Oddly, the one thing that never passes in Texas is school vouchers. The blue areas and the truly rural republicans make common cause. The sparsely populated and absolutely vast rural expanses mean that the surprisingly large rural population both feels very comfortable with their control over their local schools, and views them as the glue of their communities. That’s where you actually come into town and see people. That’s where you go vote. That’s probably the only decent-paying (and I say that fully aware how shit teacher pay is) career if you want to get your college-educated kids to come back, or barring that, someone else’s. Beyond those specific jobs, it’s likely one of few non-agriculture or mineral-extraction options for steady employment and that money goes into the local community. Generations of local leaders will have gone to the same schools, played under the “Friday Night Lights” and generally associate the school with their community in a very intimate way. They are desperate to keep those schools healthy and subsidized. You’d think that might make them re-evaluate whether their fellow republicans are looking after their best interests more broadly, but nope, it is Texas after all.
Vouchers just suck money out of the system, and no school that you could set up with just voucher money will be any better than the public schools, so the only people who will make extensive use of them will be religious nutjobs who don’t need “good” education, the absolutely exceptional outliers who will increase the prestige of any local private school, and the well-to-do who will just treat it as a tuition discount and effectively a tax break at the expense of their fellow citizens. You’ll end up with public schools with less money to serve a remaining population with more intense needs, and the whole thing will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I guarantee you the only people who game this out thoughtfully but still support vouchers are the extremely religious and people who directly stand to profit from a collapsing public education system. The rest are just short-sighted idiots. Everyone benefits from everyone’s children having access to decent schools, and I hate hate hate assholes with “I don’t have kids in those schools, why do I have to pay taxes hurr durr” attitudes.
It’s strange but listening again to music from about 20 years ago, during a time when I was mostly sad and depressed, and where the musical choices reflected that, gives me a weird sense of nostalgia and longing for that time....
Sure, and interestingly, it’s right there in the name. Nostalgia is from Greek and could be crudely transliterated as something like “homecoming pain.” Even if home wasn’t perfect, there is a draw.
Not that I was ever some lothario in my single days, but one could manage “blue guy” instincts and still not come off as a total ass: “You’d think that but no, polar bears live on ice, that’d be pretty fucking dumb silly if they fell through it all the time. —insert laughing emoji— So anyway, how are you this morning?”
Maybe still a bit pedantic, but in my experience it’s best if that becomes known fairly early. My wife had fair warning, LOL.
As more employees work from home in the hybrid-work era, many companies are finding they need smaller offices. Compared to pre-pandemic floorplans designed to house as many workers as possible, more businesses are looking towards more compact but higher-quality spaces for the future....
I know conversion of office space to apartments is not trivial (location and “bandwidth” of the building’s infrastructure, etc.), but they are buildings that are designed to hold many people for many hours per day, and often occupy some of the best locations for transit and larger parking structures in a given city. At the very least this should result in more residential and mixed-use projects and fewer dedicated office buildings going forward.
Some of the concerns I’ve seen are that while electrical should be fine for the type of stuff America uses 110v for, overkill even, the plumbing is all in the wrong places and likely inadequate for how many people will need showers and baths, the HVAC isn’t really meant for the granularity people would want, and it would be a challenge to get the ventilation and heavy duty circuitry to every unit to safely allow for cooking.
What I do think they could do is convert to dormitory style housing with shared kitchens and baths, and while that limits your target audience, it limits it to the people most in need of affordable housing. Refurbing existing office blocks is certainly not a panacea, and I am already cringing at some government that thinks it would be, but I don’t think we’re too far off from denser cities considering it in some cases. I think the bigger opportunity is in new builds and more drastic redevelopments. With very few exceptions, I don’t think any urban core needs to be building dedicated office buildings anymore. Seems it would be way easier and sufficiently cost effective to allow for conversion later even if it’s not in the plan now.
A simple shared courtyard on most floors could be valuable, but yeah, it sounds like one of the biggest challenges is making attractive housing out of them. With real estate being somewhat non-fungible though, that becomes a pricing issue. People would live in the high-rise equivalent of a single-wide or container house for free. They wouldn’t for 10 million bucks. Does the inflection point in-between match with the economics of doing the conversion? Every building and every city will have a different calculation.
And yes, there is a nagging sense of boring dystopia going through my brain in all this, though tempered by the sense that we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good safely and affordably housed. When do we force Hiro Protagonist to move into his storage unit?
That’s about right. Was once at a pool and had some fries. Damn grackle was stealing them. I didn’t see that it had walked through them or anything, so I thought, “okay I’ll throw a napkin over the rest.” Nope. Little fucker sauntered up and pulled the napkin right off them.
I have also been intimidated into giving them pizza crust, and I have heard stories of a one-legged grackle landing in a plate of nachos mid-meal and just KA-CAW’ing at everybody until they let him have them.
At a minimum, we’ve already heard rumors that she was simply pissed off and embarrassed, and that people were way closer than they should have been to a person angrily wielding a firearm.
Agreed. I’m willing to allow that the dog was probably never going to be a skilled hunting dog, though I don’t trust her to have determined that. It may even have been dangerous, though I rather doubt that had to be its destiny, and, again, we have some credibility issues with our decider.
There are just so many layers between a nippy, excitable working dog that’s struggling with the (likely inadequate) training, and shooting it in the head in front of people. Then the goat thing confirms that she isn’t isn’t some sort of calm and skillful rural badass; she just likes the power inherent in hurting things that don’t do what you want them do.
Maybe most of our politicians are a bit sociopathic, but for fuck’s sake can we please elect the ones that are more skillful at masking and methodically figuring out what the emotionally functioning humans want them to act like? It’s cynical, and a depressing level of low expectations, but that used to be the bar.
I comment a lot on stories having to do with state governments and legislation or regions of the country. It got me wondering how many people I’m accidentally disparaging when I don’t mean everyone in said state or region is terrible. So… Please be as specific or obtuse as your privacy filter requires. I’ll start:...
DFW area of Texas. There’s a lot that’s good here, but the number of people who combine various levels of being small-minded and short-sighted are indeed very frustrating.
Even in the early days, they had a strong stable of songwriters, including folks like Carole King and Neil Diamond. They were a manufactured band, to be sure, but they were manufactured from solid parts.
So, I figured y’all would be the best people to ask. I make fairly traditional row-staggered hand-wires, but I like them to be stabilizer-free, due to my home tooling limitations and a realization that they work fine. They also avoid one of the biggest pet peeves across the various niches of keyboard people. What is the...
The ad itself depicted a mechanical crusher destroying artifacts of human creativity. A trumpet, guitar, sculpture, piano, drawing board, paints, a metronome, several analog cameras, a turntable, and hi-fi equipment were among the much-loved items yielding to the machine’s unstoppable force.
I just watched it for the first time and… I thought that while the handwringing is excessive, the subtext that all these other emblems of human creativity have to be destroyed to become part of the iPad is unsettling, moreso because the visuals are so decadent in their detail. It makes it feel much more like replacing than supplementing. It’s probably worse that I think it was also unintentional. Big miss for me.
Excellent, reader cases always seem to cost way more than they should, espeically with how fragile they are.
Although, you should know you’re supposed to move over to another room to pretend your workspace is cleaner than workspaces ever are, LOL. Then, what are we rocking for the keyboard?
We only know about when humans mastered fire or started using metal. But we know the exact date when the first powered flight took place. What are some really early “first ____” we know the date of for sure?
There is no definite date, but I do love the circa 1750 BCE “oldest customer complaint,” so please forgive me.
Now, when you had come, you spoke saying thus: ‘I will give good ingots to Gimil-Sin’; this you said to me when you had come, but you have not done it. You have offered bad ingots to my messenger, saying ‘If you will take it, take it; if you will not take it, go away.’ Who am I that you are treating me in this manner – treating me with such contempt? and that between gentlemen such as we are.
I have written to you to receive my money, but you have neglected [to return] it. Repeatedly you have made them [messengers] return to me empty-handed through foreign country. Who is there amongst the Dilmun traders who has acted against me in this way? You have treated my messenger with contempt.
And further with regard to the silver that you have taken with you from my house you make this discussion. And on your behalf I gave 18 talents of copper to the palace, and Sumi-abum also gave 18 talents of copper, apart from the fact that we issued the sealed document to the temple of Samas. With regard to that copper, as you have treated me, you have held back my money in a foreign territory, although you are obligated to hand it over to me intact.
You will learn that here in Ur I will not accept from you copper that is not good. In my house, I will choose and take the ingots one by one. Because you have treated me with contempt, I shall exercise against you my right of selecting the copper.
I mean, dial it back a few notches, and I feel this way unironically. Good show, if not great, definitely within the spirit of the comic, clapping back at certain “fans” was fine by me, and the Madisynn and Wong interactions were fun.
Are you seeking just low profile keycaps, or do you want the whole thing to be particularly low profile? The former is pretty easy to retrofit to any board that you like with the Womier XVX low profile sets being pretty decent and quite cheap.
If you like numpads and don’t mind the slight tweaks from a 96% layout, the Keychron K17 Pro actually checks all your boxes (though QMK reprogramming usually only works on wired mode, once it’s sent to the board it should be persistent).
Don’t know why they haven’t plopped a knob down on one of their low profile TKL’s, actually. Keychron LOOOOVES new SKU’s.
It took me way longer than I care to admit to find “Polish” in the thumbnail, though in this case it’s not the nationality or the language, but the other one. 🤣
if you had to choose one (lemmy.world)
Business Insider: Private school vouchers: One state is a 'cautionary tale' for the cash (www.businessinsider.com)
The prominence of school vouchers continues to surge across the country — but they might not benefit the families who need them the most....
Do you ever feel nostalgia for a type of sadness?
It’s strange but listening again to music from about 20 years ago, during a time when I was mostly sad and depressed, and where the musical choices reflected that, gives me a weird sense of nostalgia and longing for that time....
A smooth opener (lemmy.world)
Corporate real estate is on a 'cliff edge' as firms race to rethink communal spaces (www.bbc.com)
As more employees work from home in the hybrid-work era, many companies are finding they need smaller offices. Compared to pre-pandemic floorplans designed to house as many workers as possible, more businesses are looking towards more compact but higher-quality spaces for the future....
The doctor is in. [OC] (pixelfed.crimedad.work)
cross-posted from: pixelfed.crimedad.work/p/…/695597131810047249...
French government says Kristi Noem lied about cancelling meeting with Macron (www.theguardian.com)
A French official said there is no record of a scheduled meeting with the South Dakota governor – nor had they invited her...
USA Lemmies: Where do you live?
I comment a lot on stories having to do with state governments and legislation or regions of the country. It got me wondering how many people I’m accidentally disparaging when I don’t mean everyone in said state or region is terrible. So… Please be as specific or obtuse as your privacy filter requires. I’ll start:...
Heart Shaped Container FreeCAD Tutorial (pawb.social)
credit to @colourlesspony...
We Must Remember the Fallen (lemmy.sdf.org)
Cost-effective convex keycaps? 1.75u and under
So, I figured y’all would be the best people to ask. I make fairly traditional row-staggered hand-wires, but I like them to be stabilizer-free, due to my home tooling limitations and a realization that they work fine. They also avoid one of the biggest pet peeves across the various niches of keyboard people. What is the...
Apple crushes creativity and its reputation in new iPad ad (www.theregister.com)
The ad itself depicted a mechanical crusher destroying artifacts of human creativity. A trumpet, guitar, sculpture, piano, drawing board, paints, a metronome, several analog cameras, a turntable, and hi-fi equipment were among the much-loved items yielding to the machine’s unstoppable force.
I designed a 3D Printable e-reader case for Kobo's newest E-Readers (lemmy.world)
You can download the files on:...
What are some of the earliest "firsts" that we have a definite date for?
We only know about when humans mastered fire or started using metal. But we know the exact date when the first powered flight took place. What are some really early “first ____” we know the date of for sure?
deleted_by_author
Recommendations please
-Linux compatible...
Official Blog: Ondsel ES 2024.2 released: more assembly tools and UX/UI polish | Ondsel (ondsel.com)
Anyone know of any keyboards bodies similar to this one?
Hey everyone,...