John

Banning VPNs sets a dangerous precedent.

It gives governments and corporations more power to decide when and how we can practice free speech, while eroding privacy and limiting access to information.

Nice to see you as well!

Where do you exhaust the fumes to?

Signal Protocol and Post-Quantum Ratchets We are excited to announce a significant advancement in the security of the Signal Protocol: the introduction of the Sparse Post Quantum Ratchet (SPQR). This new ratchet enhances the Signal Protocol’s...

signal.org/blog/spqr/

📣THREAD: It’s surprising to me that so many people were surprised to learn that Signal runs partly on AWS (something we can do because we use encryption to make sure no one but you–not AWS, not Signal, not anyone–can access your comms).

It’s also concerning. 1/

Can we have all of the campaign finance data go into the OCPF database instead of being put online as scanned PDF forms on city websites?

Are local elections really so expensive? Most candidates I see in our part of the Commonwealth are spending a few $k on the race.

Lol, nope.

California made history in 2025. 🌞⚡ Solar is now the state’s #1 electricity source, overtaking gas (83.1 vs 81.6 TWh). In under a decade, solar surged from marginal to dominant. Big kudos to California—proof the clean energy future is not capacity, it’s generation. More to come! #EnergyTransition

Lovely time today at the Cambridge Science Festival! Thanks to the #MITMuseum, the sponsors and volunteers for organizing the event today!

Did RFK just take away your cancer treatment? mRNA promised to help turn cancer from a death sentence into a manageable condition.

MRNA-based treatments are one of the most exciting things which have happened in my lifetime. We need to keep moving forward on biotech.

www.noahpinion.blog/p/did-rfk-ju...

That Halloween ice storm was unbelievable in how it took out half the trees in New England. Utilities have been a lot more diligent about trimming since then.

Minimize information gathering and information stored in state databases, regulate information collected and stored by private companies including location information and communication metadata.

It’s a hard problem. One possible solution would be a sort of ID which can attest >18 or <18 without revealing any other information.

Our kids aren’t at the social media stage yet, and we’ve kept their footprint there to almost zero. Hopefully we can keep it this way for some time longer.

At graph showing the energy usage for a heat pump washer / dryer combination unit. The total energy used over the cycle is 893 Wh.

Just put a GE heat pump washer / dryer combo in my house, and it’s blowing me away with how energy efficient it is. On the loads I’ve run so far, it’s used around 1kWh for washing and drying. The old units used around 8kWh for the same load.

#electrifyallthethings

Working with the UK Government to Protect Children Online - Bluesky Part of Bluesky’s mission to create a more open and decentralized social web is helping users feel safe and in control of their experience. We always try to balance safety with privacy, and free expre...

Disappointed that @bsky.app has capitulated to the UK age verification laws -- age verification = identity verification and the end of pseudonymous speech.

bsky.social/about/blog/0...

Save the web, freely | wallabag: a self hostable application for saving web pages

Just setup wallabag as my @mozilla.org Pocket replacement. Sad to see that service is going away, but looking forward to self-hosting another service!

wallabag.org

Achievement Unlocked: Finished the Costco package of asparagus before it rotted.

The real alpha move is to bite into an onion.

AI therapy is a surveillance machine in a police state Big Tech wants you to share your private thoughts with chatbots — while backing a government with contempt for privacy.

I cannot emphasize this enough: Please do not use AI tools as therapy. Not only is it not a good replacement for actual therapy, but your chat logs could be shared with the government, and I don't think you need a reminder that especially right now in the US, that could put you in danger.

Ending production Sadly, the current business climate in America has become so unpredictable for small businesses that I’ve decided to stop making IoTaWatt units. My suppliers have put me on notice that they reserve th...

Really bummed that the Iotawatt won't be produced locally any longer. This is one of the most useful devices we have in our house.

The device was made in the US out of globally sourced material, and was made uneconomic by the tariffs.

community.iotawatt.com/t/ending-pro...

. . . It was, for example, a running joke at the Court that outsiders frequently mistook Souter and Breyer for each other. No one could really understand why this happened, because the two bore little resemblance. One day when Souter was making his usual solo drive from Washington to New Hampshire, he stopped for lunch in Massachusetts. A stranger and his wife came up to him and asked, "Aren't you on the Supreme Court?" Souter said he was. "You're Justice Breyer, right?" said the man. Rather than embarrass the fellow, Souter simply nodded and exchanged pleasantries, until he was asked an unexpected question. "Justice Breyer, what's the best thing about being on the Supreme Court?" The justice thought for a while, then said, "Well, I'd have to say it's the privilege of serving with David Souter."

From Jeffrey Toobin's 2008 book THE NINE, this remains the greatest Justice Souter anecdote I can possibly share. RIP.

More data supporting the need to restrict vehicle sizes. Car bloat is killing people, plain and simple.

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

I knew the U.S. higher education system was a massive draw for foreigners, but I did not know the U.S. sold more educational services to the rest of the world than it did natural gas and coal combined. Great piece by @crampell.bsky.social

the Dunkin’ logo has never felt more accurate

I don’t think foreign adversaries can hack Signal either, but they can definitely hack normal consumer devices that run Signal, and social engineer their way into Signal groups

Signal's a great app to keep your communications secure, but make sure you know the identities of the users in your group chats.

Our SSD guide on how to use Signal includes guidance on managing your group chat preferences.

Sigh. Here we go again. It's really important that people are smart about this story re: Trump admin using Signal to discuss war plans.

The center-left media wants to make the story about Trump admin fucking up, which they did. But in the process they're falsely implying that Signal is "insecure."🧵

Using tax info to target undocumented people puts the lie to the claim that undocumented people don't pay taxes. It also makes them much less likely to pay taxes in the future.

It's similar to detaining them at hearings and check-ins while claiming they never show up for hearings and check-ins.