chema

chema, 21 days ago to random

"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, 27 days ago to random

Anyone familiar with Mexico City universities immediately understands what went down last night in #UCLA: 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 #porros:

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

chema, 1 month ago to random

“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, 1 month ago to SanFrancisco

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/

#SanFrancisco #sfpol

chema, 1 month ago to random

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, 1 month ago to random

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, 1 month ago to random

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 #milpa impacted Indigenous North American cultures. A milpa is a #Native 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

chema, 1 month ago to random

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

chema, 1 month ago to random

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

chema, 2 months ago to random

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, 2 months ago to random

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, 2 months ago to random

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

chema, 2 months ago to random

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, 2 months ago to random

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, 2 months ago to random

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

#Oil #FossilFuels

chema, 2 months ago to random

It's a shame I won't be around to see Western cities empty out as populations decline over the next couple hundred years. I imagine quite a few will become villages or even ghost towns.

chema, 2 months ago to random

In just three months time, on June 2, Mexicans go to the polls on to elect the President and both houses of the Mexican congress.

So naturally the registration period for Mexicans living abroad closed a week ago, on February 25.

According to the National Electoral Institute (INE in Spanish), only 226,661 applications were received.

There are at least 12 million Mexican living abroad, mostly in the USA, and potentially twice or three times as many, if we count people eligible for Mexican citizenship through their parents.

https://centralelectoral.ine.mx/2024/02/26/cierra-registro-para-votar-desde-el-extranjero-con-mas-de-220-mil-solicitudes/

chema, 2 months ago to random

I think that the gap between tech-oriented folks in the Bay and the lower- and middle-income class is widening very quickly.

The former is positively enthralled by new tech like autonomous vehicles and generative AI toys, while the latter remains focused on getting the basics like a living wage and better working conditions.

What's worse, many of these new technologies will end up aggravating the conditions of the working class since they all promise to accelerate the accumulation of wealth.

ChatGPT and Sora are really worthless to communities that can't make the rent or feed their kids properly because many of their jobs are now obsolete.

chema, 3 months ago to random

San Francisco taxpayers are helping make a few nonprofit leaders very wealthy. Nearly $800k a year in compensation for the CEO of the "Low Income Investment Fund"? Seriously?

Now watch them overwork and underpay their front-line workers.

Nonprofit industrial complex indeed.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/nonprofit-ceo-contract-pay-18667516.php

chema, 3 months ago to random

So Amazon and Elon Musk's SpaceX are trying to kill the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Despite what these corporations may think, the NLRB is far, far from worker-friendly. It is an imperfect compromise, existing in large part because the largely working class uprisings of the 1930's forced Congress to pass the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

Corporations can attack the NLRB and even successfully kill it, but all they would get is an already agitated working class with little national protection AND the ability to organize with 21st century technology. It would be terrible for workers, who would have no choice but to push back.

Tech barons need to learn their history.

chema, 3 months ago to random

WTF! The monied political class in San Francisco have so much money they don't even know what they're donating to.

Former Twitch and OpenAI CEO Emmett Shear gave $49,000 in support of the police surveillance Prop E but told Mission Local @MLNow "he was not familiar" with the measure. He would not tell them whether he supported the measure or not.

Imagine having so much money you can just throw $49k around to random ballot measures.

Vote No on Prop E

https://missionlocal.org/2024/02/prop-e-police-ballot-measure-silver-bullet-sf-crime/

chema, 3 months ago to SanFrancisco

This is the problem with the absurd wealth inequality that billionaires and centi-millionaires represent. Anyone is welcome to have political opinions; some will be good, some will be bad. But these folks can leverage their wealth to project their ideas across the voting population. They can effectively drown out other opinions and perspectives because money buys ad time and mailer after mailer and armies of canvassers and paid staff that others cannot match.

What is also crazy to me is how they’ve persuaded so many politically-naive individuals that they’re the ones that are challenging the status quo.

#SanFrancisco #sfpol

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/12/san-francisco-tech-billionaires-political-influence

chema, 4 months ago to SanFrancisco

How things are going in San Francisco: Garry Tan of #YCombinator fame and a local edgelord/centi-millionare/near-billionaire got drunk last night and wished for the "slow death" of a supermajority of our county's 11-person legislative body on Twitter by name.

It is a bad sign when anyone with the wealth equivalent to the GDP of small countries decides to get so emotionally involved in local politics. These folks can drop hundreds of thousands of dollars in independent campaigns like it's going out of style AND persuade their crew to do the same.

#SanFrancisco #sfpol

https://missionlocal.org/2024/01/garry-tan-death-wish-sf-supervisors/

chema, 4 months ago to SanFrancisco

The San Francisco Campaign Finance Dashboards for the upcoming March election are wild. We have Chris Larsen, Ripple CEO and one-time wealthiest crypto king, dropping a cool $500,000 on two ballot measures: Prop E will further empower and equip the police department and Prop F will force welfare recipients to be tested for drugs.

San Francisco, 2024: Tough on crime policies brought to you by crypto billionaires.

#Elections #SFPol #PoliticalContributions #Police #SanFrancisco

https://sfethics.org/ethics/2023/12/campaign-finance-dashboards-march-5-2024.html

chema, 4 months ago to SanFrancisco

2024 is a bargaining year for the thousands of people that work for the City and County of San Francisco and provide critically important public services. Most City departments have been facing a staffing crisis since before the pandemic, leading to overworked staff struggling to make ends meet on an income that just isn't enough. Add to this mix a terrible budget in a mayoral election year and you've got all the ingredients for a tense labor environment. Solidarity is needed now more than ever, so join workers this upcoming Wednesday, January 17 at noon at City Hall for their kickoff rally.

#SanFrancisco #OrganizedLabor #Union #Bargaining #StaffUpSF