Automated Archives for October, 21st 2024
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Articles To Read
The following are articles that I saved today. Substance and quality will vary drastically.
- The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax
- The Rise and Fall of the Trad Wife
Chess For the Day
Record: 0-0-1
Net Elo Change: 0
Games Played
Blog Posts On This Day
- 1 year ago (1 post)
I Voted!
Wife and I sat down and filled out our ballots tonight. I'll drop them off on the way to work tomorrow morning.
How to Disagree
Found via futilitycloset, I remember reading this essay when he posted it. These days the shine on Paul Graham has definitely worn for me, but I do find this framework for disagreement interesting.
The post on futilitycloset included the following visualtion, which was not part of Graham's original essay:
Election Time, Endorsements, and Washington State Blue
We got our ballots this past weekend and tonight will be the night we fill them out, ahead of me leaving for a work trip. So they are done and counted well ahead of election day. Along with reading the pamphlet Washington State sends out, I always review the endorsements of the Seattle Times and The Stranger.
For those not in Seattle, The Stranger is our local small newspaper. Saying it is Independent is factually correct, but unfair as a comparison to the Seattle Times, which is also independent in that it is not part of any larger news organization such as the Tribune etc. The Seattle Times does trend comparatively conservative to The Stranger's much more liberal leaning.
To be clear, I don't strictly follow either set of endorsements, but I do read them as additional insights as I'm making my decision on how to vote.
When it comes to national elections, Washington is one of the states which is not up for question. When the polls close on election day, the news teams will immediately announce Washington (and presumably, California and Oregon) as Harris states.
Why? As of this morning polls have Harris with a very solid +15 over Trump for Washington, well outside a margin of error.
That said, I am growing to hate the narrative of "These seven states will decide the election." The feeling of voters that their vote doesn't matter here because the outcome is decided is understandable, but also not true. Without those votes, the outcome changes, or could change. It's like saying, "I work on a factory line and my spot isn't the last one in the line, so the car coming off the line isn't something I want to contribute to."
I get the psychology of it, and I get the clickbaity headlines are what the internet is geared towards. But I find it disappointing all the same.
"Can BRICS Take On The West"
The article itself is not particularly a must-read, but it did remind me of a conversation a few years ago. Coming out of COVID, a family member was lamenting global politics and how they were worried China was about to take the US economy. I had to talk them into understanding that that isn't something that just happens and China, despite it's importance to the US, isn't in a position to just do it.
The press' vilification of both China and Russia as enemies of the US don't do enough to actually explain how things work. And the fact that now, you have this growing alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, as well as now Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates, shows truly how powerful the US is politically. On paper, population-wise and according to the news, for oil and other things the US is "dependent" on, this alliance would seem terrifying.
It's undoubtedly something the US cares about politically, but also, there's a reason it isn't headline news - yet.
The expanded BRICS is indeed a diverse bunch. It includes a Marxist-Leninist superpower and a revanchist authoritarian state. It includes the world's biggest democracy as well as Latin America's largest. New members include countries under the U.S. security umbrella and countries under U.S. sanctions. Prospective members could even include NATO countries such as Turkey and global pariahs such as North Korea and Syria.
The West, when it pays attention to BRICS at all, tends to dismiss the grouping as an incoherent grab bag. But there is a common thread, as durable as that behind the Bandung Conference in 1955 that kick-started the global south's efforts to create a brave new world.
Outside of Washington, and the G-7 and the European Union, it is hard to appreciate just how much resentment there is of Western hypocrisy and hegemony, all mortar helping to bond the loose membership of BRICS. That has become especially evident over issues such as the conflict in the Middle East, the hyperweaponization of U.S. sanctions, and the outsized cost for middle-income countries of the dollar's exorbitant privilege.
"It is not a cohesive bloc, but it is a cohesive message, about the desire for an alternate global order, and it is coming from sizable economies," said Asli Aydintasbas of the Brookings Institution.
LIMTI
Last night I was able to finally fix my admin UI search functionality. It had been broken for a while. And the answer for why it was broken was disappointingly stupid. I had typoed the MySQL query, writing 'LIMTI' rather than 'LIMIT."
But its fixed now and my life is measurably better. While writing yesterday's post about adulting, I used it to search my original Anthony Bourdain post and replace some now-missing embedded tweets which shared a nice story about a person's meeting of Bourdain. I ended up going to the Internet Archive and snagging screenshots of the tweets to embed in the post.
October 20th, 2024
Automated Archives for October, 20th 2024
This post was automatically generated
Articles To Read
The following are articles that I saved today. Substance and quality will vary drastically.
Chess For the Day
Record: 1-0-0
Net Elo Change: +7
Games Played
"Laziness death spirals"
I read lesswrong far less frequently than I used to, but this post came across my feed and I snagged it to be read later. Nothing amazing, but enjoyable none-the-less.
When you're in a laziness death spiral, it's hard to do anything deliberate. The first and most important step, which does take some willpower but not a lot, is to acknowledge, "I'm in a laziness death spiral today."
If you don't acknowledge it, here's what happens: You vaguely notice you you've been wasting time today; you feel a twinge of guilt, so you quickly decide, "I'm going to turn the rest of the day around, starting right now." And does that work?
Often it doesn't! Sure, after a small lapse you can just get back on track, but if enough laziness momentum has built up, a momentary reaction doesn't cut it. Deciding things quickly, in response to negative emotions, is exactly how you got into this situation! You're going to turn it around on a whim? You'll have a different whim in the next hour; what then? You need to take a step back and get your mind outside of the problem.
Behind the ATprotocol design
(I'm still working on properly generating Bluesky embeds automatically, so I'm just linking to it and posting a screenshot for now.)
This thread was an interesting look at some of the thinking that lead to the ATprotocol (the underlying system for Bluesky) decisions.
Achieving the MVA
Anthony Bourdain said:
There's a guy inside me who wants to lay in bed, and smoke weed all day, and watch cartoons, and old movies. I could easily do that. My whole life is a series of stratagems to avoid, and outwit, that guy.
I think about this quote a surprising amount. My ADHD and modern society makes it incredibly easy to sit in my comfy chair or at my computer desk, and just fucking surf the web and play games hour after hour, day after day. Modern capitalism is about making you as comfortable as possible, and keeping you in front of a screen for as long as possible to enable more and more advertising to be shown to you.
I recently had the realization that often my daily striving, in the same vein as the Bourdain quote:
Every day, I need to achieve at least level of my MVA (Minimum Viable Adulting), and push to extend beyond that as much as possible.
Am I successful? No. Not often. Not even usually. I wrap myself in the blanket of my 9-5 job, and let myself believe that is that day's Minimum Viable Adulting. The shift I am trying to make mentally is that work is valid and obviously important to my livelihood, but my meaning for the Minimum Viable Adulting is just about being better at taking care of myself and my wife and our house.
But... I could reload Reddit for the 20th time in the hour. Or I can reload X / BlueSky / Mastodon. Or I can play another round of Team Fight Tactics. Or. Or. Or.
Or I can close the laptop and get up and do something. Today was fairly productive with me going out to get a much-needed haircut, doing some grocery shopping, working in the kitchen, assembling our new electric lawnmower and doing some vacuuming.
Today I managed the MVA.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024) - 3 out of 5 Bags of Skittles
It was fine as a finale to this movie franchise. It almost took the Fast and Furious journey and reached superhero absurdity, not quite, but almost.
October 19th, 2024
Automated Archives for October, 19th 2024
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Blog Posts On This Day
- 1 year ago (5 posts)
250-person Texas city had 50 police officers
The story doesn't go the way you expect it will.
"Fifty cops in a town of 250 — that's an interesting story," Rogalski said. "That's a talker."
Still, Rogalski and his colleagues on the investigations team weren't sure whether it was a story for them. For one, Coffee City is more than three hours north of Houston, outside of KHOU's viewing area. Would their audience even care? Rogalski also recognized that digging into the tip would require a lot of work. He would need to submit dozens of requests for the personnel files for each of the officers.
He decided to do just that. Rogalski made nearly 100 requests to all of the officers' past departments, asking for their personnel files, including any disciplinary actions and the reasons for their departures. The requests cost roughly $1,000 and resulted in nearly 9,000 documents.
"That's how we were able to determine that this wasn't just a story about a small town writing a bunch of tickets," Rogalski said. "Coffee City, Texas, was a magnet for troubled cops, and more than half of those officers had dubious work histories."
Those dubious work histories included suspensions, demotions and terminations. KHOU found officers with histories of excessive force, public drunkenness and criminal charges that included aggravated assault and family violence. One officer was fired from their previous job for telling a citizen on Facebook, "You should kill yourself, do the world a favor."
"This project was a little ironic in that what was interesting technically wasn't illegal. Them being a 'speed trap town' — perfectly legal. Them having 50 officers on the roster — while it's unusual, not illegal," Gibson said. "When we get to part three, what is illegal is they're not paying the minimum wage. That's technically against the rules. And how interesting is that?"
To hook the viewer and "bring some energy" to the piece, Gibson wanted to start with a trope that everyone could relate to — the small town that will pull you over. He worked to make sure that the headline — a town of 250 with 50 cops — would stay with the viewer no matter how far into the weeds the story got as it explored the various issues with the department.
The reaction was swift. Within two weeks, the city council had voted to fire Portillo and disband the entire police department. In December, Portillo was given six felony charges for tampering with government records by failing to disclose his DWI charge on his Coffee City job application. Several other former Coffee City officers face felony charges.
Nobody Wants This (2024) - 4 out of 5 l'chaims
Just finished the first season of this show. It's a cute romantic comedy that is smartly written and, while predictable, I enjoyed it start to finish. Looking forward to the second season.
Saturday of Woodstock
You know how people talk about Woodstock being so incredible? I think this Saturday evening lineup is a good reminder of what it was:
- Grateful Dead
- Creedence Clearwater Revival
- Janis Joplin
- Sly & The Family Stone
- The Who
- Jefferson Airplane
The latest Team Fight Tactics patch has been destroying me. I just can't seem to get any top 4s when I play.
October 18th, 2024
Automated Archives for October, 18th 2024
This post was automatically generated
Articles To Read
The following are articles that I saved today. Substance and quality will vary drastically.
- How Washington State’s Climate Legacy Wound Up on the Ballot
- If JD Vance Is Wealthy, Why Did He Let His Own Mother Scrape by on Medicaid? | Common Dreams
Chess For the Day
Record: 4-0-5
Net Elo Change: -6
Games Played
- Baxili - LOSS
- bayycevap - LOSS
- Ricardo1045 - LOSS
- MisterStelian - WIN
- h_LTX - WIN
- PLAYER_MONDA - WIN
- NEMO379 - LOSS
- Shadinabk - LOSS
- ilidiomartins2 - WIN
Blog Posts On This Day
- 1 year ago (2 posts)
Podcast Middleman Dev
Hammered the majority of the podcast middleman out this morning thanks to Python. A few things still to fix (like the fact The Daily has a 12.5 meg RSS file and I am not looking to archive their entire backlog) but the core functionality is there and it's just about trimming off what I don't locally archive, etc.