pingveno

I like Obama, but honestly I am not wild about this. Presidential libraries don't need to be opulent monuments. And the amount of private money going into them is an avenue for corruption.

But the news isn't really like that, though. Like, currently my news feed has multiple items on the aftermath of Trump's Lincoln Reflecting Pool project. That is something on the other side of the continent with no impact on my life and which I cannot do anything about. Every local murder gets a news story, even though most individuals are much more at threat from other things. Apes together strong, but maybe not this together.

Setting aside corporate surveillance, I have started to have a love/hate relationship with AI transcriptions in meetings. My auditory processing isn't great, so it is nice to have notes. And it's not replacing a job that someone was doing before. At the same time, it makes me feel more on edge. Everything I say becomes part of a permanent record. And I am part of a public institution, so that is subject to FOIA requests AFAIK.

Smacking someone with a laptop instead of a chair?

If so, then okay. The idea is that single use plastic is used because plastic is so damn cheap. From what I understand, the precursor is basically a waste product from oil extraction. But add a small tax and it breaks the model.

A single cheap fork is less than US$0.01 on a commercial restaurant website. For many restaurants, that is easier to deal with than washing dishes. But let's tack on a $0.05 tax per single use item or $0.50 single use tax. Pass it directly on to the customer on the check.

That puts single use more on an equal footing with restaurants that are reusing dishes. Single use plastic doesn't have its true cost built in. A tax can do that in a transparent way.

Fred Meyer (owned by Kroger) sells close dated food at half price. Produce with blemishes is set aside and sold in reduced price bundles. I am sure they still throw away plenty of food, but the reduced prices do seem to attract buyers (myself included). Some items just never make financial sense at the regular price, but half price? I'll take it.

Now it's Mother Earth Green.

I work at Portland State University, which is embedded in downtown Portland. They have small maintenance trucks that go on street that have many traits in common with Kei trucks. They are too small, slow, and unsafe for a freeway, but are perfect for carrying cargo around campus. I am unclear why there is a carve out for those trucks, but not for Kei trucks.

You have to take care of screwworms far from the US border. This was all part of the gutting of USAID. DOGE saw it was a foreign aid program operating through the UN, didn't bother understanding it, and just cut it along with the rest of USAID. But hey, something happening in Central America could never affect the US, right?

This outcome was predicted for at least the past year, since the program was cut. Will ranchers who lose cattle finally punish Trump and Republicans at the ballot box for doing something monumentally stupid? Or is Elon just going to be used as a convenient (if somewhat deserving) scapegoat?

Wish granted. Those apps are now all rewritten as Swing Java applets.

There is a certain strain of Christianity that must see itself as the underdog in a cosmic war of good and evil. Everything fits into that overarching narrative.