Posts by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
(DIR) Post #AtYJhuHVT7cnMOb3Gy by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-04-28T14:29:12Z
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@futurebird This is another one of those places that I find the "new materialisms" like actor-network theory so helpful. The self is constructed by the body and mind but also by the human and non-human actors that shape your physical and social environment. Those actors arrive in the present from a range distances and times, and are very non-trivial to alter.It also explains why altering habits often requires altering your material environment.
(DIR) Post #AuKUugV48ZVNzNkSnI by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-05-20T21:50:40Z
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@ned @missmayn As someone who works at a university with a spouse who works at a retirement community, of course there's some administrative bloat at the top but that's not it.Both are things that should be heavily subsidized by the public purse but are instead expected to break even as fee-for-service organizations.
(DIR) Post #AuKUup1yQ6a8RlCrCK by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-05-20T22:01:04Z
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@ned @missmayn (And of course both are subsidized in weird ways. I'm at a research institute that's scrambling to survive in the era of Trump's anti-science crusade, but while our work is technically part of the university, none of those funds help students just attend. And CCRCs end up spending huge amounts of labor time negotiating Medicaid eligibility.)
(DIR) Post #Aums4dOizjvUiqDeKm by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-06-04T12:52:21Z
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@futurebird This one of those times that I lament how much entrenched white supremacy has ruined southern innovations. Seersucker exists for this reason, but if you wear it as a white person you risk projecting "plantation nostalgia" and I ain't risking that.
(DIR) Post #Av7Glu5iU3P8pRPrPM by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2024-02-02T16:59:20Z
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@shortridge And yes, one of the annoying things about running Solaris back in the day is that every time you installed an OS patch, it would *remove* Sendmail 8 and put Sendmail 5 BACK ON.Like, gee, thanks, Sun.
(DIR) Post #AvZH2QXzesefvEDpNA by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-06-27T20:27:42Z
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I don't know all the specifics, but from the outside it looks like a very brave and principled action that UVA President Jim Ryan took to resign as President rather than tap dance to please the gangsters at DOJ to gut any kind of program that might help people who aren't straight white men.I might revise this as details come out but the first blush looks like a very effective principled resignation.
(DIR) Post #AwyHdyFs9fqNdLRTc0 by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-08-08T20:44:52Z
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@futurebird I suddenly flashed back to college and remember a story from my (then drunk) roommate about the party he went to, where one of our most obnoxious rich kid peers had bought the keg for the party and was up in the face of a football player who was abstaining, yelling, "you're a b---- unless you drink my beer!"The fact that he shortly thereafter had facial bruises will not be surprising.
(DIR) Post #Ax6fER1oVSWZVWtzWa by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-08-12T19:24:54Z
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The UK government saying "delete old emails" to save water. 🤦‍♂️ Most emails average about 50k of storage even for someone who gets a lot of attachments, and will have exactly zero effect on data center consumption."Don't use cryptocurrency" and "don't use generative AI" would of course be thousands of times more effective.
(DIR) Post #Ax7co3qw2naPLo4Ovo by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-08-13T00:11:15Z
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@raracool There are so many better ways to pay outside of the credit card system than crypto. Any of the payment apps are superior.Besides, the blockchain never forgets. If you want to hide transactions, it's a pretty rotten choice.
(DIR) Post #Ax8P68jzPAuVWTVWvQ by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-08-12T14:36:42Z
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A gentle reminder (including to myself) that unspecified social media doomerism is not productive. I don't want to tone police or tell people not to share the feels, but remember these posts are more productive:* Actual news* Analysis that helps us understand how to push back* Links to proactive responses* Resources for self care or community careDespair is a weapon of the oppressor.
(DIR) Post #AxAgIXGY8Ma0b99aJk by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-08-14T20:17:37Z
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@futurebird At the far end of the urbanization spectrum, I did field work in the Scottish Highlands, very rural places, where the locals had bought out bad landlords and were taking over things themselves.When I asked about the most important projects that the community trusts had taken on, a truly stunning number of responses involved public toilets. Like they're building housing, wind farms, restoring forests, opening shops. . . . but, toilets.
(DIR) Post #AxQevPXNi9BIXjnLIe by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-08-22T13:17:39Z
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@futurebird I feel like the "could/could not make it in New York" is such a point of pride in terms of the city's identity—New York is supposed to be the extreme difficulty setting for success.I think that's low key why the NYT can never bring itself to lean into "DJT is a total fraud and a conman" angle because he was a NYC success story and you're not supposed to be able to fool New Yorkers like that.
(DIR) Post #AxdwS9jjhe8zN0FipE by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-08-28T23:05:12Z
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@futurebird every single time we make them take two months to do something they wanted to do in a week, that’s a win. That’s two months that they aren’t doing something else terrible. Every time we make them take a concentration camp apart and spend more money building another one, that’s a win.It’s nowhere near enough, but I guarantee things would’ve gotten much worse much faster and hurt many more people by now if not for these little wins.
(DIR) Post #AyoHiTqrilHgS9oADo by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-10-02T20:42:47Z
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@futurebird Given the whole circular "investment" thing of NVidia giving some titanic amount to OpenAI to pay Oracle for them to buy NVidia GPUs, I start to wonder if the tech CEOs have all realized it's a horrible bubble, but that they can get another year of executive pay if they can keep that bubble from popping a little longer.Or maybe they hope the AGI Fairy will come in that time.In any case it all seems so cynical.
(DIR) Post #B193N04ICeOERouNLE by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-12-11T16:55:11Z
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@futurebird I think it's fun but I'm long enough out of geometry that I'm not sure my memory for the rules for similar triangles is totally solid.
(DIR) Post #B1H9fDJLrJ6piohQu0 by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-12-15T14:43:20Z
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@futurebird The return of niche social media is something I keep both expecting and hoping for.
(DIR) Post #B1rM6kFzw4fhKTKzTM by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2026-01-02T01:52:26Z
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@futurebird I'm so bad at lying it would have been a very, very short life of crimes.
(DIR) Post #B2Y3Z4ZcqkIPuCSJAe by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2026-01-22T14:45:47Z
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@kravietz @CartyBoston @devin_and_earth @freediverx @Arne Some of that is fair, and some of it is that this is a five alarm fire that is an existential threat to US democracy.And yes, the two big ones—Congress and SCOTUS—have rolled over in absolutely distressing ways.1/2
(DIR) Post #B2Y3Z6HcUf57Cw2xNo by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2026-01-22T14:46:05Z
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@kravietz @CartyBoston @devin_and_earth @freediverx @Arne But the American public? The states? Are people really not hearing about Minneapolis? About blue state governors? The barrage of lawsuits?There's no guarantee we win. And that's VERY concerning. But there is a raging battle going on all over this country, so if I see "no real action," apologies, but my response is FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF. We're putting everything we have into this fight. Maybe find a way to help?
(DIR) Post #B2Y3Z7AZCN29xLkq1o by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2026-01-22T14:47:17Z
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@kravietz @CartyBoston @devin_and_earth @freediverx @Arne Americans are literally confronting and disrupting heavily armed troops in the streets en masse. If that counts for nothing, I have absolutely no idea what you're looking for.