything relationship-related, even as her next three relationships imploded.

Oh, right! I forgot about all of the LIDAR-equipped planes in maritime communities! Those are way more economical to fly than any sUAS. /s in case that wasn’t obvious.

In case you, or anyone else, were vaguely interested in learning:

-kelp extent mapping needs to be done in repeatable fashion, specifically at low tide; we can put up an sUAS any time

-the communities most in need of monitoring absolutely cannot afford to send planes up monthly

-many of the kelp beds in the PacNW are in restricted airspace; it is much easier to get an FAA clearance to perform low-altitude surveys using sUAS

-that restricted airspace I mentioned? Some of these kelp beds are on approach paths for the airspace. Even if a plane were the preferred choice for surveying, the planes are unable to fly in the pattern we need

-(drifting a touch off your point of LIDAR-equipped planes) satellite imagery with the required resolution is prohibitively expensive

-most construction projects wouldn’t use a plane for tasks such as volumetric or area analysis

Consumer drones are quickly becoming the preferred, economical means for kelp health analysis, especially for communities that can’t afford planes or purchasing satellite imagery.

This “lonely adult” uses drones for aerial mapping and survey. This Summer’s huge project is a workflow I developed to map the extent of PacNW bull kelp forests in order to provide year-over-year health metrics. Using sUAS for this is way more automated, economical, repeatable, and granular than using airplanes and satellites, therefore within reach of those communities monitoring kelp health.

DJI hits the sweet spot of capabilities, compatibility, and cost. Skydio (go USA!) has abandoned the consumer/enthusiast market that built their business. And even before they turned their back on the consumer market, Skydio couldn’t come close to DJI’s hardware. Additionally, Skydio, in true capitalist fashion, locked capabilities away behind software licenses, capabilities that are already built into the drone.

It’s important for countries to have domestic drone manufacturing in the current conditions. But the USA’s actions here smack of protecting companies that just can’t hang.