Notices by Dave 🚀 (dave@social.lightbeamapps.com)

I hate where the US election looks like it is going and the inevitable cost on humanity that it is likely to have.

One thing is quite clear to me though.

The rest of the world having so much of our digital lives routed through and dominated by the USA, is a huge problem and risk to so many things. For a lot of our digital and online lives, the USA is a single point of failure.

I’m on one of the local long COVID groups on FB messenger. It’s both disheartening and and heartening how many folks are there. Mutual support.

Pretty routine, is a sense of abandonment by people in our lives who haven’t got the condition.

That glossing-over and ignorance, that most people do, feels actively harmful at times.

Far too many shared experiences of folks who should have stepped up, supported, (manaaki?) people in their lives and just… didn’t.

Folks who won’t test, mask, vaccinate or protect their own health when they can, who won’t do it for their loved ones.

Folks who won’t spend the barest bit of emotional labour to reach out and support.

It’s an eye opener, and still slaps me in the face each time I see it play out.

I’m very grateful for my family, and those who have stepped up in my life.

Thinking about climate change, and story telling. I remember that in the tv series FireFly, they refer to “earth that was”.

The thing about being in my 40s, is that I remember bits of “earth that was”. I know things have changed in my lifetime. I also remember my dad telling me about the changes he’d seen from the 60s-90s when I was a kid.

We will tell stories of the older days, and it’s going to sound unreal to the generations that don’t know otherwise.

“Earth that was” is a distant planet

Relatedly: that makes me think, well what stories could we tell to guide this? HopePunk rather than dystopia?

Maybe.

Whatever it is, it probably shouldn’t be utopian. It should show the work ahead, the work that will be necessary.

The changes are going to happen quicker than we’d like and their fixes are going to take longer than any generation has.

I want to see stories of how this work can be done, I think.

Also relatedly. This is probably why capitalism, and colonialism undermines inter-generational living, and links and communication between the generations. Disconnect each new generation from that knowledge base.

There’s probably a power to be had in stories here. Communication into the future.

I'm unlikely to see either, but seeing some of the Incel rage about the Joker sequel is funny AF

Explaining the need to continue mitigations against COVID to a relative in the UK, I said:

“I still wear a seatbelt even though I haven’t been in a major car crash, same logic.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/26/in-their-plaintive-call-for-a-return-to-the-office-ceos-reveal-how-little-they-are-needed

“The real concern driving CEO resistance is the fact remote work involves a previously unthinkable change in the way productive activity is structured and organised. If workers can do without the physical presence of managers, perhaps they don’t need managers at all, at least in the way they currently operate”

Amen!

#RemoteWork #WFH #RTO

I manage teams of people, remotely. It involves, trust, respect, and collaboration.

I suspect the reason a lot of CEOs struggle with remote work and flexibility, is because they have a command and control mentality rather than these behaviours and values

Anyone else notice that although the presenters changed in each segment of the #AppleEvent, their hand movements remained the same?

We were playing:

“Wide arms”
“Pinch movement”
“Wide arms”
“Mr Burns hands!”

#Apple #iPhone

A Sunday morning article on COVID in New Zealand

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/covid-19/525469/covid-19-will-be-with-us-forever-flu-expert

Reading it the key messages seem to be:

* Only those who are vulnerable really feel the effects of it.

* No mention of long COVID and the health complications we know can come from infection.

* It’s just sniffles we have to get used to

It’s minimising, and an ableist + eugenicist take on it all.

The reality:

* COVID impairs cognitive function, and this can happen even in “mild” cases in otherwise healthy people

* COVID causes organ damage, and this can also happen with “mild” infection

* Its damage is cumulative. The more infections you have, the more likely it is that you may become permanently disabled by it

* It is not seasonal, and summer waves aren’t just something to get used to

* You can get reinfected within weeks of a previous infection. Immunity isn’t guaranteed by infection or vaccine.

This is because it is a virus that really damages your immune system. It is constantly mutating, due to being highly contagious and people not taking mitigation measures seriously.

“We’ve got to live with it”

Exactly. This doesn’t mean throwing other people under the bus, and waiting until you’re in their position to give a stuff.

“It will be with us forever” is the headline of this article.

And I mean yup, it will be thanks to a combination of:
* Late stage capitalism
* racism
* ableism
* social pressure and inertia
* People individually opting out of social responsibility

On that last point. If you can mitigate, but choose not to because of “the vibes”, you’re not pulling your weight.

For a lot of people (not everyone I know), it can come down to:

“Masks weird me out, and taking precautions is hard because of peer pressure.”

vs

“I am now living with permanent disability.”

And just to add. It’s ok to start resuming mitigations if you’ve been slack/ignoring things for a while.

There’s a weird wrinkle in human behaviour where people think it’s all or nothing, it’s really not.

You could do a job where masking is impossible, and still mask up at the supermarket.

You could switch to outdoor meetups when the weather is good.

There’s a whole suite of minor inconveniences that could help you and others around you.

@gruber @ianb

I for one am happy to tell Apple “welcome to our world!”

This view of the EU and DMA is so incredibly similar to App Store review, and Apple’s enforcement of its own rules there.

@ianb @gruber

Indeed !

Apple are an imperfect corporate entity, and there’s no reason to give them any more leeway than any other corporate entity.

In terms of the DMA, I think they need to stop operating in bad faith. Working with it is part of doing business and supporting their customers in the EU.