@chema@sanfranciscan.org
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

chema

@chema@sanfranciscan.org

Usually a union organizer, rarely an engineer, and formerly a media activist. Also a prieto colorado of Native stock from a former Indian Republic. Crossing paths with San Franciscos, del Bajío to the Bay, with long sojourns in the Golden Horseshoe, Middle Tennessee and the Swiss Lemanic Arc. Vegan and lifelong vegetarian. Often kicking it with @luna 🐕🐾 along the Embarcadero.

Opinions expressed are my own, but they could be yours too.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

"RFK Jr. says a dead worm was found in his brain."

So a presidential candidate was previously infected with a brain slug, à la Futurama.

This is quite the timeline.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/rfk-jr-says-a-dead-worm-was-found-in-his-brain-19446300.php

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Anyone familiar with Mexico City universities immediately understands what went down last night in : The pro-Palestinian student encampment on the campus was attacked by "porros".

A porro is an individual who uses violent means to help achieve certain, often political, goals at universities there. The "grupos porriles" have been called the "shock troops" of Mexican universities.

Crazy to see them in action in California.

Article in Spanish on :

https://www.radioformula.com.mx/nacional/2022/10/7/unam-que-son-lo-porros-cual-es-su-origen-734462.html

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

“Based on survey and census data, our best estimation is that San Francisco metropolitan area residents would consider a household that makes about $700,000 per year to be rich.“

LOL. If I made a quarter of that I’d feel hella rich.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/how-much-money-to-be-considered-rich-bay-area-19420480.php

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

At $700k a year, even if I had to pay half in taxes, I would still have nearly $30k a month. I legit do not know what I would with that much money. Probably save $20k a month and comfortably retire in a decade or less?

chema, to SanFrancisco
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Yet another Mission District political activist is being accused of sexual misconduct. Fucked up if true.

It isn't hard to treat people decently. But then again, it's about having power over people.

https://sfstandard.com/2024/04/26/sex-crime-allegations-san-francisco-democratic-party/

Mastodon, to mastodon
@Mastodon@mastodon.social avatar

forms new 501(c)(3) non-profit entity with new board of directors in the United States to facilitate tax-deductible donations and in-kind support:

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/04/mastodon-forms-new-u.s.-non-profit/

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

@Mastodon Why not have a user-elected board of directors? A real missed opportunity to bring democratic values to Mastodon.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

@williamgunn @Mastodon Many, very effective, nonprofits (which are a type of corporation) have elected board of directors. Examples include the Sierra Club, REI, ICANN, etc. In addition, some (for-profit) corporations also have employee representation on the board of directors.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_representation_on_corporate_boards_of_directors

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

I think most nonprofits have unelected, self-selecting board of directors because it is very convenient for the executive leadership (who are not just hired by the board, but often play an outsized role in selecting new board members). It leads to weak accountability and can easily breed complacency within the executive leadership and even tolerance of relative incompetence.

This is how we can have organizations like the Salvation Army or the YMCA, which have multi-billion dollar budgets, and yet have a fraction of the public benefit of labor unions like SEIU, that has a budget an order of magnitude smaller, but a member-elected executive board that push for broader accountability. This is on top of their statutory purpose to further union member interests.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Four. I was elected to the Sierra Club San Francisco Local Group and to the SF Bicycle Coalition's board of directors, the largest city-based advocacy org in the country. I was also a (non-elected) board director to my local Community Benefit District here in SF for eight years (which also happens to be the largest in the city) as well as a smaller nonprofit.

This is in addition to my professional experience staffing executive committees within organized labor and being involved in public deliberative bodies. I've got a pretty balanced perspective of the different board governance models.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

It is more about having meaningful and actionable community accountability and responsiveness to stakeholders (i.e. users), coupled with a desire to build an organic community. It might not always be a nimble structure, but it can be a long-lasting resilient structure if properly managed. See the governance structure of ICANN for an example of what I mean.

And my time as a board member with my local CBD (our version of a business improvement district) definitely helped shaped my perspective as much as my time being on advocacy-related boards.

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/governance/guidelines-en

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

I mean, capitalism is bad, but you're correct that my criticism isn't unique to capitalistic structures. Even anti-capitalist, radical collectives can suffer from bad "governance" (see The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman below for a wonderful analysis on the subject).

My experience has persuaded me that the statutory fiduciary duties of nonprofit boards have been, by convention/tradition, been assigned to executive leadership.

And to address your fear, an effective board would understand that their role is not to micromanage staff, but to direct the nonprofit so it can achieve its stated purpose by managing the executive leadership. The scopes are very different.

https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

The video of the Waymo #robotaxi driving the wrong way in my neighborhood was already bad enough, but Google's bullshit excuse makes it worse.

A reasonable human would have turned off and gone on one of the various parallel alternative or sucked it up and driven slowly behind the people riding their unicycles. Instead, the programmers decided the self-driving car was going to double down.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1ca1z8m/longer_video_of_the_wrong_way_incident/

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

About a decade ago, San Francisco still had a small direct current (DC) power grid for elevators which PG&E was dismantling. Seems like a real missed opportunity given the recent growth of other types of electric conveyances like cars, bikes, and scooters now.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/san-franciscos-secret-dc-grid

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

I keep thinking about a recent article in Nature by Talhelm and Dong that appears to confirm the theory that the staple crops (in this case wheat versus rice) can influence collectivistic cultural tendencies.

In particular, it makes me wonder how the impacted Indigenous North American cultures. A milpa is a agroecological system largely centered around growing corn, beans and squash in the same field. It is intense, highly productive and also provides a complete and healthy diet in a very small amount of land.

I suspect that milpas lead to even more individualistic tendencies, which could explain the large linguistic and cultural diversity of North America and how it led to dense urban societies so quickly.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44770-w

dfdx, to mastodon
@dfdx@pub.dfdx.io avatar

After unsuccessfully trying to get , , , and working on , I installed and configured relatively easily.

What a nice surprise. Thanks @grunfink

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

This is good to hear! I have been itching to move my homeserver from Linux and this current Pleroma fork and this might motivate me to do it one of these days.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Obligatory photo of the , courtesy of a tree and some leaves.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Chili peppers are such a successful Indigenous American export that many national cuisines in Asia, Africa and Europe would be unrecognizable without them.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Wait, another driver crashed into a Muni bus stop this weekend?

And that photo is quite something.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sf-crash-bus-stop-19365853.php

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Many parts of the Bay Area are teeming with ticks so I am glad to see that there might be another way of reducing the risk of catching it.

https://www.wired.com/story/pill-kills-ticks-lyme-disease-babesiosis-anaplasmosis/

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Today's SF Chronicle article on the Mexican Museum really excoriates the institution. Maybe they can come back from it, but in the meantime, it looks like there will be more delays and uncertainty. Very regretful since we really do need a museum to highlight Mexican history and culture in San Francisco.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/s-f-mexican-museum-audit-19324002.php

skinnylatte, (edited ) to food
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

I don’t know who spread the rumor in the west that rice cookers are simply ‘unnecessary single use gadgets for foodies who eat a lot of rice’, I think of them more as ‘versatile device for depressed people with no (emotional, not literal) spoons’

Put rice (don’t even need to wash it), water, place vegetables, meat, tofu, eggs. Add soy sauce. Close the lid. Walk away.

And if you get a nice one: cook rice and eat off the cooker even 3 days later.

Even the cheap ones are so handy.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

I don't have a rice cooker, but I have a small electric pressure cooker that is basically a rice cooker with extra features. It is so useful. I use it for quinoa, rice (both East Asian and Persian), chili, tamales, etc. It is so useful I gifted one to my parents in Mexico, who now use it almost daily. The entire family is a big fan now.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Before moving to SF, I lived in Lausanne, Switzerland for about a decade, so I end up comparing both quite often.

Like most cities in Switzerland, Lausanne is small. It only just crossed the 150,000 threshold. But it is a relatively cosmopolitan city, with two well-recognized universities, plenty of companies and with more than 42% of the population being non-Swiss.

One huge difference between Lausanne and SF is the density and the lived experience that creates. I lived in the Cité, the medieval downtown neighborhood of five- and six-story buildings, with a density around 10,500 people/km2. The core of Lausanne has a density of almost 8,000 people/km2. I didn't know anyone with a car and everyone had a bus pass.

chema,
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

Compare that to SF's overall density of around 7,200 people/km2, which is skewed higher by neighborhoods like the TL, Chinatown and Rincón Hill. Cars continue to dominate our streets and transit largely remains an afterthought associated with people that are too poor to own a car.

Meanwhile, a medieval city leaves us in the dust. SMH.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

I am really excited to see the USPS deploy smart lockers in San Francisco. Once my post office gets them installed, I will be getting a PO Box and getting my mail and packages there even though my building already has parcel lockers. It is the same price, but I won't have to give out my address anymore and I might be able to worry less about packages being misplaced.

chema, to random
@chema@sanfranciscan.org avatar

It is shocking to look at a map of the Earth at night and see how much light is emanating from the Texas oil fields in the Permian Basin.

https://blue-marble.de/nightlights/?ll=32.5,-103

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