Would you mind laying out a little more information about the implications of the J&J? I have been on the IT side of construction my entire career (and for the foreseeable future). As a result, my place of work at the time of vaccine roll-out offered bonuses for proof of vaccination the moment there was widespread ability so that the business could continue to function without risk of hospitalizing their own workforce. It was a pretty sweet deal for a small organization - $250 at first dose, another upon completion of the second. Now, as a young lad, I thought “I can get $500 at one go if I just get the J&J! Why wait for two doses?” My fiancé looked up the efficacy of the options and chose a safer route via two-dose solution.

I ended up with ‘vid around the time headlines of the Delta variant came out and I’m certain without the J&J (and someone checking on me) I would have been hospitalized. For some reason, the illness’s effects felt akin to and worse than mono. My partner never got sick, even when I contracted covid two more times - both after receiving a Pfizer booster. Each subsequent contraction had less mono-like symptoms, but every flu-like illness I’ve had between the initial covid infection and deciding to regularly get the flu vaccine was accompanied by mono-esque symptoms.

Curious as to whether you can speak to (or link to) more on this:

Most people don't seem to know that the J&J covid vax used a viral envelope that much of the population has some immunogenicity against. Nor do they know that the J&J vax was limited to one dose, not because of its superior effectiveness, but because the first dose would raise their immunogenicity such that the second dose would be ineffective and a greater risk of adverse reaction. Also, they can no longer benefit from vaccines or gene therapies that use such an envelope. I think that was a mistake. I also think it's a mistake that new covid vaccines are encouraged for age groups without clinical data showing a benefit for that group, particularly for mRNA-based vaccines.

Glad you’re still engaging, especially after your comment on the “Hubski isn’t what it used to be” post. With the state of the online world as is, I’ve come to finally understand the standpoint of closing the door to logged-out users/scrapers. On the other hand, Pabs’ post a week or so earlier was a great reminder of the place the site holds in hearts of the earlier crowd.

While attempting to wrap my head around why Ezra doesn’t land as well as I’d hoped, lolbrooks was exactly what came to mind… lol. A new king is crowned.

Thanks for the rabbithole on income share versus union membership of top 1% (seriously). I have a reading list on the opening up of China starting with the Carter Admin and I’ll keep this graph in mind with as I start looking more seriously at the policy transitions from Carter to Reagan to Clinton (plus where NAFTA plays into it). Will be a bit to catch up, ‘cos only reading non-fiction at any given time is a bore. Shout-out to Scott Lynch for getting me through the Gilded Age reading so far.

The fights in court as Zeldin’s EPA tries to wrangle back already-dispensed funds under the allegations of criminal wrongdoing on the side of the last administration (lol?) is one hell of a way to try and stop further progress by a government back initiative like CHIPS. Everyone my algos are tuned to are trying to read the tea leaves on what percentage make-up of 1890s, 1930s or 1960s our future holds, but it all looks like these labor-first policies will be on hold until who knows when (read: if a rebuke gains any traction… as tired as that sounds).

Re: other ways to do it that was meant for the people whose government purpose built/funded abundance for them. As for the PWA, I love this statement from the Wiki:

The PWA spent over $7 billion on contracts with private construction firms that did the actual work. It created an infrastructure that generated national and local pride in the 1930s and is still vital nine decades later.

Specifically due to the implication of pivoting from deploying local labor for installation/long-term maintenance of fiber to launching more satellites. Why put money in pockets of people across the nation while promoting general welfare with secure underground lines when you could just launch more satellites from a concentrated supply-chain? Something something... atmospheric cooling and Kessler syndrome or whatever…

In the time California has spent failing to complete its 500-mile high-speed rail system, China has built more than 23,000 miles of high-speed rail. China does not spend years debating with judges over whether it needs to move a storage facility. That power leads to abuse and imperiousness. It also leads to trains.

I do not want America to become China. But I do want it to be able to build trains.

This is an awkward time to make this argument.

Above reminded me of below. Which, scratches the surface of the difference between China and America’s labor + manufacturing states.

When Americans complain about how long it takes to build a building or repair a road, authorities often reply that “Rome was not built in a day.” Someone clearly forgot to tell the Chinese. By 2005, the country was building the square-foot equivalent of today’s Rome every two weeks. 29 Between 2011 and 2013, China both produced and used more cement than the US did in the entire twentieth century. 30 In 2011, a Chinese firm built a 30-story skyscraper in just 15 days. Three years later, another construction firm built a 57-story skyscraper in 19 days. 31 Indeed, China built the equivalent of Europe’s entire housing stock in just 15 years.

Graham Allison, Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?

The root of Ezra’s core messaging generally cones to come from a good place. There’s something about his delivery that doesn’t seem to land right.

I’ve lived in red states my whole life. While there are nuggets of truth to this, the overworn dichotomy of “Blue State Overregulation vs. Red State Deregulated Builder’s Paradise” doesn’t fit across the nation. Building codes vary by state and region based on appetite for disaster management as well. The Florida Keys’ building codes are kinda the gold standard for hurricane-proofing homes, but not all of those standards are applied even across the state.

In November 2024, San Francisco’s metro area authorized the building of 292 housing structures; Austin authorized 3,059.

Neither Musk nor Trump seeks a more capable state; they seek a broken state that they can control and corrupt.

[…]

There is a reason Trump has chosen this path. The populist right is powered by scarcity. When there is not enough to go around, we look with suspicion on anyone who might take what we have. That suspicion is the fuel of Trump’s politics. Scarcity — or at least the perception of it — is the precondition to his success.

Back to the original point… Take the above excerpts, a great through-line ahead of the final two paragraphs quoted in this initial post would be drawing a clearer line of the liberals’ “past mistakes” as inducing scarcity by lack of labor investments. Make it [1] easy for as many citizens as interested to [2] gain the tools (skills)/dignity (debt-free) to do a job, [3] guide project investments while streamlining regulations around the job requirements.

How exactly the left should go about it at this moment is a bit of a tougher answer. Without flipping seats in the special elections coming up… dunno, but there a lot of ex-Federal employees with presumably a lot of institutional knowledge out of work now. An opportunity for tackling [1] and [2] may be a bit if a pipe dream at the moment, but it’s an opportunity.

A lot of what’s happening is making me wonder if scarcity as the status quo is what it will take for the left to do more. I hope not.

Lot of pleasant surprises looking up the team behind the show.

Had a birthday giftcard from last year try getting a massage, and wow that actually worked wonders to de-stress the body. Helped more than I expected in incrementally regaining mental bandwidth amidst the firehose of news (as well as severely limiting in-take to certain days of the week).

The most sane post-mortem on Nov. 6th I’ve found came from WA Rep. Maria Gluesenkamp Perez in a “Future of the Dems” panel. Also, the student questions are cathartically incisive. Down-to-earth chatter helped scrape back some reason in the whirlwind.

Think I’ve got a good foothold to call my Rep about regarding NOAA/NWS/FEMA about since the past 3 years have been markedly destructive. Early warning for storms has not only been life-saving personally, but helped us assist neighbors with preparedness when time permits.

Planning a much needed impromptu nature trip this weekend. It will be good to have time in the sun.

EDIT: To add another positive, finishing up Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness”. Really enjoying the TV Shows “Common Side Effects” and “This Fool” for lighter comedy.

Thank you! And I appreciate you linking that conversation. It’s really damn clever. Brought it up with the S/O and if we’re still looking local within the next year, that avenue dovetails really well into our plans for getting a multifamily housing situation where their parents and potentially some friends could stay as well. Unfortunately, the parents would have been relying on Social Security to both live and pay a significantly reduced amount into the mortgage, yet that might not be viable soon.

Thanks! Went perusing for rings for the first time today. Seeing the S/O try one on was special form of clarifying excitement.

As for carrying on… yes, it’s a level of “we have to live”. On the best days, having happy moments are good to rebuild a sense of bearing. On the worst days, carrying on is as most others do in already-worse scenarios. Somewhere in the middle provides room for thinking about responses to “what-if” scenarios.

The last four students we've gotten have been people cold-calling us. The last three naturopaths we've gotten have been people cold-calling us.

A decade or so back, my uncle was out of a job. He had five kids from two marriages he needed to support. It wasn’t his first time job hunting, but it was his first time without a steady income. The lesson he learned distilled down to:

You want to figure out where you want to work,

Narrowing in on the field.

you want to figure out who you'd be working for there,

Taking the time on each company’s site of interest, and taking notes on any contact information available after reading about company accomplishments and clients.

and you want to ask them for a job

Tailor a resume to the job, then cold calling any number listed or even a cold e-mail. Anything over job posting sites. His last job, which he stuck with ended up being a lucky break by e-mailing the “info@“ e-mail address listed. Turns out the position he would be suited for opened up when a prospective hire declined last minute on an offer.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to assist a friend with re-formatting his resume up until he tells me his “300 applications a week” is a mostly Easy-Applies on LinkedIn, which is the only site he wants to use because he pays for premium to talk to recruiters. If Easy-Apply is that simple for one person, then imagine how many other will click the button too (let alone how easy to sift through the noise it is for a recruiter).

Needless to say, cannot recommend cold e-mails at the least enough.

purchased a rather nice folding saw which ive used before to facilitate trail maintenance work this summer - planning to get use out of it on urban trails around here and in the more “real” wilderness.

This rules. Good luck on the trails.

Finding it exceptionally hard to focus at work. Unplugging for the weekend helped immensely, but the world goes on. Had a LOT of travel plans already set up for this year, re-thinking some of the destinations/modes of travel.

I do have good news to lighten things up, 'cuz goddamn.

1. Planning on getting engaged this year, but thinking sooner than later. Not sure if we want to elope or have a small ceremony. After talking about it over Valentines more, I've found myself excited at the prospect in a way I wasn't expecting.

2. Attended a protest. My paranoia is a bit much afterwards, so I'll re-evaluate as others come up. Also in the boat of 'not sure what else to do'. Have found controlled breathing to be imperative to keeping blood-pressure down throughout the day.

3. Bought some DVDs, and boy it feels good to just own digital media. Of the stash, got a Shrek movie bundle. Apparently some of the translations are damn hilarious.

Would like to get into a house again soon. Given events, missing being on the hairy edge of rural.

Interest rates say wait a while.

Assisting with a food-drive fundraiser to start, and inviting friends to community events they otherwise wouldn’t attend for now. There’s an aspect to it that’s a little more fulfilling than just hanging out with friends.

Remembered this one’s login. Don’t want to reactivate the other.

Brain’s pretty mush from the last couple years. Never found the exact post through on and off searches, but reminded more of late an article flagamuffin shared where an academic burned out so bad they needed to re-learn the alphabet. Not quite even close to that, yet currently (re-?)learning how enriching one’s life once outside of academia is imperative to not fossilize or worse. With that, shout out to book threads on here. Discovered a particular love of the “first-contact” Sci-Fi sub-genre last year while picking through what seemed of interest in those threads, thanks to everyone.

Diving into volunteering in a familiar community also helps. Started as much before lock-down, but the pandemic took a couple years, then a few years after that finding the current location I happen to still be in may not be a bad home-base for the foreseeable future. At least, climate change and community-wise.

Had a dream of joining the Fed if things went the other way to assist in making the world a little more manageable as extreme weather gets more extreme. Hell, it was the first time I had cash I could contribute to the cause. Even convinced others to contribute for the first time or more than they had prior. Have some misgivings about how November played out, but there’s been more than enough said on that particular detail… and more to be said, no doubt.

Picked up Masha Gessen’s “The Future is History” after November 6th alongside Jon Grinspan’s “The Age of Acrimony”. Taking my time with both (as February is around the corner). Finding parallels in each frightening and amusing, respectively.

Finding myself think about the following a bit.

Forgot how to log out of Hubski for a minute. Can't find it on here either, but turns out I passed the 1000 day mark. Woot!

But though we believe ourselves to be seeking happiness in marriage, it isn’t that simple. What we really seek is familiarity — which may well complicate any plans we might have had for happiness. We are looking to recreate, within our adult relationships, the feelings we knew so well in childhood. The love most of us will have tasted early on was often confused with other, more destructive dynamics: feelings of wanting to help an adult who was out of control, of being deprived of a parent’s warmth or scared of his anger, of not feeling secure enough to communicate our wishes.

Reminds me of a therapy model called Imago....

he person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently — the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.

I can't help but think of what I've heard from older family members who are still together voicing similar ideas. As for the huge spin on pessimism, welp. That's just a mood-killer.

For what it's worth, I can get behind the idea that romanticism is backwards in contemporary views, I guess.

| "I'm going from pianissimo to fortissimo in three measures and make it seamless"

Written so casually, ha!

You're very welcome! :)

Well hot damn. To an uncultured ear, that was phenomenal. I've heard the piece enough to know there are bits here and there, but I'll leave real advice to any pros that stop by.

With regard to overtrained hands:

- Take longer breaks in between performing and/or reduce the amount you do when performing (which doesn't seem to make sense in this case).

- Temperature contrast therapy: the technical way of saying ice baths (for your hands), keeping them in warm or hot water, etc. etc.

- Massage them, DIY or a professional.

- Make sure you have some food to keep you fueled while performing.

I'll say. I haven't had your experience in particular, but the first thing that came to my mind was sleep paralysis - which is mentioned in bfv's link above. From the bit I'm looking at, they seem to be one and the same, if not similar.

Never want to experience that again. Scared the living balls outta me thinking I was going to die. My experience was seeing lightning and (felt like) I was experiencing lockjaw from/while being electrocuted everytime I tried to breathe. Again, not anything I ever hope to experience again.

EDIT: While I can't seem to find where my experience would fit in to the Jungian mold, shadow definitely is on the list and an interesting read.