Lyra (🎼, 🦄) & Bon-Bon (🅱️, 🍬) @lyrabon@equestria.social

Credits : Arifproject
Source : http://arifproject.deviantart.com/art/Lyra-Heartstrings-smirk-vector-640822810
DB : https://derpibooru.org/images/1276105
#MLP #MLPFiM #Brony https://t.co/C8I9LLwgiA

@baslow

"we can, collectively, decide to use them better. "

I guess the question is *how exactly* do "we" "collectively" "decide" something?

By what mechanism does a group establish

a) who is "we" and who isn't "we"

b) what is to be decided and what isn't to be decided

c) what the decision was, and that the decision made did in fact reflect the desires of the entire "we" in question

d) how to reflect back on whether the decision, even if desired by the group, was in fact the right one

There were several ways that second vision failed; it's not totally wrong in itself, I think, but it missed how a) unhappy and cruel people can gravitate together by free choice, making each other more cruel (ie 4chan), b) freedom of association can be weaponised by infrastructure capitalists as a means of surveillance, control and lock-in (Amazon, Facebook), and c) freedom of choice is never absolute, and people can put up with a lot of cruelty in order to find a tiny quantum of kindness

@fuchsiashock
from what I've seen, most fictional changing-the-past-makes-domino-effect events:
- are unintended
- change things in unexpected, hard to predict ways
- change things for worse more ofthen than for better
- made by someone who has seen the alternative timeline knows what has changed

and for the rare case of someone intentionally and precisely changing the past with predictable results, they have the benefit of hindsight

There are two kinds of online sellers:

"I need to get this stuff out of my house, so it's $5 or best offer"

"This is out-of-print / no-longer-manufactured, so Sotheby's will be handling the transaction."

And he worried that, instead of getting their medical advice from qualified professionals, people were getting it from their friends and neighbors -- in other words, idiots.

(A complaint that has special resonance in these years of COVID.)

For one thing, he calls out one particular reason why tobacco smoking had become popular: people saw other people doing it, and rushed to do it themselves so as to fit in.

King James was worried about peer pressure.

@Stoori My personal opinion: they should default to being permanent (at least typically; specific communities could choose differently). This is because the discussion is valuable not just to people exchanging comments, but also the wider audience. It's also often valuable long after the fact - as a repository of knowledge, important reference for further development, or even for historical study of a community many years later.

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/979/.

howdy neigh-bour!

#ponyta #pokemon #mastoart

Day suggestions for leaving Twitter together on the same day next week.

Multiple choice, because you can choose what is best for you. Starting from a week from today.

3 day vote. Turn on notifications for poll results if you want to see the results afterwards.

🎾 safety
🦄 first

LIfe's too short to listen to inferior music.

This is one of the most spectacular sunsets I ever saw while working at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile.

The Atacama Desert is extremely dry, but clouds do show up sometimes. That day there were several dark clouds releasing very light rain that vaporised before reaching the ground. These wispy veils (called "virga") were lit by the golden sunset light, creating a lovely contrast with the blue sky above.

#astronomy #astrophotography

@fribbledom Me when I approach a new piece of software:

Written in Rust? ✅

Me when I approach an immoral collection of code:

Written in Python, C, C++, Lua, Haskell, Ruby, JS, PHP, Java, Perl? ✅

(/s)

Good day for a few friendly reminders:

1. Putting topics behind a content warning helps people manage their own stress.

2. Putting uspol in the CW, or #uspol in the text, helps non-US users filter out posts that aren't relevant to them.

3. Setting post visibility to Unlisted or Followers Only can help keep some Home timelines on-topic.

4. Roughly 200,000 of us have been here less than a week, and they're acclimating to a new set of conventions, so let's try to stay constructive.

I like this quote from Steve Shives:

"You know what the best kind of fan service is? When they make a good show."

And. And. And. And. And.

Can only play one session of Solitaire at a time on your puny computer?

There's an easy fix, use a NeXTstation and emulate a Windows PC and a Mac at the same time. #ThrowbackThursday #retrocomputing