woozle

@woozle@toot.cat

1965-2165

See https://toot.cat/@woozle/109497174033876468 for extended profile

https://justmytoots.com/@woozle@toot.cat

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

CatherineFlick, to random
@CatherineFlick@mastodon.me.uk avatar

£33,000 is what it’ll cost to relocate a family of four to the UK just in NHS fees and visas alone. That is just ridiculous. What low paid shortage occupation worker is going to be able to afford that?! https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/16/borderline-racist-rishi-sunak-plan-to-fund-pay-rises-by-hiking-migrant-fees

woozle,

@CatherineFlick @krans

Wild idea: Labour should just lean into "yes, we're enabling immigration, and that's good" -- stop playing on the Tories' "immigrants are harmful" playing-field and start talking about the benefits of a pluralistic society, the economic gains that immigrants bring, the fact that we're all human beings dealing with difficult times together, etc.

It won't happen, of course, but that's what I'd like to see Labour (and Dems here in the US) doing.

HeavenlyPossum, to random
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

A journalist recently noticed something strange about the New York City housing market. During the peak of the COVID crisis in NYC, the city lost close to seven percent of its population as people either died or moved away.

The real estate vacancy rate was close to twenty-five percent.

Since then, according to an array of parties with considerable interest in rents, the population of NYC has rebounded. As a result, housing is once again scarce and rents have soared.

Except…there’s no actual indication that the city’s population has actually rebounded, and certainly not by enough to explain soaring rental prices. After all, the city’s population had already started to decline before 2020.

1/7

https://www.curbed.com/2023/01/nyc-real-estate-covid-more-apartments-higher-rent.html

woozle,

@HeavenlyPossum @Willow

So, as someone who was once married to a small-potatoes landlord (and was nominally a landlord myself (1990s) until I lost my share in the divorce settlement), I think I have some perspectives to offer.

There are definitely positive points on both sides, but I'll clarify right off the bat that I no longer understand why any individual should be allowed to own dwellings in which they don't actually live.

Pro-landlord side

Yes, some smaller landlords do actually provide a valuable service.

We inherited the care of 4 single-family homes built c1950 and located on 100 acres of undeveloped forest. We were always on call for repairs, and sometimes did the work ourselves; I particularly remember being in a dark crawlspace in subzero temperatures investigating burst pipes...

Before we took over, it had been managed/owned by $spouse's grandmother, who used the revenue to supplement her retirement income and to pay the property taxes on the 100 acres -- in which real-estate developers were becoming increasingly interested, resulting in taxes ballooning by orders of magnitude. She was not wealthy.

Not long after we took over, we got wind of two similar-age houses downtown that were being given away to anyone who could move them. My then-spouse did the legwork to write up and submit a plan, clear space in the woods (in a younger-growth area of the woods), lay in the foundations, book a house-moving service, etc. all within pretty tight regulatory deadlines which clearly favored people with more resources than we had and which did not seem to place any value on historical preservation.

The initial moving funds came from $spouse's mother -- who cut us off when expenses exceeded the original budget, so I paid for much of the rest of the work (pretty much zeroing out the nest-egg I had accumulated over the previous 2-3 years working as an IT contractor).

So, yeah, we did work for the revenue, both directly (repairs, legal legwork) and indirectly (earning the money to hire others).

This isn't always the case, of course, but sometimes it is. I've certainly met other landlords who were very much hands-on and also decent people.

Anti-landlord side

Pretty much every argument you can put up in favor of this system falls apart when you realize that they're all premised on the idea that money is virtue and that people should have to be employed in order to survive.

(The following quotes are not necessarily from anyone in this discussion; they're just arguments I've heard, repeatedly.)

"I should be allowed to receive the rewards of my investment!" -- lucky you if you have that kind of money to invest. (Lucky us, for having the funds available to move those two additional houses.)

"If we didn't have the rent income, we couldn't afford to live!" -- lucky you, being able to afford to live. Why shouldn't everyone be able to do that, even if they're not lucky enough to own rental houses? If there was UBI and universal free healthcare and free higher education, this would all be moot because we'd all be able to afford to live reasonable lives without having to extract rents from people with less money.

In our particular case, I could make the argument "If we didn't rent out these houses, we couldn't afford to pay the taxes on this land!" -- how did we get to own 100 acres of land in the first place? -- and that is a question I can answer: some not-too-distant lawyer ancestor of $spouse's grandmother had effectively been given a much larger tract spanning all the way from those 100 acres right down to the edge of Athens (GA) -- most of which he later sold off.

So again: privilege and luck, and probably stolen land.

(Am I missing any other pro-landlord arguments?)

I hope I'm not coming across as hostile, here; I'm just seeing a bit of nuance possibly slipping through the cracks -- while still being pretty solidly on the side of "landlords shouldn't be a thing".

andrew, to Seinfeld
@andrew@esq.social avatar

Remember that episode where George says every friend group has a loser and then suggests in their group it is Elaine?

This is the equivalent to that. Buddy, you are speech we loathe stuffed in to a suit and seated behind a typewriter. You have a column in the most read newspaper in the world. We've given all we're going to give.

woozle,

@andrew I think it's important to distinguish between "tolerance of ideas that I disagree with" and "tolerance of ideas that are themselves opposed to tolerance".

The first case helps nurture a venue for vigorous inquiry into the truth.

The second case allows the venue itself to be demolished.

It's the difference between allowing access to the well and allowing the well to be poisoned.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, tolerance is a contract -- an extension of trust. When someone uses that trust to advance intolerant ideas, they have broken the contract and are no longer party to its benefits.

woozle,

@andrew "Tolerance of intolerance" rears its loathesomely speechy head yet again. :-P

realTuckFrumper, to random
@realTuckFrumper@mastodon.social avatar

US inflation rate down to 3% in June, a two-year low, but prices remain high https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/12/us-inflation-rate-june-2023?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

woozle,

@realTuckFrumper
[quote]

but prices remain high

[/quote]

...someone thinks prices might go down again? They kind of don't ever do that (except very rarely, and usually only in a specific sector)...

realTuckFrumper, to random
@realTuckFrumper@mastodon.social avatar

The Case For Social Media Socialism https://crooksandliars.com/2023/07/case-social-media-socialism?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

woozle,

@realTuckFrumper I like the idea, but it opens so many questions...

BigAngBlack, to BlackMastodon
@BigAngBlack@fosstodon.org avatar

😑Fuck you, Monday...
This how we starting the week...

Republican fabulist George Santos compares himself to Rosa Parks

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/10/republican-george-santos-rosa-parks

>Congressman who has pleaded not guilty to 13 fraud-related counts condemned as ‘disgrace’ by prospective opponent

@BlackMastodon
@blackmastodon

woozle,

@BigAngBlack As long as you don't do it where there's an Algorithm™, it probably doesn't have the effect he desires.

woozle,

@BigAngBlack @BlackMastodon @blackmastodon

He's clearly trolling... [checks notes]... anyone who doesn't utterly suck. That's the enemy now.

skykiss, to random
@skykiss@sfba.social avatar

“Washington Not Alarmed As Hitler Rises to Power”—ninety years ago this year:


has returned to America and controls the republican party.

woozle,

@skykiss Darn those "gloomy predictions of impending trouble"...

realTuckFrumper, to random
@realTuckFrumper@mastodon.social avatar

US Marines without leader for first time in 150 years as Republican blocks nomination https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/10/us-marines-david-berger-republican-abortion-protest?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

woozle,

@realTuckFrumper
2023-07-10 Let's talk about Tuberville and the Marines.... (video, Beau of the Fifth Column, 6:38)

realTuckFrumper, to random
@realTuckFrumper@mastodon.social avatar

FAMILIAR: President Biden breaks protocol in first meeting with King Charles II since Coronation https://washingtonpress.com/2023/07/10/familiar-president-biden-breaks-protocol-in-first-meeting-with-king-charles-ii-since-coronation/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

woozle,

@realTuckFrumper I'll admit I have a soft spot for Charles, despite his manifest flaws, because he was a huge fan of The Goon Show.

woozle, to random

Why can't I fave emails? 🤔

(Yes, I found myself thinking this just now when I wanted to acknowledge an email response without having to send a reply.)

woozle, to random

What if I...

  • set up an instance specifically for federating with Threads, for people who do want a window into that space
  • (maybe using one of the lower-maintenance ActivityPub packages)
  • ...but also allow spambots to sign up

Are there people who want access to the Metaverse but also see the value in trying to make it unlivable? (Would it be likely that Threads would de-federate from a spammy instance, or is that "free speech" and therefore automatically good, or what?)

brion, to random

nic cage

woozle,

@brion I was thinking Harrison Ford, best known for his portrayal of InDNS Jones and LAN Solo

woozle, to random

"Can you explain this gap on your resume?"

Yes, that was where my cat walked across the laptop and sat on the ENTER key.

woozle, to php

I may be looking for work again soon. I thought there was a commitment on the project to see it through to the planned delivery-date in September, but it's now looking very iffy as to whether that commitment remains in effect.

At least now (for the moment, anyway), I still have some current employment I can point to.

Any leads on work? (I now also have some experience with Laravel, Vagrant, and Pest.)

woozle, to random

I would have preferred to work out some conditions* under which we would allow Meta to connect with our fedi, but perhaps it's best to come out of the gate with a big "NO" and not waste time working out terms when Meta probably doesn't see us as worth negotiating with any more than one would try to negotiate with a housefly.

...well, ok, be fair: I often do attempt to negotiate with houseflies before I deal with them more harshly, but I think you know what I mean. (They never listen, so the consequences are kinda on them, so to speak.)

@vantablack Where's that form again? I'll sign on, and only reconsider if there's substantial disagreement from our users.

  • I can go into detail, but the ideas I had were very much not softball and would ensure that Meta would actually be contributing to the long-term health of fedi as a commons, rather than preying on it.

cc: @dredmorbius @GrouchyHydra @maloki @news (anyone I'm forgetting?)

woozle, to random

I have to wonder what it is that all these ad-bots get from creating accounts that they never do anything with. Is it just so some PR firm can truthfully(ish) say to their clients "We've obtained presence for you on over 10,000 social media sites!" where like 9900 of those are different fedi instances, and the customer is sufficiently unwoke to accept this at face value? Or is there something else behind it?

(P.S. I'm going to start using "unwoke" as a synonym for "clueless"; pass it on.)

woozle, to random

Is @tenacity only supporting Windows now? I went to the downloads page via a button which had a penguin-icon among the others, but it only had source-code and Windows downloads.

woozle, to random

Consider: anarchic manorialism

woozle, to random

ChatTMBG should be a thing.

woozle, to random

So, am I reading this right?

It seems to be claiming:

  1. Unless my ISP somehow authorizes email to be sent from my IP, Gmail will now bounce it.
  2. Unless I am hooked up with an email service that somehow has clout with Google, Gmail will bounce it.

Since the "ISP" through whom I am attempting to send mail is , I find item #1 to be dubious. They are not blocking my outgoing mail port, and I have no problems sending to most recipients (Google and Microsoft being the only exceptions I'm aware of).

DigitalOcean seems to encouraging its users to use a 3rd-party service -- but I'm already paying them for hosting, and managing my own email service; I don't want to pay yet another service just for the privilege of being allowed to send messages to Gmail's increasingly walled garden.

Is it time to formally ?

woozle, to random

important IT concept: sandwich code (code written whilst eating a sandwich)

JenLucPiquant, to random

What is Bluesky, and why is everyone on Twitter talking about it? https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/29/23702979/bluesky-twitter-elon-musk-jack-dorsey-chrissy-teigen-aoc-dril-decentralized

woozle,

@JenLucPiquant I'm relieved to see that BlueSky is claiming that their protocol will be "open" -- I have to hope/assume they mean that in the usual sense, rather than some kind of corporate doublespeak -- but in that case, what I still don't understand is why they felt they needed to develop a new protocol at all. If they don't like ActivityPub, there's Zot and Friendica and Diaspora...

woozle, to random

Someone needs to rewrite Monopoly™ to allow tenant revolt as a gameplay mechanic.

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