Finished The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. 📚

I didn’t like it; I don’t get the hype about it at all. It’s got a few interesting ideas, sure, but the storytelling was clinical, the characters were 1.5-dimensional at best, and the dialogs were wooden. What am I missing here‽

Started reading “The Three-Body Problem” 📚 today — in English. I’m curious to finally see what all that fuss is about. 😏

A few months back I gave its German edition a go but that felt terribly wooden, somehow. The English edition is more to my liking so far.

I’m going to miss the astrophotography feature of the Pixel 3a. (Switching to an iPhone SE 2020 in a few days to see whether iOS14 does something for me.)

These photos are nothing special per se but the fact that my affordable phone took them, that is something.

How small satellites are radically remaking space exploration is a nice quick overview about the ongoing small-sat and small-rocket space industry revolution. 🚀

Now, two emerging technologies may propel NASA and the rest of the world into an era of faster, low-cost exploration. Instead of spending a decade or longer planning and developing a mission, then spending hundreds of millions (to billions!) of dollars bringing it off, perhaps we can fly a mission within a couple of years for a few tens of millions of dollars. This would lead to more exploration and also democratize access to the Solar System.

In recent years, a new generation of companies is developing new rockets for small satellites that cost roughly $10 million for a launch. […] The concept of interplanetary small satellite missions also spurred interest in the emerging new space industry.

Cancel Culture and the Problem of Woke Capitalism - The Atlantic:

If you care about progressive causes, then woke capitalism is not your friend. It is actively impeding the cause, siphoning off energy, and deluding us into thinking that change is happening faster and deeper than it really is. When people talk about the “excesses of the left”—a phenomenon that blights the electoral prospects of progressive parties by alienating swing voters—in many cases they’re talking about the jumpy overreactions of corporations that aren’t left-wing at all.

Good article, not a condemnation of activism but a call for actual change, and a better direction for all our energy.

Indi Samarajiva: American Passports Are Worthless Now (Map) due to the US being governed by COVID-19:

At the same time, you can’t trust Americans. Americans have poor hygiene (low masking rate) and at least 40% of the population can’t be trusted to even believe that COVID-19 exists, let alone to take it seriously. They’re likely to refuse testing, not report symptoms, break quarantine, and generally NOT follow rules. Americans have a toxic combination of ignorance and arrogance that makes them unwelcome travelers.

Yikes. Rings true, tho.

We visited the #Munich zoo today. I petted a sleeping piglet. 🐖 Good times are good

“Something something #vanlife”, I think

🎵 15 mins of DJ Jazzy Jeff creating a catchy remix of another song, what a surprising treat! It probably looked easy because a) he does this for a living and b) he’s advertising a music-making tool, yes, but I’ve learned something about how beats are built up. Inspiring…

I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life… But I’m so proud of what I do now and what we’ve accomplished over those last three years. We and our deposit system for reusable coffee-to-go cups are Startbase’s Startup of the Month! ☕️

“Die nächsten 20 Jahre werden leichter für Menschen, die Unsicherheit aushalten können” (📦)

Krautreporterin Esther Göbel hat ein sehr interessantes Gespräch über Unsicherheit, Angst und Zukunftsplanung mit der Philosophin Natalie Knapp geführt.

Has anyone here successfully married M.b and Pixelfed yet? I guess it’d be possible to have a Pixelfed account on some instance and crosspost any of my new Pixelfed posts in its entirety to my M.b account, no?

I just imported ~250 Instagram posts using the macOS M.b client. Now I have to clean them up because some of the markup resulted in headline-heavy posts. 😂

And the multi-picture IG posts were turned into series of single-picture posts here. Gotta fix that, too.

I’ve two HEY invites to hand out, if anyone is interested, just holler! First come, first serve, it’s a 30 days trial, $99/year after that.

The Segway’s Inventor Has a New Project: Manufacturing Human Organs (📦)

Dean Kamen went into biotech? Whoa, that’s huge. I’ll watch that space!

I’m getting increasingly annoyed by people wearing their masks under their chins or their noses in stores or restaurants. Not talking about people who have a hard time breathing, them I understand — but people who clearly appear to think everyone else is “sheeple”.

I usually resort to asking those folks (friendly but firmly) to please put their mask over their corona holes and that usually works. But… man, it bums me out every single time.

Is the Android M.b client app @dialog dead/abandoned?

Godspeed, you magnificent G4 bastard 💻🍎

Following an account on a far-away Mastodon instance from my M.b account: ✅

You gotta love the fediverse.

The Foundation teaser/trailer for the upcoming TV series (2021) looks good. Maybe now is a good time to pick up the books? 📚