Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

( Just making a note of some uspol stuff. )

After two days of utter misery at work, I was amazed that I actually got to finish on time -- I had not been expecting to!

The unstoppable force of my executive dysfunction met the immovable object of a deadline to respond to the Government's call for evidence on Developing the automated vehicles regulatory framework.

Ugh. I am so disgusted by the whole concept of self-driving cars that it was...well, not the only reason it's difficult to write about, but it was definitely one of them.

In other car-related news, I'm always delighted to read that other people are noticing the same things I am: not only are car headlights too damn bright, but cars are too damn big.

...while bigger cars may be safer for their occupants, critics insist they are considerably less safe for other road users. "Whether you're in another car [or] a pedestrian, you're more likely to be seriously injured if there's a collision with one of these vehicles," argues Tim Dexter, vehicles policy manager at T&E. He is also concerned about the implications for cyclists.

Research carried out in 2023 by Belgium's Vias Institute, which aims to improve road safety, suggested that a 10cm (3.9in) increase in the height of a car bonnet could increase the risk of vulnerable road users being killed in a collision by 27%. T&E also highlights concerns that high bonnets can create blind spots.

This is also something I've read about in the U.S., thanks to Victoria Scott:

If, in the span of one year, 18 fully-loaded Boeing 747s crashed with no survivors, we’d reappraise airspace. We’d question how we build airplanes and how we train pilots. We would recognize this as a failure of the system, not as individual mistakes of 18 pilots. Our roads should be no different.

The good news is that we have sensible solutions in plain sight: lower speed limits, redesign intersections, build roads that prioritize pedestrians and cars equally, and most importantly, reward automakers for building smaller vehicles with better visibility. The bad news is these require some sacrifice from drivers. Safer roads have lower speed limits—likely enforced by ticketing in one form or another. These roads also require more concentration to drive on. SUVs and pickups would need to revert back to 90s sizing, and all of our cars would need to shrink. These are all a hard sell in America, admittedly, but until they happen, we keep losing lives needlessly.

I genuinely love cars, and I’ve owned some big trucks. I understand the appeal of high speeds and lifted rigs, and I’m loath to give them up. But even I can’t accept a future wherein 7,500 are killed each year, especially when the solutions are so tangible and the rewards so massive. I’d accept small sacrifices if thousands more could live decades longer. I hope the rest of America agrees.

D sent me the link to Bruce Springsteen's new song "Streets of Minneapolis" about half an hour ago.

Both emails in my inbox since have been about this.

All that D told me about the link he sent me was "Well here's the most Erik thing ever." Apparently my friends agree.

One of them is also in Minneapolis and says ICE is on their block today.

At work this morning, when a colleague said they were off on holiday and worried that they were changing places in the U.S., my manager took the opportunity to tell me that for all that's horrible, Minneapolis and Minnesota are showing the world how to handle a thing like this and I must be proud of them.

And I am. I nearly choked up at that.

But also, I wish they didn't have to be. Normal life hasn't been possible in Minneapolis for months. Fundraisers I've contributed to have sometimes had grim updates about people who've disappeared, either directly to ICE or by having to make the horrible choice to "self-deport" which is another way the fascists are getting what they want.

I have to save reading Margaret Killjoy for when I have tears to spare. Some of them are happy tears, some are accompanied by real laughter and knowing smiles (having to bring the car battery in the house overnight like it's a baby animal!), but so many tears.

The shortest version of what I saw is this: a few thousand federal officers are occupying Minnesota right now. They’re in Minneapolis, St. Paul, the suburbs, and even some of the smaller towns. No one wants them there—I’ve never seen a community half so united as the people of the Twin Cities.

ICE is there to kidnap black and brown people. They’re not subtle about their racism...

In response to this, many vulnerable people have essentially gone into lockdown... The networks that are looking out for them are far and away the largest, most organized, and most successful networks like these I’ve ever seen.

Since abductions happen quickly—often stealing people in two or three minutes—the response needs to be just as fast. And it works because when people hear whistles and car horns, they start looking out. They come out of their houses.

It works because everyone knows what is happening is wrong, and everyone is willing to risk their lives to protect people.

Time after time, ICE has tried to abduct someone, only to be scared off by Minnesotans in pajamas and crocs.

But this spirit of “if your car is broken by the cold, strangers will save you” was presented to me by multiple people as the spirit that animates the resistance to ICE. Some people are trapped in their houses, so other people try their hardest to help them, whether or not they’ve got enough experience, whether or not they’re ready...

This style of organizing works because the overwhelming majority of people in the city are very actively opposed to seeing their neighbors kidnapped. There is no shortage of people willing to yell at ICE.

One of the best people I've found on fedi is Dan ifixcoinops@retro.social -- along with his classics about Home Assistant, the dick mousetrap, and how clothes shopping should work, he's just added another that I think will become part of my idiolect:

Y'know when you're doing this big multi-step DIY project that involves doing many things and getting parts and tools and materials and you're holding all this stuff in your head and you notice how much of a big noisy scrungly mess it is up there, all the thoughts and worries and tasks overlapping each other like spaghetti all going in different directions, and you grumble "This is ridiculous, a guy can't get anything done with all that yammering going on," so you start up the computer and the text editor and write out what's going on up there, not because you don't know what's going on but just because thoughts go wibblywoobly like gummy worms and writing goes left to right in a straight line and to turn your oh-I-need-to-do-this-and-that thinkings into a ah-I-need-to-do-this-THEN-that shaped Plan you need to untangle the spaghetti and make it go in the long straight writing-shaped hole

Do you ever think of that like brushing your brain

Like oh no my brain's all tangled I've gotta spend a few minutes giving it a nice brush and make it purr

My brain is all tangled. So much so that I haven't even been able to say it lately.

I read every Cybertruck takedown I find, and this is easily the best.

Tesla’s baking sheet on wheels rides fast in the recall lane toward a dead end where dysfunctional men gather.

That's practically a Springsteen lyric level of vivid poetry.

But the article is really the best because it's written by an indigenous person.

Cybertrucks are sold on tribal land, but they are not in spaces that Native people, or any real truck people, go. They are simply taking our space.

My Indigenous upbringing taught me to give back to this land, which belongs to my ancestors. That value is real and spiritual for me; I remember where I came from. But these cyber-things are made of rare minerals extracted from the land. They give nothing back, only take.

It's also just a love letter to trucks in general (as a friend said, "fuck I have never seen my deep-seated 'little girl in pigtails and a tutu who wants to drive their grandparents' giant F150 that brings back incredible antiques from auctions' articulated so well...." For me, so many chores were done with my dad's and grandpa's pickups, and my first time steering a car was my grandpa putting me on his lap and letting me take the steering wheel when I'd have otherwise been too small to reach it).

I walked [my niece] in her stroller to take in the colors and sounds of classic rides. These trucks are an inheritance for people; they are works of art. Nevaeh, now 9 months old, grins when I seat her behind a white leather steering wheel in a finely crafted truck assembled 50 years earlier. “That’s something you’ve never seen before!” Marco, the truck’s owner, says, smiling at Nevaeh’s focus as a smooth bass drops on the radio.

When we leave and I return her to the car seat, I tell her that she can have her own truck one day to drive and haul things and bond with people she loves.

I've been thinking about this quote in relation to my own job since I first read it a few days ago:

Burnout, I’ve come to believe, isn’t just about time or tasks. It’s about purpose, alignment, and whether you believe the system you work in deserves your sacrifice.

(I've skimmed the rest of the piece it came from but haven't read it closely because it's about USian healthcare, so I can't speak for how sensible this person might be otherwise.)

That reminded me of something jesse_the_k shared a while ago, in a tab I also still have open. Jesse summarizes the MetaFilter quote with "The key point is: we must learn to identify pre-burnout signs. When you nurture sufficiently in advance, immolation is avoided."

Regularly lolling about and achieving nothing is vital for maintaining good health. There is no substitute for it. It's as necessary as sleep, from which it is quite distinct. We build and carry a lolling-about debt at our peril.

That panicky, squeezed, world-collapsing sensation is a super reliable symptom of a chronic lolling deficiency, as is the characteristic denial that I have no time for anything so frivolous. The correct internal response to that denial is: Bullshit! If I feel like I'm at the end of my tether then there has been something occupying my time that is less important than lolling about, and I need to identify that.

Maybe relevant because I am in the middle of a weekend where I have no plans and kinda worry about that (it turns to be both a cause and an effect of bad mental health} but also cannot think of anything I actually would want to do.

Grief has become a thing that lives with us. i've noticed the last few years that the more i name my social grief and let myself feel it, the less reactive and squabbly i am, and the more compassion and energy i have to care for others

this is the essence of Grief Therapy in Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), along with sharing your stories w/those you share values with.

grief requires tending, a form of labor, but the advantage of social/political grief is that we have many hands to make light work -- there are millions of us on this planet to help hold it. even when we feel so alone in the absurdity of loss, we can breathe and remember how many wanted the same world as we do, and we can feel how that world is very much alive in our hearts and collective imagination

I just saw this shared on Facebook (by someone calling themselves Trauma Geek) and I feel like it's describing me pretty perfectly.

Under-stimulation contributes to burnout.

Burnout is not just about over-stimulation. It’s about missing the right kind of stimulation, the kind that brings us to coherence and flow.

Burnout is about not having access to pleasure, joy, safe connection, and rest.

Burnout comes from not having co-regulation, not having a safe home space, not having a network of people we can call on for help, not being able to fully express ourselves, not having time in nature, not having time for hobbies or art or play. Burnout comes from not having any of the numerous things that mammals need as social beings - clean air, reliable food sources, soundscapes without mechanical noise, natural water, singing, dancing, community, etc.

Not having what we need is just as stressful to the body as being over-stimulated. Not having what we need causes our nervous system to send the same danger signals and activate the same stress responses as when we encounter a significant threat in our environment. Not having what we need is perceived as a significant threat to the body.

Burnout recovery is not ONLY about avoiding too much stimulation and resting/sleeping as much as possible. It’s also about finding healthy and helpful stimulation to replace aversive stimulation.

The kinds of stimulation that tell us we are safe at an Autonomic level can be incredibly difficult to access in the modern world. Burnout is 100% not your fault. It’s a collective problem that requires a collective solution.

Burnout is often caused by the wrong kind of stimulation. Healing is often about finding the right kinds of stimulation for our nervous system to perceive deep safety. I want to work towards creating a world where the right kind of stimulation is more easily accessible by all.

I've been thinking of burnout in a work context, and I absolutely am under-stimulated there (and what stimulation I do have has been unusually likely to be negative which is also hard).

But also this fits well with my other problems about never really being able to replace what lockdowns and coincidental but poorly-timed loss of friendships, volunteering activities, and feeling part of things bigger than myself.

I think this might help explain why I'm terrible at resting too: I already get a lot of rest. Too much. Not enough other things.

The other day I was interested to read that, at least in the U.S., self-checkout machines may actually get less common in stores.

While self-checkout technology has its theoretical selling points for both consumers and businesses, it mostly isn't living up to expectations. Customers are still queueing. They need store employees to help clear kiosk errors or check their identifications for age-restricted items. Stores still need to have workers on-hand to help them, and to service the machines.

The technology is, in some cases, more trouble than it's worth...

Retailers may continue to rely on the technology, but many aren't putting all their farm-fresh eggs in the self-checkout basket. Instead, they're increasingly giving customers the option to choose between human and machine.

For the customers that do choose to do the labour themselves, there's one thing Andrews believes won't change. However ubiquitous the technology is, and however much consumers get used to using the kiosks, shoppers are likely to find themselves disappointed and frustrated most of the time.

"It was part of a larger experiment in retail in trying to socialise people into using it," he says. Simply, "customers hate it".

I am glad to hear that a mix of human and machines is likely to remain available at checkout because I know some of the customers who not only don't hate it but prefer it: Andrew was always delighted when he could get through a trip to Asda without having to interact with another person at all. The touchscreens and practically-hidden bar code scanners on those self-checkout machines mean I avoid them whenever possible, but the best accessibility comes from having options, because whatever's a nightmare for one person is going to be essential for another.

Almost as soon as I'd read this, I was reading takes on how this phenomenon could apply in other areas. Of course I was thinking about accessibility; people who work in tech were thinking about tech.

Some of those takes overlap; like number one here is "The user is always inexperienced." People who just buy groceries have never scanned groceries as much as someone who's done that job. Also, independence is a myth. They word it differently; this is how I am wording it because some disabled people and groups speaking for them emphasize "independence" and it drives me up a wall, because none of us are independent.

If you scan an item twice, select the wrong payment method, accidentally get charged for a bag when you brought your own, forget to scan your discount card at the right time, or make any other trivial mistake, you are now at the mercy of someone else. When a problem does occur, a staff member has to notice it, come to your aid, figure out what happened, and correct it. You were promised self-service when, in fact, you are so disempowered that you can't troubleshoot or correct a single thing that might go wrong.

This makes me think about the campaigning against closing almost all the train station ticket offices in England. Apart from all the ways those machines are inaccessible, machines contribute to the unnecessary expense of train fares, already a particularly complex racket that is expensive at the best of times and ensures people pay too much when they buy the tickets themselves. You have to be an expert to understand how to buy appropriate, never mind cheapest, fares, sometimes even making an journey regularly doesn't leave people confident in their ability to get the best price and not get treated like an illegal immigrant by the train guards.

The particular disempowerment of waiting for someone who looks sixteen to determine that I'm old enough to buy ibuprofen is something that occurred to me recently. The need for humans to intervene every time the machine thinks you've scanned an item twice when you haven't, doesn't think you've put it in the bagging area when you have, and vice versa means the few staff who are employed expect to be called over for false positives as much as any actual needs. I've been age-verified by people who didn't even seem to glance at me. Trying to split the checkout tasks into those that can be done by shoppers and those that must be done by staff hasn't really proven to be very effective or fun for either group, in tasks that mostly weren't all that fun to begin with at least there's a smooth process when the person who's processing the rest of my groceries is also making one extra gesture when they get to the beer.

I'm totally in love with something packbat said today:

I think if there's one thing to be learned from the commercial aviation industry, it is that "am I the asshole?" is a much less useful question than "how did the totality of habits, tools, knowledge, communication, and so forth - because it's never just one thing - result in something unfortunate happening, and what can I learn from this to avoid such things happening in the future?"

I think if there's two things to be learned from the commercial aviation industry, it's that if you've had less than 21 hours of sleep in the past 72 (numbers to be adjusted as necessary based on your own medical history, but that's the standard for pilots), you ought to bear in mind that you are at elevated risk of fatigue-driven mistakes.

I know nothing about commercial aviation but I feel those things so strongly in my own life! I said I love it so much I want to hang it on the wall, heh.