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~ Today's Water Cooler ~
I bet you could use a creative way to increase your income by a mere 10 to 30 percent to get through this inflation-wrecked year. Maybe you need some extra dough for that ever-growing percentage of your finances going toward keeping a roof over your head. Or perhaps you need to buy a dozen eggs. Not to worry. I’ve discovered the secret to scraping through late-stage capitalism: simply take anything that sparks a modicum of joy and turn it into a capitalist enterprise. Because nothing says bootstraps like turning something you love into twelve dollars before taxes.
Say, for example, you like to unwind with a craft—maybe you knit while watching your brother’s Netflix account? Great! Let’s get your Etsy shop up and running and start you producing macramé plant hangers or crocheted snoods on a level that will net you forty bucks a month and also debilitating carpal tunnel syndrome.
While you’re at it, get yourself a Medium account and hustle for enough followers to pay you a couple cents for your thoughts on, I dunno, Pilates, or train travel, or beagle breeding.
How might the renown mid-20th century linguist Ludwig Wittgenstein have addressed the current defence strategic review? As the perceptive mid-20th century Cambridge based English/Austrian linguist Ludwig Wittgenstein explained, the answer you get to a question depends on how the question is formed. The same wisdom could have been conveyed to military planners in the past Continue reading »
What motivated the Australian government when it announced that it would get rid of CCTV cameras on public buildings because they were Chinese devices? They are to be discarded not because they malfunction but because they function all too well. The contention is that, if a Chinese firm produced them, they are bound to relay Continue reading »
Katy Gallagher’s recent rejection of an ATO supported pay increase was entirely justified if the Government is to move away from agency-based remuneration to an APS-wide approach. The problem is that achieving an APS-wide approach which delivers the remuneration necessary to attract, develop and retain the skills the APS needs will not be easy and Continue reading »
A week or so ago, on a visit to the ICU ward in the Alice Springs hospital, the Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney was shocked to discover that of the 16 beds in the ICU, 14 were occupied by Indigenous women who had been subjected to violent assaults. Alcohol is widely acknowledged to Continue reading »
Jim Chalmer’s Monthly essay is an attempt to prepare us for a shift in the coming budget, from the era of neoliberal domination to giving more attention to non-economic factors. But we need far more than that given we are headed for catastrophic global breakdown. Chalmers’ move is commendable and a few decades overdue, but Continue reading »
Government action must lead the way by having 16 and 17 year olds vote at the next national election. Let us copy the “Make it 16” campaign in NZ. As a young person I lived in the UK through some of the terrors of bombing in World War II. Our parents always told us, and Continue reading »
Shocking false narratives are concocted by the west to create animosity towards rivals, says 500-page study from University of London researcher. U.S. government bodies working with the western media created a massive “atrocity fabrication” industry to discredit China and other perceived enemies of the west, says a stunning new book to be published next month. Continue reading »
Self-described Christian reactionary Nick Fuentes built his youthful following by claiming the title of “The Most Canceled Man in America.” Now, he’s consciously weaponizing it to undermine the America First movement. In part one of this three part investigative series, we sort the fact from fiction in Fuentes’ tale of persecution. Read part two of The Grayzone’s investigation into Nick Fuentes here. Read part three of The Grayzone’s investigation into Nick Fuentes here. Far-right agitator livestreamer Nick Fuentes has urged […]
The post Is Nick Fuentes the future of America First, or its kiss of death? appeared first on The Grayzone.
Wilbur Walters’ mission: To use the platform of STEM to transform communities.
The post Why Science Needs Diversity appeared first on Nautilus.
On 3 February 2023, the Wales cross-party group on digital rights and democracy – for which Open Rights Group serves as the secretariat – held its fourth session on surveillance and facial recognition technology in the UK. Chaired by Sarah Murphy MS, the session heard powerful accounts from campaigner Ed Bridges, who launched the groundbreaking […]
Trump’s campaign strategy comes into focus When Donald Trump took office in 2017 he was determined to best Barack Obama in every way and, as absurd as it was, he was especially determined that he should win the Nobel Peace Prize as Obama had done in his first year in office. Trump even went so far as to ask then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to nominate him (which he dutifully did). At times he also went around saying that because a couple of right-wing European randos had also nominated him, he’d actually won it, claiming that he was bringing world peace and so deserved it. This ruse played into Trump’s cultivated image as some sort of peacenik, despite the fact that he is one of the most bloody-minded public figures in American history. Sure, he managed to avoid getting into a major war during his term but that was mostly a combination of luck and adversaries who knew a sucker when they saw one. But it was always clear from his history and his rhetoric that Donald Trump had a very violent imagination.
Melanie Xue shares insights from her research into the parallel history of women and the intelligentsia in Chinese society.
. Det är en tröst att Teds och Kenneths underbara texter och musik fortfarande finns kvar. Men att de inte vandrar vid min sida är svårt att förlika sig med. Första gången jag hörde Ted var jag femton år gammal. Under mina tonår var han en stor idol. Det kommer han alltid att vara.
I’m really excited to share this new resource from the Office of Digital Learning. We’ve created a public resource so that anyone can now sample a handful of online courses that ODL has designed for OU Online programs via a public URL. Our instructional designers reached out to a number of our online instructors, and I am […]
How a bleak Christian theology influenced the development of the dismal science
When you think of original sin and the fall of Adam and Eve, an economics class probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. After all, economics is a secular discipline. Or is it?
On February 14 a high ranking NATO source, cited by Bloomberg, warned that NATO members were preparing plans for the alliance to involve itself in multiple conflicts simultaneously - including conflicts beyond its traditional areas of responsibility. During meetings in Brussels on February 14-15 NATO Defence Ministers will sign a classified guidebook containing plans of action for "high intensity" conflicts and conflicts "beyond the area of responsibility" of the alliance, which will include requirements for NATO members’ military investments. Members will additionally be directed to redirect investments to the sectors seen as most important for collective security - whether it be tank forces or missile defences - to strengthen the military bloc’s collective warfighting capabilities.
It’s Wednesday and a lot is going on. The RBA governor appeared before the Commonwealth Senate Estimates Committee today and demonstrated what a troglodyte he is, defending massive bank profits and deliberately trying to cause unemployment. Meanwhile, US data shows that inflation has peaked and is now falling. The pace of the deceleration is picking up. Meanwhile – MMTed – is active and our 4-week course began today (see details below) and we are helping a new radio show to launch next week – Radio MMT. And we cannot go a Wednesday without some great music. All in a day....William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Russian occupiers found a world different from theirs, so they smashed it War in general is an atrocity. But zoom in from 30,000 feet and it gets personal. Nobody comes out untainted by reducing enemies and civilians to bone and ash. The Iraq invasion and the atrocities at Abu Ghraib set me on the path that led me here. Treat tales of atrocities with a degee of skepticism, propaganda always being a feature of war. So much arrives as anecdotes. Somewhere I heard that when Red Army troops occupied Berlin in WWII, they sent in uneducated troops from Central Asia among the occupiers to humiliate the master race. They’d gather wristwatches and wear several. They couldn’t tell time, the story went. They just liked the sound of the ticking. (Take with a grain of salt.) If only that was the least of it. So today arrive more tales of Russian Army actions better documented than that anecdote (CNN): The Russian government is operating an expansive network of dozens of camps where it has held thousands of Ukrainian children since the start of the war against Ukraine last year, according to a new report released Tuesday.
It has been 10 years since the first Drupal Global Contribution Weekend (DGCW).
For this past decade, communities all around the globe have met on the last weekend of January for three days of fun, community, and contribution.
Despite the years, the spirit of the event hasn't changed. Everyone is welcome, including site builders, testers, designers, project managers, translators, marketers, writers, and, of course, developers. We truly had representatives from all these domains in the recent 2023 version of the event.
Where do you live? Where do you work? What language do you speak?
It doesn't matter because you will find a local event that fits your needs. And if you don't, we'll help you create one.
When
This year, DGCW was from Friday to Sunday, 27-29 January.