Notices by Sean Kleefeld (skleefeld@mastodon.social)

Oh, look -- *yet another* UBI test that worked as intended with none of the down-sides critics worry about. It's almost as if every one of these literally hundreds of UBI experiments all telling us the same thing are on to something.

https://www.wbez.org/cook-county/2025/04/08/cook-county-leaders-are-touting-the-success-of-their-guaranteed-income-pilot-program

When I was a kid, WMMS used to kick off Friday evenings with a guy screaming, "Friday! FRIIIDAY!! FRIIII-AI-AI-AI-AI-AIIIIII (breath) Day!" and then launched into this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Tcggo45TQ

#3goodthings

1. The custom housing I made for one of my motion sensors works better than I expected; helps hide the sensor & prevents it from being triggered by just the door itself
2. Got a note from my brother that he'll be in town in May; will be the first time I've seen him in maybe 3 years
3. No real agenda for the weekend; should be able to relax a bit

@futurebird Years ago, I worked at Kenner and did some of the packaging design for the Sparkle Spirograph. I had to create my own designs on the computer because the actual spirograph art with the glitter didn't reproduce well enough. What I found interesting is that they had their engineers reverse calculate my design to ensure that it could indeed be created using an actual Spirograph. (I did have to change my design slightly; I think I mis-measured the inner diameter & had one loop too many?)

When people today are warning that cutting this program or eliminating those government employees will kill people, this is what they're talking about. They are absolutely not being hyperbolic. We can point to exactly what happens when those systems go away suddenly...

Hundreds of thousands of deaths.

/end

@eliasp Like I said, it is absolutely not hyperbole to say hundreds of thousands will die as a direct result of these asswipes.

The poverty rate continued to remain as high as 20% in 2004. In 2011, 53% could still only afford basic necessities (which technically isn't poverty, but not by much).
3/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15705850508438926

Look at this chart again. It took a full quarter century just to get Russia's population back to where it was at the start of 1991. Not from some major plague. Not from war. From a lack of functioning government.

And that's not even considering quality of life. That's just looking at it from a binary life + death position only!
6/

The reasons for the Soviet Union's collapse are irrelevant right now. My point is that when you suddenly throw a substantial portion of government employees to the unemployment lines and suddenly lose access to vital government services, people will die. Hundreds of thousands of people will die. Hundreds of thousands.
5/

When the Soviet Union collapsed, that meant thousands of people were suddenly out of work. People who did important government jobs like maintaining infrastructure like heat and water, providing access to health care, etc. Not only could those newly unemployed not afford basic necessities, but whatever safety nets had been in place for anyone in similar situations vanished. Thousands upon thousands died as direct result of USSR's collapse.
4/

What happened is that the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991. The poverty rate in the region skyrocketed from 1.5% in 1991 to 49% in 1993. Life expectancy dropped from 64 to 57. Alcohol-related deaths rose 60% and deaths from diseases went up 100%.
2/
https://online.norwich.edu/online/about/resource-library/consequences-collapse-soviet-union

Here's a comparison of populations between the US and Soviet Union/Russia. Russia is consistently larger by ~20 million until the early 1990s, but starts dropping for about 15 years before starting to creep back upwards. Why do you suppose that is?
1/

@multiverseofbadness Aw, man -- I'm jealous! We've got a couple okay Indian places nearby but no really good ones.

@multiverseofbadness Is the "bravo" for the emergency buffer or the pizza? 😉

Either way, thanks! 🙂

Dragging this morning. Let's see if I can reframe my outlook with #3goodthings ...

1. After some financial hits last year, I've got my emergency fund up to an 8 month buffer. Would prefer 12, but I look at 8 as a minimum *
2. Have some errands to run with my wife this weekend but since she stayed up until 4:30am, I'm pretty sure I won't have to deal with them today at least
3. Pizza for dinner last night

Parents apparently have a "fundamental right" to prevent other people's kids from reading any books they don't approve of.
https://graphicpolicy.com/2025/01/24/u-s-department-of-educations-office-of-civil-rights-ends-its-book-ban-investigations/

@multiverseofbadness I've known actual rodeo clowns. Corporate bosses are maddening in many, many ways but rodeo clowns are just batshit insane. Like, seriously, that's just not some snide commentary on their profession of choice -- they really are crazy!

@multiverseofbadness The one that pissed me off the most was a shirt she got me a few years ago. She had specifically about styles and sizes. For dress shirts, I said, "solid colors, button down collar, 100% cotton." She got me a striped shirt in rayon with a flared collar because "it looks like you."

Took me a week to realize/remember I had almost the exact same shirt in high school 25 years earlier!🤦♂️

Setting aside that I never mentioned being nostalgic for it, it was 25 years out style!

@multiverseofbadness I wish my mother would listen to me about that. I keep saying I don't have any desire to save crap just because I had it as a kid and she goes out and buys more stuff that's related but I never even had in the first place!

@multiverseofbadness Man, the last time I visited my brother, I had to spend hours cleaning off their computer. It was so bad that it was borderline unusable. I can't even fathom how much crap they must have clicked on!