luke iseman

proud geoengineer. Cooling Earth, 1 balloon at a time. ceo @MakeSunsets, previously director hardware @YCombinator.

[Make Sunsets @MakeSunsets]

In 1991 a volcano cooled the entire planet by about 0.5°C.
We do the same thing on purpose, with balloons.
$1 offsets the warming of a ton of CO₂ for a year.

[luke iseman @liseman]

this account is one of my favorite things on the internet: almost every post makes me smile

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯 @japan_nobunaga]

I lent my post-hole digger to my neighbor Gary in Ohio. That was April.

In August I needed it back, so I walked over and asked. Gary looked at me the way you'd look at a man asking about a dog you had in high school.

"It's been four months," he said gently, the way you tell someone the store closed an hour ago.

Then: "Dale's got it."

When I found Dale, he said, "Oh. You mean back back?" Dale did not have it. Dale's brother-in-law had needed it for a fence. The brother-in-law lives one county over, so I drove there. Very nice man. Gave me a Coors Light. Did not have it.

"Gave it to the church."

My post-hole digger had been to church.

In June it dug the footings for a picnic pavilion at Grace Fellowship. The pastor walked me out to see it. Twelve holes, perfectly spaced. "We had a wedding under it last Saturday," he said. I stood there longer than was normal. In Japan, famous swords have lineages. You can trace every hand that ever held one. I was looking at my digger's first wedding.

The pastor didn't have it either.

"Earl needed it for a mailbox."

Earl hit a rock. Earl does not believe in rocks. So Earl took it to his cousin Junior, who welds, to have it "fixed for rocks."

I found Junior in his shop. The digger was leaning on the wall behind him. He followed my eyes to it.

"This yours?"

I said it was. He handed it over.

I almost didn't recognize it. New hickory handles. Blades sharpened until they caught the light. Fresh grip tape. A new bolt where the old one had rusted, which Junior said was Earl. Gary, it turned out, had oiled it before it ever left his garage. And on one handle, in white paint, someone at Grace Fellowship had written my name, so it would find its way home.

Six different hands had held it since April. Every one of them sent it on a little better than it came.

Junior wiped his hands on a rag. "You don't give a man's tool back worse than you got it."

I drove home with the digger in the passenger seat. I buckled it in. I'm still not sure why.

The next Saturday a young guy who had just bought the house on the corner knocked on my door. He wanted to put up a fence. He asked, a little embarrassed, if I happened to have a post-hole digger.

I went and got it.

"Keep it as long as you need," I said. "It knows the way home."

[luke iseman @liseman]

you can try it here: https://t.co/55lSnTFb58

[luke iseman @liseman]

I made an openclaw skill to design 2 pcbs from a text prompt, following parts catalog and design rules for jlcpcb. both worked without human review🤯

[luke iseman @liseman]

@davidsven yes pls:)

[luke iseman @liseman]

I made a tool to teach your AI how to 'make it nice.' Try it! https://t.co/A2l1yWdaTy

[luke iseman @liseman]

drop what you're doing and read about raccoons making balls + getting drunk: https://t.co/UKc2UIZiC0

[luke iseman @liseman]

I am convinced AI will lead to utopia. "should I be terrified AGI will destroy us …. Because I am pretty doom and gloom on this right now" - friend from high school. We talked for 2 hours today. Highly recommend doing this yourself.

[luke iseman @liseman]

Temple Taser Tag https://t.co/B14FV4LQkN

[luke iseman @liseman]

@cremieuxrecueil if you had to guess, what do you think they were used for?

[luke iseman @liseman]

@mwseibel this seems like something we can solve: fund trials of several promising approaches and continue whatever works. anyone have examples of cities successfully addressing a similar severity of drug problem?

[Evan Soltas @esoltas]

Where in America can new homes get permitted and built fastest? And are we getting faster or slower over time?

In a new paper with @leonardo_damico and Audrey Wang, we show cities like Raleigh typically *finish* construction before cities like San Francisco even approve it.

[luke iseman @liseman]

@MakeSunsets poor tree!

[luke iseman @liseman]

@MakeSunsets anyone who tells you every weather balloon they launch makes it to the stratosphere is lying

[luke iseman @liseman]

maybe let's do something about this, please?

[Ben See @ClimateBen]

The Mediterranean just broke its absolute temperature record.

[luke iseman @liseman]

and academics wonder why so many people write them off as disconnected from reality...

[luke iseman @liseman]

Studies looking for downsides to solar geoengineering have to *really* reach:

[luke iseman @liseman]

Meanwhile, in the real world:

[luke iseman @liseman]

Oakland is Wakanda; it’s just not evenly distributed yet