I think shutters (preferably white) would probably help on south and west facing windows. I don’t really see them used much down here; the ones I do see are fake. Highly reflective silver tint (applied on the outside) helps more than dark tint. Window awnings would also help. Large trees are the long-term solution :)

Linus Tech Tips reviewed one that came with a little radio tower it used for position (guessing it used a combination of many sensors). Seemed to work OK in his flat little backyard.

I haven’t had a filament LED fail on me yet. The cheapest LEDs you can find aren’t worth it; best to get a name brand.

Plants don’t need much, if any, green light (they reflect it). LEDs can be made to be full spectrum. I can think of no reason why anyone would want incandescent lights for plants. Even before cheap high power LEDs were a thing, people usually used high pressure sodium lights.

The Supreme Court is heavily in favor of “states rights” now, so state politicians know they can cater to special interest groups (for donations of course) with impunity. States are heavily gerrymandered, so they have little risk of losing their position. In some cases, such as book, education, voting, and immigration laws, the goal is to further ensure the states remain Republican in the future (prevent children from growing up “woke,” and prevent immigrants from living there, which tend to vote Dem). Democracy in the U.S. is pretty broken, and is slowly being dismantled further.

Yeah, mastodon definitely needs a better algorithm. Algorithms can be designed to promote whatever the maker wants. It doesn’t have to be designed to maximize engagement or the specific kind of engagement that tends to promote crazy conspiracy theories or fascist rhetoric. The algorithm could just be simple collaborative filtering with some randomness thrown in to pop “information bubbles,” which would be much better than what they have now.

It’s probably losing a lot of money and he despises what twitter was (spreading the “woke mind-virus”), so if he can’t make it a profitable Truth Social clone, he’s going to kill it to cut his losses (in a “meme-able” way).

Isn’t it important to keep tabs on what the obscenely powerful are up to? I.e. to try to hold them accountable, to be informed on what you’re protesting and criticizing, to prepare for what they’re going to do next that may affect you?