The Los Angeles Fires are going on right now. There is already immense destruction and loss of life. I’m not near there, so I can’t feel the fire’s heat. However, I do wonder as climate change accelerates Earth turning into a hostile planet to humans, what is going to be the end result.

Right now, the incoming president and similar right wing people are shouting insults at the LA and California residents. Does this mean for the next four years, that the ‘liberal’ states will be left to twist in the wind? It might be. What would the end result of that be? Much of the United States commerce flows through California. I wonder how that will affect the rest of the country’s well being?

Misinformation and what in previous generations would be called yellow journalism also prevail. When you can’t trust journalism and the news, where do you go for actual information? Or do you put on your rose colored glasses and mumble at the price of eggs going up?

I do feel for all the people who are losing their homes and their previous lives. It’s going to be rough resetting everything. Hopefully, they will be able to find a path back to happiness and prosperity.

What is going to be your big stretch this week? What are you going to do beyond your comfort zone? Try something new? Eat a new food? Write a bit? Write a lot? Travel?

The week I signed up for BlueSky phone app. I’ve been on Threads for a while now. But because I didn’t have an invite to BlueSky, I hadn’t sign up for it. There were a bunch of news reports about people signing up for BlueSky, I was like what? You don’t need an invite? So I’m signed up now.

My initial reaction is like it was the early days of Threads. People congratulating themselves for leaving Twitter. Which is great. I fully support people leaving any social media platform that makes them feel uncomfortable. But after that was there enough activity to make it interesting?

BlueSky has starter packs that allow you to follow a whole pile of people at a time. That is a great time saver. I’m not sure I remember everyone’s social media handle.

What am I doing differently? I’m following more art and writing accounts. While I do have strong feelings about politics, Social media isn’t the greatest at communicating those beliefs. You could spend a lifetime battling people who don’t believe in the same things, but would you change anyone’s mind? Probably not!

Hopefully, BlueSky keeps it’s positive spin. I know it doesn’t have an algorithm, so maybe the outrage postings will not be as important. I know that shit posters are already showing up. (Shit posters are reply guys who latch onto a popular post and talk shit about the OP/their opinions/etc.)

Have a great day!

This week more people are moving from Twitter to Threads. The X owner has decided to make more horrible poorly considered posts on his social media platform.

Consequently, there are a bunch more people migrating to other social media platforms, like Threads. They come bemoaning the drop off in followers and the joy of starting anew on a different platform. (I’m not going to show any examples, because I respect their choices.)

I left twitter when it was still twitter.

The current twitter exodus has me thinking. What would it take you to leave your social media home? I guess a reasonable list of reasons to stay.

• Employment/ Job Opportunities. Twitter has been the most successful platform for your business/job. Twitter is the most quoted social media platform. They might need to have a certain amount of engagement required for their career. I get this reason. A few of my posts had some legs and I made some money from it. But just because it worked in the past, doesn’t mean that you will get profitable outcomes. In fact, if you broaden your social media presence, it’s more likely to go viral. Venture outside of your comfort zone. 🙂
• It isn’t that bad. Twitter has had all sorts of problems from the start. Porn Bots, Spoof accounts, Keanu Reeves has a whole army of pretendees that they use to scam other users. (Keanu Reeves doesn’t need your money, fyi.) One could easily justify that most problems are exaggerated. Just because you don’t see the problems, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
• My audiences is here. It’s hard to let go of a bullhorn that has a willing audience. Really hard. But did you know the vast majority of people aren’t actually reading anything you write. In fact, some of them might be fake accounts. I had about 500 twitter accounts follow me from 2009 onward. I never saw a tweet from them after 2011. They were inactive zombie accounts. You can see this on a larger scale when Twitter used to clear out the paid twitter accounts. Celebs would loose many of their followers.
• Sunk Cost. You have invested so much time and money into your twitter account. That is true, if you have a large following you probably did invest time and money into your twitter account. You probably have graphics software, invested in a proofreading software, and perhaps have paid social media experts. Those same skills can be moved to a new social media account.
• I enjoy arguing with other social media accounts. Well, you are arguing with another account, it doesn’t mean that you are talking to a real person. It could be a scammer, an employee, or someone trying to platform their own opinions. That’s why so many ‘reply guys’ have been blocked. Why respond and give them a larger audience?

Feel free to comment on reason people want to continue on being on a social media platform when it doesn’t promote your own goals. (Yes, I know just about all of them have problems.)

How many days will we need it this year? How many days will we need it next year? It makes you think about the planet’s future and what will happen 50 years from now.

If you were going to move to Mars, this is what awaits you. Bleak landscape. Maybe some robots roving the planet. Not enough air to breathe.

It would take quite a bit to make this a liveable landscape. Maybe a first step would be getting a liveable inside space that would provide sustainable food, water, air and shelter. Safety would also be a bonus.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/can-plants-grow-with-mars-soil

So if you need convert Mars soil to a growable soil, there is a ton that you need to do. One of the main barriers is perchlorates would need to be removed. They don’t play well with human biology. However, they can be used in rocket propellants and in oxygen production. There remains quite a bit of work on how use the chemical on Mars. It’s contaminated soil and water in the US and has not been helpful.