D&F 1/22/24
type: newsletter title: "D&F 1/21/24" description: date: 2024-01-21 tags: - newsletter
D&F 1/21/24
Another rainy weekend, but this time I’m also on-call. It used to bother me to have my weekend social and outdoor plans scuppered, but these days I take it as a reason to catch up on tv, books, and games. Saturday meant a game recommended by Adrian Hon, a few shelves installed and even an indoor bike ride. Friday night I even managed to get hot pot with Haley. Sure, I could be awoken any minute by an incident, but broadly-speaking things don’t break when we’re not making changes.
I’ve barely been outside, but I did a lot of cooking, and beat the rain to the grocery store Friday afternoon. Sunday will be more of the same. In the meantime, I’m queuing-up a Marika Hackman record and writing this newsletter.
Links
- Wait, I’m hearing over my headset that... a four-day workweek is better for everyone?
Across these experiments, the results tell a similar story: Paying people the same amount for less time leaves them feeling happier and healthier and often boosts business, too.
- You may already know this, but luddites were, and continue to be, the good ones. Working together to collectively fight against the rich and powerful’s campaign against human existence is as important today as it was then:
The Luddites destroyed machines. The factory owners killed Luddites, shooting them at the factory gates, or rounding them up for mass executions. Parliament deputized owners to act as extensions of law enforcement, allowing them to drag suspected Luddites to their own private cells for questioning. The Luddites viewed property rights as just one instrument for achieving human rights – freedom from hunger and cold – and when property rights conflicted with human rights, they didn't hesitate to smash the machines. For them, human rights trumped property rights.
- I’ve hesitated to post this for weeks because it’s particularly grim, but it’s also important to read about the slaughter of innocent people in Palestine and Israel. It strikes me that Palestinians largely want to be alive and live in the land they’ve always had, and a small number of imperialists are deadset on their extermination. The protests around the world by Jewish folks for the rights of Palestinians underlines that this is a war perpetuated not in the name of Judaism, but greed and cruelty.
- Finally, I’ll end on two bangers from the recently-launched 404: an article about the reality of Google search losing quality, and a biting criticism of the latest AI tat being hawked at CES
Closing
I’ve poured a whiskey and I need to flip the record over, so I’ll leave you for now, but I’ll be back soon, if not next week. I’ve got quite a bike ride planned that I might need to prioritize over my newsletter time. I’ll return with a report from the road and a lot more links by the end of the month though, rest assured. Until then, stay dry, safe on the ice, or out of the sun, space cowgirls~