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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲

@HikerGeek@mas.to

mastodon 4.7.2

I probably take too many electronics with me when I backpack.

The header is Silver Mine Lake in Harriman State Park, NY

My avatar is a drawing by my daughter. She got mad at me for using an AI generated one and drew this one quickly and made me replace the AI one. She's an artist and doesn't like AI "art" at all.

I currently live north of NYC.

184 Followers

356 Following

31 Posts

Joined November 11, 2022

Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@trashpanda@m.alittlenook.net I used to be a member of a local ham radio group. Active members at the time: about 50 old guys and one older woman. So about %2. There was a small minority that was pretty right wing and prejudice. I could have lived with that but the rest of the membership didn't stand up to it even when they went over the line. I don't think its OK to use racial slurs on the air. P.S. We were all white.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to on m.ai6yr.org

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org At 120F air temp in bright sunshine don't the roads start to melt?

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@blogdiva@mastodon.social We have been inside most of the day hiding from the heat. At one point one of my daughters asked why the sky looked like that. I told her that I thought, given the heat, a thunderstorm might be brewing. It wasn't until later when I went outside to the store I realized something is on fire. I think we are getting used to wildfire smoke. I didn't even know it was coming. Very little coverage in the news. So yes there is a smoke issue. Here's a picture from the NY Post:

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org @trashpanda@m.alittlenook.net I live north of NYC. The small group was using slurs regularly on the group's 2m repeater. They were asked to stop and said make us. Nothing more happened.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Lightfighter Reagan popularized trickle down economics. Basically an official policy that rich people are more important than everyone else. It was the foundation of the oligarchy we are afflicted with today.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@McSquank@zirk.us @Stoned_Deva_@mas.to I can't keep up with whether coffee is good or bad for you. I think currently it is considered good in moderation. The real problem is that on the mountains where good coffee is grown the right climate is moving higher to where it used to be colder but now it is becoming the right temp and lower warmer. Unfortunately up higher isn't fertile.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to on m.ai6yr.org

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org Maybe this little bit of science is a better explanation of why CA is so warm and damp instead of "sunlight and no wind" https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/el-nino-forms-expected-to-strengthen-say-noaa-forecasters

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 2mo ago

File this one under how fast can the US go backwards. Sean Duffy is trying to remove federal funding for bike lanes and encourage legislation that makes it easier to remove existing bike lanes that slow motor vehicle traffic. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2026/07/23/the-last-straw-duffy-asks-senate-to-restrict-funding-for-bike-lanes #bike #traffic #cities #uspol

usa.streetsblog.org

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@JdeBP@mastodonapp.uk @davecb@hachyderm.io @FediTips@social.growyourown.services Unfortunately I read that was part of the problem. Existing bot accounts were inviting a lot more bot accounts. At least currently when someone is invited it bypasses some of the normal checks on new users. I also read that invites have been turned off on a lot of servers to help stop this. Double check what I am saying here though.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org P.S. from the article I just cited:

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@trashpanda@m.alittlenook.net I think a lot of ham guys served in the military signal corps and/or went into law enforcement. I think this makes them skew right. Unfortunately as they get older some of them are skewing harder (and maybe losing some impulse control).

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@futurebird@sauropods.win

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@Hex@kolektiva.social I would suggest anyone reading this thread, if you haven't already, read Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. Written in 1952 it is a very spot on dystopian story of where we might be heading, Pretty much exactly what @Hex@kolektiva.social is talking about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_(novel) P.S. I think I'll reread it.

en.wikipedia.org

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 6mo ago

@aram@aoir.social

Our biggest problem with this war is that Iran's leaders are a lot smarter than Trump.

In a way this is good news. I believe Iran is unlikely to attack in the US. I think they know that it would galvanize the American public against Iran. Why screw up the internal resistance to Trump's war of choice?

Now attacking any other country that says it is supporting Trump is a different story.

They are going for Trump as world pariah and it looks like it is working.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Stinson_108 @farbel @aram I think it's unfair to call Trump's cabinet nincompoops. They are all highly skilled sycophants and lackeys.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@tpushic I Google'd "Pennsylvania abandoned pullman train" and it came right up.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@Natasha_Jay This short circuited my brain.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 28mo ago

Replying to

@Mer__edith@mastodon.world @echo_pbreyer@digitalcourage.social The people who do bad things will just find another way and then innocent users will be left with this. This proposal is a clear message: The government's right to know is more important than your right to privacy.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Each day I wake up hoping Trump can't get worse and somehow he manages to continue to disappoint.

When our clueless leaders get somehow blindsided by Iran blocking the Straight of Hormuz they scream that's so wrong.

But now somehow the US right wing cheer squad says blocking the straight is so right.

Are we pirates now?

#uspol #trump #Iran

mas.to

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@mattblaze@federate.social @adafruit@fosstodon.org There are more. This is also on Ada Fruit's site:

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@ysb33r Plus if I understand correctly they have found ways to get around the China tariffs sometimes. The easiest way, which may have been closed down, was to ship first to Vietnam then US. Vietnam bent the knee to Trump and got a low tariff rate. I think they are giving him a beach side Trump resort.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@Quenby@cutie.city Hopefully someday the rich will realize that at some point the increasing wealth gap creates an unstable society, endangering their position. Just ask Marie Antoinette. At least here in the US I am not going to hold my breath waiting for that.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@mattblaze@federate.social @adafruit@fosstodon.org I thought it should be part of this thread. If they are banning Pi's shouldn't they be banning laptops as well? My laptop can do even more mischief than a Pi.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@ysb33r Congress could have immediately just passed bills making Trump's tariffs all nice and legal when he first applied them. So just like then they were too afraid of voters to do that they are still too afraid.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@ysb33r Just by coincidence I was just watching some MSNow on YouTube and they had a Jen Psaki piece on the Vietnam golf course. We are such a corrupt country now and are corrupting others. https://youtu.be/VM9FYysoXGg?t=2547

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@vrek @SholemAlejchem @mattblaze Laws? We don't need no stinkin laws! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%B3spera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Cities

en.wikipedia.org

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Colman @WataruTenkawa_1 I agree it seems like a weird way to think. All of the above producing the greatest experience should be a choice.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 2w ago

Replying to

@theogrin@chaosfem.tw I am an agnostic with strong humanist tendencies. So to me humans aren't animated by any special spiritual force. We are complex machines that use biologically formed components. Then silicon systems of sufficient complexity could be just as alive as us. When "standard" AI computers start incorporating quantum computers they may be more in touch with the universe than we are. Thinking LLM's just do what they are programmed to do isn't seeing this clearly. LLM's program themselves during training and we aren't really sure what they are programming themselves to do.

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Hiker Geek 🌲💻🌲 @HikerGeek@mas.to

· 7mo ago

Replying to on mastodon.social

@randahl@mastodon.social I happened to be watching it as your post came up in my feed. I'd be interested in a poll as to whether people think the service is called X or Twitter. Twitter as far as I'm concerned. It's run by a twit after all.

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