Oh you know, existential dread, filing out visa and residency paperwork for different countries, applying for jobs in said places to make such a leap easier; the usual start to a dystopian week.
My family invested in a jungle-gym when I was a kid. We were lucky. The slide was wood with a thin wax coating. It lasted about one year in that region, baking in one season, swelling in another, freezing and thawing in the other two, until it became a splinter distributor and we never used it again.
For the metal slides, however, lying on a skateboard + metal slide = somehow never broke a bone.
"How much ya gunna pay for what you used to get for free..." Tom Petty, Last DJ. Underrated tune about the demise of free and independent radio and radio DJs.
No Man's Sky is still, in my opinion, trying to make up for what it was on release. It's a great game now. Not my jam as I find it far too expansive for my tastes, but I can't knock it for what it is today. I think it's a work of art and the seamless planet travel is pretty damn cool.
Not going to lie, that title took me a hot minute. It's brilliant on so many levels.
That aside, I'm not surprised at the outcome but also terrified at how insane it is. I want to give into conjecture and vent, but it won't help anyone. It's all just so surreal.
Coffee? CHECK. Baked bread? CHECK. Not dead? CHECK.
Off to a good start.
I actually trust you all (like everyone here) to do the right thing and find a solution. My two cents:
-Find another fiscal sponsor as a stop gap to more stable roots. -501c3 can be faster than you expect. But you get complicated with your board governance, required reporting and records keeping, etc. -There are many types 501c orgs (c4, c6, c3) maybe this fits in a 3 or somewhere else. -Incorporation, in any sense, can lead to governance, legal, and fiscal issues that may be beyond volunteer capacity to deal with. -Shit happens, thanks for being transparent.
Ok folks telling me to just get a Linux Distro.
PC Gaming - Enshrouded, Valheim, BG3, Dragon Age: Origins, and No Man's Sky, generally Steam platform. Classics like Caesar III, TIE Fighter.
Work - Data Analysis, Lots of word documents, spreadsheets
Internet - Light browsing, podcast listening, music streaming
What distro and why?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If at the state level, do you mean the State Level Senator or Rep? As it reads, your congressman (i.e., your Federal Rep in DC) wouldn't have much legislative authority in Texas, even if they represent Texas.
Texas at a state level won't do anything, it's gerrymandered into Banana Republic territory. So you can fix gerrymandering (not likely) or bring the federal justice hammer down on the assholes empowering this crap (also not likely).
This is an issue akin to, but not a mirror of, the Jim Crow South, and I mean that administratively. Texas and other states have created three classes of citizen, divided by their ability to give birth (m or f by Texas interpretation) and, unlike Jim Crow, divided again by if they are pregnant or not. This, like Jim Crow, is effecting lives of course, but also commerce, travel, and other systems in ways I can't fathom. Let alone the mental health and health tolls on anyone carrying a baby, as you're immediately guilty until you give a healthy birth or proven innocent if anything happened to go wrong.
Jim Crow suffered blows from federal power via the federal government pursuing commerce clause arguments. Wait. What? Really? Yes, see Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States and Katzenbach v. McClung.
That's what it'll take to stop this insanity. But, I fear, the current political climate is not there yet. So much needs to get fixed to get us back to the point where a supreme Court won't cite a pre-USA constitution legal argument as grounds to intervene in a woman's personal health. Crazy people out of politics, gerrymandering addressed, hate and anti democratic speech reinterpreted under the 1st amendment, etc.
It's a long battle but Jim Crow's ultimate destruction, and even Roe v Wades success while it lasted, proves we can do it but we need to learn from the shortcomings and solidify basic human rights in our national identity moving forward.
I highly recommend you watch Netflix's Downfall: The Case Against Boeing. The hostile takeover by McDonnell-Douglas trashed that company. I try to avoid flying in anything post-takeover that carries a Boeing name.
My administrative law professor, eons ago, worked as a supreme court clerk. Very smart person, very kind, and very neutral on anything political so no one could call him a hack when he shared his professional opinion. He halted class one day when the Max situation came up. He spent 3 hours devoted to his experiences with the FAA Regulatory apparatus, Airbus, and Boeing. He remarked about the redesign of the aircraft, engine placement, stalls, and how generational aircraft are inspected and approved. He went on to explain how Boeing had been, for years (since the hostile take over) been trying to push the boundaries of what was, and was not, an acceptable submission to the FAA for a speedy review as an updated generational aircraft, and was getting away with it. The documentary pretty much lays this out but profit margin, competition with Airbus, and hubris = QA/QC shortcuts as well as cost-savings shortcuts in design.
After all the reports came out, which that documentary I linked does an excellent job of detailing, I look back on that class and thank my lucky stars for the time I spent learning from that man. The 737 Max should have been an entirely new aircraft, with more rigorous scrutiny by regulators. But since it was just an "upgrade" it get away with major structural, software, and hydraulics changes without so much as a glance.
I try not to fly on anything from the post-takeover Boeing, and try to get on an Airbus whenever possible. An extra couple of bucks or a few extra layovers is worth it compared to being an example of why Boeing sucks.
501 is not that easy. Sure, getting nonprofit recognition can be fast. But you are now buried in reporting requirements that put a heavy admin burden on you.
Very broad and simple but: You must register in a state and abide by their rules. Then apply for tax exempt status in that state. Then ask the IRS for your 501c3. Boom. Now what?
You need to setup systems to maintain a balance sheet to complete your 990 or 990ez, keep minutes on record, have a board, board manual, whistle lower and harassment policies....it gets paper heavy fast.
Why? States and the Feds trust you to provide a public service or good, and thus determine you shouldn't pay taxes in exchange. They will absolutely bury you if they find you are violating that trust.
Hang, in, there. I can't understand nor relate to your situation, but you'll find with time and reflection that things, did in fact, stabilize. Just know there are people that care about you and that you generate meaning and joy for people in your life.
A long long time ago I had two serious knee injuries on the same knee. They warned me after injury and surgery 2 that the day would come when running just would became impossible and I should do everything I could to keep my muscles and health good. I was a runner my whole life, the injuries were not running related, but I could go on a 10 mile run like it was nothing and was pushing 60 miles a week for most of my adult life.
I started noticing some pain issues and swelling and had to stop running cold turkey two years ago. I got some training and hired an expert to craft a program to support my leg. Personal best in squats and deadlifts, it was incredible, looked and felt great for two years. But then, just like that, I went down on one knee to do a pallof press and HOLY MOTHER OF ALL THE GODS OLD AND NEW the pain.
I lost what remained of the cartilage. The muscle atrophy as I've gone through the systems to get a treatment plan and learn what's going on has been brutal. I'm looking at major life changes to hold onto the knee until I'm old enough to warrant one replacement I can die with. And it absolutely devastated me. I drove home and saw a jogger and just got so insanely depressed. I want to go and start doing the exercises I know can help me regain some strength, and support that joint, but I also know an f'up will make it way worse. So I wait for PT and am just getting depressed AF.
Woke up. Got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head...saw water damage in a room. Had a cup, noting I'd be late chugga chug chug Saw a pipe spraying water out my wall.
So I got that going for me, which is nice.
Otherwise, not too shabby. Thanks for sharing everyone and hope you have a good week this week. Remember, even when shit hits the fan there are still people that care about you. Even digital strangers with water shooting out of places water should not shoot from.
Most challenging teaching experiences of my still new career. I'm having a lot of anxiety over how students are responding in one class, if I'm getting through to them, and adjusting lesson plans and my lectures to ensure I am. I'm teaching a very difficult subject, with a history of students failing out of it. So after taking it over from the last professor, I've toned it down. It's a "why we budget" class and most of the students are either a) completely accounting illiterate but great at decision making or b) accountants and don't understand why we're talking about theory and decision making. It's a bit of both, across all major sectors, which makes it notoriously challenging for professors and students. Trying my best, but I'm loosing a lot of sleep over this class.
Am I getting through? Why did only 2 students provide mid-term feedback? 1 positive, 1 not so much? All fair critiques, and fair praise, but where's everyone else? Is anyone actually doing the readings or is my approach (you read, you research a little, then I lecture and summarize what you need to take away), not working here?
Struggles, and I also decided no scotch this week which was my "I am home now, not in the classroom" mental break from the day.
In my role at a Uni, I teach. I learned early on that every class I offer should have a skills workshop. One of them are basic non-phone skills like copying and pasting. Yes. Our youngest generation of college students in non computer sciences struggles with how to understand file structures and keyboard commands like copy and paste because they've never seen them before. So let's stop making technology usefulness a generational thing. It's exposure and education, which applies to everyone.
I respectfully offer that the Better Business Bureau is not a reputable source. They rate companies and charities in the same way Yelp rates businesses. They offer fees for ratings and the complaint process does absolutely nothing. I'll let you do the google sleuthing on it, but please, do not use them for anything.
Charity Navigator, Candid, and ProPublica offer far better tools for assessing charity. If you're paywalled from navigating some of the tools provided by Candid or other big entities, you can try your local library as they'll sometimes have access.
Finally, the "best" charity in my line of work (I research these things) depends on three things:
And you should absolutely read what @frog@beehaw.org has contributed. Clear mission/value/goal/program alignment, transparency, and accountability to the public are, generally, praise worthy organizations. Those that do not provide annual reports, 990s, and other important information on their websites are, in my research/experience, generally doing something questionable if not illegal.
This week is rough. We're in midterms and everyone around is just in pain. Physical. Mental. I've been putting in 12 hour days trying to send feedback (I'm in the un-grading camp, which can be pain with a lot of students) prepare lectures, cover every imaginable student related problem, and it's overwhelming.
It's here where I really see where my class falls. Did I effectively get information across in a meaningful way? Yes. Are there a few students who are beyond helping? Always, and that pains me. You can do everything from outreach, to contacting student help offices, and they still miss assignments and stay on their phone during class. It's 20-30k a year. Gone. And it hurts me that I can't do more for them. The students who care are amazing and do incredible work. But knowing how much is at stake here, debt, knowledge, future, and how lucky they all are to have this opportunity...totally wasted. Hits hard every semester.
Ah yes Taxes. The things I don't mind paying but wish the rich kids would pay too. :-(
Howdy. I am well aware of Klein, as her investigative journalism is what kept me motivated to keep asking questions about environmental justice and doing research. She, frankly, knows her shit and is one of the most well spoken and passionate people I've ever had the chance of reading and hearing.
And she's absolutely right. Without a shadow of a doubt, "hoping" the DNC doesnt suffer from the self inflicted "no-bernie no-vote" mistake is not enough. It's too close and too much is at risk for the people who do vote Democrat.
I went to bed that night and checked my phone looking at the electoral map. I sad to my partner, "Hillary is going to loose.." The numbers and visuals all just right there, election night, telling a very different story of what polls (remember the NYT Prediction tracker? Clinton 96% chance or something crazy?) Indicated. Woke up and was like "The son of a bitch actually did it.". I couldn't even think or feel, it was so insane and such a deviation from the norm that I had no ground to stand on. It was en entirely brave new world.
Had a rough lecture the other day and the imposter syndrome smacked me hard. I was teaching students in a skills lab, a sort of optional space where if they are struggling they can join me and learn basic items their prior courses didn't prepare them for. For context, a budgeting class where they never opened a spreadsheet before.
So I walk them through the basics, how to use formulas and functions, simple stuff like SUM and using conditional formatting to make negatives red. I must have clicked it typed something and missed it and f'ed the last 10 minutes. Pie charts broke. Wouldn't filter or sort my data by color. Man. It was a cluster fuck.
I woke up this morning, huge headache, and realized I'm just damn tired and drained. And it's resulting in cracks in how effective I can be in the classroom. Really need this term to end, I've got too many classes and too many students to teach in top of my own research, family balance, etc.
So many story telling memories. ME is still a treasure to me despite its challenges and missteps. ME2 is among my favorite game of all time, right behind Dragon Age: Origins.
But ME3 has a scene that was so well executed that I don't think anything has ever topped it, for me, in video gaming storytelling. From his decision to rectify what he now believes is a past wrong, do it alone, to his final remark about seashells.
It, to me, is extremely emotional and in the best way that a good story can be.
I'm in a glass box of emotion, in an easy to read list:
SCOTUS and the entire justice system in the US scare the shit out of me and are giving off some very Weimar Republic vibes with their handling of important issues. We are all thinking of how tiered and corrupt this cavalcade of insanity has been, but I've yet to hear anyone at the top do or say anything to fight back.
I have a student who is just a total asshole who absolutely needs to be kicked out of my class. Really disappoints me. The mountain of paperwork is exhausting but I'm doing it because someone in a position of power needs to do the right thing once in awhile.
I'm loosing weight and just need to get over this plateau and into my goal area. So close but wow is Laphroaig delicious on cool evenings.
New "older me" personal best on the bench. So I got that going for me, which is nice. I use our college gym and it's amazing. Most of the staff use the faculty hour but early in the morning, it's only dedicated athletes and people who want to be there. It's incredible and extremely satisfying to never need to wait for anything, and loose myself in heavy metal. 10/10.
Since AI is all the rage here, I used it for qualitative coding. Not to do my research. But to summarize and make suggestions. After playing with prompts it was pumping out time saving insights to empower me to dive deeper. Saved me MONTHS of work.
Finished a really funny article in the Atlantic on cruise ships. Awesome writing. Great story.
It's only Monday and I'm already falling asleep from exhaustion. Must. Turn. This. Week. Around!
I'm neutral, thanks for asking. Struggling between a heavy workload and leaping over my last university hurdle. The start of a new year is always a challenge, but one step at a time.
More immediately no one sick, hurt, dying, or dead. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
I got it. "Alexa, you owe me rent for being in my home. Alexa, send me 1500 a month in local currency."
Somewhere, a Jeff Bezos explodes.
Could nation-states just, for a day, not bomb one another? Houthis hit ships. Ships hit back. Iran hits...seemingly anyone nearby? Pakistan says, "Hold my Lassi" and lobs a few rockets back. Could we maybe, just take a deep breath, and chill?
Anyways, found out I got a hole in my knee meniscus exposing bone. I guess if we keep escalating these little tit-for-tat attacks I won't have to worry about it for too long.
That was brilliant.
Wall-E. Well done.
I'll need to learn to swim better than a dead fish, but yes, I should look into doing this.
I was on two Boeing 787 flights and made it back to type about it. No problems. However, I have to admit I was irrationally nervous since all the whistleblower reports on the 787 came out as I was checking in for the second, a 10 hour direct journey.
So I got that going for me, which is nice.
Remaining glued to Baldurs Gate 3. Enjoying a playthrough as a battle bard.
Did fire up Foxhole again to get into some trench combat. Had a ton of fun doing mortar support.
Favorite game of the year? BG3, hands down.
"Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're" checks notes "Drinking really nice scotch!"
The legal fine points, important of course, fail to consider the legitimacy problem here. If you don't agree with your political opponents, you want to murder them. Conspiracy, violation of legal code, maybe not as some comments have pointed out.
Extremely dangerous in a system where you are supposed to peacefully transfer power? Thats the problem with his words, that people like him think that is ok AND have been shown to have the capacity and vision to walk towards action. Without so much as a meaningful consequence at that.
That train of though is dangerous in a democracy, for anyone. Even a flawed democracy like the US.
I second the PBS documentary suggestion. The documentary is fantastic.
Wow, Slate and Monorail described perfectly.
As an aside I miss OG Slate from it's Ballard days.
Thanks to all of you for posting this week. You're wonderful for sharing and I'm very thankful.
Not an expert, but would our net neutrality rules that the supreme jerk Ajit Pai helped revoke have been a tool to combat this behavior?
I highly recommend you visit your local library and request/check-out a copy of the book Polarization by Nolan McCarty. Read that.