Does anyone know of a book (or a source based on any other media) that examines ancient Mesopotamian civilization from the perspective of the "low end" of the population - manual laborers and slaves?
An internal migration has started in the United States, and it's growing. Conservatives are relocating into "red" states. Tens of thousands have made the move so far. Let's encourage this, as well as migration in the opposite direction for regular Americans. If the two irreconcilable groups voluntarily and preemptively separate, we may be able to avoid civil war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qMwW2KymQU
@davenicolette
Change is best accomplished in small increments, with the participation of those affected. Trying to plop a new way of doing things on people doesn't seem to work, even if it doesn't involve overthrowing the current government.
@gdinwiddie Thank you for the thoughtful response. As you and I do the same general sort of work, I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of "remembering the future," in which we ask people who are stuck in a bad work situation to imagine what a better situation would look like and visualize how it might differ from the present. (1/2)
We got a canine mental challenge toy for our puppies. A cube consisting of tubes and balls, the toy can be filled with dog treats. The challenge for the dog is to roll the toy around so the treats fall out of holes. Our puppies discovered an alternative approach. The toy lasted less than one hour.
I'd like to throw out a bunch of toots. Apologies in advance for that. Anyway, I'm working with a training company to prepare "courseware" and deliver a series of classes. It's "work for hire," not "consulting," which means I'm doing everything their way. I'm curious to know whether my peers would lean toward "the company's way", "my way", or they have some other way to do these things.
I'm going to list nine things here. Sorry about the length.
TC: Individuals complete a capstone project and present it to the group. Heavy one-way criticism and a grade.
Me: The group works as a team to complete a capstone project and we discuss it. Multiple approaches/problems/solutions usually emerge. Project saved somewhere like Github for future reference.
In the 1980s I had one gig involving Tandem NonStop systems. Haven't touched that platform since. Today, recruiters seem to think I'd be interested in supporting HP NonStop applications, and willing to relocate to places I don't like for a small salary. How did they ever find out I worked on a NonStop in the past? I don't put it on my resume. Do other people get this kind of stuff from recruiters, too?
@thirstybear@davenicolette
I quickly learned to treat it just as a wire from front-end to back-end, and do all the work in POJOs which I could test-drive.
Recent joke toots about SAFe reminded me of this old blog post from 2015. It was a time when multiple agile scaling frameworks plus the Kanban Method were competing for the same customers. I wrote this practical guide to clarify the key differences among the various products. https://davenicolette.wordpress.com/2015/09/09/every-agile-scaling-framework-in-the-world/
When people complained that software development tools and methods didn't automatically do the right things for them, I used to say they sounded as if they wanted their tools to do the thinking for them. Tools can't do that, I said. They're just tools, I said. You have to do your own thinking, I said.
Now we have LLMs. They also can't do the thinking for us, but try telling that to a developer who can't get through a day's work without them.
I tried this game, Trust and Safety Tycoon, and found it compelling. Couldn't stop (for a while). It gave me a bit of a feeling for what people have to deal with when they manage a social media platform. https://trustandsafety.fun/
cc mmasnick@mastodon.social
As the headlines fill with news from Gaza, let's not forget Ukraine. The Russians have a history of stepping up their atrocities the moment the world's attention becomes diverted by another matter (e.g. as soon as the Nazis invaded Poland, the USSR invaded Karelia, because everyone was looking elsewhere). Unfortunately there are several hot spots around the world and we have to keep an eye on all of them simultaneously.
After checking out the micro-breweries in Peachtree Corners and a quick lunch at Peachtree Center, I was driving around the south side of Atlanta near Peachtree City, where Peachtree St. NW crosses Peachtree Ave SE, close to where Peachtree Drive turns into Peachtree Lane - you know the place - across from Peachtree Circle - and I couldn't help admiring the impressive examples of the official state tree of Georgia, the Southern Live Oak.