There's a subtle cruelty to being surrounded by an abundance of food as part of your job and knowing you're not able to have it for yourself without help from the government.

Compared to some of the overt cruelties we see in the world? It's pretty subtle. The psychological, financial, and social impacts it has on workers and their families, once again, if left unanalyzed, pretty subtle.

I don't know. None of this is surprising. Everyone knows that Wal-Mart benefits from Foodstamps both in the sense that they are used to subsidize worker pay and at the same time as payment for goods Wal-Mart sells. In the context of this article I can make a statement such as "It only makes sense that Amazon would try and copy that business model" and once again, I've stated nothing profound, only the obvious. You bring these ideas up in a conversation and people respond with "and water is wet." People don't really stop to think about how fucked up all that is, at least, not on the regular.

It's like we all willfully trivialize the issue because in doing so, it's easier for us to ignore it, or at least, ignore the idea that we should do something about it.

It seems like the list is ever growing. Our bodies and our genetics are absolutely amazing at adapting to environmental pressures and abundances and sometimes it can happen impressively fast.

A few different populations in a few different areas independently developed lactose tolerance, allowing them to process milk and dairy products.

Here's an article you might like from National Geographic that, like the lactose tolerance Wikipedia article, talks about how various populations adapted to low oxygen environments in the higher atmosphere. Here's an opening quote to whet your appetite . . .

"To have examples of three geographically dispersed populations adapting in different ways to the same stress is very unusual," said Cynthia Beall, a physical anthropologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. "From an evolutionary standpoint the question becomes, Why do these differences exist? We need to figure out when, how, and why that happened."

To begin to answer some of these questions, a multidisciplinary group of scientists, including Beall, met earlier this month at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle, Washington.

"High-altitude populations offer a unique natural lab that allows us to follow [many] lines of evidence—archaeological, biological, climatological—to answer intriguing questions about social, cultural, and biological adaptations," said Mark Aldenderfer, an archaeologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who organized the AAAS symposium with Beall.

For those interested, Wikipedia has even more in depth and technical articles out there, from Human Variability to Human Evolutionary Genetics. It doesn't take much clicking around until you find yourself down a rabbit hole of articles to read.

Edit: I forgot to add, as an aside, I saw this article also on Deutsche Welle and National Geographic. Similar to your article about the scientists looking at signs of Anthroprocene climates in Earth's past. Looks like everyone has their eyes on sciency stuff right now, which is good, cause maybe that means everyone is focusing a bit less on politics at the moment.

Binary code and smoke signal were practically made for each other.

Thank you! You're pretty awesome yourself. Know who else is great? This guy.

Maybe empathy is not the right word. Whatever it is is the result of heightened emotions. I try to not worry about it too much and remind myself constantly that I'm actually very lucky, because I live in a relatively stable environment and am surrounded by supportive people. The best advice I've gotten, that's helped, is that I just need to familiarize myself with myself and with that comes control.

It's exciting to hear what you're working on though, in hopes that it will help people down the road. It's probably not the easiest job, but it's good to know there are people out there trying to tackle the problem. It's also good to see over the years the heightened public discourse on brain injuries and how they can affect people. Maybe it'll encourage some to make healthier decisions and take less risks.

Virtual hugs work. After all, it's the thought that counts.

I found the John Deere part a bit out of place myself, because while the issue is still important, it is different.

If anyone on here every watch any episodes of Mayberry R.F.D., there's a recurring character that owns his own repair shop that fixes small appliances of all kinds. I remember the first time I saw that and thought how cool of an idea a shop like that was and disappointed by the idea that we don't have those kinds of shops today because of our throw away items. It's really cool that these guys are bringing the idea back and hopefully it catches on.

Along a similar line, the whole concept might be a partial solution to China no longer wanting to process and recycle western countries' electronic waste. If we have less places willing to recylce our stuff, that's might give governments the incentive to pressure manufacturers to make things A) more durable and B) easier to repair. For a small example, I'd love to see cell phone manufacturers walk back from having sealed units, where people can't even easily replace batteries.

While it came later in the process, I once hear someone argue the discovery of fermentation might have played a role in speeding up adoption of agrarian lifestyles. I don't know how accurate that really is, but it's interesting to think about.

should I bother

I have to be up for work in five hours and I just got done looking at a bunch of skinks on Wikimedia for the past half hour or so to try and get me tired and it's not working and so I don't know if I'm reading what you're asking right. If I am though, man, I'd rant right now.

If you can do it without risking your finances, your job, or your family life, shit yes you should. At the very least, it'd make you a bigger you in ways you can only begin to imagine. You're looking at school to learn skills, expand yourself. It's not like you're thinking about taking yoga or signing up for Crossfit. ::Sheesh::

Urban Mining: Hidden riches in our cities

I wasn't originally gonna post this at all, even though it was a semi-interesting article, because the only comment really for it is "Urban Mining? Bitch, don't you mean recyling?"

But there's a little slide show at the bottom about China's policy change towards recycling electronics. It fits with your article.

Woah! Woah! I need clarification here. Are they liquidating all of their stores? I could have sworn, just a month or so ago, Forbes said they were only closing 180 and change.

Edit: Shit. Wallstreet Journal says possibly all, depending on an announcement expected Monday. Fuuuck. I have friends that work for Toys R Us. They told me their store made the cut and were gonna stay open. Now this? They have kids and mortgages and shit. This is such utter and total shit.

Do any of you guys remember when you were younger and they had those ads in comic books where they showed you all of the cool shit you could earn doing door to door sales for some company? They had all sorts of things, from Gameboys to remote controlled cars to bikes. Any kid with a work ethic who wanted to get in on that would show it to their parents and say "Let me give this a shot!" and any parent who valued their kid's time and dignity would say "No. Those guys are taking you for a spin. Winter's around the corner, use your allowance to buy yourself a snow shovel, and pretty quickly you'll learn more about work and get more for your time than you would working for those clowns." Anyone? No? Must have just been me then.

Anyhow, over the past few years, a lot of my friends have worked for employers that have gone from legit, cash bonuses to something like I just described above. If you hit your goals, whatever they may be, you're distributed points to use in an online market place. I'm certain there are a few different companies that make this deal with employers, some more generous than others, but the basic idea is the same. Anyhow, some of my friends have shown me these things. Some are super lame, basically online liquidation companies where instead of anything cool, you'll get shit offered to you like scented candles, backpacks, dog leashes, etc. Which might be useful, yeah, but they don't really scream "motivation" or "validation."

One of my buds actually had his employer work with a slightly more worthwhile company. Over the course of like a year, he accumulated enough points to get himself an X-Box One, a 36" Television, and like six games. He thought he was rocking it. Then we did the math together and figured out how much all of this stuff was worth compared to how much he used to get with traditional bonuses. No lie, what his points were worth were legit 25% of what he used to get in actual cash. He was salty for weeks.

I can't blame him. It's bad enough we're losing hours, healthcare, wages, upward mobility, and respect. Now they're fucking with our bonuses and even restricting what we can buy with them.

In one of the previous threads talking about bookstores, I linked to an article or something saying that independent bookstores are on the rise. That was like a year or so ago and I've had a long day at work and my Google-Fu is weak but what I'm about to say runs off the assumption that that statistic is still true and some of what francopoli says in his bit up there.

Barnes and Noble dropped the ball in a lot of hindsight is 50/50 ways. Online presence, Nooks, what ever. You've brought up before that one of the big things killing retail stores is rent and ever since you made that comment I've come across articles agreeing with that premise.

I frequent four different independence bookstores and they all have a few things going for them that give them some edge. Here's my breakdown of each cause brain no worky so eloquence is not an option tonight.

Bookstore A is a comic shop in a run down part of town where rent is cheap. Two thirds of the floor space is dedicated to tables for Magic The Gathering Tournaments and other types of gaming. They buy up and resell Magic Cards, Hero Clicks, and of course comics and probably make a mean ass profit at it. Their graphic novel section isn't really carefully currated, they take a shotgun approach and have about 10 bookcases dedicated to them (that's about 2-3,000 books at any given time). Chances are you won't be wowed by their selection, but you'll be guaranteed to find something that you'll like. Their rewards based program is laid out in such a way to incentivize customers to spend at least $1,000 a year there to take full advantage of it. Everybody there knows my name.

Bookstore B is a comic shop in another run down part of town where rent is cheap. Their focus is mainly comics, comics, comics. They have about the same selection as Bookstore A, but it's curated and they have quality titles for everything from cape comics to indies to indies. Every time you're there, they ask what you're reading, what you're interested in reading, suggest things to you, and kindly let you know that if you don't see something you want, they'll be more than happy to order it for you. One time I bought about twenty graphic novels all at once, mentioned that Dala would kill me if she knew how much I was spending (I was gift shopping, so it wasn't all for me) and the owner slapped on a bunch of half off stickers on them for me so I could tell her I got them for a deal. That's just how they roll. Everybody there knows my name.

Bookstore C is a regular bookstore in a fancy ass part of town, but in a small little hole in the wall that is A) still pleasant and B) while more expensive per square foot, still affordable. Their selection is curated and they know that they have limited space and therefore might not have much to interest you so they always ask what you're interested in, offer suggestions, and most importantly, let you know they can order anything you ask for. Nothing they have there interests me, but I like supporting small businesses, so that's my go to place to order books. Everybody there knows my name.

Bookstore D is a two hour drive from where I currently live. It's a pleasant country drive though, so I don't mind in the slightest. They're in a little town, far away from any interstate, so big box presence isn't really a thing there. As a result, chances are, there rent is cheap. There shit is curated, classy, and fancy (this place is like PBS while other bookstores might be more like Fox or ABC). They also play the small business end to their advantage and really market themselves that way. They have a section devoted to regional authors, regional publishers, and regional printers. Your dog is allowed in the store. They have two cats in the store. You could literally take a book, sit down in some random corner, and read it from cover to cover and they'd be totally chill with that. Everybody there knows my name.

Barnes and Noble? They do some things right. They have buy one get one deals and they're willing to take a shotgun approach to their merchandise so you'll find something if you're willing to look. They'll have author signings and every now and again they'll play acoustic blues music on the PA that I like. But their Blu-Rays are overpriced, they do seem to be schizophrenic in merchandising, and rent rates are probably kicking there butts. But most of all? Most of all? Nobody there knows my name. If I wanted books without the human interaction, I'd use the internet.

Oh man. I wish I kept my original bit. I started with "You know, if you told me this morning that I was gonna take some time out of my day to defend an opinionist, I couldn't really see it happening. But here I am."

Quite a few of my college buds ended up in the military. One of them worked to maintain the computers while overseas in Kuwait and Iraq during our occupation in Iraq. He had all sorts of anecdotes about the crazy dumb things people would do. We're talking about the network security equivalent of putting a fork into a wall outlet or standing on a ladder as it rests on moving forklift or putting your exposed arm down a badger hole just to see if anyone's home.

Well, you're response is why I think it's absolutely fair to have that expectation. On the other hand though, if she doesn't have either of those, is it still fair? Shouldn't they be near equals economically speaking? What if the gender roles were reversed and it was a guy with neither only wanting to date women with a place to live and health insurance? Wouldn't society be more likely to paint him as an opportunist?

Besides that, while those things are important, how important are they over emotional and intellectual compatibility? What about being kind, respectful, and faithful? Good with kids? Easily able to get along with family and friends?

I mean, yeah, economic factors are a big part of relationships, I get that. On the other hand though, I know a ton of relationships that are anything but financially secure and people stick by each other through thick and thin (joblessness, poor health, etc.) because there's real love and commitment there.

Money isn't the be all and end all to relationships. I'd rather be dead broke financially and live a life full of love than be well off, successful, and with someone I didn't appreciate.

I'm starting to think maybe it has to do with unemployment dropping and there being a shortage of good workers now. If the demand is high and supply is low, pay more. That, or it could be like the guy said in the article I linked, where companies are trying to get ahead of the change in pay rates in many states. It's definitely good news for you and your peers either way.

Weirdest fucking thing. I pieced this whole argument out from a conversation with a co-worker, a quick blip on the radio on the drive home from work, and my own thoughts. Then I look at This Piece on The Week this morning and it's basically my argument said better. He even brings up Wal-Mart's profits and Target's wage hike and all. If I hadn't written what I'd written the day before, I swear I committed plagiarism. Actually, I feel like I did, even though I think I didn't because it took me like a whole hour to write that.

Ok. So, here me out. Yes, we should celebrate, because if you work twenty hours a week and your pay jumps by $2 an hour, that's about an additional $2,000 a year you'll be making. Plus there are announcements of bonuses and family benefits and all. But I don't think we should be showering Wal-Mart with praise. In my opinion, this was inevitable, and here's why.

First things first. The article says that this'll bump up Wal-Mart's yearly pay by about $300 million dollars. That sounds like a lot of money. You'd think it was no wonder they'd hold off on this. Except, if I Google "Wal-Mart Yearly Profit" I get answers anywhere from $12-18 billion a year. $300 million is a drop in the bucket compared to that. They had the capacity to be this generous all along.

I'm having trouble thinking today so let me just lay this out and hope I say it clearly and we'll figure what's what.

Unemployment is at pre-recession low. During the recession, retail companies had all sorts of overqualified people working for them (the under employed). Had a job in IT but now you don't? Go work at an electronics company and repair computers. Had a job in banking but now you don't? Go be a cashier supervisor at any retail store. Used to have a job as an office manager but now you don't? Go be a department manager at any retail store. Now those jobs are coming back. The people with accounting degrees are accounting, the people with engineering degrees are engineering, and all places like Wal-Mart have left are people who aren't qualified to be engineers, but are qualified to work at Wal-Mart (and I don't mean dumb or lazy or anything, just that they don't necessarily have degrees or certifications).

Except pickings are thin.

Know who pays better than Wal-Mart? Amazon and your generic warehouses. Trained jobs like painters and framers. Shipping companies like FedEx and UPS. Other retail companies like Costco and Target (who by the way who started paying $11/hr well before any tax cuts).

Wal-Mart knows what's up. Retail jobs are harder today than they were twenty years ago. You have to be good with computers, numbers, customer service, and be willing to take on the same workload that twenty years ago would have been split between two or three people. Retail is hard now, which means more training and more investment in your workers. If you're gonna pay people poorly, they're not gonna wanna stick around, which means you're burning time and money training people only to see them leave. If you pay someone $11-15 an hour, they might stick around because they think the pay is worth it, or they might stick around because they hate their job but the next guy only pays fifty cents above minimum and that's a crummy pay cut.

Either way, this isn't about being generous or tax cuts, because they've had the opportunity to be generous for years. This is about worker shortages and Wal-Mart trying to suck a little less to keep people working for them.

Still, hooray for the pay boost, cause those people deserve it.

Edit: Sorry. I just re-read this and I sound overly harsh. I didn't mean to sound overly harsh. I'm just doubtful that Wal-Mart is full of tax break good will all of the sudden.

If it helps at all, ideally speaking, these days experiments are much more controlled to minimize as much animal suffering as possible. The regulations and enforcement aren't flawless, but it's genuine progress.

Who cares? 'Tis fashionable my good man!

I'm a Toyota man but I got your Datsuns right here! Shout out to Dala who's the Datsun fan in the family. She'll be all over this thread, drooling, no doubt.

You all think they're all 240zs this and 510s that, but no siree bob! They had something for everyone. Don't believe me?

Have a Datsun 720 Pickup. That's actually not too ugly, huh? Want a closer look? Here's a hi-res pic perfect for a wall paper.

Want something a little more on the classic side? Have a Datsun 14 with all whole whopping 15 horsepower. Go-Karts have more go-go juice than this baby. That hood ornament though? It's a leaping rabbit. Awesome.

You want a Datsun with non-conventional go-go juice? Have The White Zombie, a Datsun 1200 converted into an electric drag car.

You just want something to read with a lot of really nice pictures? Well then, this week SpeedHunters has the article for you.

BAM! Datsuns!

The Song of Roland

The E-Book Dala downloaded me has this really weird thing going on where every few stanzas, a stanza is interrupted halfway through. I'm not surprised that there's an issue with the book, because when you get E-Books that are scans of really old books converted to a digital format, stuff goes awry. But usually, it's more along the lines of maybe a "u" with an umlaut ending up as six nonsensical characters in the final format. This is the first time I've seen whole segments missing.

Anyhow, I like the poem enough so far that we're gonna get a few different translations from the library and I'm gonna figure out which one I like best and add it to my book collection. As I mentioned in the book thread, I once heard it as a "slog" to read. This thing is anything but. The poem is briskly paced and the stanzas are dense. As in, if you took the first dozen or so stanzas and re-wrote it in modern prose like Lord of the Rings or something, you have enough material for quite a few chapters. This is definitely a "blink and you'll miss it" kind of poem.

Camera

I got a new camera. Fancy and manual and intimidating. I have yet to break it out. I'm gonna do it tomorrow.

Drawing

I think I'm gonna try to make asilent comic about a hermit who desides to leave seclusion only to find himself alone in a city full of weird creatures of all shapes and sizes and types. I have zero confidence I'll be able to pull it off with any skill, but it'll be fun to do, if only to fill up an odd hour here or there.

Positive Thoughts

Happy New Year Hubskiers. Keep being awesome.

Dala recently downloaded The Song of Roland for me. She got a translation by K.C. Moncrieff for free from Project Guttenburg. I've heard so many summaries for this poem from "moving and inspiring" to "bleak" to "a slow, tedious, slog." If anything, this tells me that this is a pretty complex poem with a lot of elements. I'm gonna give it about thirty pages or so, and if I like it, I'll continue. If not, I'll probably move on to Grettir's Saga that someone on here mentioned to me quite a while ago.

I don't know where I'm gonna go after that.

And can someone explain to me why many Americans think that unions is a bad thing? (Or why unions are a bad thing in the US)

Depends on the union, but they've gone from being perceived as being beneficial to the working man to any combination of weak and ineffective, leeching off the hard work of individuals, bureaucratic systems that just create more obstacles to overcome, old boy networks that protect the old guard and/or provide preferential and protectionist treatment to people who abuse the system and their power in it. I mean, I could keep going on, but you get the idea. Regardless, whether or not that's the reality of the situation, that's how they're often viewed.

I've had these two pictures sitting on my table in front of me for about two weeks now. I think they're both decent enough to where I need to take the backgrounds seriously. The only problem is, drawing backgrounds are always a struggle for me and sometimes when I get a good start in the foreground, I completely bungle the background, ruining the whole picture. So, I don't know what I'm gonna get today, but I'm gonna sit down with these for the next hour or so and see if I can't knock something out.

Also, after years of saving up/putting it off, Dala and I finally got a fancy, super mega pixel, swap out the lens, it has an easy mode but really you should be doing everything in manual, camera. My goal is to learn to use it well enough that by spring, I'll be able to get some amazing pictures of the lizards in the yard. And cars. And birds. Bugs. Fuck, whatever looks pretty and stands still long enough for me to get a picture of it. So, probably not birds.

What role you think it plays?

It just creates communication gaps. There's cultural and historical nuances that are behind words and phrases that sometimes don't come across if you're not mentally embedded in the language. At the same time, your world view and someone else's world view might lead to different interpretations and/or expectations of the exact same conversation. It doesn't mean you shouldn't converse, it's just something to be aware of.

As for everything else, I'd say this. Despite what the news, including American news, might make you think, Americans in general are pretty open people. Because we're people, and at our core we're all good, even if we're massive fuck ups sometimes. Maybe for a while, as an experiment, instead of think "American" or "Russian" or "Chinese" or "Brazilian" or whatever, replace those words in your internal vocabulary with "human" and "good" whenever you can and see where that perspective takes you. You might surprise yourself.

I'm trying very, very hard to be as positive as possible from here on out. So far, I think I'm doing alright but I know I can do better and I'm gonna work on it. That said, I'm gonna make an exception for Uber.

I, for some unknown reason, have a very deep, obsessive dislike against Uber. I don't know completely where it comes from, but I think a lot of it stems from the facts that A) They really don't seem to be for the working man and B) They think laws are nothing more than inconveniences that they can just ignore. The fact that A and B overlap somewhat and their attitude towards laws seems to influence their behavior in other ways just irks me even more.

If I came and posted every negative article that I come across that involves Uber, I'd probably post one a week, minimum. What's there isn't even all of their controversies. The fact that they seem to have a new stain on their character on a seemingly monthly basis doesn't even surprise me anymore. I really hope something comes of this, because I don't like them at all, and I hope its a government somewhere that ends up being their eventual downfall. The internet tends to be pretty socially conscious (or at least loves a good social controversy) and when I think about it I'm honestly surprised that a tech company such as them have survived in a socially conscious atmosphere.

No more dogs for us. It’s too painful.

It's my personal opinion that there is no other animal out there that can come close to matching let alone surpass the dog in its capacity to love and its longing for companionship. That their loss can bring so much pain is a testament to how much dogs' love for us and our love for dogs can profoundly affect us. I can't fault you for not wanting to open yourself to that kind of pain again, in fact I'm getting kind of emotional thinking about your post, but its wonderful to know that the dogs in your life were a blessing and that you're so moved by their loss tells me that you were an equal blessing in their lives.

I don't know what else to say at the moment, so I'll leave it there.