Notices by Ellen Shapiro (designatednerd@mastodon.social), page 2

West coast 5.0: Everyone rolls over and goes back to bed

East coast 5.0: Public plea from the police to stop calling 911 to tell them there was an earthquake unless something actually happened because of it

Thanks for your kind words about my cousin. It’s really bizarre being on this huge trip with my in-laws with all this finally coming to an end.

I’ve talked about the corkscrew of the rollercoaster between good and bad I’ve been riding for the last 18 months, but today has really been some serious emotional whiplash.

38. Less than a year after diagnosis. Fuck glioblastoma right in the ear. #FuckCancer

2023 has been great and terrible and exciting and frightening and really above all else just an enormous pile of chaos that expanded exponentially every time I asked the universe to hold off on sending more.

Thanks to those who joined me on the ride this year. Here’s hoping 2024 is a solid one.

@endocrimes the monkeys on the rock of Gibraltar are very photogenic and will pickpocket your snack bars

At least as of 2010, when you go to the Alhambra hang on to your ticket even after you’re in, or when you go to tour the main palaces they’ll make you buy another ticket even though you clearly had to pay to get in

This is a good summary about why the Israeli strategy is so self-defeating: Hamas doesn’t give a fuck about civilian casualties in Gaza except as a way to get the rest of the world outraged at Israel. And Israel is giving them exactly what they want. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/09/world/middleeast/hamas-gaza-israel.html?unlocked_article_code=1.E00.XzAC.ndvt9xNawjNF&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare [gift link]

If you ever visit Cambodia or Laos, which I have been lucky enough to do, you will learn a lot about why all of SE Asia is ecstatic about Kissinger's death.

There's a reasonably direct line from the illegal bombing of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge's takeover, enabling their reign of terror that killed 1/4 of the Cambodian population and drove out or killed most folks who were educated.

There are still "bombies" from cluster munitions all over Laos, which kill or maim people on a regular basis.

There is a long, complex history of interweaved problems in Southeast Asia, and the Nixon administration, spearheaded by Kissinger, just came and poured gasoline on it, then got a Nobel Peace Prize for "putting out" the fire (which they absolutely did not do).

There's a part of me that's glad he lived long enough that a significant number of the obituaries are focusing on the long-term consequences of his illegal acts rather than the image he cultivated of himself.

One of my friends from college was living in Cambodia when she became quite ill, and basically had to be dragged onto a plane to Bangkok to get medical care because "institutional medical knowledge" is not a thing when someone killed the vast majority of doctors in a country.

@BethanyBlack as an 🇺🇸 who lived in NL for 2 years, the Dutch are very direct in a way that just does not compute to most Americans.

It actually is very helpful in the end because they will just tell you what they want and not make a fuss about it, but it takes quite a bit of getting used to.

Traditional thanksgiving trek to hang out with my dad and naturally he’s already signed me up to help him get a new phone and new headphones for his TV, and I’m not even at my hotel yet.

@inthehands I did not but I can certainly imagine.

Current status in dealing with Amtrak customer service after our train back to Rochester was cancelled

@inthehands Yeah and there's a lot of "Well but they..." going on, and that's why I sent this out: https://mastodon.social/@designatednerd/111223801821625929

The righteousness of your cause and the manner in which you pursue that cause are two different things under international law. And a whoooooole lot of people are confusing them and/or forgetting that if one side in a conflict violates the rules, that doesn't give the other side license to violate them back.

It’s incredibly hard to talk about in any nuanced way on social media, but everything in the Israel-Gaza conflict is impossibly sad.

The closest I can come in a sentence: The sheer suffering being inflicted on people who have little to no control over the actions of their leadership (or sometimes fellow citizens) has been and continues to be horrific.

@inthehands the former. I’ve used TransferWise for 6 years now.

Normal bank: To receive an international wire, please have the money sent to this account owned by the bank, then write down somewhere the *actual* person you want us to give it to. Oh there’s nowhere on your end to write it down? Too bad! Also this will take a week and cost at least thirty bucks.

TransferWise: Here is a link to have this deposited into your account here immediately without having to tell the counterparty anything about your account. It’ll be there tomorrow, for free.

Oh no (cc: @dnanian)

Things I do not advise doing while your sinuses are in rage mode: Attempting to rebase a decent sized branch for the first time in a week

Cat's out of the bag: I'm honored to have been asked to join the #Swift Foundation workgroup, so Foundation can truly be a…well, foundation...everywhere. https://forums.swift.org/t/foundation-workgroup-formed/67135