Notices by Sumana Harihareswara (brainwane@social.coop), page 4

I feel really lucky that my 11th grade American literature teacher devised a curriculum that relentlessly attacked the American success myth.

We read Christopher Lasch, Ben Franklin's autobiography, The Great Gatsby, "Paul's Case" by Willa Cather, a bunch of other stuff ....

And at the same time, I was volunteering with the local hippies, and my mentor was a guy who'd burned out on working as a philosophy professor, and now did carpentry to support his peace activism.

@inthehands Could it be Sarah Kliff in the Vox article I linked to, "Unpaid, stressed, and confused: patients are the health care system's free labor"?

Relatedly: "Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women." - sociologist Jessica Calarco https://annehelen.substack.com/p/other-countries-have-social-safety

https://www.vox.com/2016/6/1/11712776/healthcare-footprint

"prescribing health care with a high patient work burden can be equivalent to denying health care"

Some phrases in the research literature about this (found when I looked up researcher Victor Montori, whom Kliff quotes in the Vox article):

cost of illness
treatment burden
minimally disruptive medicine
making care fit
patient complexity

Previous writing by me on related stuff:

https://journal.code4lib.org/articles/10482 User Experience is a Social Justice Issue

https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2007/bad-relationship/

It's All Too Much not because I am inadequate, but because standards for my class's behavior have risen faster than we've built the infrastructure and prosthetics we'd need to meet them, and because of an unequal distribution of the benefits of the information revolution.

https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2019/its-not-just-you/

a ton of fiddly expensive-if-you-make-a-mistake labor has emerged or shifted onto our shoulders, without commensurate logistical, psychological, or financial support for that shift.

@BethanyBlack Yes And.... They can't follow instructions that require that they abstain from providing input!

Just now I looked at a thread where I asked for very specific suggestions.

https://social.coop/@brainwane/111687485724097125

I got a few responses, and the only ones where the responders disregarded what I said I wanted were from men.

That is so frustrating.

@BethanyBlack I am so glad you have been straightforward with me about what would or would not work for you! Thank you and best wishes! 🌟😁👍🏾

@BethanyBlack I hope it is fun!

May I make a suggestion regarding playing board games with distant friends?

Each day. On "This American Scrum." We have a theme. And ask three questions based on that theme.

Question One: what did you do yesterday?

Question two: what will you do, what do you *aim* to do, today?

And question three: What obstacles, barriers, and predictable -- or *wholly unpredictable* -- problems are you facing. That are blocking you. From achieving *those very same goals.*

Stay with us.

[JOKE EXPLANATION: an homage to Ira Glass's intros for the radio show "This American Life"]

Years ago I read a technothriller whose plot included a software problem so implausible --

"My suspension of disbelief at this point broke so hard that it sent shards into nearby brick walls, where they remain, softly vibrating."

-- that I wrote some code to demonstrate how wrong it was.

https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2015/technothriller-book-review-partially-in-the-form-of-a-python-exercise/

Today I learned an instructor may reuse my book review as part of a future Python class.

This is so awesome.

@scott Having not read the paper, I am absolutely willing to believe the first section of the bit you quote there, up to the "due to".

Remind me, have you already run across "families form adults" vs "adults form families" or the Inherited Obligation family vs. the Negotiated Commitment family?

https://kyraneko.tumblr.com/post/728533807842705408

drdemonprince writes a pretty useful summation of a particular problem in transparency in public activist writing and conversation:

"unfortunately social media puts the activist meeting, the bitching session, the public outreach, the group therapy session, the silly blow off some steam gossiping about people private chat, and the group d&d session all in the same place, and so people ..."

[1/2]

"... mistake, for example, an outpouring of legitimate grief and rage as somehow a public-facing political statement, or a carefully edited and tactical political statement as a reflection of a person's most deeply held private feelings, etc"

[2/2]

If you paid for funeral expenses for someone who died in the US, and their death certificate mentions COVID as a cause, you may be eligible for up to US$9,000 in funeral expense assistance from the US federal government.

https://www.fema.gov/disaster/historic/coronavirus/economic/funeral-assistance

Eligibility does not depend on your income, even if you have a high income right now: https://www.fema.gov/node/does-fema-consider-annual-household-income-when-determining-how-much-covid-19-funeral

More info: https://www.fema.gov/disaster/historic/coronavirus/economic/funeral-assistance/faq

Currently, Sept. 30, 2025 is the end date for submitting applications, I believe.

#COVID #COVID19

@purpleidea @mairin I second this suggestion!

I do not have a TikTok account. But the next time I'm managing an infrastructure change that will disrupt the lives of people who don't even realize they use our software, I'll probably figure out something like hiring an intermediary to help make and post a few videos on TikTok and a few other popular platforms.

Different mediums are good at different things.

I'm still going to write a big comprehensive FAQ/manual or whatever is appropriate + publish it as text. Text on the web is copiable, searchable, easier to update & translate, anchor-linkable, &c.

But I also write brief summaries to turn into error messages, social media posts, announcements to mailing lists, lightning talks, emails to podcast hosts, etc., LINKING to the canonical FAQ.

Making a video is another way to reach varied populations.

@aegtx Hi! Did you read my whole thread? https://social.coop/@brainwane/109474337864429538

@aegtx In projects I work on, video would/will be an additional means of communication, but I anticipate text would/will be primary.

I am curious: have you run into open source projects that have produced videos without accompanying equivalent textual alternatives? If so, I'd like to know about them so I can investigate why they made those choices.

@aegtx Thanks for helping me understand your context. The specific context I mentioned was: open source software projects that need to make public service announcements to affected people.

Do you pay for any of the podcasts or videos that are annoying you? If so, have you asked the vendors to provide good transcripts?

I have started using Whisper https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2022/speech-to-text-with-whisper-how-i-use-it-why/ to help give me good-enough transcripts for my own spoken work + for podcasts/videos I download. I recommend it. It's free.

@aegtx Thanks for the note. I also find it frustrating when information or entertainment I want is only available in a medium that makes it less accessible or inaccessible to me, even when it's free of cost. I understand your annoyance!