Zeb_Larson

Zeb_Larson, 14 hours ago to random

There’s this rage that we allowed things to get so bad, that we didn’t act sooner and more forcefully, and that the people who outright lied as well as those who downplayed or hemmed and hawed on action will all be dead as the rest of us deal with it.

https://www.ijpr.org/environment-energy-and-transportation/2024-05-22/douglas-fir-die-off-in-southern-oregon-gives-a-glimpse-into-the-future-of-west-coast-forests

Zeb_Larson, 6 days ago to random

I should be writing, but instead I'm working on an in-utero playlist for my baby. This is going to be an eccentric kid.

P.S. Yes, this is how I've chosen to announce it to this particular platform.

P.S.S. Distilling my tastes down into 20 songs is an interesting challenge.

Zeb_Larson, 12 days ago to random

Watching this guy (the assistant chief of the NYPD) accidentally pepper spray himself is only topped by his fellow cops trying to wash oil-based pepper spray off with water…on his forehead. Straight into his eyes.

https://www.amny.com/news/nypd-chief-pepper-spray-manhattan-bridge-protest/

Zeb_Larson, 12 days ago to random

I feel like my Mastodon community is settling in for aestivation — things are sleepy here right now.

Zeb_Larson, 16 days ago to random

Regardless of whether this is a scam or real, it can fuck off straight into the sun.

Zeb_Larson, 22 days ago to random

I don’t have the time, energy, or connections to write something, but Nicholas Kristof is going to put me in an early grave

Zeb_Larson, 28 days ago to random

Great to see my alma mater frantically reversing itself and admitting that yes, the guys on the roof did have "long-range firearms." It really feels like we're seconds from escalation into a true nightmare.

https://www.thelantern.com/2024/04/university-says-officers-had-readied-firearms-directed-toward-protesters-from-ohio-unions-roof-once-arrests-began/

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

I’m starting to think Yale knew that Henry Kissinger was hanging around campus

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

A certain kitty has to go in for a CT scan today, and we’re nervous as all hell because most of the options on the table are scary. Send good vibes, or failing that hilarious distractions?

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

April has mostly been my wife and I taking it on the chin, or occasionally the nose, and I cannot believe we’re only halfway through this goddamned month.

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

However dated it is in some respects…three and a half years into working as a dev, and I really think The Mythical Man-Month nailed it.

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

I personally love this. I’m flying for the first time in two years this spring, and if it were another two years or longer before my next flight, I’d be fine. https://mastodon.social/@Snoro/112206852744485395

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

“People can just learn about history in their spare time, they don’t need to go to a four-year university to learn about it”

Buddy, I’ve seen how that generally works out and it ends with a 55 year-old man yammering to me about Erwin Rommel until I chew my arm off and flee.

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

One of the most tired genres of academic posting is complaining about your students. A lot of it is mean-spirited (how dare these kids not treat my exact passion with the seriousness I did!), but a lot of it is also just fucking lazy. Congrats, as a trained expert in your field you managed to nitpick a freshman to death, or discovered that they (gasp) skipped a reading.

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

The strongest argument I’ve heard for monkey wrenching data centers. https://www.ft.com/content/1f93b9b2-b264-44e2-87cc-83c04d8f1e2b

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

Sometimes I worry that being on Mastodon is slowly transforming me into an actual software engineer and not just a clever impostor. One day you’re a historian who needed a living salary, and then before you know it you’re reading a back-and-forth on git merge vs rebase.

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

We’re witnessing the conservative migration from “woke” to “DEI” as their new N-word.

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

People demanding we respect Lieberman’s memory are certainly managing to embody his spirit of being an unlikable turd who nobody wants to hear from.

Zeb_Larson, 1 month ago to random

Oof, too true to academic life. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/class-is-canceled-until-further-notice-while-i-do-my-job

Zeb_Larson, 2 months ago to random

There was a thread here a while ago about how all unsolicited advice is criticism, and people predictably melted down over it (I suppose because they love offering unsolicited advice).

Here’s the thing: it’s not inherently bad to offer criticism — but it’s also not something you should do casually. It had better be important, or about something you feel really strongly about. In so doing, I accept the chance that they will disagree strongly. (It is worth pointing out that this never comes up).

Zeb_Larson, 2 months ago to random

The sad reality that I come back from vacation less equipped to deal with people’s bullshit. The mental calluses fall off and then it’s fresh and irritating anew.

Zeb_Larson, 2 months ago to random

NBC offering Ronna McDaniel an analyst position is perhaps the clearest proof you could summon that mainstream institutions have no idea how to understand our current historical moment. Thinking that they'll actually protect us is a fantasy.

Zeb_Larson, 2 months ago to history

A former cooperante recently reached out to me about an oral #history project.

Cooperantes are people who volunteered to work in Mozambique and Angola when the Portuguese left in 1975. Basically all of the trained civil servants and others left with them, and as colonizers they never bothered to train anybody around them. It jumpstarted a lot of people's work in development spaces; it also created long-term links for people in Southern Africa.

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Zeb_Larson, 2 months ago to random

I come back to this piece again and again because I think it gets at so many Americans’ blind spots about dictatorship. There’s an implicit faith that “it can’t happen here” because people would find it to be intolerable, but for a lot of us (those who tend to be more privileged) it would be tolerable. There were white Republicans in the South during Jim Crow: they were gerrymandered into meaninglessness and grumbled about their lack of power, but they got by fine.

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/9/14207302/authoritarian-states-boring-tolerable-fascism-trump

Zeb_Larson, 2 months ago to random

I’m really proud of two things I wrote last year, and one of them was a very straightforward attempt to troll the Cato Institute. It succeeded, and a bunch of car dorks were furious on Twitter.