Cal Newport: On Quiet Quitting.
“Every generation reaches a point where they begin to think more critically about what role, exactly, work should play in their life.”
I’m still working on that. I’ve always been a late bloomer.
Ian Welsh: How To Relax, Change & Be Free.
“… everyone is acting according to conditioning: religious, social, family, school, philosophical, etc… They’re in chains, and they regard those chains as themselves.”
Ben Dreyfuss: Romanian Cops Did Not Find Andrew Tate Because Of His Greta Thunberg Video: “This is a lesson in media failure and misinformation.”
I saw a bulldog wearing a sweatshirt today.
This seems like a black-funny story until you read the charges against Tate. He”s not just your average MRA grifter. He seems like a monster and predator who should never breathe free air again.
Andrew Tate Arrested for Human Trafficking in Romania After Pizza Box Gave Away His Location. [Laura Bassett/Jezebel] “A video the men’s rights activist tweeted in response to Greta Thunberg’s burn about his small dick energy reportedly led authorities right to him.”
Four days after Elon bragged about unplugging an important server rack, Twitter went down hard. — Mike Masnick at Techdirt @mmasnick@mastodon.social
The woke mind virus strikes again!
“I remember reading an interview with a minister of an African state who said approximately, ‘every time a western minister visits us we get a lecture, every time a Chinese official visits we get a new hospital.’”
— Ian Welsh: A Map Showing The Two Main Geopolitical Blocs
Religious upbringing is great for kids, even for those of us who find ourselves nonbelievers, agnostics, or atheists. It helps a person figure out the world and cosmos and their place in it.
Talented trans woman writer Charlie Jane Anders @charliejane@wandering.shop remembers her time as a choirboy. She saw the best and worst of religion—“complicated and messy.”
Do you set aside time every day to unplug?
Thursday, December 29, 2022
Yesterday I read this post by Craig Mod about how he spends a big part of his day just walking around, unplugged, not connected to the Internet or listening to anything on earphones. The Sorta Kinda Life Changing Bliss of Walking Solo It made me think about how I seem to be looking at screens or listening to podcasts almost all the time1, and how maybe it would be better if I just … not.
Hello insomnia my old friend.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022 →
While walking the dog, I saw this splendid holiday display.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022 →
Crypto craziness craps out — and about time too. By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (@sjvn@mastodon.social) at The Register.
At a recent fintech open source fintech conference, crypto was only mentioned in passing. “People would talk about it in the same way you’d talk about your little brother’s latest embarrassing TikTok video.”
From where I sit, this is the slow but sure fall of what has always been one gigantic Ponzi scheme. There has never – never – been any real value in crypto. Yes, I know all the arguments about how fiat currencies have no intrinsic value either. You know what, though? If I go to the grocer, I can buy milk, bread, and butter with my fiat dollars or pounds. Dogecoin? Garlicoin? Trump NFT trading cards? I don’t think so.
…
At least with famous financial scams of the past, such as the Dutch Tulip Bubble and the 2008 real estate crash, you had tulip bulbs and houses for your money when all was said and done. With crypto, you’ll be left with nothing at all except meaningless, pointless, valueless blockchains.
I’ve been saying that bit about the tulip bubble for years. At least you had tulips.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022 →
The Sorta Kinda Life Changing Bliss of Walking Solo. By Craig Mod @craigmod@mastodon.social
Folks seem scared of solitude but solitude is a superpower when used well. Alone, in your basement, it breeds anomie, but out in the world, moving through the world, step after step, clear goal in mind, I’d argue that a solo walk during which you are engaged — paying attention, with your phone turned off, no headphones, no podcasts, no escape routes — is the quickest way to elevate a human. Basement solitude — isolated without serendipity, static, stagnant, stuck with your face in a screen, manipulated by the algorithms — is the death of the soul. The solo walk outdoors, in the air, beneath the sun, the rain, the snow, bumping into drunken horse betters, kind gardeners, farmers covered in blood, women beating mattresses at dusk, tractor trailer drivers leaning against their cabs for a smoke, is the opposite, the antipode, the physical palinode to basement solitude and the death of the mind and body.
I walk the dog more than three miles nearly every day, and that counts as walking alone. But I’m almost always listening to podcasts.
I sorta kinda remember who the author, Craig Mod, is—I think he’s a travel writer, currently living in Japan, and from this essay I gather his daily walks are part of his work. He seems to photograph and video the things and people he sees, and interviews the people, publishes the results on the web, some by subscription only, and sells it in books. Very different from my life (though it sounds appealing). He walks 12-45 km per day (that’s about 7.5-30 miles), carrying 12 kilos of photo and video equipment (26 pounds.
The walk, he says, is his work platform, the way the computer and Internet are mine.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022 →
Dogs start the day with a spoonful of Alpo or some other canned meat on top of a heap of patented, vitaminized kibble. In no time the meal is gobbled down and the dish licked clean and, like as not, poked noisily about the kitchen like a hockey puck, amid waggings. But I can recall another era, when every dog took a quick first look into his dish, to see what was in there. It was different each morning, but might contain a last chunk of pot roast or ham hock, plus gravy, from the previous night’s dinner table, a scraping of scrambled eggs, a slice or two of stale bread, leftover lima beans or spinach, a fresh but limp carrot, a splash of milk, and a half-bitten doughnut. It went down just as fast and probably did no harm, but what I’m getting at here is the old phrase “a dog’s breakfast,” because that’s what this book is. A mélange, a grab bag, a plate of hors d’oeuvres, a teenager’s closet, a bit of everything. A dog’s breakfast.
– Roger Angell, “This Old Man: All in Pieces.”
That’s what this blog is. A dog’s breakfast.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022 →
Texas Cop Sentenced To More Than 11 Years In Jail For Killing A Woman During A Welfare Check. By Tim Cushing at Techdirt.
Atatiana Jefferson was lawfully hanging around in her Texas home when she heard a prowler outside at 2 am, so she retrieved her lawfully owned gun to investigate. The prowler was police officer Aaron Dean, who was called on a welfare check after neighbors reported Jefferson’s front door was open and light was on at that unusual hour of the night. In the confusion that followed, Dean failed to identify himself as a police officer, and shot and killed Jefferson.
Dean made so many awful decisions in just a few minutes, as did the police department, which defended Dean as reacting to a “perceived threat”—that threat being Jefferson, who in reality was just being in her own home, babysitting her 8-year-old nephew, violating no law.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022 →
Amazon begins drone deliveries in California and Texas.
Residents of two towns, one in each state, can sign for drone delivery.
“The drone will fly to the designated delivery location, descend to the customer’s backyard, and hover at a safe height,” Amazon said. “It will then safely release the package and rise back up to altitude.”
Wednesday, December 28, 2022 →
Republicans Can Still Win in Blue San Diego. By Andrew Keatts at Voice of San Diego.
Wednesday, December 28, 2022 →
Mastodon has rejected five recent funding offers to preserve its nonprofit status. “Mastodon will not turn into everything you hate about Twitter,” says founder Eugen Rochko.
Remains to be seen whether this lasts. Money is a powerful temptation.
Southwest’s super-efficiency is destroying it
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Seems like the super-efficiency that made Southwest a great airline in good conditions is making it a nightmare now. Super-efficient businesses have no slack in emergencies. Daring Fireball: Southwest Airlines Has Fallen Apart We saw that with some household supplies in 2020. And we’re still seeing it in healthcare today. Our healthcare system was designed to serve the healthier population of 2019 (and it served even them poorly, while increasing wealth for shareholders).