Links for the last couple of days. Things on clean energy, cults, and horrible, horrible Christmas music.
Clean energy (or the lack thereof)
SCE&G dedicates Otarre Solar Park
I’ve certainly passed this on I-77 near I-26. It’s about the size of a smallish cornfield — too big to be a garden, but not really a commercial field, either. I don’t know how much this project is a respectable investment into sustainable energy, and how much is greenwashing. Bear in mind this is the same company that just raised rates to build a nuclear plant that, despite being massively over-budget, will never be completed.
Ban Cars
I know, banning cars isn’t feasible for the US outside of bigger cities, and it also has potentially ableist implications. But seriously, we should still ban cars.
Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future | Grist
And this is why we’re doomed, honestly. More energy than is used by the entire country of Ireland is currently being used to calculate collectible numbers in the hope that they will be valuable (currently they are, but don’t expect to be able to cash out). And the energy used is increasing exponentially. This is basically how we end up with the Vile Offspring in Charlie Stross’s Accelerando.
Cults!
The GOP Has Become A Dangerous Cult
There’s basically no remaining connection between Republican policy and consensus reality.
Tech Bro Guru: Inside the Sedona Cult of Bentinho Massaro
This guy is more or less a baseline cult leader, in terms of what he teaches, and the way he takes advantage of his followers. What’s different, at least according to this article, is that he uses the same tactics for self-promotion as SV startups. And maybe A-B tests stuff on his core followers before rolling it out to the rest? But anyway, the main take-home is that supposed sophisticates are running the same broken wetware as backwoods snake handlers.
Why I Quit Guru Yoga - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
An agnostic Buddhist takes a look at the abusive dynamics enabled by the traditional teachings of Tibetan Buddhism.
And the other links
The ‘Redneck Revolt’ is recruiting working-class white people to destroy the very idea of white culture
Redneck Revolt and the John Brown Gun Club are doing good work.
ReactOS 0.4.7 released! | ReactOS Project
This is a Windows-compatible operating system, built mostly from the ground up (not on Linux). I’ve got like two Windows programs that I want to be able to run occasionally (I need Adobe Digital Editions to read library books (Thanks, Obama)). I’m going to see if I can install this in a VM and run them there.
Wondermark » Archive » #1120; The Modern Period
A like/fav is a minimal response to a social media post or comment. It says “I’ve seen this, but I don’t feel the need to reply”. And clearly you can do this in email, too.
The funniest part to me is that this is very similar to how Like/Dislike/Seen works in the ActivityPub distributed social media standard. A Like is another message sent to the server just like a reply.
Lindstrøm: Little Drummer Boy | CD review | Music | The Guardian
“Little Drummer Boy” is my least favorite piece of Christmas music (followed closely by “Do You See What I See”, and distantly by “Mary, Did You Know”). And someone has chosen, for some reason, to make a 45-minute version of it. 😱