Tweets
hell is other people’s droplets.
(original)
The best part about this take (aside from it makes total sense) is how much it contrasts with what would have happened if we had just shown up for Hillary. Three liberal justices, and RBG would have had a chance to retire instead of having the weight of history on her to the end. https://twitter.com/TimAlberta/status/1308412933261660160
(original)
Love this line from @AmyMcGrathKY’s candidate bio: “When Amy was 13 years old, she dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot, but women were not yet allowed to serve…she wrote her elected officials to ask them to change the law. She never heard back from her senator, Mitch McConnell.”
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
YES!!!
(original)
don’t mind me, just testing a thing. there’s a 50/50 chance of it working.
(original)
Replying to @M_uh_lee
I liked the quote from the tenant advocate, “It’s like, ‘Oh, don’t call us a hitman. We don’t pull the trigger! We just connect you with someone who’s willing to.’” Then I thought ‘don’t give the tech companies any ideas!’ before remembering that it already happened on Silk Road.
(original)
Replying to @ALincoln666
Hi and sorry for the delay in responding! Your tweet caught me on kind of a rough weekend. Honestly if you’re totally new to DIY, I think building an Open Book might be a lot to take on. I might start with coding on a dev board like the Adafruit PyBadge: https://adafru.it/4200
(original)
i spent the morning doing something that felt like a small force for good… then looked at the news and again felt despair. our small acts of good are no match against brazen acts of fascism. This will get worse before November 3rd.
It is happening here. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/doj-designates-new-york-city-as-an-anarchist-jurisdiction/2627588/
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
example of the candidate pages. still some work to do on the candidate bios; I usually adapt them from the official campaign bio but it takes time, and I’ve only done 7 of the 32 I need. still, I figured it’s better to at least get *something* out there. https://www.voteforthedemocrat.org
(original)
phew! #voteforthedemocrat now has photos for every senate candidate, plus direct links to donate or volunteer your time with any campaign that wants your help. We have some great candidates running this year! Also: how bad ass is that *official* campaign photo from @mjhegar?
(original)
fetching candidate images for #voteforthedemocrat, and found this in the source of @SaraGideon’s campaign website. whoever on that tech team is embedding ASCII campaign art in HTML comments, I see you; your work is appreciated :)
(original)
I saw a tweet just now saying that RBG passed away Friday night and even looking at a calendar I cannot believe it. It feels like at least two weeks have passed in the last two days.
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
i don’t know why I’m sharing all this; I’m probably going to end up doing this work myself in the next 48 hours unless the overwhelming sense of doom returns. then again, after last week, I think the universe has surgically removed my ability to feel feelings. this may be a plus.
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
oh, and the contribution guide. basically: use the candidate’s bio from their website, make it third person if it isn’t. ideally have links for web site, donating, volunteering and social media. photos cropped as described at the bottom, 880 × 1100 pixels. http://www.voteforthedemocrat.org/readme/
(original)
finding my fight again. updating #voteforthedemocrat to include senate races. 25 candidates left, but each one has a link to edit their page. tracking the remaining tasks here, if anyone sees their state and wants to help; i can thank you with stickers! https://github.com/joeycastillo/voteforthedemocrat/issues
(original)
Replying to @audreydodgen
thanks for the thought but don’t you worry about me, i’ll be fine. take care of yourself, keep carrying the fire when you can and trust that someone’s carrying it on the days that you can’t. because the days ahead are dark, and we’re going to need all of us to light the path.
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
i’m okay, i’m fine; it’s not that i’m depressed, just that i can’t muster the energy to keep doing right now. where once i could put the bad things in a box and keep at the work, now I’m just doomscrolling on my sofa. (on the plus side, i finally understand what doomscrolling is)
(original)
i’m sorry if some of my takes today have been bad. i think the news of this week has finally broken me. i’d been coping pretty ok, what with the fascism and the pandemic and the climate apocalypse. but last night’s news finally tipped me off the knife’s edge i’d been balanced on.
(original)
“Our tomorrow is the child of our today. Through thought and deed, we exert a great deal of influence over this child, even though we can’t control it absolutely. Best to think about it, though. Best to try to shape it into something good.” -Octavia Butler https://web.archive.org/web/20150219020855/http://exittheapple.com/a-few-rules-for-predicting-the-future/
(original)
RT @RickRab: ’there’s no going back to brunch'
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
to be clear: it may not be enough. the damage may be irrevocable. our institutions may be to weakened to stand up to what happens next, even if we do prevail. but we have to try, if only to atone for the profound damage we did to our nation when we failed it four years ago.
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
we each have agency and power in how we choose to apply our time, in what we say and what we share. last time around, too many of us wielded that power carelessly or thoughtlessly. through action or inaction, we broke america. this election is our last hope for putting it right.
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
i’m not bringing this up to reopen old wounds. i bring it up because on the eve of the second most important election in history, it’s important to recognize that the last four years aren’t just a bad thing that happened. we each bear a personal responsibility for what happened.
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
did you phone bank for progressives in the primary and then hang up in the general? were you on social media warning about an existential threat to our democracy, or kvetching about her emails? ok, you voted. did you knock on doors? how many? because i did, and it wasn’t enough.
(original)
i feel like we all need to take a look in the mirror and recognize just how staggeringly we failed our country in 2016. we ruined america by not fighting harder, or in some people’s cases, by fighting against the singular action that would have saved our democracy. (a thread)
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
(this is of course assuming that american democracy survives this year: that after biden wins, a peaceful transition of power occurs and he assumes office on january 20th. even if biden wins both the popular vote and the electoral college, i put the odds of that at a coin toss)
(original)
after sleeping on it i realize: this doesn’t change much. donald trump already cemented a conservative judiciary for a generation. that battle was lost the day we failed to deliver for hillary. our only hope now is to win the other two branches of government. #voteforthedemocrat
(original)
Replying to @tarahaelle
that’s fair; i just like to phrase it that way to remind folks who sat on their hands or voted third party that they failed at the most important vote of their lives. it’s cathartic.
(original)
Replying to @tarahaelle
imo, second most important. the most important election of our lifetimes was 2016, and we are paying the price for screwing it up.
(original)
in this terrible moment of national mourning, i would like to thank every so-called progressive who shat on hillary clinton in 2016. thank you for ruining america and ensuring the defeat of progressive priorities for a generation. https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1307126098585620486
(original)
Replying to @concreted0g
As a Texan I use “y’all.” Y’all means all :)
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
This one’s fun because it’s actually the *exact same code* running on a PyGamer and a PyPortal. Touchscreen and focus-based UI from the same code; just a few defines at the top to handle the different screen sizes. (it is a memory hog tho; room to improve) https://github.com/joeycastillo/circuitpyui/blob/main/examples/Cross-Platform/mp3.py
(original)
depending how you look at it, I’m either procrastinating on building the circuitpyui typesetter that I need to make the book work, OR I’m wisely building stuff to put circuitpyui through its paces and see where the kinks lie. Anyway. CircuitPython MP3 player in ~200 lines of code
(original)
Replying to @ron_estacio
in terms of the screen, what adapter board did you get with it? For both the Open Book and the Wing, all you need is the raw 4.2" display module, which has the little flex connector. It only really goes in one way as long as the screen is facing the front of the board.
(original)
Replying to @ron_estacio
If you got both the blue Wing board and the black Open Book board, I would recommend doing the blue board first. It’s the easiest to hand solder and there aren’t nearly as many parts. The Open Book board is more complex; the CPU has a fine pitch and some parts are close together.
(original)
Replying to @AlexGilbertson and @tindie
Probably not, unless there’s a Node MCU board that matches the Feather specification. Even then, I would recommend sticking to a Feather M4 because that’s what I’ve tested with and what the documentation is built around
(original)
Replying to @ron_estacio
Oh no! What parts are you having trouble with? The soldering bit, understanding the parts, getting the microcontroller flashed? Depending which area it is I can point you toward some resources.
(original)
Replying to @joshu
Huh, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised it couldn’t pick up on an author’s voice from a couple of sentences. Anyway thanks for doing that!
(original)
Replying to @joshu
It was just one line really: “You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”
(original)
Replying to @joshu
Good, I guess; just laughing at the idea of the AI making fun of us for its own amusement. These are great. I love teleporting to the last waypoint Google Maps suggested. How are you generating these? I have some Cormac McCarthy prompts I want to play with…
(original)
Replying to @joshu
for some reason that made me flash back to a line from GlaDOS in Portal: “Thats you. That’s how dumb you sound.”
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
I do not know if voting in 50 days will be enough to bend the arc of the moral universe back toward justice. But I do know that if we allow the people doing this to remain in power for four more years, the arc of the moral universe may not bend that way again in our lifetimes.
(original)
I keep saying “it is happening here” but it’s difficult to overstate the horror of what “it” is. These are crimes against humanity. This is one of the things we tried Nazis for at Nuremberg. Forced sterilizations of refugees and asylum-seekers are happening, right now, in America https://twitter.com/brooklynmarie/status/1305553553625243648
(original)
Replying to @theavalkyrie
my god this is a horror.
(original)
Replying to @joshu
I wish it understood that when I’m on the lower level of the BQE, it’s highly unlikely for me to phase shift upwards through the concrete and start immediately traveling in the opposite direction. Maybe that’s a move in other cities, but even New York drivers consider that rude.
(original)
Sometimes I wish I could sit down with Google Maps and explain New York City. Today’s lesson: one does not “head southeast on 14th Street.” 14th Street runs west-east. 6th Ave runs north-south. Our grid is correct; it’s not my fault the rest of the world is slightly off-axis.
(original)
Replying to @tannewt
oh rad, I will, thanks for the heads-up!
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
only just starting out with it, but I’m stoked at the possibilities. This is an e-paper device with a D-pad, a another e-paper gadget with a touchscreen, and a device with a TFT and a joystick. circuitpyui running on all of them. here is the PyGamer demo: https://github.com/joeycastillo/circuitpyui/blob/main/examples/PyGamer/demo.py
(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
I’m realizing I want to build the open book’s reading experience in CircuitPython, because the goal is for people to be able to grok it and hack it. so I made this GUI framework to help me. visuals are all displayio groups, with methods to handle and pass around events.
(original)
weekend project time! a short thread. TL;DR: an event-driven GUI for CircuitPython programs, with support for both focus-based and touchscreen interaction models. still VERY early days, but I think it’s something I’ll be able to make use of with Open Book. https://github.com/joeycastillo/circuitpyui
(original)