Brian Beach has moved @bwbeach@qoto.org

I’m in the process of moving all of a parent’s credit, banking, online ordering, and medical accounts over to my phone number bc they (my parent) can no longer deal with five-step logins and mandatory SMS codes across wildly inconsistent patterns and hoooooo boy are the tech companies and systems unprepared for what is about to hit them, generationally.

It took five phone calls, three codes, and two emails to change just one account over.

As an occasional journalist, I just love the way Ed Yong closes his latest OpEd at NYTs & couldn’t agree more. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/opinion/long-covid-reporting-lessons.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FE0.aHg1.KLP-3qDCnjtp&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare #GiftArticle #writing #journalism

“Journalists can act as a care-taking profession that soothes & nurtures. We are among the only professions that can do so at a scale commensurate with the scope of the crises before us. We can make people who feel invisible feel seen. We can make everyone else look.”

This blew up. Great ideas and comments in thread.

To clarify some points - a lot of traditionally “women’s” clothes and accessories pose an industrial safety hazard that isn’t discussed much. Spandex can melt to your skin in a fire or electrical accident. Metal hairpins and ties can conduct electricity and heat up. Even hair spray can be flammable. So having the conversations is really important, as well as alternatives for stuff, including underwear, pants, and shoes that fit a wide range of shapes and sizes properly (fit without loose or dangling clothes can be important for safety too).

The worst industrial injury I ever got was due to a lack of discussion or communication of hazards. I worked on aircraft components doing constant soldering back in the day of much more toxic stuff. I wore gas permeable contacts at the time and even though I wore eye protection, I ended up with severe burns to my eyes. I would hate to see someone require skin grafts or worse because suppliers don’t stock clothes that fit safely or discussions are not had about the risks of typical undergarments, etc.

"Here’s a stark way of thinking about the problem: If the U.S. had made as much progress reducing vehicle crashes as other high-income countries had over the past two decades, about 25,000 fewer Americans would die every year."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/briefing/us-traffic-deaths.html

It's worth reading the definition of genocide[1] — it's very specific and quite clear. If you find yourself supporting people who are actively committing one — regardless of who they are, regardless of why the day they are, regardless of what anyone else has done to them, you should seriously rethink the choices that have led you to this point. There is no such thing as a justifiable genocide.

And yes, those people may have also done good things, may have done things you agree with, may be the less bad choice among many terrible choices. But in all of those cases, you do not need to support the genocide, and if you feel the need to still side with them, you have a moral responsibility to very clearly condemn that genocide, at the very least.

https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/learn-about-genocide-and-other-mass-atrocities/what-is-genocide

TIL about Star Trek Continues https://odd.blog/2023/12/09/til-about-star-trek-continues/

❝ The key point we tried to make is that so much of the arguments being thrown back and forth are really about who it is that gets to determine how a website moderates: should it be the government or should it be the website? If those are the only two options there are, then it already does seem obvious that it should be the website, not the government.
But, the key to our brief is pointing out that this assumes, falsely, that this is the only possible model out there. Instead, we highlight, that it is possible to envision a world in which users themselves get to decide, and any ruling that says the government gets to decide would fundamentally make that kind of user freedom and empowerment impossible. ❞ https://disobey.net/@yawnbox/111546021151675706

Wow! I just responded to a Lemmy (Fediverse Reddit analog) post from my Mastodon (Fediverse oldTwitter analog) account within my Mastodon GUI.

I didn't even realize it was a Lemmy post...

I clicked on the original Lemmy link and saw my Mastodon post as a reply within the Lemmy thread.

See attached for screenshots of the same conversation in both application's UI's.

The fediverse is fucking awesome.

#fediverse #activitypub #mastodon #lemmy

I also really liked Pop Culture Detective’s shoutout to Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot collection in https://youtu.be/rqQJHja9qxU “In Defense of Disney’s Strange Solarpunk World” where they said something in passing that startled the heck out of me: stories without bad guys.

That’s a genre we need a word for! Stories without antagonists dominate my lists of favorites

“It’s time for our society to admit that we’ve made a mistake and change course.”

> Prioritizing the economy over health will sink both
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-this-is-a-pandemic-of-attrition

#CovidIsNotOver @novid

Taxpayer funded pharmaceutical patents (and medical device patents) should be owned by the people paying for the product. At both ends it is the citizens of this country providing the money to make these possible.

Biden administration asserts power to seize drug patents https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/07/biden-administration-asserts-power-to-seize-drug-patents.html

these trucks have the same bed length 🤦‍♂️

A year ago, all major economists were predicting a recession as the Fed moved to raise interest rates to battle inflation. But Joe Biden’s and the Democrats’ investment in infrastructure and manufacturing kept the job market strong and resilient, and now there is almost no talk of a recession. Bidenomics is working. Inflation is down, unemployment at historic lows, real wages rising. We should proclaim it far and wide and push back against the doom and gloom the media feeds us and feeds upon.

"Being here, we are trying to halt a suicide, the death of everything that is alive, everything that exists. This is not economic suicide. We are avoiding the omnicide of the world, of planet Earth. There is no other formula, no other path. Everything else is an illusion."

Pedro Gives,
Columbian President,
COP28.

#COP28
#ClimateAction
#PreventingWorldOmnicide

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/02/colombia-joins-international-alliance-calling-for-treaty-to-end-use-of-fossil-fuels