The Death of the Mind

*Meet the doomers: why some young US voters have given up hope on climate.* I agree with their estimation of our future. But they are wrong to give up the fight because of the situation. They are right that avoiding disaster calls for big national efforts which current governments refuse to do. (I call them “planet roasters” because of that refusal.) And it is too late to fully avoid the disaster. But it is not…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#22_September_2020_%28Meet_the_doomers%29

What happens when a major city allows the coronavirus to rage unchecked? If the Brazilian city of Manaus is any answer, it means about two-thirds of the population could get infected and one person in 500 could die before the epidemic winds down. During May, as the virus spread rapidly in Manaus, the equatorial capital of the state of Amazonas, dire reports described overwhelmed hospitals and freshly dug graves. Demand for coffins ran at four…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/22/1008709/brazil-manaus-covid-coronavirus-herd-immunity-pandemic/

“This is the most useless thing I have ever made”, writes Teenenggr, the creator of this Arduino-powered typewriter carriage for computer keyboards. The carriage uses solenoids to create the physical sensation of typing on a typewriter, and is extremely loud. There is even a bell. The code and parts list is here. We make Arduino/Raspberry…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/21/arduino-powered-solenoid-carriage-for-computer-typists-who-want-to-feel-alive-again.html

Andrew “bunnie” Huang has announced a new project called “Precursor”; it is meant to be a platform for makers to create interesting new devices. “Precursor is unique in the open source electronics space in that it’s designed from the ground-up to be carried around in your pocket. It’s not just a naked circuit board with connectors hanging off at random locations: it comes fully integrated—with a rechargeable battery, a display, and a keyboard—in a sleek,…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://lwn.net/Articles/831983/rss

An enduring memory for most who used the 8-bit home computers of the early 1980s is the use of cassette tapes for program storage. Only the extremely well-heeled could afford a disk drive, so if you didn’t fancy the idea of waiting an eternity for your code to load then you were out of luck. If you had a Sinclair Spectrum though, by 1983 you had another option in the form of the unique Sinclair…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2020/09/18/the-zx-microdrive-budget-data-storage-1980s-style/

No one knows how many votes will be cast for president in any state in November 2020. But if one uses the November 2016 vote as a substitute, one can calculate that 72.8% of the voters will use a ballot that has Howie Hawkins’ name. Without the three Democratic Party challenges to him in Montana, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, his percentage would have been 79.8%. The 2020 percentage for him is better than it was for…

External feed Read More at the Source: http://ballot-access.org/2020/09/18/howie-hawkins-name-will-be-on-ballot-used-by-72-8-of-voters/

On September 18, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. No member of the current court was more favorable to minor party and independent candidates and voters than she was. She wrote Buckley v American Constitutional Law Foundation, which struck down state laws requiring petitioners to be registered voters. Also, in the last Supreme Court decision that discussed minor parties, Clingman v Beaver (2005), she joined the dissent of Justice John Paul Stevens which…

External feed Read More at the Source: http://ballot-access.org/2020/09/18/ruth-bader-ginsburg-dies/