Was 1918 better equipped for a pandemic? Quite possibly yes, despite having almost no medical interventions once people did get sick. They barely had oxygen, no antibiotics, steroids or bronchodilators. What they did have, we haven’t been able to rebuild.
Continue reading “Was 1918 Better Equipped to Weather a Pandemic?”Luxuries Bought With Others’ Lives: NPCs, Dehumanization, and Pandemic Ethics
Opening monologue:
This is Free City.
Look at this guy. He’s one of the sunglasses people.
And the people who wear sunglasses? Are heroes.
They have a devil-may-care attitude and they run this town.
Bombshell:You are so hot.
Revenjamin Buttons, dropping into driver’s seat: Oh, I know.
See? That’s not even his car. Or his wife.
For the sunglasses people, they get to do anything they want.
They go on all sorts of missions, they got cool hair, cool clothes.
I mean, laws aren’t really laws to them.They’re more like mild suggestions.
Like, I don’t think he’s gonna return that car.
Or that nice lady.
See what I mean? Hero.
Thus begins Free Guy. 105 words of thesis statement.
Continue reading “Luxuries Bought With Others’ Lives: NPCs, Dehumanization, and Pandemic Ethics”Foundations of the #MoneyLaundry – A Twitter Seminar
Originally a Twitter thread. January 4, 2020
I note here: there will be homework, because seriously, you’ve gotta have basics.
Do the reading. I’m not sending you at books, just articles. I’ll screenshot if it comes from a high word count source.
Money laundering is the process of
evading taxation
and/or
legal obligations such as payroll taxes
and/or
Obscuring the documentation of income from illegal actions or sources. It’s a crime of its own, but money laundering is what makes crime pay.
Protected: Drunk Aunties – Alpha read
Expensive Hope
Originally a twitter thread:
In my day job, one of the signs of progress and health is the ability to look at a situation as it is, without either catastrophizing OR denial. So yes, sometimes the goal of the next set of therapy is to come to terms with a terminal dx or the end of a relationship.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with setting eyes on This Thing and recognizing that This Thing is now THIS. Maybe it used to be THAT, but it is no longer THAT and the chances that it will ever be THAT again are very small. Or not in this lifetime, with these circumstances.
Coming to terms with This Thing can be hard, and slow, and painful, but the emotional honesty of coming to terms with it is much healthier than the usual alternative — denial.
Continue reading “Expensive Hope”Green Chile-Corn Tamale Casserole
Simplest version
Continue reading “Green Chile-Corn Tamale Casserole”Winter Preparedness
Author’s note: This was originally written… a few years ago (?), to help a friend move to snow country. And then got some additions to maybe turn it into a series, and then I apparently got distracted. I’m posting it as is for now; I may come back to it and finish the series.
Power failures happen. Trees get overloaded with ice and fall through power lines. A car accident into a transformer or substation can blow the local area. High wind drops lines and tree branches. A pair of birds squabbling on high tension lines an create an arc from one line to another. The grid can be delicate, but it’s also extremely robust, because it works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with more than 99.999% uptime. Most power failures are local inconveniences that last no more than a few hours.
Continue reading “Winter Preparedness”The Hellions – Next in Galantier
As of January, 2022, Hellions has been delayed to end of 2022. It’s a holiday novel.
The war for Galantier was not as simple as a successful siege. Now a year and a half into Cazerien’s reign, her people are reckoning with new and old scars and crimes. The corruption that almost broke the nation must be excised if Galantier can heal.
Continue reading “The Hellions – Next in Galantier”Helene
Originally a twitter thread, 28 August 2021
People who dismiss what the von Westphalen & Marx families did to Helene Demuth just prove to me they have no concept of what working women experienced in the 19th century. More importantly, they don’t value working women, and never have.
Continue reading “Helene”Cradle To Gate, End of Life Costs
Originally a twitter thread, 26 August, 2021; commentary on cotton shopping bags
Hey, let’s talk about a couple of terms that are going around: “cradle to gate cost” and “end of life cost”. (Also sometimes “cradle to grave cost”). Cradle to gate measures what an item costs to manufacture, ship and get through the point of sale. Tracking stops after sale.
It’s a really useful metric for manufacturers, and for disposable, single use items, because single use items may see a small amount of travel before they’re used and discarded, but it’s a very minor addition to the cost of the item.
Continue reading “Cradle To Gate, End of Life Costs”
You must be logged in to post a comment.