Notices by Chris Ammerman (cammerman@mstdn.social)

I keep reading these scare headlines with implied exclamation marks, about what Trump could do, what the Senate could let him do, etc.

And it's like... What are we even doing here?

Yeah. Obviously. But not "could". He's going to do these things. They are going to do these things. In most cases, they've literally said this is what they want to do.

At this point all of the safety rails are removed. It's literally what they campaigned on, and what America voted for. Why are we *still* hedging?

@ironchamber I think that is optimistic, personally. And I think it would be unwise to underestimate the amount of collateral damage that could be caused while people jockey for the favor of the Dear Leader.

January 6 will be a singularity moment for the U.S. It's just impossible to know how fucked up shit is going to get and how long it will take. We have to assume some combination of Project 2025 and the X-ification of the government (cut until it creates an existential threat) will be the attempted route. But the reality could end up limp, or could be so much worse.

One of the reasons for the enthusiasm for AI is because it seems to promise to all the "idea guys" that their ultimate dream is within reach: Freedom from the dreaded reliance on a "technical co-founder" and all that comes with it. One must only speak their unique and beautiful Idea into the machine, and out the other end comes an implementation. Just a little spit and polish, and then ready to sell.

I have to believe the AI hype bubble will pop like those before it did. But a small part of me fears that, with the world's largest companies all-in on AI, and human sentiment on it so uniformly negative, that we have somehow moved fully into an economic regime where it doesn't matter what anyone wants anymore, the machine is just following it's own tail in some kind of cascade/avalanche mode until everything crashes.

This is almost certainly not an original thought, but: Gameshows and reality TV are just the modern world's coliseum.

Yo dawg, I put gaslighting in your gas boiler lighting, so you can gaslight while you light your gas boiler.

https://universeodon.com/@georgetakei/113001195540203527

I am in the privileged position of knowing that, despite what some may tell you, there is in fact such a thing as "too much garlic".

One of the first dishes I made for a family potluck as an adult was a broccoli salad thing. I followed a recipe. But I thought "clove" meant "head". 6 servings of salad with an entire, *large* head of garlic, minced. It was literally painful to eat due to the astringency.

I feel this so much. https://cloudisland.nz/@baroquebobcat/112771264660480851

You see it a lot in software. When your aim is to get done and move on to the next thing, like you're playing speed chess, it's very difficult to build knowledge and expertise. Moving fast narrows your experience of the work. You gain less from having done it.

Organizations encourage this almost by default, but to their own detriment, and that of the employees. It's very efficient in the short term, but the long term costs are huge.

The world is full of companies that are getting tons of work done, but learning almost nothing. And they try to chain their employees to the same fate, all in service of the next quarterly goal.

My advice to you is to, whenever you can manage it, not let them rush you. Take time to gain the full individual benefit of having done the work. Dig deeper, push further, find out why, experiment, learn things that are not immediately useful. These things make your labor powerful.

@inthehands I keep seeing people say the Atlantic is going down the toilet, but I'm not sure what kind of thing is being referred to. I still find them to be generally far better than NYT or WaPo. But maybe that's a low bar now?

Yup. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/supreme-court-donald-trump-immunity-decision/678859/

We have to make sure Trump does not get a second term. But that does not end the clear & present threat to Democracy.

A large swath of the Republican apparatus has proven that they are not only willing to let a strongman push them around, but they are actually proactively complicit. "Project 2025" is, explicitly, a roadmap to autocracy and it is being pursued actively right now. A willing president is just the capstone.

I'm disgusted by the milquetoast "analysis" that mainstream media has been sliding in since Trump hit the scene.

WaPo: "Alito's Account of Upside-down Flag Doesn't Add Up"

AYFKM? This "analysis" isn't worth the price of the electrons it lit up on my screen.

We don't need analysis here. The SCOTUS conservatives have abandoned all pretense of impartiality, openly champion motivated reasoning, & proudly proclaim their allegiance. The Rule of Law is dead in America. That's the fucking headline.

I was today years old when it occurred to me upon reading the phrase "with kid gloves" for the 1000th time in my life, that "kid" is the word for a juvenile goat.

And I thought maybe "with kid gloves" doesn't mean some kind of gentle glove for dealing with children, but rather a fine and supple leather made from the skin of juvenile goats, which might give the wearer dexterity and sensitivity not achieved with other kinds of work gloves.

And, in fact, that is exactly what it means. ✨🎓

Sufficiently advanced workflow design is programming.

No matter what medium the workflow is executed in.

Programmers could probably lean some things about building resilient systems from people who design processes that are not implemented in computer software, and from the people who are part of those processes when put into practice.

Slack is crucial for scaling and for organizational health in general.

People with slack have headspace and time to improve things, to think ahead, to sweep out the corners, to prepare for what's coming next. And they will see these needs before management does.

"Running lean" eliminates slack. This only works for a while, and only if you have a flat org of highly self-actualized people who you give autonomy. And you'll still burn people out eventually.

If you take away both slack and autonomy, (I.e. "running lean" but with a stratified org) you get the worst of both worlds.

Laborers are expected to spend every billable moment working on work defined and prioritized by someone else. They are unable to use their intimate knowledge of the work to improve how things work, to prepare for what's next, to keep things tidy and safe, because none of this has "value" for management.

This is an org that will grind itself to powder before it succeeds.

Eliminating slack is almost inherently anti-autonomy, though. It is management saying they think they know everything that needs to be done, and especially what doesn't.

Except they don't and can't know this. And they don't want to make all of the decisions that they are preventing others from making, either. So everyone is busy, and yet critical work doesn't get done.

Workers all know this, and either burn out or check out.