Mitch Wagner

May 20, 2023 ∞

“It makes you really appreciate how free we are as a country when you’re hiding under a desk with bullets flying over your head.” The Onion: Americans Describe What It’s Like Surviving A Mass Shooting.

May 20, 2023 ∞

Jamelle Bouie: There is a reason Ron DeSantis wants history told a certain way. DeSantis is continuing a long tradition. Lawmakers in the antebellum South censored textbooks to remove criticism of slavery.

May 20, 2023 ∞

The Four Freedoms, According to Republicans

Jamelle Bouie at the New York Times:

There is the freedom to control — to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles.

There is the freedom to exploit — to allow the owners of business and capital to weaken labor and take advantage of workers as they see fit.

There is the freedom to censor — to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class.

And there is the freedom to menace — to carry weapons wherever you please, to brandish them in public, to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people.

May 19, 2023 ∞

It amazes me when I see someone has worked at the same company for 20+ years. I respect that stability.

May 19, 2023 ∞

De-nerding on coffee

A few years ago, I nerded out on coffee-making methods and eventually settled on using an Aeropress for my daily work-juice. Then I went down a rabbit-hole of looking up Aeropress coffee formulas. There’s an entire nerd subculture of Aeropress enthusiasts, who measure their beans and water to the gram, use a thermometer to measure the weater temperature, and time their brew to the second. They even count the number of strokes they use to stir the coffee before serving.

This is Catfishing on an Industrial Scale

Laura Cole writes at Wired about fake dating sites that employ hundreds of freelancers around the world “to animate fake profiles and chat with people who have signed up for dating and hookup sites…. Often recruited into ‘customer support’ or content moderation roles, they found themselves playing roles in sophisticated operations set up to tease subscription money from lonely hearts looking for connections online.” These reps, who often work for pennies from developing countries, roleplay as women with incredibly detailed—and fictional—biographies and profiles, messaging men on online dating sites.

Quite a lot of nature this morning

This morning, a little after 8, I was on my way home from walking the dog, one street over from the house, and I saw a coyote loping down the street. One of the neighbors, still in her red pajamas and slippers, stood in the street and watched. We chatted about the coyote and where it might live. That coyote has been around lately; I recognize it. I’m pretty sure that a coyote won’t attack a full-sized adult person.