GoatOnPony's recent activity
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Comment on Scientists study thousands of giant space shades to cool Earth in ~space
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Comment on Wander Console: Discover the small web in ~tech
GoatOnPony (edited )LinkI loved stumbleupon when it was active and have a wander console up on my personal site (please let me know if you want to be added or add me to yours)! There's something really joyful in these...I loved stumbleupon when it was active and have a wander console up on my personal site (please let me know if you want to be added or add me to yours)! There's something really joyful in these mostly algorithm less but still slightly curated ways to find new things where you never know what you might come across.
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Comment on RIP Cybertruck. You were unloved, unwanted, and utterly absurd. in ~transport
GoatOnPony LinkThe cybertruck always felt a little too 'torment nexus' for me. It's one thing to pull some design language elements from popular culture genres, but the cybertruck reads as a love statement for...The cybertruck always felt a little too 'torment nexus' for me. It's one thing to pull some design language elements from popular culture genres, but the cybertruck reads as a love statement for cyberpunk, right down to its bullet proof glass windows. However much I might think cyberpunk looks cool or edgy, buying a $100k mass produced vehicle is feels way too into the 'I want to live in a cyberpunk world, and specifically think I'd be the one of the people on top'. Even if Elon Musk and Tesla were not involved with the truck, I think I'd still look askance at someone who purchased something like that.
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Comment on The American suburbs are better than you think in ~life
GoatOnPony (edited )LinkEdit: mea culpa, posted my comment after only reading the snippets and not the full article. The article is a pretty balanced take IMO I'll stick my neck out slightly and say that while suburbs...Edit: mea culpa, posted my comment after only reading the snippets and not the full article. The article is a pretty balanced take IMO
I'll stick my neck out slightly and say that while suburbs and extra space are fine to prefer, we don't do a good job pricing in the externalities of picking that option. The cost of living in suburbs should be higher relative to city living. Note I also think both should be less expensive than they are today. Urban areas are full of efficiencies of shared resources that suburbs forgo or spend more to accomplish less. It's frustrating that cities often end up paying more (in both tax dollars and things like traffic) as effective subsidies to the suburban lifestyle. Basically I don't particularly like an urban vs suburban framing as just a matter of preference and not also a matter of climate, environmental, and economic fairness
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
GoatOnPony LinkI've been working on what I'm calling 'flat meeting aids', a set of tools for running more egalitarian, ie. non hierarchical, meetings. The target audience would be stuff like union organizing...I've been working on what I'm calling 'flat meeting aids', a set of tools for running more egalitarian, ie. non hierarchical, meetings. The target audience would be stuff like union organizing meetings, anarchist groups, local political groups rather than the more common workplace meeting which almost always have a hierarchy in place. Basically things which make a meeting facilitator's life easier and potentially more impartial.
Some of the tools I'm prototyping now are:
- timers with notifications for when time is running low and accounting for going over time
- create a rotation of meeting participants
- means to vote on items and select volunteers
I'm also considering tools to help vote on agenda items (and enforce certain criteria for agenda items) and handling speaking time (nudges to yield after speaking x many times, better queues for speaking which let people indicate if they're bringing up a new topic or responding to someone else, etc). I'm open to suggestions if others have ideas :)
So far this is just a little bit of typescript code with the eventual plan of packaging it up into a standalone webapp using something like PeerJS and/or as plugins to existing meeting and note taking tools.
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Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
GoatOnPony LinkI finished up a worldbuilding game today where you create snippets from faux academic journals. The game has 64 lenses, everything from geology to transportation to friendship to queer identity...I finished up a worldbuilding game today where you create snippets from faux academic journals. The game has 64 lenses, everything from geology to transportation to friendship to queer identity which help ensure you write each snippet from a new perspective! I think it turned out pretty good and the play test outputs have been fun and interesting.
I put up a blog post with an example output and link to the itch store page
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Comment on French citizen's assembly being organised in anticipation of 2027 presidential election in ~society
GoatOnPony LinkRelated to this I quite liked the book Politics Without Politicians which discusses sortition/citizen assemblies generally and also the French efforts in particular (the author being an academic...Related to this I quite liked the book Politics Without Politicians which discusses sortition/citizen assemblies generally and also the French efforts in particular (the author being an academic who worked on two of them). It added a lot of 'soft' factors around why citizen assemblies are effective beyond the usual arguments for them. In particular it spends effort on describing how it gets the shy, an umbrella term for marginalized people, introverts, and politically disaffected, to engage and provide the kind of well rounded inputs missing from many policy decisions. Highly recommend the book for folks who want to see more in this space.
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Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
GoatOnPony LinkI've been doing the RPG a Day challenge for all of this month, using their provided prompts to create a new NPC each day. Most days I've also done a full piece of art for the character which I...I've been doing the RPG a Day challenge for all of this month, using their provided prompts to create a new NPC each day. Most days I've also done a full piece of art for the character which I think is giving me a lot more confidence as an artist! The NPCs are all intended to be part of one dungeon exploration company, the Deft Delvers, focusing on all of the support staff instead of the actual adventurers (think baggage handling or the accountant). If you want to see the posts they're all at https://stackofgoats.studio/tags/rpgaday/. If you don't want to click through each post and just wanna see the art then I have a gallery page of all my art: https://stackofgoats.studio/gallery
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Comment on Car break-ins drop in San Francisco as drone use increases in ~transport
GoatOnPony Link ParentSF, compared to other California cities, has lower violent crime rates and strict gun laws. I won't say that police have no need to fear for their safety, but I very much doubt that car jacking...SF, compared to other California cities, has lower violent crime rates and strict gun laws. I won't say that police have no need to fear for their safety, but I very much doubt that car jacking and car break ins involve much risk (especially on a relative basis than other crimes or cities). I don't buy that drones do anything measurable when it comes to reducing the risk to police. A cop somewhere is still going to have to be physically present to do the arrest.
If drones help with racial injustice, great! That's afaict not an argument that the police or this article are making so it wasn't something I was arguing against. It can absolutely be a factor in weighing the merits of the policy if you (or the police or some other third party) want to provide evidence for it having that effect. I for one don't think that, absent evidence to the contrary, drones make encounters between police and racial minorities happen any less often or with any less animus. Drone and other surveillance is perfectly capable of mistaking identities or misinterpreting events or being viewed through the same perspective police have when dealing with them in person. AFAIK no cops are stopping their normal activities in exchange for drone or surveillance, this stuff is just additive.
As fot the later part of your comment, my point is that the article posted here presents a downwards trend (present already before the drone policy changed, see my edit above) and quotes that imply drones are the cause. That is a very mild form of evidence being presented and we should require better of our decision makers if that's all they have. Better evidence might be available, but it's not from this article alone.
I don't dislike drones and additional surveillance for want of more evidence, I dislike them because they're easily co opted into the authoritatian regime we currently live in. There's mountains of actual hard evidence about misuse of flock, drones being used to surveil protests, or tracking people for a host of bad reasons. I think it's unwise to simply accept that maybe reducing car burglaries is good enough justification to allow more encroachment unto authoritarianism. There's a slim chance that I might if the evidence presented for their utility was very, very good - or at least I'd accept that this is a tradeoff that society broadly might be willing to make and instead I'd better spend my time tackling the issue from a different angle.
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Comment on Car break-ins drop in San Francisco as drone use increases in ~transport
GoatOnPony (edited )Link ParentThere's lots of evidence that could be presented, eg differences between different jurisdictions or comparing before and after of different policies/tools becoming available at a more granular...There's lots of evidence that could be presented, eg differences between different jurisdictions or comparing before and after of different policies/tools becoming available at a more granular timescale. Some analysis might also be talking to people perpetrating crime, people are generally less conniving than you expect (I'd missed the rapper quotes in the original article and I do count that as evidence of it working).
If we can't have some proof that one tool is better than another other than just an appeal to the (IMO) dubious authority of the police then I'd err on not giving them the tool - especially in the current environment.
Edit: I did a search and car break ins were already in decline with articles like this one (https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-car-break-in-data-18639763.php) coming out in February 2024, a whole month before Prop E enabled drone use (and which presumably would have taken some time to actually get used in earnest afterwards).
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Comment on Car break-ins drop in San Francisco as drone use increases in ~transport
GoatOnPony LinkI'm reserving judgement on the cause and effect of why property crime is down. I certainly won't take the police at their word that drones and surveillance measures and tough prosecution is the...I'm reserving judgement on the cause and effect of why property crime is down. I certainly won't take the police at their word that drones and surveillance measures and tough prosecution is the answer (so please fund more of those things so we don't have to get out of our police cruisers and don't try to elect any DA who might prosecute cops again!). I expect that those measures do have an impact, but I want something more than just the police saying so to gauge how much and if alternatives could have accomplished similar results or if the marginal effect is worth the societal costs. SF cops aren't that different, if different at all, from cops everywhere else in the US.
These issues also tend to get weighed with a priority structure of personal property > poverty > state overreach which feels short sighted and egoist. I get that it's mostly human nature but makes me a little grouchy regardless.
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Comment on Is there any interest in building a Tildes successor? in ~tildes
GoatOnPony Link ParentI made a comment in the mega thread about an idea I've had for a new social media site. The gist is to assign users into a random cohort upon joining where each cohort is designed to fluctuate...I made a comment in the mega thread about an idea I've had for a new social media site. The gist is to assign users into a random cohort upon joining where each cohort is designed to fluctuate around some fixed size and posting/commenting rate. When a cohort gets too large it gets graph partitioned into two. When a cohort gets too small another cohort adopts it. By default you only see content from your cohort and/or their content always appears first, but you could also have some optional ways to both boost especially good content to more site wide visibility and also ways to restrict posts to just be within your cohort.
I think smaller communities are better than larger ones but they're fragile, not able to buffer large ingrowth or exodus. The thrust of the idea is to try and give small communities a chance to weather those ups and downs by weathering them together.
Another more radical idea in this space could be asking the cohorts to do their own internal moderation and governance and reserving admins for only most egregious stuff. This would probably look like having a random jury from a cohort approve/disapprove flagged posts from a cohort member (although I can also see benefits to having a cohort jury approve/disapprove posts only from another cohort).
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Comment on How often are you eating plant based meals? in ~food
GoatOnPony LinkMy partner and I try to cook ourselves 6 days a week and eat out once a week. The home cooked meals are all vegetarian (sometimes we add goat cheese to hummus or make a fried egg sandwich) and...My partner and I try to cook ourselves 6 days a week and eat out once a week. The home cooked meals are all vegetarian (sometimes we add goat cheese to hummus or make a fried egg sandwich) and frequently vegan (rice/barley/couscous in rice cooker, vegetables + tofu in an air fryer). Eating out though all bets are off and we typically eat meat. I don't think I've bought meat from the grocery store in several years after we finally cut out deli meat.
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Comment on Any significant changes to Tildes are extremely unlikely in ~tildes.official
GoatOnPony Link ParentI've long had an idea for a social media site which would slowly partition itself as new users joined and also unpartitioned itself as users became inactive. Every user is part of some explicit or...I've long had an idea for a social media site which would slowly partition itself as new users joined and also unpartitioned itself as users became inactive. Every user is part of some explicit or implicit cohort that is attempting to maintain a specific size and rate of posts and comments. If implicit maybe just the ranking changes so that you tend to see your cohort content first before anything else. If explicit then cohorts could vote to reshard into smaller ones and some graph partitioning algorithm would shuffle users around. In implicit mode you could try different cohort sizes and see which ones actually work best. In an explicit sizing mode, communities get the final say on when big enough becomes too big.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
GoatOnPony LinkCurrently reading The Heart of the Nhaga by Lee Young-do, translated into English by Anton Hur. It's been good so far, lots of inventive worldbuilding and memorable characters. The plot hasn't yet...Currently reading The Heart of the Nhaga by Lee Young-do, translated into English by Anton Hur. It's been good so far, lots of inventive worldbuilding and memorable characters. The plot hasn't yet congealed into something cohesive since I've still early in the book but there's some promising hints and mysteries so far. I'm not sure how much I like the translation, but this is also one of the first translated books I've read. The sentence structure and word choice is off in ways which cause me to occasionally have to reread a sentence before it clicks. It's just not as fluid as I'd like or perhaps I'm not used to it yet.
The book I read before this one was The Language of Liars which... I found a little maddening. I wrote up a review on my website which I'll link to instead of typing it out here since the issues are all with the ending and involve spoilers.
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Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
GoatOnPony LinkI've been practicing my illustration and blogging skills for the last couple weeks. In particular I challenge myself to create some new tabletop RPG content every Monday based on a random...I've been practicing my illustration and blogging skills for the last couple weeks. In particular I challenge myself to create some new tabletop RPG content every Monday based on a random wikipedia article and then put a drawing up alongside it. The random wikipedia articles have been a lot of fun to see weird stuff and create an initial seed idea! My latest one from earlier this week: https://stackofgoats.studio/blog/random-inspiration-21/.
I also started up another weekly blog series trying to put down a bunch of sentence or two long worldbuilding bits around a theme. I've always been inspired by the "try to think of six impossible things before breakfast quote" by Lewis Carol. Here's my set of random worldbuilding ideas around bathing: https://stackofgoats.studio/blog/worldbuilding-scraps-3/
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Comment on Minute Cryptic in ~hobbies
GoatOnPony Link ParentOh wow, fantastic job on it! It's one of only like 3 web games I keep returning to solve while on short train rides :)Oh wow, fantastic job on it! It's one of only like 3 web games I keep returning to solve while on short train rides :)
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Comment on Minute Cryptic in ~hobbies
GoatOnPony LinkI've been enjoying parseword which has a nice UI to help explore the options by clicking on the words so you can see what operations they perform. I think it's a bit easier and approachable than...I've been enjoying parseword which has a nice UI to help explore the options by clicking on the words so you can see what operations they perform. I think it's a bit easier and approachable than other cryptid options but you do only get one a day.
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Comment on How funerals keep Africa poor in ~life
GoatOnPony Link ParentThanks for the reply. I don't think I particularly disagree with your comment except that we have different views of the intent and thesis of the article. As I said, an article with limited aims...Thanks for the reply. I don't think I particularly disagree with your comment except that we have different views of the intent and thesis of the article. As I said, an article with limited aims of presenting the specific exorbitant funeral costs as a predatory practice and a piece of general interest, totally fine to skip over the larger picture. Examining how a particular practice might produce ills in the society at large is good and can be done with less context. My claim is that that's not the article before us and that it's thesis and argument are not contained to the narrow scope of pricy funerals. It's making a significantly broader claim where other systemic factors are germane and relevant. If you don't think it's making those broader claims then I can see how my comments come across as superfluous.
And again, I've never said that you can't critique social practices or apply universal moral standards. I'm not a moral relativist. Post an article specifically about genital mutilation and I'll condemn the practice. Post an article that genital mutilation is the cause of infant mortality where it also vaguely implies that trans people shouldn't exist and I'll condemn the article though.
This article is the latter and not the former. It's particular critique is flawed in as such that it's used to argue a broader condemnation of kinship societies or posit either as the (not just any, but the) primary agent of poverty and vaguely imply that we should all just shut up about western societies being too individualistic. My critique of the article is limited to it taking that angle. If you don't see that angle being the primary one then I fear we can only ever talk past each other
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Comment on How funerals keep Africa poor in ~life
GoatOnPony Link ParentIt's not as explicit as it once was, but the continent is still to some extent exploited. Multinational corporations still own and extract much of Africa's mineral wealth. Industries reliant on...It's not as explicit as it once was, but the continent is still to some extent exploited. Multinational corporations still own and extract much of Africa's mineral wealth. Industries reliant on African cash crops share very little wealth back to the continent despite large profits in their home countries. Loans from the IMF come with requirements for privatization and austerity. Unequal trade agreements protect western industrial imports.
I think the advice is often framed as 'don't' which people take as an absolute when really 'reduce' should be an acceptable intermediate solution. Especially since infrastructure and culture and society need more time to adapt and some inclination to adapt incrementally. As long as adaptation is happening it's IMO easier to bend the pace to match the problem than trying to get some wholesale switch where you either solve everything or nothing. Thankfully all kilograms of CO2 are fungible and so every reduction does help.
You don't have to completely stop eating any meat. Try only eating meat when you go out or order chicken instead of beef/pork.
You can live car free in more places if sometimes you also rent a car. You can also own a car and just choose to walk, bike, or take public transit for some subset of trips. Or own an EV and accept that is also a compromise.
Take longer lasting international trips that happen less frequently. Don't fly short haul flights (ascent and descent are the most fuel inefficient parts of the flight) if a decent alternative exists.
Being good to the climate shouldn't mean becoming an ascetic, it should just mean cutting back and 'pricing in' the externalities of an action even if the market doesn't. At least that's my ethos about it. I don't own a car, but I rent and will take a Lyft/Waymo when I need to. I don't cook meat, but when I go out once a week to a restaurant I will. I take one 2-3 week trip each year and try to avoid flying otherwise. That feels like the right balance between doing my part and not feeling like I'm living some meager, pointless existence.