One of the inputs of my rhythm stage setup has been a breath controller, which let's me gives me a continuous controller. I use it for a few different things, especially when playing music that's farther in the electronic direction:

When I was growing up most families in our neighborhood had the daily paper on their lawn. As getting your news on the internet became a better option for most folks, though, delivery became less efficient: fewer houses on the same route. Prices went up, more people cancelled, and decline continued. I wonder if we might see something similar with the power grid?

Solar panels keep getting cheaper. When we installed panels in 2019 they only made sense because of the combination of net metering and the relatively generous SREC II incentives. By the time we installed our second set of panels a few months ago net metering alone was enough to make it worth it.

A few weeks ago I posted about how I was thinking about a pedalboard. I've now made one!

Before:

After:

It folds up slightly and fits in a standard rolly suitcase:

Let's say you run a non-profit, and you and some of your co-workers are there for EA reasons. The EA Forum is going to be hosting a Marginal Funding Week and you're trying to decide whether to post an appeal. How do you decide whether you're ready to raise funds from the EA community?

At a high level, I think you should go ahead if you can explain what you'd do with the money and are willing to share the details that will let people determine if your overall case is strong enough. As a community I think we should generally have higher standards for projects that have been running longer, and for ones trying to raise larger amounts of money.

New projects, both in the for-profit and non-profit world, generally get off the ground with the engagement of a small number of funders who are comfortable with the risk-reward tradeoffs of early-stage work. Sometimes these funders are highly engaged and provide advice and connections, other times they're giving some start-up funds and hoping it works out, but either way they're taking a substantial risk of failure on each bet in the hope of getting some hits.

In the for-profit world societies worry that most people not being sufficiently sophisticated to make this kind of investment, and generally draw some sort of line between accredited investors (who can be assumed to know the risks they're taking with early-stage ventures) and the rest of us (who might be dazzled into putting our life savings into a scam). To sell your stock to the general public you need to first disclose a lot of information about your business: detailed financial statements, risks, what you'll do with the money, etc.

The non-profit world is pretty different: while you do have to make some limited information public, the disclosure requirements are relatively minimal. There's no obligation to share facts that a reasonable donor would want to consider.

While I wouldn't advocate extending public-company-level regulation to the non-profit world, this is a place where the EA community has historically tried to shift norms in the direction of more transparency, and I think we should continue to do this:

When I think of the ideal place for sleeping it's something like, peaceful, dark, and quiet. The chaotic bright loud stage of a contra dance is pretty far from this, and yet generations of kids have curled up behind their parents and fallen asleep:

It's a good idea to make them a nest they can crawl into when they're feeling sleepy:

While this post touches on biosecurity it's a personal post and I'm not speaking for my employer

If you want to prevent airborne spread of diseases you have a few options:

• Filter breath (masks, PAPRs)
• Replace the air (ventilation)
• Clean the air (filters, UV light)

Masks, fans, and air filters are widely available, but what about UV? The CDC recommends upper-room UV, it has a long history of successful use in with TB, and in many cases it's great fit for the space. Look on Yelp, though, and no installers come up:

Maybe people are missing a good business opportunity, or maybe it's the kind of opportunity that's only ok but is worth it for the altruistic impacts of directly reducing spread and normalizing UV? Seems worth finding out!