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Alex Schroeder

From Yale Medicine:

"Long COVID Keeps People Out of Work and Hurts the Economy"

yalemedicine.org/news/long-cov

“It’s a myth to assume this data reflects issues limited to unvaccinated individuals, retiring adults, or people with pre-existing medical conditions…"

"over 400 million people worldwide have developed Long COVID at some point, resulting in an annual global economic cost of $1 trillion"

@longcovid

#Covid #LongCovid #CovidIsNotOver #ChronicIllness

From Yale Medicine:

"Long COVID Keeps People Out of Work and Hurts the Economy"

yalemedicine.org/news/long-cov

“It’s a myth to assume this data reflects issues limited to unvaccinated individuals, retiring adults, or people with pre-existing medical conditions…"

“It’s a myth to assume this data reflects issues limited to unvaccinated individuals, retiring adults, or people with pre-existing medical conditions,” says Arjun Venkatesh, MD, professor of emergency medicine at Yale School of Medicine and the primary author of the study. “Our cohort tends to be younger and highly vaccinated, yet the reality is that they continue to have prolonged symptoms after an acute COVID infection, which significantly affects their ability to work.”

However, getting the COVID-19 vaccine and subsequent booster shots is still the best way to reduce both the likelihood of getting COVID-19 in the first place but also the risk of developing Long COVID after infection, Dr. Venkatesh adds. He is currently conducting longer-term analyses to see if these patients eventually return to work even one or two years after infection.
Alex Schroeder

An intriguing blurb for a book with free epub and pdf options:
"When was the last time you participated in an election for a Facebook group or sat on a jury for a dispute in a subreddit? Platforms nudge users to tolerate nearly all-powerful admins, moderators, and “benevolent dictators for life.” In Governable Spaces, Nathan Schneider argues that the internet has been plagued by a phenomenon he calls “implicit feudalism”: a bias, both cultural and technical, for building communities as fiefdoms. The consequences of this arrangement matter far beyond online spaces themselves, as feudal defaults train us to give up on our communities’ democratic potential, inclining us to be more tolerant of autocratic tech CEOs and authoritarian tendencies among politicians."
https://nathanschneider.info/books/governable-spaces/
@ntnsndr

An intriguing blurb for a book with free epub and pdf options:
"When was the last time you participated in an election for a Facebook group or sat on a jury for a dispute in a subreddit? Platforms nudge users to tolerate nearly all-powerful admins, moderators, and “benevolent dictators for life.” In Governable Spaces, Nathan Schneider argues that the internet has been plagued by a phenomenon he calls “implicit feudalism”: a bias, both cultural and technical, for building communities as fiefdoms....

Alex Schroeder

The thought that any long term solution needs more than a dictator for life is what makes me offer the creation of a Swiss association whenever such a thing comes up. People rarely take me up on this. I run a handful of wikis (Emacs Wiki being the best known, I guess); I even run a wiki-of-wikis where people can create their own wikis for their role-playing games (Campaign Wiki). All of these would benefit from some form of long term governance.

Alex Schroeder

@lynnesbian Oh hey! I'm the person who originally submitted this to reddit.

As far as I know, this rule is no longer in place. It still shows up in some recent-ish documents (like [1]), but a train driver I know showed me a screenshot of a document explicitly stating that this paragraph was made obsolete.

It also doesn't show up in the current R 300.5 anymore. [2]

[1]: bav.admin.ch/bav/de/home/recht

[2]: bav.admin.ch/bav/de/home/recht

@lynnesbian Oh hey! I'm the person who originally submitted this to reddit.

As far as I know, this rule is no longer in place. It still shows up in some recent-ish documents (like [1]), but a train driver I know showed me a screenshot of a document explicitly stating that this paragraph was made obsolete.

Draemmli-Ersatzbus

@lynnesbian I think the original limitation was caused by mechanical counters with eight physical bits (so, not actually software), which have now been phased out.

Alex Schroeder

As I was cleaning out my little odds-and-ends box I found these 'social media' charms (also from a gacha).

Typically sold at shrines & temples, omamori are protective amulets. The most common type is a brocade pouch containing a prayer or sacred image.

1) Protection from offensive replies クソリプ厄除
2) Prayer for likes いいね増祈願
3) Protection from being blocked ブロック厄除
4) Prayer for creating a buzz バズ祈願
5) Prayer to increase followers フォロワー増祈願
6) Protection from being the target of an online mob 炎上厄除

Protective amulets for social media users...

1) Protection from offensive replies クソリプ厄除
2) Prayer for likes いいね増祈願
Protective amulets for social media users...

3) Protection from being blocked ブロック厄除
4) Prayer for creating a buzz バズ祈願
Protective amulets for social media users...

5) Prayer to increase followers フォロワー増祈願
6) Protection from being the target of an online mob 炎上厄除
Protective amulets for social media users.
Alex Schroeder

@jacqueline but jacqueline don’t you know that you’re actually not supposed to fix bugs in your open source software anymore?

code.dblock.org/2024/12/19/do-

if you do it’s a sign the tangara community is actually Unhealthy

Alex Schroeder

@jbauer @jacqueline amazingly I have begun to proceed as follows for older projects:

- post “good idea”, “I agree” or “yeah, looks like a bug”
- add the tag Good First Issue
- add the tag Help Wanted
- read a book

I exaggerate a little, of course. But that “no maintenance expected” sticker idea still appeals to me.

Alex Schroeder

In a few months, in a few years, not long after Israel finishes razing Gaza and killing off the last Palestinian, the world will come to a consensus that Israel committed genocide, murdered an entire people, and that the world stood there and watched, when not actively helping.

Much like Srebrenica or Rwanda, there will eventually be inquiries and documentaries, showing how much Western countries knew and supported that genocide: US, UK, Germany, France…

theguardian.com/world/live/202

#Israel #gaza

In a few months, in a few years, not long after Israel finishes razing Gaza and killing off the last Palestinian, the world will come to a consensus that Israel committed genocide, murdered an entire people, and that the world stood there and watched, when not actively helping.

Much like Srebrenica or Rwanda, there will eventually be inquiries and documentaries, showing how much Western countries knew and supported that genocide: US, UK, Germany, France…

Alex Schroeder

It’s been commonly known for years that Spotify is using “ghost artists” to minimize royalty pay outs to actual working musicians.

Few people care, but it’s worth mentioning anyway because this one company has done more damage to music than Napster ever allegedly did.

https://exclaim.ca/music/article/spotify-is-filling-playlists-with-ghost-artists-new-report-claims

Alex Schroeder

The Mississippi Delta in the early 20th century was America’s raw edge—a place where history and economy, race and labor, collided with a ferocity that shaped the American story. To those who labored in the humid summers of that region, the fields seemed endless, stretching out flat and wide like a white and green ocean under the sun.

Image: A child picking cotton outside McGhee, Arkansas in the 1940s.

1/25

Child picking cotton in the 1940s.
Show previous comments
mike805

@Deglassco Those machines were actually invented in the 1920s. Until WW2 the field workers had little if any cash income and no way out of that life.

The economics hadn't really changed much since the Civil War. You were now free to quit, but only to walk somewhere else and take a similar job under the same conditions.

WW2 offered them new options - military service and manufacturing jobs. Once they had cash and a real job, nobody really wanted to go back to picking cotton.

Alex Schroeder

Happy solstice! Today is two seconds shorter than yesterday, tomorrow will be four seconds longer than today. (At least where I am.) The light is returning!

Alex Schroeder

The internet is now almost a wasteland now. I was searching around for information on Vikings and came across this little gem (/s).

The Vikings called their homeland Vinland. ...
Although Vinland never reached its full potential due to conflicts with other tribes living in North America (primarily the Aztecs), it remained an important part of Norse culture throughout the years.

viking.style/what-did-the-viki

The whole thing smacks of Machine Learning to game SEO and get traffic.

#deadinternet #seo #Misinformation

The internet is now almost a wasteland now. I was searching around for information on Vikings and came across this little gem (/s).

The Vikings called their homeland Vinland. ...
Although Vinland never reached its full potential due to conflicts with other tribes living in North America (primarily the Aztecs), it remained an important part of Norse culture throughout the years.

Hot Dog Water

@aral

When Disney builds their sprawling resort in Gaza, surely already designed and approved, are they gonna call it Disraeland?

Anthony

@aral Israel and Bibi blew past that stop sign a long time ago. They're already well into the final solution phase.

Alex Schroeder

“Your GitHub account now includes free use of GitHub Copilot in VS Code and on GitHub, powered by your choice of AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic. This is now part of your personal GitHub account, and accessible via VS Code and on GitHub.” 🤮
– an email to me, from somebody who either used a large language model to write it 👎 or who is telling me I should be using a laege language model even though they decided to pay a real person to write it 👎

It is the large language model conundrum. Who wants to read what you didn’t want to write?

“Your GitHub account now includes free use of GitHub Copilot in VS Code and on GitHub, powered by your choice of AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic. This is now part of your personal GitHub account, and accessible via VS Code and on GitHub.” 🤮
– an email to me, from somebody who either used a large language model to write it 👎 or who is telling me I should be using a laege language model even though they decided to pay a real person to write it 👎

Alex Schroeder

Some years ago, I decided to simply use “I” in scholarly articles when I refer to myself. What’s the point of using “this article,” “the author,” and similar contortions instead?

I now received a review that *strongly* suggests I write “this article proposes” instead of “I propose.” But I still fail to see how this would make the article better ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#AcademicChatter

screwlisp

@mxp yeah, I am on the I side of this fence too.We have that hilarious letter from Einstein about gravitational lensing after all.

JackieM

@mxp I HATE conventions of academic writing that do not make your meaning any clearer. As if reading academic writing weren’t hard enough. It always just felt like gate keeping to me.

Paul (Tex) Hewson

@mxp In math papers we use "we" a lot. I think the idea is that "we" means the reader and writer together. That's freaked out a few non-math co-authors, even when it was the journal style.

Alex Schroeder

@alex
To quote project page:

> It is hard to send our words into the future. We don’t have the means to burn clay tablets and we don’t print paper books to be sent to the archives of our time. We have to create our own electronic archives while we’re alive.

The funny thing is this might be possible, I don' know about CH, but in FR any published work must be archived at the Bibliothèque Nationale... and websites can be too! bnf.fr/en/help-center/web-lega

Alex Schroeder

@Preuk Interesting modalities. Automatic collection, but no public access. That is a way to protect yourself from lawsuits, for sure. I wonder how they decide on “domiciled in France” – by top level domain? I used to be a French citizen until about 2007. Did they archive my pages? Did they remove the archives? I never used the .fr top-level domain. Also, almost none of my pages are in French. But that doesn’t seem to be a requirement. I wonder if Switzerland has a similar program.

Alex Schroeder

I love this! Someone went through the trouble of re-creating a printable copy of Paul Graham's "On Lisp", by re-creating the diagrams missing from the PDF Graham made available on his website and formatting the book nicely to be printed through Lulu. Here's the story along with the downloadable formatted PDF: lurklurk.org/onlisp/onlisp.htm

Gosha

I found this via r/lisp while looking for a print copy of On Lisp for sale. This post includes a link to a Lulu listing where you can order your own: reddit.com/r/lisp/comments/l71

Ramakrishnan VU2JXN

@gosha That was me (on the first line of the page) who scanned the pages. Surprised that this still exists on the web.

Alex Schroeder

Folks have asked me how to find and build community.

Here is a very pragmatic and approachable way to find the community in your local town or neighborhood.

A little of bit of the concept with a focus on praxis.

So if you're new to community and mutual aid, don't think about what you can build. You're going to be wrong. People have already tried what you're thinking and dropped it back at version 0.3 - Everyone is on 8.2c right now.

So join what exists. Once you get good at it, then you can build out from there - with the knowledge of what is actually needed and works.

Quick note: Things are working. You're just not hearing about it via corporate news. Because it doesn't make those corps money. But its working and has been working. Glad you are joining us now! I think you'll be very pleasantly surprised as what exists around you and what you've been missing out on. Everyone joins at some point. Glad you're here now.

How do you find what exists?

The simple answer is, via community. But you haven't joined the community, so how do you find community without the community!

Since you're here, on the internet, let's start with the internet.

One thing: Folks building and running mutual aid aren't always building and running websites. They're meeting actual people doing physical things in the world. So their websites suck. Also, putting things out publicly runs the risk of inviting the nose of town government and their police forces. Sometimes posting publicly is a *BAD IDEA*. So they don't. You understand OpSec. They understand it better.

But, you certainly can start on the internet to find a "doorway".

Mutual Aid and community is DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT from charities/non-profits. I won't go into it here, but the two (mutual aid and charities/non-profits) aren't the same and actually opposed to each other.

Buuuuuut.....

Folks overlap between the two.

So I might focus on mutual aid, but I'll work with some charities because their apparatus furthers a mutual aid goal in the immediacy.

With that in mind, you can search out charities on the internet. They are well established there and are often upheld by local govt and churches. So they're protected.

Certainly go find some charities that align with your "one thing" (the thing you'll focus on now until you learn about more).

The big thing though, is the charity is not the goal. The people that work there are the goal. You are building a network. So go and meet people but BE FUCKING CHILL about your goals. You start spouting off mutual aid and bad things happen. So just be quiet and listen (this being quiet and listening is going to be your main skill to develop for a long while... so embrace it now).

You'll mostly find old boomers in retirement and religious folks with some politicians. They are charity folks. Great. But you're looking for folks that don't fit those molds. You're looking for the hippies, the socialists, the anarchists, the folks who have grown up poor and now have some means. "One of these things is not like the other". Find the anomalies and follow *their* lead.

You're going to sit in these charities for months while you meet people. Listen to "small talk". If it's Jesus focused, just smile and nod and praise god.

But if it's apparatus building and working with other groups, those are the conversations you want to join in on.

I'll say that again:

If the conversation is about WORKING WITH OTHER GROUPS on shared goals... get in on that. I don't care if its other charities. Get in on it.

After a while, you'll start meeting folks that are building real mutual aid. Learn the initiatives in your area and you'll find and settle into the groups that are doing work but not advertising on social media about it.

So.

Where to start?

Pick one of the following areas (there are more, but these are entry points):
- Food.
- Homeless outreach.
- Literacy / schooling.
- Political access and voting.

Just pick one area and find groups that do that thing. Don't worry about picking the right one. You're going to be moving around for a bit while you learn, so its fine. They all flow.

For Food: Find your local Food Bank and Food Pantries. Feeding America is a good start. Look there. Food Banks need lots of volunteers. Find a thing you can do and do it. Local churches act as Food Pantries. Go to those and help hand out food. If you're really lucky, find a place that makes and serves hot food. DO THAT!!! You'll get real close to mutual aid right away.

For Homeless outreach, look up local shelters - sure. Shelters tend TO ABSOLUTELY SUCK!!! So your mileage may vary. Look for places that gather up clothes and coats and hand them out. Look for places that serve the homeless communities and do that.

For Literacy and schooling, look up various elementary schools, libraries, and the same. After school programs for children. Boys and Girls clubs and the like as well. If you have kids, talk with your school counselors and ask them about the school programs that serve under-privileged families.

For political access and voting, don't join a political party. Instead find local orgs that focus on registering people for voting. The NAACP shines in this. You don't have to be black to join the NAACP. Local DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) are also a good place to look.

Great. So how do you find them?

A quick note on internet searches just to get it out of the way: Search for "city or town name" and:
- "food bank"
- "food pantry"
- "mutual aid"
- "after school programs"
- "voter advocacy"
- "homeless shelter"
- "women's shelter"
- "town resources"
- "library"

On that last note: The BEST PLACE TO START is your local library.

Just go hang out in the library for a while. They post A LOT of stuff for the town. Classes, resources, groups, events, etc. And by "post" I actually mean physical posts. Fliers on the wall and on physical "announcement boards". The librarians themselves are great. Just ask them. They're there to help. Literally.

In fact, don't approach looking for these groups as a volunteer (I hate that word). Don't approach them as a person looking to contribute and build.

Instead, approach these groups as a person who could benefit from them. So for food, ask the librarians to help you find "food pantries for distributions". The libraries are geared to help the community. So get all the info on that, and then flip it around and go to the food pantries and ask how you can help.

So. Internet search for groups is an okay start. But go to the local library and ask.

All you need is ONE WAY in. Once you find some sort of group doing something - anything... go there. Then meet the people. Find a stray community worker that also works there and learn from them. Then find out about the other groups that meet and are building and doing. Go to those in person meetings and spread from there.

(Ask questions in this thread and I and others will give you ideas.)

Also, if you need help finding those initial groups, DM me with your town name and I'll give you a list of groups that you can start with.

#solarPunk #mutualAid #community

Folks have asked me how to find and build community.

Here is a very pragmatic and approachable way to find the community in your local town or neighborhood.

A little of bit of the concept with a focus on praxis.

So if you're new to community and mutual aid, don't think about what you can build. You're going to be wrong. People have already tried what you're thinking and dropped it back at version 0.3 - Everyone is on 8.2c right now.

Show previous comments
HO• ⏚:flag_pride:

@tinker this post made me appreciate our openly anarchist local groups availability even more 💗

Bret Mogilefsky

@tinker Super helpful, just what I needed to read. Thanks!

Ramarro Marrone

@tinker That all sounds great. I suggest another area to start: If you are working, your workplace is a good spot. The advantage of your workplace is that you are already there and that your workplace's dependence on its workers gives you special power. I invite people to contact me for training and literature on organizing the workplace. Many of the methods also apply in other sorts of organizing, so I invite you to contact me even if it is not for workplace organizing.

Alex Schroeder

We are spending a week in the Vallais. It’s the source of the Rhone river (comparable to the Rhine except it flows west instead of north). We’re at around 1300m above sea level, here.

The entire valley goes from east to west. There are mountains to the north, east and south. So in three out of four cardinal directions, the clouds already rained over some mountains. This region has the most sunny days in all of Switzerland.

Alex Schroeder

The Vallais has two parts: the upper part is German speaking, the lower part is French speaking. The German speaking part used to lord it over the French speaking part. The region joined Switzerland in 1815.

When I came here, I was about two weeks old. I don’t remember much. We left the Vallais when I was at the age of learning to ride a bicycle. When is that? Maybe four years old? Not kindergarten age, in any case.

Alex Schroeder

A great paper on the effects of RTO mandates. In news that will surprise no one with half a brain:

- You disproportionately lose women.
- You disproportionately lose your best people.
- You find it hard to replace the good people that you lose.

For a long time, companies were excited about offshoring because it meant that they could take advantage of a global labour force to increase supply and drive down labour costs. Now they’re starting to see the flip side: with a lot of places offering remote work, the demand is also global and they are competing with companies worldwide. If you don’t offer a good work-life balance for your best people, someone else will and they may be anywhere in the world.

After running a successful research project at Microsoft with a team spanning several thousand miles between the furthest members, I was quite surprised to be told that we all needed to come back into the lab because research requires people to be face to face. Especially by people who had spent two years doing nothing to promote collaboration and who were pushing policies that would exclude my close collaborators in other countries.

At SCI, we’re remote first. My most recent hire is on a boat in the South Pacific. As long as people can communicate and have a decent Internet connection, I don’t care where they are (the accountants may, for tax purposes). You need to actively build teams when people are remote, just as when they’re local. Mostly of the people who felt RTO was important were the ones who weren’t doing this in either setting and were relying on similarity biases to create teams (I’d love to see a correlation between managers who advocate RTO and managers who have a higher turnover for folks who are not white cishet males: I suspect it would be strong).

A great paper on the effects of RTO mandates. In news that will surprise no one with half a brain:

- You disproportionately lose women.
- You disproportionately lose your best people.
- You find it hard to replace the good people that you lose.

For a long time, companies were excited about offshoring because it meant that they could take advantage of a global labour force to increase supply and drive down labour costs. Now they’re starting to see the flip side: with a lot of places offering remote...

Alex Schroeder

Wondering if anyone can help... I'm looking for examples/articles, showing how ChatGPT is unreliable, gives the wrong facts,,etc? Like, someone asked it stuff, & it got key facts wrong. Examples of how ChatGPT gives the wrong info relating to health, are particularly sought. But other examples are fine too.

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