Yep! Embracing boredom is likely the path back. Because it’s not a dead space. It’s a canvas.

I’ve been starting to think that it’s something us older millennials can actually do for our younger friends … remind, demo and teach what a less tech ruled life can look like, how tech can be treated as more humane and not a necessity.

Not to claim equivalence or anything, but smartphone and the internet (ironic saying so here I know).

I’m a xennial … old enough to remember living without all this and the middle time where computers were either games or just useful tools.

For me, and I’m pretty sure many others, I’m pretty convinced it’s better that way.

I’d really like to get away from these things, at least just to relearn older habits.

There was an article by Google about the security of their code base, and one of their core findings was that old code is good, as it gets refined and more free of bugs over time. And of course conversely, new code is worse.

https://security.googleblog.com/2024/09/eliminating-memory-safety-vulnerabilities-Android.html

Generally it seems like capitalism’s obsession with growth is at odds with complex software. It’s basis in property also.

it’s the sort of tool that is really just fundamental now and should be ubiquitous and promoted and taught and talked about every where there is knowledge work. Even more so as there’s a great open source version of the tool.

I hear you and essentially don’t disagree. But I feel like this might lean a tad toward gaslighting.

• Plenty of people are fine communicators when it comes to genuine collaborative work but still find the “game” of job applications very difficult or impossible.
• Being left alone with a customer is not a thing at all for many roles.
• Embracing diversity in abilities and doing so transparently is a thing that can be valuable for both companies and humanity. Presuming everyone can do all the things is, IMO/IME, damaging. It leads to cutting out people who have something valuable to offer. But also leads to not recognising when people are properly bad at something despite the fact that they really shouldn’t be given their seniority and role.

In the end, a job application/interview is not like the job at all (whether necessarily or not). That there are people in the world who would be disproportionately good at the job but bad the application seems to me an empirical fact given the diversity of humanity. And recognising this seems important and valuable in general but especially for those trying to understand their relationship to the system.

Scaled all the way! I use my subscribed list (All is too much randomness.

Occasionally top 6 or 12 hours to catch up.

And occasionally All New/hot/scaled to see random new shit.

On the friends thing, doesn’t it make you wonder sometimes if they ever grew out of it or are out here acting as agents of chaos in ways we might feel but do not know =P!? Cheers!

All the time.

Hunter S Thompson once said “in a world of thieves the only final sin is getting caught”

Cheers! Yea things are all good. The way bikes are stolen is crazy though. I’ve known otherwise reasonable people that honestly believed any bike they found that was not locked was free game. Not friends with them anymore.

Yep. Fucking hate thieves

Pushbike stolen … Many times. Once was kinda my fault for leaving it out, but every other time it was some cunt working hard to get a push bike. Every time I only found out just when I was going to the bike to go some where. One time, the bike was in a secure garage with two gates and the fucker secretly tail gated a car on foot to get in and then waited for another car to leave to tailgate them.

Motorbike stolen … it was a cheap and nasty one but still

Apartment broken into … 18th birthday present fancy watch stolen along gaming console

Thanks!

yea … JFC … I was kinda chill until I read “zoonotic … pigs and bats” … literally the vector(s) in contagion and obviously COVID.

Yea, that the term “Blue MAGA” has arisen out of this is kinda telling. Once you see it in the “Biden is our president, if you’re not voting for him you’re part of the problem” types, you can’t unsee it.

I saw someone put it well on mastodon:

Non-Americans care about US elections for the same reason a hostage cares about the mental state of a gunman.

https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/112766969146106942 (@[email protected])

A saddening phenomenon that’s likely to happen if this continues … is people opening up about how they saw the decline way before the debate but presumed it was a “one off” or “bad night”. I think it’s already started somewhat.

But the picture that could emerge with pretty high clarity is that “the issue” was covered by an inner group and ignored by those peripherally exposed to it … all instead of the party preparing for it, preparing new potential candidates, and taking seriously the notion from Biden in 2020 that he wouldn’t run in 2024.

Losing to Trump a second time by sticking to a party elder is going to be a big deal (if it happens of course). It will probably look more like the Dems losing than trump winning, and it prob will look like the Dems allowing it all to happen out of hubris and stupidity, not unlike the RBG fuck up. Could seriously shake the party up?

I don’t think this is correct.

The bit you’re getting confused by, I think, is that some generations are just bigger than others. The boomers were by their name sake a big generation. Millennials are essentially boomers’ kids … and so they’re bigger than both Gen X and Gen Z.

• Most “generational” definitions span about 15 years, sometimes more. EG, Boomers: 1946-1960
• There are sensibly defined micro-generations typically at the borders between generations.
  • EG, “Jones Generation”: 1960-1965 … “young boomers” … they had a distinct life experience from “core boomers” not too different from that of X-Gens. Vietnam and 60s happened while they were children, Reagan was their 20s, not 40s, etc.
• Xennials are notable here because they’re the transition between X-Gen and Millennials (late 70s to early 80s) … probably what you’re thinking of as “older millennials”. What’s interesting though is that the relevance of Xennials is that technological changes mark the generation … they’re essentially just barely young enough to count as part of the internet generations but not old young enough to be ignorant of the pre-internet times. Which just highlights that how you talk about generations depends on what you more broadly care about. In the west, arguably not too much political upheaval has occurred since WWII and its immediate consequences (basically Boomer things) … and so the generations are distinguished on smaller and probably more technological scales.

Cheers!

I think that immunity for explicitly delineated powers makes sense purely from a logical point of view: the constitution says the president can do a thing, therefore a law saying they can’t do that thing is either unconstitutional, or doesn’t apply to the president.

Yea, it’s an interesting one. AFAIU, the delineated powers are basically command of the military and the power to pardon. I really don’t see how a Crime can generally be applicable to either of those. It’s not like “commanding the army” can just become a crime.

But regulating what the army can legally do … seems like a very natural thing. I don’t know if individuals of the military in the US can be responsible under ordinary law for anything. If so, then I don’t see why that would extend to the president should they order something that’s obviously a crime. If not, then that’s that. And again, there are probably natural exceptions to carve out regarding the very nature of military action that would lead to preposterous inconsistencies if they could possible be made generally criminal … where again, it seems to me that you don’t need immunity … it’s just the nature of the power that is amenable to falling within the meaning of legislative regulation.

Beyond all of that though … there’s the opening line of Article II:

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America

WTF is “the executive power”?! I’m sure there have been attempts in the US to give it some shape … but I’d also wager it’s been left somewhat nebulous too, involving elements quite distinct from whatever powers Congress/Law can confer. Does that count as an enumerated power?

Otherwise … yea I’m with you. The “official acts” thing seems more than wonky to me … seems downright expansive. Excluding military action and whatever “fuzzy” powers may be considered intrinsic … I’d imagine most of the executive’s powers come from legislative laws. So the body conferring power can’t constrain it to “not doing something criminal”!!!

I’ve wondered since having a brief look at the decision that the SCOTUS is playing a game here … where they do not want Trump’s trials to affect the election and are hoping to clarify this decision and what “official” means at a later date after the election.

It’s reasonable to me to say you cannot sue the president for vetoing a bill, or criminally prosecute the president for commanding the military. The constitution says the president can do those things, and that the check on presidential power is congressional acts including impeachment.

Yea I dunno … why not just have no immunity? It’s not like the whole idea of the separation of powers is to ensure power is freely exercised … it’s the opposite.

If a president has to pause for a moment before doing something to ask their lawyer if it would be a crime … maybe that’s the point of having fucking legal system and constitution?

Sotomayer’s dissent provided pretty good evidence (AFAICT) that the framers would have put criminal immunity into the constitution if they thought it wise … because it was a known idea at the time that had been done by some states regarding their governors. They didn’t. Cuz that’s the whole point … “no man is above the law”.

And as for Congressional impeachment being paramount … I’m not sure that’s either necessary or even consistent with the Constitution (again, as Sotomayer’s dissent addresses).

For example … Article 1, section 3 (emphasis mine):

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

In short (AFAICT) … impeachment and general legal liability are not the same thing … and the latter totally still applies.

Beyond all of that, the general law probably achieves everything that the majority’s decision was worried about (while they were conspicuously not worried about all of the other things that one should be when crowning a king). Civil immunity is a well established doctrine (government’s just too big and complex a thing for civil responsibility to make sense). And while I don’t know anything about it, there are similar-ish ideas around criminal responsibilities that just don’t make sense for the very nature of a governmental responsibility, war, I think, being a classic example. Sotomayer again speaks about these things.

Overall, once you start to squint at it, the whole decision is kinda weird. To elevate the separation of powers to the point of creating literal lawlessness seems like plain “not seeing the forest for the trees”.

The bit I wonder about, without knowing US Constitutional law/theory well at all … is whether a democratic factor has any bearing. A criminal law is created by the legislature, a democratic body. And also caries requirements for judgment by jury. So couldn’t an argument be made that the centrality of democratic power in the constitution cuts through any concerns about the separation of powers that the SCOTUS had, and enables democratically ordained law to quash concerns about whatever interference the judiciary (or legislature?) might exercise with the executive.

I know there’s the whole “it’s not a democracy, it’s a republic” thing … but the constitution dedicates so much text to establishing the mechanisms of democracy (including the means by which the constitution itself can be altered) that it seems ridiculous to conclude that democratic power is anything but central.

the notion that Europe “may be bad at migration” and being “shit” to others whilst protecting their culture comes of as uninformed at best and holier than thou preachy at worst.

So Europeans and/or Germans can’t be bad at something?

But they should be competent enough to function in order to integrate into the society.

For refugees, this seems like a hard ask.

… Those people rely on friends and family when it comes to simple tasks as doctor appointments.

Maybe then it’s fine? This sort of thing is perfectly common for first generation migrants. And in the age of decent AI translation, I’m really not sure stringency on this makes too much sense anymore.