Notices by Scott 🇯🇲 🇺🇸 (genxjamerican@hachyderm.io)

@skinnylatte That LEGO set looks very cool. Hope we get a picture of your completed build next month 🙂

@skinnylatte @dan Sounds like I need to schedule some vacation time in east Asia then. I welcome your recommendations 😃

@skinnylatte @dan I would feel a lot better if I got all 3 of those things in succession

@skinnylatte I’ve lived on the Maryland side of DC suburbs my entire life and at least on the food front I think we punch above our weight because of decades of immigration from El Salvador, Ethiopia, Thailand, Vietnam, India, etc.
When it comes to housing costs, this area isn’t much better than SF because of the huge price run-up since the crash in 2008. My being a homeowner (2-garage townhouse) is just good fortune. Absent any one of the following factors (CS degree, no student loan debt, enough money saved for a downpayment, affordable real estate market in 1998) I might still be a renter today.

@skinnylatte A sadly predictable consequence of the heartless Grants Pass decision by SCOTUS. Local governments won’t increase their shelter capacity to address the problem, but they will expand their prison population instead.

@skinnylatte

@skinnylatte It’s definitely striking a pose for your camera 😆

@skinnylatte Just curious—what scanner? I still have an Epson V300 I haven’t used since my early film photography days scanning negatives and slides.

@skinnylatte OMG I can’t imagine.

@mekkaokereke Vermont eh? One of this country’s whitest places? Her son is adopted, black, *and* has special needs? A trifecta of “oh no”. He’s fortunate not to be dead. Unfortunate to be the adoptee of someone who means well but isn’t equipped to parent that particular child. The article doesn’t mention an adoptive father, so if this is a single parenting endeavor that’s even worse.

A grim but necessary read for every software engineer and every decision maker in organizations where software is a key deliverable. We depend heavily on FOSS at work, and every such dependency that loses support (or gets hijacked by a bad actor) means more work for us. https://toot.cafe/@baldur/113039605092302823

I’ll still be using 1Password, Yubikeys, and apps like Authy to secure my accounts. Ecosystem-agnostic tools for account access still seem like a good idea to me. https://mastodon.social/@verge/112616118743192872

“I have no time for foolishness.”

The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is.

https://www.genxjamerican.com/b/m6

While I understand Muirén’s perspective, I also understand why people object to those who have spent years weaponizing their skin color against the black community trying to seek refuge in the community they’ve devalued the moment they encounter trouble. https://sfba.social/@muiren/112182040134648479

Consider what Clarence Thomas did decades ago when his nomination to the Supreme Court was at risk. Consider also that the sexual harassment he was alleged to have committed was directed at a black woman. How did he characterize being questioned about his conduct? As a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks”. He guilted those white senators into appointing him to a job credentials did not merit. And his rulings have harmed the black community ever since.

@darnell brought attention to a Politico piece re: the state of American journalism. Here’s another: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/25/media/news-industry-future/index.html

Jay Rosen (professor of journalism at NYU) is quoted in the piece and has long been someone worth following regarding what good journalism looks like, the current travails of news as a business, and the consequences for democracy when journalism is done poorly or not at all.

@darnell My concern re: the dismantling of American journalism by private equity, hedge funds, & oligarchs comes not just from consuming a lot of print and radio news over the decades but having been a tech intern and part-time employee at The Washington Post, and a tech contractor for NPR and PBS. These orgs in particular (and journalism in general) are far less robust now than they were in the late-90s and early aughts—but even more important to an accountable, functioning democracy.

Gavin Newsom adds his name to the list of those for whom the plain text of the 14th Amendment is merely a suggestion. Which is to say that the full citizenship of black folks in this country should be subject to whims of whoever is in power. And given how we’ve seen gerrymandering work, whoever is in power is not even necessarily a majority.

https://mastodon.social/@GottaLaff/111635977367094642

Subjecting black citizenship to the popular will is how Reconstruction was killed after the Civil War. If this country makes the same mistake in 2024, it won’t only be black folks who suffer the consequences.

@baldur @franktaber Peopleware is an excellent book that I’m overdue to re-read. I’ve found the book Managing Humans (by Michael Lopp) to be an excellent read as well.