Microsoft is right now groaning under the weight of a 52,000-person internal Reply-All email storm. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/26/microsoft_reply_all_email_storm_52000/
Trump threatened to sue media outlets that air a political commercial that accurately quoted his statements ridiculing the coronavirus threat. thehill.com/homenews/…
More from Cory: pluralistic.net/2020/03/2…
Cory Doctorow reviews Thomas Pikkety's new book, "Capital and Ideology."
Thursday, March 26, 2020
The thesis of the new book is that “the ‘laws’ of economics are actually policies, created to ‘justify a society’s inequalities,’ providing a rationale to convince poor people not to start building guillotines.” pluralistic.net/2020/03/2… My $0.02: You see this in one of the main conservative and so-called moderate Democrat arguments against Medicaire-for-All: That we can’t afford it. If society can’t afford to save lives, then we can’t afford to have that society.
Journalist practices social distancing in unexpected encounter with a herd of bison.
“Oh my God. Oh, no, I’m not messing with you.”
Funny.
Who would you be willing to sacrifice – have them die – to keep the stock market up? Sullen teen offspring? Obnoxious neighbor who runs the lawnmower and/or snowblower at 7 am Saturdays? Coworker who never makes a fresh pot of coffee? Discuss.
A programmer switches gears – so to speak – and takes up a career as a bike courier. From 2005. I wonder what he’s doing today? web.archive.org/web/20050…
Highlights:
The most common sort of bike you will see couriers on is your standard street bike. Light frame, slick tires, no suspension and between 18 and 24 gears. Among veterans however, the favoured bikes are single speeds. There is a large variety among single speeds as well (fixed drive or freewheel, coaster brakes or hand brakes, etc.) but they all share the advantage of being mechanically simple machines. When you are riding eight hours a day, any part that can fail, eventually will. And probably dramatically. Thus, the simpler the mechanism, the lower the mechanic’s bill….
As a courier, you will get hit by cars. It is an occupational hazard…. A certain brash courier from another company who liked to refer to himself as “The Fastest Messenger in Toronto” (and he may well have been, arrogance aside) once told me that he didn’t wear a helmet because having a safety net makes you reckless and that if you are fast enough, you don’t fall. The next week, he went through the back window of an SUV that stopped suddenly and spent two weeks in the hospital. I don’t know a single courier who has worked the job for more than a year and not been hit at least once….
One thing I was surprised to discover is that pedestrians are almost as dangerous to the full-time cyclist as drivers are. Especially if you indulge in sidewalk riding, but frequently even if you stick to the road, people will dart in front of you or suddenly stop or change direction without even the most cursory glance or indication of intent. A car, at least, can’t change its direction of travel by a full 180 degrees in half a second.
On Reddit: “My dad is a pilot and during the pandemic decided to make a work simulator at home” Funny https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/forwf5/my_dad_is_a_pilot_and_during_the_pandemic_decided/
Teaser that ran in movie theaters for the Max Fleischer “Superman” cartoons, 1941 www.youtube.com/watch
My little experiment using micro.blog categories to automate selective syndication to Tumblr and Twitter failed. Posts were not showing up in either place, except for one post that showed up on Tumblr but formatting was screwy.
And even if that problem were resolved, it would drive me crazy to remember to check the little category boxes every time I post to micro.blog.
So for now I’m going back to my previous default: Automatically cross-post everything to Tumblr, which results in duplicate posts when reblogging from Tumblr. And manually post to Twitter.
I may revisit this another day. I expect I will.
@manton said yesterday that using micro.blog automation to cross-post multiple categories might result in problems, and he suggested IFTTT instead for that case. But did I listen? Noooooooo.
Today on Cory Doctorow's Pluralistic.net
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
The Internet Archive is supporting unlimited book-lending during the crisis. “… they buy and scan one copy of every book (pretty much every book, ever) and lend it out to one person at a time. They’ve just announced that during the crisis, they are lifting the one-borrower-at-a-time restriction and allowing unlimited borrowing, ‘to meet the needs of a global community of displaced learners’. They call it the ‘National Emergency Library.
Second Life-maker calls it quits on their VR follow-up techcrunch.com/2020/03/2…
Linden Lab is selling off Sansar to a small company called Wookey Search Technologies.
The travel, conference and tourism industry are going to be in recession for a long time after coronavirus is a distant memory.
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
As Charles Stross notes here in another context, people are going to be reluctant to gather in big groups with other people who’ve come from far away. www.antipope.org/charlie/b… He says he doesn’t expect to see much activity in science fiction conventions in 2021 or 2022. I agree and see this going far beyond science fiction conventions. Most of my career has been closely tied with professional conferences. I’ve gone to one or two a month, mostly traveling by plane to get there.
Shopping run: I went to the supermarket yesterday – for the benefit of my local friends, the Vons on University in La Mesa. The crowd seemed about typical for a weekday afternoon, which is to say moderate. Neither heavy nor light. Most people were not wearing masks or gloves. I wore latex gloves – surprisingly light and comfortable, and blue, which made me think of the bad guys on the TV show “Firefly.” I did see a few other gloves-wearers, and a couple of people wearing masks. None of the staff were wearing gloves or masks.
The shelves for toilet paper, sanitizer and wipes were bare. Slim pickings on soup. My favorite pea soup with ham was in, Julie’s tortilla soup was out. Our favorite brand of cat littler had only one box in stock, but I was able to load up on an alternative. Everything else seemed pretty well stocked up, including meats, dairy and produce.
There was a box of hand sanitizers at the front entrance of the supermarket for public use. I think it’s there all the time, not just during the pandemic. Usually I don’t bother. Yesterday I took one and used it to quickly wipe down the handle of the shopping cart, even though I was wearing gloves and my hands wouldn’t be touching the handle.
We mostly kept a six-foot distance. Although we did get closer when we passed each other, we didn’t linger. We kept our distance at the shelves; if one person was taking something, the other hung back until the first was done. No reacharound.
When I got to the cashier, there was one woman in line, behind the person being checked out. She took two steps back and I realized I had been standing too close, and did the same. When it was her turn, and I stepped up to the on-deck position, the cashier said I should load my groceries on the conveyer belt like usual, and then stand at the end of the checkout counter until it was my turn.
I asked when toilet paper would be in stock. She said likely Wednesday, but I should be sure to get there early. When the store opens at 7 am there’s a line of 150 people waiting to get in.
I am slightly concerned as we are legit running low on TP. Got about a week’s supply. Got plenty of facial tissues and paper towels so that’s not a cause for concern. Likewise, while I am running low on my favorite hand soap, we have plenty of other soap.
Our pending possible shortages are like inaudible whispers compared with the jet engine roar of what may be coming in a few weeks.
Julie said today that I am “contumacious.”
So like I said, I ordered a new iPad Pro last night. I am a confessed Apple fanboy, so I’m excited to get it and feel like I can barely wait the 2-2.5 weeks until it’s due to arrive.
Last night as I was falling asleep, I found myself wondering what kind of world we’ll be in when the iPad gets here. Things are moving awfully fast.
I excavated my briefcase from where it was buried under cardboard boxes in my office. I thought I had packets of hand sanitizer wipes in there, but it turned out to be Coffee-Mate, which is not a substitute, I think.
"Even during a global pandemic, nobody in Boston eats manhattan clam chowder"
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
The coronavirus leftovers: Twitter users share grocery store items no one is apparently buying www.foxnews.com/food-drin… Reminds of college dorm life: Corn nuts would be the last candy left in the vending machine, after the M&Ms, Snickers, and all other candies sold out. This was a weekly occurrence. Eventually I acquired a taste for corn nuts.
"Julia Roberts’ performance is the magic spell that makes Pretty Woman work."
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Appreciating “Pretty Woman,” 30 years later www.refinery29.com/en-ca/202… I didn’t see “Pretty Woman” until years after it came out because chick flick. It’s a delightful movie. Julia Roberts yes but also Laura San Giacomo, who is an underappreciated national treasure. Jason Alexander is the perfect d-bag. And Richard Gere is Richard Gere and Hector Elizondo is Hector Elizondo, two things that are excellent to be.
I see a few social media darwinists saying we should be willing to sacrifice lives in the short term to restart the economy. But nobody’s willing to lead by example.