Zompist Bboard Again

On today's edition of "No One In the Distant Future Is Going To Understand the Last Paragraph of America's Wikipedia Page," there is a growing trend of library patrons checking out gay books and sitting on them permanently, to prevent potential readers from seeing them.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:46 pm On today's edition of "No One In the Distant Future Is Going To Understand the Last Paragraph of America's Wikipedia Page," there is a growing trend of library patrons checking out gay books and sitting on them permanently, to prevent potential readers from seeing them.

I'm not sure if it's really "growing" or just getting better press, since this is a Known Issue in library circles. I belong to a large discussion group for library professionals and regularly every June one or more of them post about putting out a display of LGBTQIA+ books and having exactly this problem. (It also happens occasionally with books on other subjects, particularly race, but not as often apparently.)

My vent today is that all I want to do is ignore the damn Oscars and this year some fool celebrities had to go and pull a stunt which ensures that all anyone wants to talk about today is the damn Oscars. Worse, the particular act in question is like a neutron star for attracting bad hot takes.

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:31 am bad hot takes.

Eeeeyou rang?
It took the wife and I twelve hours to find an article blaming Jada, but now I look and the narrative is everywhere! How did we drop the ball on this so badly? Usually we find the anti-woman take while the ink is still wet. We're loosing our touch.

Luckily, I've trained everyone I know to understand that they are not allowed to seek my opinion on three things: the super bowling game thing, the Oscars, and why I wore what I'm wearing (it was dark, what am I clothesmith?).

Oh, and I have a new rant. I saw this tweet:

Trump: George III (the early years)
Biden: George III (the later years)

I'm tired of the whole "Biden has dimentia" rhetoric, but I'm mad because this joke is extremely funny to me.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 7:06 pm

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:31 am bad hot takes.

Eeeeyou rang?
It took the wife and I twelve hours to find an article blaming Jada, but now I look and the narrative is everywhere! How did we drop the ball on this so badly? Usually we find the anti-woman take while the ink is still wet. We're loosing our touch.

A friend posted this morning asking "Is it safe to come back yet?" Hon, it's never safe. Garbage hot takes is simply the default state of the mechanism.

Now I've decided that my pet peeve is back to my old fave, attention policing. This is Facebook, not the effing Congressional Record. The type of people who come here to dish about celebrities acting badly are not suddenly going to stop just because of your nagging memes that, hey, you guys, poverty and exploitation still exist. They're just going to unfollow your irritating ass.

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:31 am I'm not sure if it's really "growing" or just getting better press, since this is a Known Issue in library circles. I belong to a large discussion group for library professionals and regularly every June one or more of them post about putting out a display of LGBTQIA+ books and having exactly this problem. (It also happens occasionally with books on other subjects, particularly race, but not as often apparently.)

It's a long-standing tradition that's not limited to 'conservative'~'Republican' monkeywrenchers. Back in the early '30s my grandfather got busted, along with his friends, for doing this with Henry Ford titles.

Not about the current discussion, but a belated comment on something from an earlier discussion:

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 6:11 pm Hulu is $7 a month. Is that really impossible for you?

Sure, by the standards of even lower income people from the richer parts of the world, that's not much. But, thing is, there were times in my life when I kept running into financial difficulties, not because I bought any few expensive things that I couldn't afford, but because I had bought many small things, each of which I could well afford individually, in a way so that they added up. I can well imagine someone who's been burned by that kind of thing being very hesitant even about very small expenses.

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 6:03 am

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 6:11 pm Hulu is $7 a month. Is that really impossible for you?

Sure, by the standards of even lower income people from the richer parts of the world, that's not much. But, thing is, there were times in my life when I kept running into financial difficulties, not because I bought any few expensive things that I couldn't afford, but because I had bought many small things, each of which I could well afford individually, in a way so that they added up. I can well imagine someone who's been burned by that kind of thing being very hesitant even about very small expenses.

Then you account for it in your budget, instead of counting it as an incidental that you can write off. Learn from your experience.

A nice sentiment, but remember most of the time people navigate through financial intuition. I don't get out a spreadsheet everytime I decide whether an extra coffee on Monday will render my weekly treats budget insolvent by Friday. I just "know" how much is too much for impulse buys. This intuition is hard won, and some people don't have it yet (sometimes through no fault of their own; I am amazed how many adults I've met who did not find out how credit cards work until they turned 18, as if their parents treated financial literacy like porn). In Raph's case, it sounds like he learned the hard way that small purchases add up, and now he can add them to the spreadsheet more effectively. In Eddy's case, he's basically a Pierson's Puppeteer, and his intuition is to avoid impulsive expenses entirely. Could be valid, based on his experiences, which I don't know about.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 6:43 pm This intuition is hard won, and some people don't have it yet (sometimes through no fault of their own; I am amazed how many adults I've met who did not find out how credit cards work until they turned 18, as if their parents treated financial literacy like porn).

I agree that learning how to handle money is harder than it sounds.

My main point was that $7 is not a lot of money. And sure, incomes can be very limited, purchases can add up... for whatever reason, someone can decide that $7 for Hulu is not worth spending. (I don't pay for any streaming services.) At the same time... the first financial skill to learn is setting priorities. If it turns out Hulu is important, the monthly fee is not a hard ask.

The other point, admittedly speculative but based on some experience, is that I suspect Eddy didn't know how much Hulu costs.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 6:43 pmIn Eddy's case, he's basically a Pierson's Puppeteer, and his intuition is to avoid impulsive expenses entirely. Could be valid, based on his experiences, which I don't know about.

First Ignatius J. Reilly and now this. It seems people always reach for the worst comparisons for me. My intuition has always been that if I run into financial problems, everyone will look for some reason to blame me. Avoiding luxury spending is the best way to minimize that. People can demonize me as a tradcath reactionary or sadistic alien, but they won't find any avocado toast on my grocery receipts.

Avocadoes do sometimes go on sale.

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 10:57 pm

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 6:43 pmIn Eddy's case, he's basically a Pierson's Puppeteer, and his intuition is to avoid impulsive expenses entirely. Could be valid, based on his experiences, which I don't know about.

First Ignatius J. Reilly and now this. It seems people always reach for the worst comparisons for me. My intuition has always been that if I run into financial problems, everyone will look for some reason to blame me. Avoiding luxury spending is the best way to minimize that. People can demonize me as a tradcath reactionary or sadistic alien, but they won't find any avocado toast on my grocery receipts.

For what it’s worth, I didn’t interpret this as a negative comparison at all. (And yes, I do know what the Puppeteers are.)

I made a Sankey diagram of my job search. And yes, the number of applications/rejections is lowballing it, but LinkedIn's logs only go back so far.

Black Baby Jesus that sucks. What field has this high a rejection rate?

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:06 pmWhat field has this high a rejection rate?

BSA/AML compliance, by the looks of it.

Trying to ban a fascist troll from my IRC channel but the bans have no effect on him. It seems he has some way of switching between whatever the ban uses to identify him. I suppose it behooves me to learn more about how IRC and IP addresses work, something I should have done years ago. But then again, I have to wake up at 5AM tomorrow and hardly have time now to study such things.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:59 pm

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:06 pmWhat field has this high a rejection rate?

BSA/AML compliance, by the looks of it.

Using a dictionary, three search engines, a chalk pentagram, and the God-Emperor Paul Muad'Dib's access to memories of past lives, I have determined that this is something to do with banks. Perhaps making sure they aren't laundering money? My brother in law does this. He works for a company that politicians have to hire to prove they're not accepting money illegally. He seems to like it, even though it sounds like literally the worst job since Gentleman of the Stool. And the best part is, he kind of fell into it without any real qualifications (former music teacher). I can pick his brain if you like; maybe he knows some people who are looking to hire compliance-tasters remotely.

Got another rejection. This one stings more so than the others—I was waiting for three months and had to reach out to them to learn I’ve been passed over in favor of another candidate. After they ignored my last attempt.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Wed Apr 13, 2022 6:05 pm Got another rejection. This one stings more so than the others—I was waiting for three months and had to reach out to them to learn I’ve been passed over in favor of another candidate. After they ignored my last attempt.

Aw, man. Sorry to hear that. Hope the job search clears up very soon.