cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/25441188

If God had wanted us to have nearly unlimited clean energy, He would have placed a fusion reactor into the sky.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42258319

Eager to discover new music

Just learned about these, weird

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/technology/p/1678271/chatgpt-gave-teen-advice-to-get-higher-on-drugs-until-he-died-futurism

ChatGPT Gave Teen Advice to Get Higher on Drugs Until He Died | Futurism

Looking for a small, light, durable USB drive for EDC. What are you using? Bonus points for USB C and A connections. Thanks!

Sorry for the formatting, I had to cobble this together myself from the Libby app.

More:

I’ll include a brief note for some…

• Record of a Spaceborn Few — I love her style and characters
• Down Among the Sticks and Bones — a fun fantasy romp, would be great to read aloud with someone
• The Red — I read something like 7 books by Linda Nagata this year! Great suggestion from a friend. This one was action-packed and techy, with plenty of dilemmas along the way.
• The Gutenberg Parenthesis — such an interesting non-fiction read. I learned a lot and it gave me much to consider regarding books, culture, and power. Recommended for the history enjoyers.
• Polostan — Neal Stephenson always makes me learn something in his books. This time I learned about the Wobblies and Communism in America. Also a bit of fun historical fiction.
• The Bohr Maker — This series is futuristic and deals with concepts similar to those in Snow Crash, namely, religions as neurotransmitters and molecules. Interesting somewhat-biopunk read.
• Kindred — I was not expecting this! Octavia Butler’s writing really slapped me across the face with history by exploring what it would be like to be a black person sent back in time.
• Oath of Fealty — A friend of a friend recommended this as an example of an “Arcology” book, essentially, dealing with living in megastructures. A bit fantastic for me (in a bad way) in that I couldn’t fully buy in.
• Aurora — What if the spaceship itself was a character in an interstellar generational-ship story? KSR does a nice job exploring humanity here, I enjoyed it.
• Zodiac — Yeah, I’m a Neal Stephenson enjoyer, and I enjoyed this one too! The story made me appreciate Boston (abstractly) and want to ride on a boat.
• Edges — I read the 4 books in this series and enjoyed them all. Some more spacefaring sci-fi with plenty of interesting challenges to surmount. Worth a look if that sounds good to you!
• Swamp Story — I read a couple books by Dave Barry on a whim this year, and I prefer his fiction to his humor/travel writing. A story of some lowlives in the Florida everglades, a bit slapstick at times, but overall enjoyable.
• Party Discipline — I’m a simple person: I see a new Cory Doctorow book, I read it! Good lessons about OPSEC for radicals and a nice tie-in to the Walkaway universe. Recommended.
• The Stainless Steel Rat — Read this short one after reading about it on Discord, I think? Writing style felt a bit dated, but it was a short read full of English humor in a sci-fi, mystery, cops and robbers type of plot.
• The Difference Engine — Fairly interesting read, especially as I’ve become more interested in Victorian culture. “What if Lord Byron built the Difference Engine?” I’m looking forward to reading more William Gibson this year.
• Rocannon’s World — Not sure if I finished this whole trilogy, but the first book was a good read. Sort of a fantasy take on sci-fi. I find Ursula K Le Guin to be a very interesting author usually and this was no disappointment.
• Fashion Climbing — I learned about Bill Cunningham aka William J from a fashion blog this year so decided to read his memoir on a whim. It was unexpectedly great! If you like fashion or want to read about being a young person in 1950s-1960s New York City, you could do a lot worse. He’s an icon and the book was quite a romp!

Phew! What a year! I’m missing some but my pinkies are getting tired of typing so this will have to do for now. If you made it this far, what book would you recommend I read next? I’m interested in a lot, as you can see, so try me!

cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/37485635

Mamdani Announces Full McGuinness Road Diet, Finishing a Job Halted by Adams

Mayor Mamdani chose the third full day of his tenure to announce that he will complete the full safety redesign of deadly McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint — a project that was created under Mayor Bill de Blasio, but watered down by Mayor Adams in a corruption scandal.

By reviving the originally proposed DOT plan, Mamdani said McGuinness Boulevard would be narrowed to one travel lane in each direction between the Pulaski Bridge and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to accommodate a parking-protected bike lane. Currently, only the southern portion of the stretch enjoys the benefits of a road diet; north of Calyer Street, the Adams administration maintained two car lanes in either direction of the dangerous stretch.

"The city committed to a redesign of McGuinness Boulevard ... to deliver the safety and improvements that residents had been asking for until the prior administration bowed to big money interests, leaving the project incomplete and Greenpointers still at risk. Today, however, there is a new mayor in City Hall," he said, evoking the "ax" swung by Robert Moses to widen a then-residential street into the McGuinness Boulevard highway we know today.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41073036

I fucking ♥️ industrial society and its consequences

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40405763