What you can do, "Don’t just ask (your elected leaders) once. Ask and follow up regularly. This is an issue that local politicians love to give lip service to, and then drop. Vigilance and measurable accountability is required if you want to create lasting change." (Grokked from Miranda Suri)
Kameron Hurley on how she broke into writing and the myth of the meritocracy. Also note, you still have to write a damn good book/story. Nothing gets around that.
Using the Fibonacci sequence to convert miles to kilometers. Mind blown. (Grokked from Dan)
Maple water. I just can't. Well, other than it being actual sugar water (just plant based) with a few minerals, I think it's interesting that there is a market for plant-filtered fresh water.
A hand-held device that can identify fonts and colors. A large portion of the middle of my career was doing this by hand (and eye). Damn computers, taking all our jobs. (Grokked from Dan)
"Epipens… which have to be replaced twice a year… were developed by NASA at taxpayer expense, were patented by a government scientist who receives no royalties, require no marketing, and have gone from as little as $60 each to up to $606 in a few short years (during which time the company has switched to selling them exclusively in two-packs)." I've got the pitchfork, anybody got the torch? Who's melting the tar and who is plucking the feathers? (Grokked from CC Findlay)
"This company isn't the only one selling ATM skimmers on Alibaba. There are 12,425 skimmer sellers on Alibaba." You know how people loved those hooverboards and practically everyone in China were making them? Welcome to the new manufacturing. (Grokked from Dan)
Subdivisions. It's a planned life, more than you really think it is. It is by design. And it sucks, by design. (Grokked from Robert J Bennett)
"'The machine on your desk may be a million times better than what I have built - but mine is much prettier,' he told the BBC." Dem flashin' lights. Man builds computer in his home to learn more about microprocessors. It's 33 feet wide and 6 feet high. (Grokked from Dan)
The nut doesn't fall far from the tree, even if he is an in-law. "The father-in-law of one of the Baton Rouge police officers involved in Alton Sterling’s deadly shooting blamed black protesters Wednesday for trying 'to make an agenda' out of police killings." (Grokked from John Scalzi)
"(St. Anthony Sgt. Jon Mangseth, interim police chief) added, 'There is no other threat to the public at this time.'" I beg to differ, chief, your officers are still patrolling the streets. This creates an obvious threat to the public. "Mangseth also said, 'It's not something that occurs in this area often.'" Well thank God you aren't killing black men who are complying with the orders of an officer "often." With video, but the description gives you a good enough description in case you don't want to look at the video.
Dear cops, I know most of you are good people doing a tough job for not enough pay. But all of this by the few who think a badge is an excuse is fucking you over. You had an opportunity to fix this (and some of you did for your own departments, good on you). However you should now think of yourselves as under scrutiny, and not by elected officials and other officers who might give you the reasonable doubt. Every time you leave the station house to do that thankless job you should consider yourselves mic'ed and on video. And while the audio may not capture all you say, the quality of recording will be above that of your body/dash cam (if you have one). When interacting with the public, even for non-enforcement purposes, you should believe you are being recorded by someone. Cameras are cheep and ubiquitous, as is storage. The public isn't going to give you the reasonable doubt, and they don't understand your training. On the plus side, municipalities don't have to worry about providing you body cams or develop policies for the thousands of hours of video and audio they produce. Unless you want to have a reasonable defense, and then you better well have them, have them on, and capturing everything you do and say. This was entirely avoidable, but unfortunately not enough of you did enough (and that really sucks for those that worked hard). But you'll never gain the trust of the populace without it. And you and I know how well you can do your job without the support of the general public.
How the Clinton email server most likely happened. "Badly optimized legacy systems require a ton of work to fix, IT monkey looks for a shortcut, breaks compliance rules in the process." IIRC, the government email servers in 2008 were in such a bad state that they felt this was a better solution if only to have the thing up and running most of the time. Also, on the "bad actors may have accessed…" :: eye rolls :: Oh please. If you think any government system that is tied to the general internet has not been hacked (repeatedly, by multiple actors) I have some swamp land I think you might be interested in. Don't think so? Moonlight Maze. Just google it. Hell, people have tried hacking my twitter and Facebook accounts (not to mention three attempts on this blog). (Grokked from John Scalzi)
Hey, remember the "(Trump) getting the raccoons out of the basement" guy, and how it was "just a phrase" and not meant to be racially tinged at all? He made a boo-boo again. This time "accidentally" (and by an intern) tweeting "Lynch @LorettaLynch let the Grand Jury decide". It's amazing how the Trumpster and his surrogates keep accidentally making all these racially tinged statements and messages. Just amazing.
The Freedom Caucus snaps the whip, and Ryan falls in line. Good job leading there, Sparky.
Ah, the Trumpster endorsements keep rolling in. "Many noted Walker's hesitance to say Trump's name and replied to his tweet with jokes and calls for Walker to 'say his name.'" No no no. On the night of the full moon, in a darkened room holding one lit candle, say his name three times while looking into a mirror. Only then will you know.
"'If (the delegates to the RNC) conscience will not allow them [to vote for Donald Trump], what about those millions and millions of people who did vote?' (Demetra Demonte, a former RNC secretary) said. 'Do they really want to disenfranchise those people?'" Well, you know, the GOP has had years of practice at disenfranchising voters, what makes this any different? Also while the Trumpster is the product of decades of GOP Southern Strategy and nonsensical/anti-logic rhetoric, their convention rules committee is now suffering from the decades of the GOP breaking rules and making the "well, actually" arguments (although it's now being pointed internally, which they never did before).
So, what to do if your boss and place of employment is under duress from charges of sexual harassment and your chosen candidate (and former commentator) is under fire for racism and general stupidity and the party you support is tearing itself apart? Oh look, Muslims! "Bill O’Reilly devoted an entire segment on his Wednesday show to discussing President Barack Obama’s 'emotional attachment to the Muslim world.'"
Tweet of my heart: @jaymgates I cannot even begin to tell you how much of my career has been "Sure, I'll do that!", followed by "Shit, I'd better learn how to do that."
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