JJ MacLean

This was a great video - really helped me understand why our local options have been so scattershot and limited.
Great work as always!

This does not mean you should never use a credit card - on purchases that you're unsure of the seller (e.g. that thing off Etsy) use a CC.
Nor does it mean never shopping on Amazon or at Target. Some items can only be purchased there.

Prioritize your local community, but don't ruin yourself for it.

1. Move your checking and savings to a Credit Union
2. Change recurring payments to bank transfer or debit. Some Credit Unions will also send a physical check on a schedule for you.
3. Use cash, or debit when shopping locally.
4. Shop local for anything discretionary, even if they have to order it.

There is no such thing as an ethical billionaire, so keep your money local - it's better that your neighbor gets it so they can also (hopefully) spend it locally rather than it being siphoned off to private equity or some other BS 'financial instrument'.
Aside from 'don't buy on Amazon', here's more

It's beyond time to stop hosting professional conferences in TX, FL, or other anti-democratic states. There are plenty of better places to hold them where the majority of citizens aren't rooting for the fascists.

UX folks: do not, under any circumstances, change something clickable under my cursor. The number of times I’ve mis-clicked due to something new loading in is incalculable.

Note that this is an Opinion piece (should titled that way).

Inside you find all the good stuff - facts fabricated from thin air, strawman arguments, and the same tired refrain of ‘this complex issue is easy to solve if only there were less regulations.’

Has the rise of Webtoon helped or harmed the manga industry?

Sick of everything being Orwellian or Kafkaesque. I demand more Scarrylous situations, where animals drive vehicles and run small businesses.

Child of Omelas? That’s thinking too small. What if like eight billion people suffered so a few dozen guys could live lives so insane they convinced themselves it’s more likely they’re inside a computer simulation

If you run a website or blog, make sure you have an RSS feed. I've been trying to stop the endless scroll of Reddit by going directly to the source, but it's difficult if there's no way to easily see new content short of visiting every site individually. Make it easy and cut out the middleman!

Wow, outstanding!

Donating to Wikipedia is more important than ever, and it only takes a couple of minutes! donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?...

Painting of a shattered mirror reflecting a sunset in pale blue, purple and fiery yellow and orange.

Day 3 of #JanuArty is Shape

Another practice piece inspired by my love of stained glass and the photography of Bing Wright. 🧵👇🏼

#Art #Painting #AcrylicPainting

1/4 of a color pencil mandala on black paper. Center blue flower, green leaves, puff flowers and blue butterflies- work in progress

Day 3 #Januarty Shapes
I love the look of opaque colored pencil on black paper. When you add a touch of white everything just pops! (There’s a bit of acrylic marker on here too-) #wip #coloredpencil #doodleart #doodle

I'm putting together an end-of-year personal retrospective. I try each year and I'm always left wanting for some greater insight. I'm curious how others do it?
Is it structured or unstructured?
What are you including or NOT including?
And what do you do once you have it?

Your username is so apt in this case, lol. That's a good idea, great goal for '25!

I agree - It's refreshing to not be bombarded by toxicity like other sites.

#artAdventCalendar is so damn awesome. I'm super impressed by the creativity and skill on display.
Maybe I'll have something to contribute for next year's...

I'm tired of the lackluster performance of my work Dell laptop, so I'm adding another Win11 install on my main gaming rig for work, but I figure why stop there? Now queuing up Linux Mint and maybe NixOS?

Anyway, both books are FANTASTIC, and I can't recommend them enough!

I also happened to finish "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands" by @katebeaton.bsky.social this morning (in one sitting!) and I was struck by how... complicated her experiences were and what future Martian homesteaders would have in store for them if this occurs so close to home.

I just finished "A City on Mars" by Kelly and @zachweinersmith.bsky.social. I'd been a big fan of Zach's for a long time and the book was fantastic. Space colonization always struck me as seeming too easy the way certain folks talk about it, but I didn't appreciate the breadth of issues to overcome.

Whoa, that’s pretty cool. Does it expose more of the tree as the year goes on?

Hot take: I shouldn't have to pay a cloud/SaaS provider for a stream of security logs, and they should definitely not be behind a paywall to even see the logs. All this rent seeking for basic functionality is wild.

I'm thinking of buying a brighter headlamp to compete with the washout of light so I can still see the trail when it happens.

The electric cars are an interesting problem - I'm generally not directly on the road but they do they do tend to creep up and surprise me at road crossings a lot.

Running at night has to be the best time to run. Complete solitude and it’s moving meditation.

Aside from those horrible new car lights, doubly so for the ones that automatically turn on the high beams on dark roads.

Oof, not fun. I enjoy running in the rain and every year I forget about nipple chafing for a few outings then I remember why I have anti chafe sticks all over the house.

Depending on your local library you may have them available electronically (Hoopla for me). There are TONS. Holy moly. Start adding them to the TBR…

Stained glass of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek overlaying the federation insignia in a hexagon.

Rather than keep doomscrolling the news, I'll share this (I think) pretty cool stained glass piece I made. It was my second piece ever and my first design. Now need somewhere to hang it!
#stainedglass #art #trek

I can't help but feel like this is, deep down, the result of a deep lack of empathy for others. How do we both be empathetic and not lose our society to those pandering to people's spiteful nature?