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I’m the Person Who Designs Open-Plan Office Spaces, Despite Never Having Actually Worked in One

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-the-person-who-designs-open-plan-office-…
Created
Wed, 17/05/2023 - 03:00

I’m the person who designs offices that have no walls or sound barriers so you have a tighter sense of community while you and your coworkers shout over each other into your telephones. When I first planned these indoor hellscapes, I asked myself, What would I want if I ever had to work in an office building? and I decided, noise, lots of it, constantly competing. So much explosive sound that you can’t think, hear, or work.

Listen, I’m a designer, not an office rat. I create spaces that aren’t functional for the people using them, but that look cool to me. I like cold concrete, tall plants, and a couple of hard couches where you can have public mental breakdowns. I couldn’t possibly know what works best in an office building that I never intend to have to be in, but I can tell you what looks good, and that’s a large space filled with miserable people.

About that Durham Report

https://digbysblog.net/2023/05/16/about-that-durham-report/
Created
Wed, 17/05/2023 - 02:30
Basically, it’s a dud I’ll let former US Attorney Barb McQuade explain: 1 Durham Report is in. After four years, review of 1 million documents, 490 interviews, his conclusion is that FBI should have opened a preliminary investigation (PI) instead of a full investigation (FI) in 2016. THREAD 2 The only difference between FI and PI is the duration and the authorities that may be used. This is a hairsplitting quibble, and one on which FBI officials routinely disagree. 3 Durham also minimizes the reasons FBI was alarmed enough to open a FI in 2016 based on information received from Australian diplomats about Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. 4 According to Aussies, Papadopoulos said, “Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs Clinton.” 5 Papadopoulos’s statement came right after the DNC hack. FBI was properly concerned about Russia’s efforts to influence the presidential election. This was an investigation into RUSSIA.

Bleu

https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2023/05/16/bleu-3/
Created
Wed, 17/05/2023 - 02:23
. Though I speak with the tongues of angels, If I have not love… My words would resound with but a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophesy… And understand all mysteries… and all knowledge… And though I have all faith So that I could remove mountains, If I have not love… […]

Neo-Nazis and fascists and juntas

https://digbysblog.net/2023/05/16/neo-nazis-and-fascists-and-juntas/
Created
Wed, 17/05/2023 - 00:30
“Not who we are” meets “who we are” Talking Points Memo reports that two staffers in Rep. Paul Gosar’s office have close ties to Nick Fuentes’ white-supremacist “Groyper” movement: TPM has uncovered an extensive digital trail of interconnected Groyper social media pages using variations of the “ChickenRight” and “Chikken” handles that can be linked to Wade Searle, who works as the digital director for Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), one of the most extreme, far-right members of Congress. ChickenRight’s posting on far-right websites and Searle’s alleged involvement with Fuentes occurred before and after he started working in Gosar’s Capitol Hill office. Gosar, his chief of staff, his press secretary, and Searle have not responded to multiple detailed requests for comment. Well. You could have knocked over MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan with a feather. Not to mention his being “shocked” by Sen.

China and the Axis of the Sanctioned

https://tomdispatch.com/china-and-the-axis-of-the-sanctioned/
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 23:03

A photo Beijing released on March 6th of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s foreign minister Wang Yi delivered a seismic shock in Washington. There he stood between Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, and Saudi National Security Adviser Musaad bin Mohammed al-Aiban. They were awkwardly shaking hands on an agreement to reestablish mutual diplomatic ties. That picture should have brought to mind a 1993 photo of President Bill Clinton hosting Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chief Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn as they agreed to the Oslo Accords. And that long-gone moment was itself an after-effect of the halo of invincibility the United States had gained in the wake of the collapse of the... Read more

You got Christianity in my nationalism!

https://digbysblog.net/2023/05/16/you-got-christianity-in-my-nationalism/
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 23:00
Give me that old-time retribution Sublimation: a feature or a bug? One has to wonder with the obsessive attention Americans pay to the sex others are having, to gender nonconformity, and especially to extrajudicial punishment. Brandon Garrett and Gregory Mitchell ponder findings that suggest Americans’ adherence to Sir William Blackstone’s principle that it is “better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer” is slipping. If their faith in due process was ever there. Researchers asked if at trial it was worse if an innocent was convicted, a guilty person went free, or if both were equally bad. (Slate): Most respondents answered that the errors were equally bad. Our first results showing widespread rejection of the Blackstone ratio were so surprising and potentially disruptive that we tested their robustness multiple times, using a series of large samples drawn from the entire U.S. population and multiple measurement methods. Across multiple national surveys sampling more than 12,000 people, we have found that a majority of Americans, more than 60 percent, consider false acquittals and false convictions to be equally bad outcomes.

Huntington, the woke, and Radicalization

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/05/16/huntington-the-woke-and-radicalization/
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 22:02
Richard Bourke’s (2018) “What is conservatism? History, ideology, party” critically discusses (inter alia) Samuel P. Huntington’s (1957) “Conservatism as an Ideology.” Yes, that Huntington (1927–2008). What follows is not about the clash of civilizations, promise. Bourke claims that “the conservatism of Oakeshott and Huntington, like the liberalism of Hayek and Rawls, reflects an effort to fabricate an […]

The Pros and Cons of Diets I Have Tried

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-pros-and-cons-of-diets-i-have-tried
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 22:00

Noom

Instructions: Pay seventy dollars a month to count calories in an app and receive daily reminders that celery is less calorie dense than cake frosting.

Pros: Fleeting sense of accomplishment from signing up and paying for a service.

Cons: Ruin brunch by assessing the calorie density of your friends’ meals; targeted ads for Noom for the rest of your life.

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French Women Don’t Get Fat

Instructions: Eat minuscule portions of your favorite foods with a vintage seafood fork. Serve poached pears at dinner parties. Start wearing scarves and smoking a pack of cigarettes a day; hiss at fat people.

Pros: A single tarte tatin from the farmers’ market can last up to five days.

Cons: Clarins anti-aging serum is no match for cigarettes. Also, you’re starving.

The Strike to Save Local Journalism

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/05/the-strike-to-save-local-journalism/
Created
Tue, 16/05/2023 - 20:42

Local journalism is collapsing. Today, there are fewer local newspapers than at any time since the eighteenth century. More than 320 local titles closed between 2009 and 2019—a trend that has only accelerated since the pandemic.   It’s hard to understate the importance of local journalism; it keeps communities connected, helps keep local councils accountable, and […]