Brian Beach has moved @bwbeach@qoto.org

I think that for me the pinnacle of how bad offices could get was when companies were willing to pay $5,000 usd to $10,000 for "privacy / phone call / two person conference" pods rather than admit open floor plan was an absolute ergonomic failure.

I dunno who needs to hear this (a few people, for sure, me included).

It's still okay to enjoy nice things. And fun things. And silly things. And daft things.

The world is going to shit. It's been going to shit for many years, and each year, that shit has encroached on more and more people.

For a lot of people, 2020 might have the point that it impacted *you*. For others, it might have been the events of the last week. For others, it was 2016. For others, it was 2008. For others it was 2001, or 1989, or 1979 - *and so on and so forth*.

This is not to say that events should be ignored or dismissed, I'm absolutely *not* saying that, but it's okay to carve out some time, an oasis if you like, for yourself.

You need to keep your strength up, and within that broad statement is...all sorts of things. Listening to music. Cooking. Watching anime. Going for a run. Lifting weights. Playing games. Whatever it is that makes you "you".

It's still okay to do all that stuff.

Source: NanaSnake, who lived in North-East London through WWII, and kept up her weekly bridge night with the girls through the Blitz, and allegedly the sherry kept flowing as well.

The global mean temperature in September 2023 was 1.82 ± 0.09 °C (3.28 ± 0.17 °F) above the 1850 to 1900 average, continuing the run of extraordinary records.

This is highest anomaly ever measured for any month, and 0.50 °C (0.90 °F) above the prior September record.

#ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #Climate #Temperature #Weather

2/

Excellent piece by Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic on the order-less world that is upon us, ushered in, in no small measure, by the abandonment of adherence to the Geneva Conventions - with blame assessed at nations around the world, including the U.S..

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/israel-war-hamas-terrorism-ukraine-russia/675590/

Next time you see someone drinking the "nothing bad has happened since the repeal of #netneutrality" kool aid, make them read this https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-10-12/fcc-seeks-to-restore-network-neutrality-rules-trump-era-deregulation

Happy day.

Title: Fudo Hill, Lake Yamanaka (1936)

Artist: Hasui Kawase

https://lake-yamanakako.com/en/see-and-do/10439 #HasuiKawase #ShinHanga #Art #Showa #Autumn #LakeYamanaka #FujiGoKo #MtFuji #MountFuji #Yamanashi #Japan

I hadn't considered some of these before….

https://electrek.co/2023/09/29/the-hidden-costs-of-using-an-electric-bike/

#ebike #hiddenCosts #sarcasm

THE PURPOSE OF A SYSTEM IS WHAT IT DOES

Dear software people,

Unicode is older now than ASCII was when Unicode was introduced. It’s not a weird new fad.

It’s complicated but so is the domain it represents. We recognize that we have to think about time zones and leap days and seconds, for instance. And it’s a cleaner abstraction when you aren’t halfhearted about it.

Sincerely,
Charlie

If you realize that staying under 1.5C is now a fantasy... and if you've learned enough to know that temperatures will almost certainly climb far higher than that within the next few decades... and if you've heard all you need to hear about climate and ecosystem tipping points... and if you understand that our modern hyper-connected just-in-time society exists on a knife edge, where any major interruption in any part of the supply chain can potentially bring everything down... and if you've therefore accepted that collapse is inevitable...

What do you do about it?

Each of us here will have to decide for ourselves. There are no right or wrong answers.

One option is to try to prepare, to become a "prepper." That might work for some people, but not for all of us.

In any case, whatever we choose, it would be ideal if we can search deep inside and find peace within ourselves. That's the message, I think, of this heartfelt essay from Alan Urban...
_____________________________

I am tired of stressing out because I’m not fully prepared. I’m *never* going to be fully prepared. No one is.

Even if you’re already living off the grid and fully self-sufficient, it’s only a matter of time before a climate disaster kills your crops or destroys your home.

If a doctor told me I had 5-15 years to live, would I spend all my free time searching for a treatment that would only buy me a few extra months?

Of course not! I would spend my time enjoying nature, playing games, listening to music, hanging out with friends and family, and going on little adventures with my kids.
What’s the point of surviving a little longer if you aren’t really living in the first place?

Sure, I could spend all my free time learning knots, canning fruit, drying herbs, cleaning guns, smoking meat, sewing clothes, growing mushrooms, making candles, building booby traps, using the ham radio, and so on and so forth — and I will do some of these things.

But if I’m being honest, most evenings I would rather watch a movie with my kids without feeling guilty that I’m not doing enough to prepare.

I’m tired of living in the future. I want to live in the now. I want to move beyond collapse awareness and into collapse acceptance. I don’t expect to get there all at once, but already I feel less burdened.
_____________________________

FULL ESSAY -- https://archive.ph/q4dwd

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

In yesterday’s class on image-text relations shared Ibn Al-Rabin's masterpiece “Le Verbe Prophétique” alongside the always brilliant Tom Gauls to demonstrate how you can do seemingly simple yet bewilderingly complex things that can only be done in comics -because comics are cool!

Very pleased to see NYT acknowledge Lise Meitner.

Meitner developed the theory of nuclear fission & newly translated letters show she was barred from sharing credit for the Nobel Prize-winning discovery because she was Jewish & a woman. nyti.ms/3ZBT4MZ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/science/lise-meitner-fission-nobel.html?unlocked_article_code=JGbPgv1zYxrgU0vMDkmURf0UPTTjuLHgCJ7dTnWeFmWslaXwaWhZQ2CW6dr-HuF0MeGqXSfyQV0XyOgw7VTABLw9yJxUG8Jd9xQMrPqsNiNcVd3g1GwsxckwQMW5awE4g9aTqtT-TQbgs1PG5BpMDmUsqcAuapMB798_kyVYaEEXUwILTeojASGJ6ZvwXa5e-LpMvbl3o47_ZtX4JPzngzAvKys52S_L9v2O8h3vH0JYmLSlYmeokZCyl1NmKI_ZXmKyeExgLGB165ODtBkLtFvRRkCofN7uTN2imyfz20LJtbVEy1RdwZ6hqJZf8pvRMlD8yz-OjfYq7wLSbNw5k4zs0hAs&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare #science #history #HistoryRemix

one of the unsung heroes in the Katalin Karikó story is her husband, Béla Francia, who believed his wife in spite of NIH denying her funding for decades and UPenn tenure because they couldn't believe her genius

just as men need a good spouse to be great; so do women.

we need more men who will validate their wives' life purpose and support them in manifesting their genius.

NORMALIZE WOMEN GENIUSES and the people who love them because they believe in them

#NobelPrize #feminism