constants and variables

I forget exactly how I came to learn of this site and I was inspired. eWaste is a growing concern and the current AI fuckery is driving up the cost of components. Arguably, we need more servers/services and are throwing out older generation tech because it's too slow or won't run the latest and greatest operating system, apps, or games. Worse yet, some people throw out old tech because it's no longer "useful". I see a lot of waste in perfectly servicable equipment in corners of office spaces doing nothing at all. What if we borrowed from this venture and put not only older laptops, but other devices like old Android TV boxes (as long as they have wired ethernet) to use as personal web servers, mail servers or other small low-resource services.

The only set backs I see is electricity costs and "waste" heat, as a bunch of older equipment might draw more power than a single better equipped server. Still, we can solar power these low draw devices, or hack a standard power supply to power a few laptops and use the generated heat to warm places with the right ducting. It may not be as efficient, but it will keep "perfectly usable" equipment out of landfills. Perhaps non-working hardware can be donated to hacker spaces so that the individual components can be used to manufacture something else. Or maybe… a small business harvesting connectors and components can be built that can help other pieces of equipment from going to disuse.

This story from The New York times comes to us via Kottke.

I was able to read it, and you may not because of a paywall. The page is beautiful in design and interactivity. The basic premise is that policy has driven carmakers from producing vehicles for the lower 40% of americans, though the same metric applies to us in Canada. I'm not seeing a new vehcile anywhere near affordability for me, and even used is our of my budget and I make a fair amount of money for my area. The article is worth reading/experiencing if you can.

In Kottke's comments, I see people holding onto their aging vehicles and really digging the lack of screens on their dashboards. I have one of my two dream vehicles, a Honda Element. This SUV was more expensive than it's counterpart the CR-V and aimed at my generation of adevnture seekers. I would not have been able to afford it even in the year it was made. I expect that this could cost upwards of $60,000 if made today.

I reflected on if the high cost of vehicles would encourage more people to use public transportation. With little reflection, I realize that cost-cutting public transport over decades resulted in lower service and higher costs for riders. The city where I live has reduced hours and routes for the city bus compared to my youth.

Maybe ride sharing is the answer. For myself, I endeavour to keep the Element on the road as long as possible. I need the versatility and space. I would like to convert it to Electric if possible. The technology exists and I am skilled and foolinsh enough to make the attempt.

I stumbled across a blog article a while ago that I wanted to share with my work about Fuck Off Contact pages. While I liked the low-res look and feel of the post, I did not realize that the entire site is amazing.

It's got that retro charm for people who grew up with ANSI terminals and low-res web experiences, (think 16 colour 640x480 pixels on a CRT). I saved up for a card that was capable of 256 colours to get a better web experience. ANYWAY, the site loads fast, looks great and really shows what you can do with a little know how. I'd love to emulate that for my personal site. I'm still learning though and have a focus/time issue that I'm still working through.

This is the web I want to get back to and I'm not the only one. I'll have some other links to share about that soon, I want to finish reading them myself first.

I saw this image before. The one associated with this post. My inner-child squealed, I was nostalgic for the tech of the time. I wanted to run a BBS back in the 90's, I could only dream to have one with this many nodes. Another thought that I had was about a modern version might be 4-5 lines each per single pentium-powered node with a POSIX multitasking OS or a modern eWaste PC running a Telnet powered BBS. With Discord doing it's fuckery, I have the thought I'd archive and discontinue "my" server and put up a IRC server. I wonder how hard it would be to convert my groups to follow suit. Somethign to consider.

I really want to stop talking about AI. I really want the bubble to pop.

Here is an article about how students are effectively being trained to write worse to not get flagged as AI generated. This is beyond ridiculous.

On sify.com we have article about humans needing to clean up AI slop. How quaint. If we need to clean up the slop, how is this worth it, especially since our next generation of humans is writing worse?

Thankfully Kagi is here to help us (for the time being) determine what is generated by AI and what isnt. The site seems to be geared towards kids, though I have the thought that everyone could benefit from it.