What’s In A Rating?

https://split-ticket.org/2024/05/29/whats-in-a-rating/

When the Cook Political Report declares that a race is “competitive, but one party has an advantage”, at least in their final ratings, what they really mean is “we are very confident this party will win this race. If we weren’t, we would’ve rated it as a Tossup.” Likewise, while the word “tossup” connotes a coin flip, where both sides have similar chances of winning, Cook instead defines it to mean races “either party has a good chance of winning.” As mentioned in the introduction, the absurdly-high accuracy of Cook’s Lean ratings implies that their Tossup races include those where one side does have an advantage, but not one insurmountable enough to make their Lean category.

To be clear, this is a reasonable choice for an organization to make – prioritizing accuracy above all else. However, it’s a choice that deviates from the common meaning of their terminology.

Jimmy Carr on the impossibility of individualism

They Bought a New DC Luxury Condo. It Could Collapse.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/05/23/they-bought-a-new-dc-luxury-condo-it-could-collapse/

When a pair of first-time homeowners moved into a sleek condo in Northwest, they were thrilled. Now they’re afraid their building “could fall over”—and wondering why city inspectors failed to spot its many flaws.

Why Women Still Can’t Have It All

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/

Seeking out a more balanced life is not a women’s issue; balance would be better for us all. Bronnie Ware, an Australian blogger who worked for years in palliative care and is the author of the 2011 book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, writes that the regret she heard most often was “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” The second-most-common regret was “I wish I didn’t work so hard.” She writes: “This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship.”

Juliette Kayyem, who several years ago left the Department of Homeland Security soon after her husband, David Barron, left a high position in the Justice Department, says their joint decision to leave Washington and return to Boston sprang from their desire to work on the “happiness project,” meaning quality time with their three children. (She borrowed the term from her friend Gretchen Rubin, who wrote a best-selling book and now runs a blog with that name.)

It’s time to embrace a national happiness project. As a daughter of Charlottesville, Virginia, the home of Thomas Jefferson and the university he founded, I grew up with the Declaration of Independence in my blood. Last I checked, he did not declare American independence in the name of life, liberty, and professional success. Let us rediscover the pursuit of happiness, and let us start at home.

The Ones We Sent Away

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/disabled-children-institutionalization-history/674763/

I’m speaking in huge generalities here,” says Kim E. Nielsen, the author of A Disability History of the United States, “but I think that push for social conformity exacerbated the incredible shame folks had about family members with intellectual and physical disabilities.” Institutionalizing such family members often became the most attractive—or viable—option. The stigma associated with having a different sort of child was too great; too often, schools wouldn’t have them, state-subsidized therapies weren’t available to them, and churches wouldn’t come to their aid. “There were no support structures at all,” Nielsen told me. “It was almost the opposite. There were anti-support structures.”

[...]

Adele Halperin. Daughter, sister, aunt. June 30, 1951–May 7, 2023.

Arthur Miller Explains Death of a Salesman

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/arthur-miller-letter-death-of-salesman/677473/

We reward our dealers, our accumulators, our speculators; we penalize with anonymity and low pay our teachers, our scientists, our workers who make and do and build and create. And so the urge that is in all of us to give and to make is turned in upon itself, and we accept the upside-down idea that to take and to accumulate is the great good. And whether we succeed in that or not, we are sooner or later left with the awareness of our emptiness, our inner poverty, and our isolation from mankind. When a man reaches that knowledge and has the sensitivity to feel the loss of his true self deeply, he is a tragic figure; but not unless he tries to find himself despite the world can he raise up in us the actual feeling that something fine and great and precious has been discovered too late. The history of man is his blundering attempt to form a society in which it pays to be good. The tragic figure now, and always, is the man who insists, past even death, that the stultifying combinations of evil give way before the outpouring of humanity and love that is bursting from his heart. This is why tragedy endures, and this is why it has really never changed excepting in its superficial aspects of rank etc.

41yo suboxone patient with lung cancer. I don't mean to keep pestering this sub, but I thought I'd drop in to say good-bye. The cancer is in my heart and central cardiovascular area. It's over.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskDocs/comments/ju4mua/41yo_suboxone_patient_with_lung_cancer_i_dont/

I beseech you all to make amends with those you begrudge. Do not go to bed angry or hold hate in your heart. You will be glad that you forgave. I wish I had done so sooner, before I ran out of time. You will run out of time, too, some day in the future. Don't leave any business unfinished, any grudge unmended.

There a nicotine patch on my arm. A reminder of one of the several self destructive habits that brought me here. My smoking habit was not had enough to set things off this quickly, but it clearly did not help. For those of you who smoke, I have but one message: stop it. Please. You think you will wait till you are ready. You will never be ready. You say you will quit tomorrow, but then tomorrow becomes today, and you are never ready today, only tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. Today is the only day in which the decision can be made. You can only quit TODAY. Do so now. Throw your cigarettes in the trash. Do it for me. What a gift it would be that my post would free you of tobacco's golden chains.

As difficult and shocking as these last few weeks have been, I regard them as positive.

Only four weeks ago, I thought that the universe was a cold and cruel place. I experienced physical and mental abuse, chronic pain, and addiction. But my situation has forced a change of perspective. I see now that all our experiences, no matter how horrid, are temporary, and that we will all find the same rest and peace in the end.

I do not mean to give the wrong impression to those struggling with depression. I have tried to kill myself before. The difference between then and now is vast. Death is an old friend waiting to greet you at the end of a long and well lived life. It can not be appreciated properly when sought in darkness. I know there is no magic fix for depression, but I urge you to get up, go out, and live the crazy, wonderful, irrational, beautiful life you want. If only I had done the same. What a gift is life!

Advisory Opinion Issued by the Office of Special Counsel Updating Agency Approach to Enforcement of the Hatch Act as It Relates to Federal Employees

https://osc.gov/Documents/Hatch%20Act/Advisory%20Opinions/Federal/Updating%20Agency%20Approach%20to%20Enforcement%20of%20the%20Hatch%20Act.pdf

Thus, OSC will pursue disciplinary action for Hatch Act violations as expressly provided for by statute. This means OSC will consider all non-PAS political appointees, including those serving in the White House, as subject to disciplinary action proceedings at the MSPB. OSC will continue to be transparent in its enforcement efforts by making the filing of any such MSPB enforcement actions public at the time they are initiated, just as OSC has, in the past, made public reports to the President of alleged Hatch Act violations by White House personnel serious enough to include a request forsanctions and other remedial measures.

Second, because the Hatch Act does not bar enforcement against former employees and because the MSPB has held that an “employee’s post-violation resignation does not eliminate the case or controversy between the employee and the Special Counsel concerning whether the employee violated the Hatch Act and, if so, what penalty is warranted”, OSC will also bring to the MSPB appropriate cases alleging Hatch Act violations by individuals who engaged in material misconduct while a federal employee but who have since left government service. See Special Counsel v. Malone, 84 M.S.P.R. 342, 362 (1999). 

Worse than black? Japan study on heat-beating shirt colors reveals infrared absorbers

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20230726/p2a/00m/0sc/014000c

So what color should we wear to stay as cool as we can during these extreme heat days? As you might expect, Ichinose recommends white, yellow, gray and red, and avoiding black, dark green, green, blue and purple duds for log days under the sun.

A Shot in the Dark: The Untold Story of Korean Air Lines flight 007

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-shot-in-the-dark-the-untold-story-of-korean-air-lines-flight-007-a4ae6a4ef734

When Able Archer 83 began in November, it ended up becoming one of the most serious war scares in the history of the Cold War. During the exercise, nervous Soviet leaders placed their nuclear forces in Europe on a higher alert level, and terrified KGB operatives near the front lines began spreading false reports that NATO was moving troops. Fortunately, no further misunderstandings occurred, and no shots were fired. But it was only after this close call that Reagan officials began to understand the true extent to which the USSR’s leaders were afraid of America. [23]

In a way, it was this very fear that caused the shootdown of KAL 007. From beginning to end, fear was the driving force behind the decisions made by Soviet actors. Fear caused the adoption of articles 36 and 53; fear informed the requirement to shoot down intruding aircraft; and fear drove General Kornukov’s determination to prevent the target from escaping. What if this was it — what if this weird, inexplicable event was somehow the opening salvo of the inevitable American attack? And if it wasn’t, then what if next time, it was? Only too late did anyone realize that they were afraid of their own shadows.

How to Build 300,000 Airplanes in Five Years

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-to-build-300000-airplanes-in

Producing the aircraft needed to win the war required a complete transformation of the aircraft industry. Between 1939 and 1944, the value of aircraft produced annually in the U.S. increased by a factor of 70, and the total weight of aircraft produced (a common measure of aircraft industry output) increased by a factor of 64. In 1940, the airframe industry employed just 59,000 people; three years later that reached 939,000, with another 339,000 building aircraft engines. Factories of unprecedented size, enclosing millions of square feet were built; by the end of the war aircraft engine factory floor space had increased from 1.7 million square feet to 75 million, and a single large engine factory encompassed more space than had been used by the entire pre-war engine industry.

THE KOOL-AID FACTORY

https://koolaidfactory.com/

THE KOOL-AID FACTORY is a series of zines about the ways organizations coordinate.

How I Got My Brain Back - Using observation, investigation, and productivity methods to understand my depression

https://every.to/superorganizers/how-i-got-my-brain-back

I really want to end things here—a happy ending! But the words are feeling strange again. I wrote this piece to provide a structure for self-discovery. I wrote it with the hope that it might help someone in a dark place find optimism. Like any well-trained operator, I provided clear tactics and linear steps. Like a good storyteller, I gave you a beginning, middle, and end. But the truth is, there is no stopping point when it comes to mental health. I can still feel the depression lurking. And while this particular section of my narrative may end with a life built back up, I am acutely aware that depression mainly serves to break a person down. And that its most powerful and pernicious feature is that it can shift shapes in such a way that allows it to find anyone, anywhere, at any time.

I am not naive enough to think I’m smarter than my depression or anyone else’s. But I am smarter about what goes on in my own head and heart. And, no matter where we are in this story, I think that’s a pretty cool and useful thing to be smart about.

Good stewardship in Slack

https://web.archive.org/web/20221202065224/https://founder-fodder.ghost.io/good-stewardship-in-slack/

The particular insight that helped me understand our magnetic (even when it's maddening) pull to Slack is that if our tribe is talking, we want to know what they're saying. Imagine seeing a crew of your besties chatting in the corner at a cocktail party–how could you not walk over?! With that understanding of the spell Slack puts us all under, no matter how many tricks we have up our sleeves to set our own boundaries with it, here's how I think we can make the best use of Slack in our organizations.

By upholding these norms, and encouraging others stick to these too, I think we can make it more likely that Slack contributes to our productivity, efficiency, feelings of connectedness, and work satisfaction (instead of taking away from it).

Decatur High School’s Mock Trial team achieves national recognition

https://decaturish.com/2024/05/decatur-high-schools-mock-trial-team-achieves-national-recognition/

The team also had substantial outside help in the lead-up to Nationals, with advice provided by the CSD attorneys Bob Wilson and Keri Ware, scrimmages in the Decatur Municipal Court courtroom with Chief Judge Rhathelia Stroud and Chief Clerk Courtney Jackson, one final scrimmage in County Chief Magistrate Judge Berryl Anderson’s courtroom, and assessments and criticisms from rival Georgia coaches and the Georgia Bar.  

Those factors, “the community, the student’s ambition, and a little bit of luck,” were the three pillars of Decatur’s success, according to Axam.

“All of that community support went a long way to preparing the team,” Axam said. “But nothing compares to hungry students who want to win.  And finally, whenever preparation meets opportunity, there is a chance that luck will be on our side, which it was this year.”

UI Density

https://matthewstrom.com/writing/ui-density/#fnref1

Interfaces are becoming less dense.

I’m usually one to be skeptical of nostalgia and “we liked it that way” bias, but comparing websites and applications of 2024 to their 2000s-era counterparts, the spreading out of software is hard to ignore.

To explain this trend, and suggest how we might regain density, I started by asking what, exactly, UI density is. It’s not just the way an interface looks at one moment in time; it’s about the amount of information an interface can provide over a series of moments. It’s about how those moments are connected through design design decisions, and how those decisions are connected to the value the software provides.

I’d like to share what I found. Hopefully this exploration helps you define UI density in concrete and useable terms. If you’re a designer, I’d like you to question the density of the interfaces you’re creating; if you’re not a designer, use the lens of UI density to understand the software you use.

Toxic Gaslighting: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe

https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story

Johnson told me, with seeming pride, that one reason he didn’t do more was that he was a “loyal soldier,” committed to protecting 3M from liability. Some of his assignments had come directly from company lawyers, he added, and he couldn’t discuss them with me. “I didn’t even report it to my boss, or anybody,” he said. “There are some things you take to your grave.” At one point, he also told me that, if he were asked to testify in a PFOS-related lawsuit, he would probably be of little help. “I’m an old man, and so I think they would find that I got extremely forgetful all of a sudden,” he said, and chuckled.

Out the windows of IHOP, I watched a light dusting of snow fall on the parking lot. In Johnson’s telling, a tacit rule prevailed at 3M: Not all questions needed to be asked, or answered. His realization that PFOS was in the general public’s blood “wasn’t something anyone cared to hear,” he said. He wasn’t, for instance, putting his research on posters and expecting a warm reception. Over the years, he tried to convince several executives to stop making PFOS altogether, he told me, but they had good reason not to. “These people were selling fluorochemicals,” he said. He retired as the second-highest-­ranked scientist in his division, but he claimed that important business decisions were out of his control. “It wasn’t for me to jump up and start saying, ‘This is bullshit!’” he said, and he was “not really too interested in getting my butt fired.” And so his portion of 3M’s secret stayed in a compartment, both known and not known. [...]

New health effects continue to be discovered. Researchers have found that exposure to PFAS during pregnancy can lead to developmental delays in children. Numerous recent studies have linked the chemicals to diabetes and obesity. This year, a study discovered 13 forever chemicals, including PFOS, in weeks-old fetuses from terminated pregnancies and linked the chemicals to biomarkers associated with liver problems. A team of New York University researchers estimated in 2018 that the costs of just two forever chemicals, PFOA and PFOS — in terms of disease burden, disability and health-care expenses — amounted to as much as $62 billion in a single year. This exceeds the current market value of 3M.

Deaths induced by compassionate use of hydroxychloroquine during the first COVID-19 wave: an estimate

 Background: During the first wave of COVID-19, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was used off-label despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits. Since then, a meta-analysis of randomised trials showed that HCQ use was associated with an 11% increase in the mortality rate. We aimed to estimate the number of HCQ-related deaths worldwide.[...]

Overall, using median estimates of HCQ use in each country, we estimated that 16,990 HCQ-related in-hospital deaths (range 6267-19256) occurred in the countries with available data.

She Campaigned for a Texas School Board Seat as a GOP Hard-Liner. Now She’s Rejecting Her Party’s Extremism.

https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-granbury-isd-school-board-courtney-gore

But after taking office and examining hundreds of pages of curriculum, Gore was shocked by what she found — and didn’t find.

The pervasive indoctrination she had railed against simply did not exist. Children were not being sexualized, and she could find no examples of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that examines systemic racism. She’d examined curriculum related to social-emotional learning, which has come under attack by Christian conservatives who say it encourages children to question gender roles and prioritizes feelings over biblical teachings. Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.”

Twenty Years of Legal Marriage for Same-Sex Couples in the United States

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2912-1.html

The new analyses found no evidence for a retreat from marriage; in fact, there was evidence for a possible "increase" in marriage resulting from legalization of marriage between same-sex partners

New marriages increased by 1 percent to 2 percent among different-sex couples and about 10 percent overall.

The authors found no consistent evidence for an increase in cohabitation by unmarried different-sex couples or an increase in divorce as a consequence of legalizing marriage for same-sex couples.

Among high school seniors, the authors found no evidence of a negative shift in marriage attitudes, and they found some evidence of an improvement.