Renting (e.g. a movie) can be a good option to increase access and lower upfront costs. However, it should be illegal to offer a product or service exclusively as a lease to exploit customers or strip them of rights essential to intended use, preservation, or civic value. mek.fyi/posts/the-le...

It occurs to me how closely systems like ChatGPT approximate Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten -- essentially a shoebox of well labeled / organized notecards for synthesizing findings. Many workflows emerging to perform this novel synthesis.

An perspective I fear is becoming forgotten in the US today: The idea of investing in the American people -- public schools, libraries, transit -- in return for equity in an improved America. What can be more American than uplifting Americans and benefitting from the growth?

In politics, when a bill faces difficulty passing, one strategy is to bundle the controversial bill as a “rider” to piggyback on more popular bills, as a method of compromise. This can result in a large, sometimes confused, bills — called Omnibus bills — that are sometimes thousands of pages long.

It's an interesting thought experiment, how many dimensions and signals are not visible to the human eye. Imagine being able to switch out lens... www.earth.com/news/scienti...

Hi, I'm @mek.fyi and for 9 years I've run the @openlibrary.org at @archive.org, where 11M patrons world-wide rely on us to preserve society's library books, many which can't be accessed elsewhere. 🎲 Markets, politics, employment could change: I pledge to keep Aaron Swartz's Open Library OPEN 📖. Why?

First follower of @openlibrary.org!

More than 500,000 books have been removed from our lending library due to the publishers’ lawsuit, including more than 1,300 banned and challenged titles. 📚🕳️ Sign our open letter to the publishers urging them to restore access to these books. 📖✍️ #LetReadersRead 👉 blog.archive.org/2024/06/17/l...

fortune.com/2023/11/18/s... 😟

Yikes www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2023/10... Yes to a neutral net that both favors equitable access and consumer protection & privacy

Lots of mushrooms on our hike in the white mountains.

Made a chess set last week!

Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord, MA

But really, seeking investment

When you bump into your undergrad friend in the woods across the country

When you spontaneously bump into your Cambridge neighbor across the country at a techie event in the woods.

I think I now have enough photos over the last decade in SF to create an album dedicated to @danny.spesh.com

Been a while since the first two decentralized web summits. Fun to catch up on the latest news about Solid w/ Tim

Wonderful listening to the delsolquartet.com quartet play among redwoods and chirping birds.

A good one with @ant.bsky.social

Hi @bnewbold.bsky.team!

Did you hear about the excited historian that wanted to archive a rabbit?

Re: valuing engineering versus soft skills, I'm growing to appreciate that cultivating honesty, diplomacy, and trustworthiness is a "hard" Sisyphean endeavor requiring time, energy, & consistency. If one doesn't follow the practice, it's easy to discount the difficulty.

This overview covers a lot of ground and demystifies what's going on beneath the @archive.org court case. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/05/book-publishers-are-trying-to-destroy-public-e-book-access-in-order-to-increase-profits

What's a thing you wish you could spend more time learning/practicing for the purpose of enjoyment?

I'm @mek.fyi, that's satisfying.

Do you think as a way to avoid defaulting, China will offer deals to these countries to sell parts of their countries or allow chinese to build infrastructure with stacked profit share? https://fortune.com/2023/05/18/china-belt-road-loans-pakistan-sri-lanka-africa-collapse-economic-instability/amp/

I had left over hotpot ingredients and made hot pot for myself. too full/10 Tell me your strongest opinons, what ingredient must be in hotpot?

In the book "predictably irrational" the author conducts studies that find honest/moral behavior can be encouraged on tasks by priming participants to first contemplate a moral benchmark, like the 10 commandments. https://archive.org/details/predictablyirrat00arie/page/207/mode/1up

I just want to know what books people are reading right now.

Reading is fun

Reading "predictably irrational"; I found some of these studies/results surprising https://openlibrary.org/books/OL9952510M/Predictably_Irrational

Been creating some travel guides for myself and friends. Here's one based on my 5 months in Taiwan: tinyurl.com/fun-in-taiwan

I think one of the most challenging and paradoxical aspects of trying to be an advocate of free speech is the great responsibility of using speech wisely, oneself, and exercising sensitivity and discretion while still communicating effectively.

A small victory for libraries: https://blog.archive.org/2023/04/20/san-francisco-board-of-supervisors-unanimously-passes-resolution-in-support-of-digital-rights-for-libraries/

Oh hi, bluesky. ☁️