I'm driving cross country. Along the way, I'll be looking up the places we visit in the 1940 Negro Motorist Green Book, which is sort of like a guidebook for people who didn't want to get lynched. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book
Ok, one last page from the 1940 Green Book: Chicago! A huge leap compared with anything between here and Oakland. But I note that it's almost all on the south side, a division that still persists today. And I suspect that the highway I'm driving on was used as an excuse to demolish Black neighborhoods as part of so-called "urban renewal".
I have some friends with totally reasonable fears of Trump-driven ethnic cleansing, and they're making a preference-ordered list of countries they might have to suddenly move to. We just talked about it again this weekend. And they're the lucky ones, in that they can afford it; millions of others may just be screwed. So it enrages me whenever people suggest that Biden and Trump are somehow equivalent.
I've seen some supposed single issue voters say they can't vote for Biden over the Gaza protests. But we can't wish away the existence of the US presidency or our votes that determine who holds it. And even on this one issue, there are huge differences at stake.
Good on Tiktok for cracking down on this. It struck me that in the extensive quoting from paid influencers, nobody was like, "If they're banning people, maybe I should reflect on the impact I'm having". (gift link) https://wapo.st/4dGfT8Z
A study comes along to confirm something obvious to everybody except tech execs: if you make working conditions worse, some will leave. And who's most able to leave? Your best employees. (gift link) https://wapo.st/4btMo8Z
@joelle Maybe? Even if trimming expenses is the goal, it's generally better to push out the lower performers via layoffs or targeted jackassery. But reasoning from executive competence is not a strong bet these days, so who knows.
@williampietri@joelle Yeah, but the good news is that when the senior workers leave, you’re comfortably surrounded by cheap juniors that don’t challenge your idiocy
So I'm moving permanently across the country. I could happily keep my 415 phone number, or I could switch and get a local one. For people who have tried either path in the last few years, any thoughts?
@williampietri I changed my number when I got my first teaching job (12 years ago) and then again when I left that job (2 years ago).
The first time, it was fairly straightforward. The second time, it was a real pain. I discovered the hard way how many identity-verification issues are now connected to your phone number (not just 2FAs).
On the other hand, I've never had any problems with having an out-of-state area code. And at least in my generation (elder Millennial), it's almost expected.
Jack Dorsey is a world-class fool. Is this the sort of brain rot you get from being a billionaire surrounded by yes men? Or was he always somebody who seemed, as my grandfather would put it, like he was kicked in the head by a butterfly? https://www.piratewires.com/p/interview-with-jack-dorsey-mike-solana
And here's a nice piece from @davidgerard taking a more detailed look at Dorsey's nonsense. An especially good bit: "There is not a single mention in that Dorsey interview of what the real-world market of people who want to socially interact might want from a site that exists for social interaction. There are only Dorsey’s hypothetical ideas for a perfectly spherical social network in a vacuum."
I am soon moving to Chicago, which is generally great, but it looks like my only ISP option is Comcast, which is not. Do people have tips on what plan to choose and tricks to wrangle what seems like an adversarial relationship? I'll be working from home doing programmer things.
I'm at the Austin airport and the CO2 level is higher than I'd like even at home, let alone when breathing other people's exhalations. (As comparison SFO is usually 500-700.)
I'm at SFO and a sniffer dog was roaming the gate area checking things out. I asked one of the handlers what the dog was trained to look for and he said, "explosives". He went on to explain that this being California, they didn't care, that one person in three here would trigger the dog. "Drugs aren't going to bring down an airplane, so we don't care about them." It was nice to have a sensible conversation, and the dog was adorable.
@williampietri There has been a huge retirement of sniffing dogs nationwide because most were trained to sniff out marijuana + other drugs, and with legalization... they are no longer effective.
That said, California is serious about your contraband fruit...