I have a decade old pair of $9 Target sandals still going strong and the strap on a pair of 3 yr old Valentino sandals (cost: redacted) just broke
Vikram Bath
@vikrambath.bsky.social
Former business school professor, current software engineer. Writes at ordinary-times.com
There's also industries built on selling people the idea something will last longer, save them money, or make them money. When I got a better job, I needed good shoes and saved up for it. The people in the shop hustled me & the shoes came apart in a year. You don't know what you don't know.
Sometimes you can save money by spending more up front, but this is rarer than one might think. “I’m spending more to get a higher quality item that will save me money in the long run” is a thing I have told myself when actually I just wanted the nicer thing for regular hedonic reasons
The Torment Nexus doesn't love you back@bankuei.bsky.social · 20h agoLOL LMAO. It's also... not a new idea to anyone who has been poor. You buy a beat up junker car, it will die sooner than the new car you cannot afford. In 20 years you've paid more for cars than a richer person has.
Ray Bradbury was my favorite as a kid, so I tried to introduce him to my kids. They now use his name as a synonym for "A pointless dark story with a sad ending."
In addition, speaking as one of the olds, one of the things that's largely been forgotten over time is that hippiedom was a very *white* movement. There were a lot people who would go on and on about "the coming race war" in my California childhood, and they were all hippies.
Strahan Cadell 🇨🇦🇻🇦🇺🇦🇬🇱@quincunctial.bsky.social · 2d agoThe original failure of analysis is that people thought hippies were progressive liberals. The entire point of hippydom was self-indulgence to the disregard of everyone else. Hippies were reactionaries: “back to the land, recover the ancient ways, be self-sufficient.” American Wandervogel.
The original failure of analysis is that people thought hippies were progressive liberals. The entire point of hippydom was self-indulgence to the disregard of everyone else. Hippies were reactionaries: “back to the land, recover the ancient ways, be self-sufficient.” American Wandervogel.
hypoallergenic bobcat alternative@noghiri.bsky.social · 2d agopost scriptum: also this, like, we don't need the crunchy assholes, they can only hurt us
it is one thing to have liz cheney bringing in people to vote for us based on shared affinity for democratic rule of law and providing a permission structure for former Republicans to profess democratic views, it is entirely another to suggest we should moderate towards antivax
Anytime you hear someone make a wild accusation that seems completely bizarre, immediately consider the possibility that the accuser actually did it themselves en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_s...
NERV IRB Coordinator@professormusgrave.bsky.social · 2d agoDoomsday cult with futuristic technology, eh? Can’t happen here
Visual (particularly video) came to dominate social media over text, so the AI labs—particularly OpenAI and Meta—over invested in those capabilities when chatbots and coding are actually much more useful and interesting at the moment. I don’t actually have any desire to create AI videos
NERV IRB Coordinator@professormusgrave.bsky.social · 2d agoI was thinking the other day: I liked the early, ghostly stable diffusion. It was interesting and inhuman
This is a really hard decision to make. Are we sure there’s no way to get rid of both?
Mediaite@mediaite.com · 3d agoJames Carville Tells Fox News He’s Out of the Democratic Party if Hasan Piker Stays: ‘One of Us is Going to Leave’
the way i think about this is a lot like covid. when it began, trump wanted to deny there was anything serious - bc had no way to manage it. and that's how the denialism began. and once you're there, then vaccines look sinister, bc why would you need one if there's no real threat? etc with iran -
Secretary of Defense Rock@sodrock.bsky.social · 3d agoStill can’t over the fact that the president of the United States just told an entire state to pound sand after getting cyberattacked by a foreign adversary because they didn’t vote for him and it was treated like a Tuesday lol
My interest in computers has always been like my interest in businesses. They are interesting *because* they are capable of doing wonderful and surprising things. We’ve been gifted a new way of getting computers to do such things, and I’m excited about that. It was never about the code for me
T. Greg Doucette@gregdoucette.bsky.social · 3d agoI used to hand-write HTML and CSS in textfiles. Then Dreamweaver came along and no one gave a sh*t. Same as it ever was 😂
Just a very ordinary and normal and “cool” thing I thought about
In 4th grade my class debated Puerto Rican statehood and the pro side was "my cousin is Puerto Rican" and the anti side was "How would you even arrange 51 stars on the flag" and I want to stress that this is the level at which the American public as a whole generally engages with issues.
TIL: Lesbianism, loudmouths, and middle school were all invented in 1870 www.merriam-webster.com/time-travele...
ellie lockhart (she/they)@eleanor.lockhart.contact · 5d agoemo, queer theory, JPEG, defrag, deconstructivism
Remind me why public ownership of formerly private companies isn’t socialism? www.nist.gov/news-events/...
Department of Commerce Announces Letters of Intent With 7 Companies for $874 Million to Accelerate Semiconductor R&D for the Compute Supply Chain
The Department of Commerce today announced the signing of 7 letters of intent to provide $874 million in federal incentives under the CHIPS and Science Act.
nist.gov
Looks like I missed this by a month. If anyone *else* is going to be in Grand Rapids next week, let me know
Kat Abughazaleh@katmabu.bsky.social · last mo.GRAND RAPIDS!!! SEE YOU TONIGHT WITH @abdulelsayed.bsky.social !!!!!!
Okay, but that’s what World War Z was about
Toby Buckle@polphilpod.bsky.social · 5d agocomparing non-white migrants to zombies
these guys are all charismatic megafauna and should be friends
Brandon Moore, PhD@rando.insalubrio.us · 6d agoNewly described Australian fossils tell a wild story: an ichthyosaur ate a pterosaur, then was itself torn to pieces by a pliosaur. This is the first evidence of these three animals interacting within the same food web! 🧪 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
