Month: January 2024

Well look at that, we’ve reached the end of the first week of the new year. How’d it go? Did you allow yourself the space to reset? To admit the new? To permit the old to pass on from you? To set aside what no longer serves you and to bring upon you that which does?

It’s ok, I didn’t do great at that either. But the year is young, and we continue, and every day is an opportunity. Forgive yourself. Love yourself. Care enough for yourself to try again tomorrow, and each day to come. There is no destination, merely a direction and time.

Love y’all, talk to you next week.

Inputs

1: I mean, who didn’t watch Katt Williams go the hell off on the state of everything, past, present, and future?

This year of our lord 2024 got off on absolute fire, and I can only see it continuing right through the big ball dropping a year from now. May we all keep our receipts and speak our truths as they need to be spoken. I don’t know that I could have that gumption, but I admire those that can, and do, and speak their facts when they must needs be spoken.

2: Spent today reading a ton in a class on classroom management. Some of it echoes my experiences in school, and it’s remarkable the examples I can still remember that were the opposite of the stated advice and how those progressed.

Additionally, much of the advice for teachers is the same sort of advice I’ve given and taught to managers. Engaging without coercion or emotion, setting clear expectations that are reinforced through gaining agreement and timely repetition, acting with patience and kindness and empathy. It turns out people, regardless of age, are people, and react the same ways to the same stimuli.

This is not an endorsement of treating adults like children, more one of considering treating children a little more like adults, in respecting their autonomy and not infantilizing them just because they’re not far removed from infancy.

3: This story from 404 Media, on the Polish hacking trio who found DRM in Polish trains that was intentionally making them non-functional when, for instance, GPS found them in independent repair yards, or found them immobile for more that 21 days, or (for some weird reason) on December 21st. More locally, we’ve seen stories about John Deere bricking tractors when they’re found to be repaired with third-party equipment or by non-John Deere technicians, locking farmers into more expensive proprietary repair options on what is already equipment that costs thousands and thousands of dollars to own.

DRM has been a menace since the dawn of digital media and networked technology. It enforces unethical control schemes on the ownership of purchased products and locks users into relationships far beyond a purchasing agreement, all for their detriment and the company’s continued benefit. That we continue to allow such agreements, as well as those that remove outright ownership and turn it into a complicated licensing scheme, is an ongoing point of shame among our legal establishment and corporate community. One I don’t expect to change any time soon absent significant statutory force.

Projects In Progress

Spent most of today in a self-paced class. It’s been a while since I’ve done much structured learning. Bit of an adventure so far, mostly with the quality of my long-form notetaking.

Late one tonight, as I’ve been out of the house most of the day. Went out to spend some time with my Mom¹Hi mom! and keep her spirits up, which involved some quality time and consulting/completing a number of projects. One thing I learned: a lot of otherwise rather nice furniture really cuts costs on drawer slides.

Anyhow, some quick notes to keep the streak alive, and we’ll see if we’re more verbose tomorrow.

Inputs

1: Apparently Star Citizen is still milking people for money. Per Aftermath, they’ve recently announced a bundle for over $48,000. For a game that is still in Alpha, after ten years.

I’m continually extremely happy I chose Elite: Dangerous in the space sim wars. A game which has not only released an actual game, plus expansions, including a deathmatch feature, but has done very well by its subscribers without asking of them $1,000 at a pop. Insert Jesse Pinkman gif here.

2: Started a casual rewatch (aka, chose to play as background noise while I poke around on the internet) of Psych.

I’m a huge fan of the show, from the incredible ensemble cast (James Roday Rodriguez and Dulé Hill are a pairing as good as any in television history, and play off each other so naturally and confidently, from the start of the series through all three movies [so far!]), to an intelligent yet funny premise that keeps an adaptable level of tension as a through-line to the show, to an amazing array of guest stars. For anyone of my generation, there’s an “oh man, it’s that guy/girl” at least once every three episodes, including longer arcs from favorites like Cary Elwes, Rachael Leigh Cook, and Ally Sheedy.

If you’ve never seen the show, I’d highly recommend it. And if you do go and watch it, keep an eye out for the pineapples!

3: This article from American Prospect about the success of S Group in Finland with a different approach to capitalism, as a co-op, who have been able to compete aggressively on pricing due to not having to hew to the same level of profit maximization that publicly owned corporations are addicted to²And not actually legally obligated to. While there’s a misbelief that corporations are forced to maximize profits, they’re instead obligated to work in the best interests of shareholders and the company. That could mean maximizing quarterly earnings, but it doesn’t have to. The one is not necessarily the other, and allowing a mistaken belief proselytized by misguided right-wing economists in the 70s and 80s to drive the actions of every publicly owned company in the US is not only short-sighted but leads to perverse incentives that are easily and readily gamed. Just another of Reagan’s long-term gifts to America. Christ, what an asshole..

I’m always tangentially interested in other ways of doing business, from co-ops, to federations of co-ops like the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, to worker collectives like the Amana Colonies and the Amana Society³Yes, that Amana. and the work of the Amish and Mennonite peoples.

Projects In Progress

Not much today, at least in personal stuff. Got a bunch done for and alongside others though, which was nice.

Notes:

• 1
  Hi mom!
• 2
  And not actually legally obligated to. While there’s a misbelief that corporations are forced to maximize profits, they’re instead obligated to work in the best interests of shareholders and the company. That could mean maximizing quarterly earnings, but it doesn’t have to. The one is not necessarily the other, and allowing a mistaken belief proselytized by misguided right-wing economists in the 70s and 80s to drive the actions of every publicly owned company in the US is not only short-sighted but leads to perverse incentives that are easily and readily gamed. Just another of Reagan’s long-term gifts to America. Christ, what an asshole.
• 3
  Yes, that Amana.

Woke up at the crack of dawn, went downtown, answered some health questions, handed over a bunch of forms, and now for more waiting. Governmental bureaucracy is a certain sort of task-focused pleasure, which dispenses little drabs of dopamine for following byzantine rules and regulations. I don’t mind it so much as comment on it, observe it, see where the cracks are, and where another organization would lean into repairs to processes. At least, if their goals were increasing their customer base or lowering their friction. This is all friction. Potentially purposeful, but friction nonetheless.

Anyhow, steps 1-4 of (maybe) 7 are in the can.

Inputs

1: Caught The Creator on Hulu this afternoon. Beautifully constructed and with its own unique visual palate and styling, it was a lovely movie to watch, though a bit on the nose in its beats. John David Washington has really come into his own as an actor, but he has line readings in here that, with your eyes closed, you would swear were his father. Worth a watch, even if it isn’t striding over wholly new turf.

2: Also watched They Cloned Tyrone, which was much more original in voice, vision, and effect. Great efforts out of John Boyega, Jamie Foxx, and Teyonah Parris, who really stole the movie with a complex performance of a character that easily could have been one or two notes deep. From the blaxploitation touches and the satirical visual critique that refused to cross into caricature, to a dialogue that insisted on originality in choice and diction, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

3: Gabe of Penny Arcade in commentary on today’s comic, on the lie at the heart of AI art: https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2024/01/03/terminarter. He, much better than I could, for his wisdom and his position as a member of one of the most prominent artistic duos on the internet, elucidates his thoughts on the empty argument of AI evangelists, who are willing to ignore propriety, the true meaning of a commons, the agency of artists, and common damned sense, all because they’ve decided they want their thing to be Good when it is, at its very best, Complicated.

Projects In Progress

Things ascend and flow ever forward. Slow movement is movement. Forward is progress. May it ever be so.