Author: harold

And as I just wrote about race relationships, I learned about Amir Locke.

I also have Trayvon Martin in my mind. It’s been ten years.

I also want to watch a documentary about black people in France that came out last month. The French comments are mostly vile. No one in my French FB feed mentioned it even once.

In the documentary they run the 1940s doll experiment on current black French girls and nothing has changed. 80 years later, in another democracy, black girls hate themselves.

Happy Black History Month. The work & healing never stop.

“In California, for the first time of his life, he would be on his own, beyond the buffering influence of empathetic protectors who understood the psychological burden of crossing racial boundaries. In later years he would reflect at length on the difficulty of maintaining one’s sense of self and identity while negotiating this crossing. But in the late summer of 1961 he had only a vague notion of the challenges and opportunities ahead.”

Fantastic book about Arthur Ashe, the great tennis player. It goes into details about all the hurdles that a young black tennis player breaking barriers had to go through while the country was changing rapidly.

The psychological burden of crossing racial boundaries… I have never not been crossing racial boundaries. I’ve crossed those boundaries since I was born, landing in a foster white family as a baby and then in a white family and then into the world. I’ve had to understand everything about crossing invisible lines on my own.

I’ve crossed those boundaries a trillion times. I don’t cross them anymore; they’re just stuck and lingering on me like spider webs on a hoodie; they don’t exist. Make no mistake those racial boundaries are tough as nail, more persistent than a virus. They are still very much alive in 20 effing 22, mirroring to perfection the book’s 1962. I prefer not to think about that, as not to burden my already burdened mind. It lingers though. Those racial boundaries have prevented me from a lot of unity, community and a sense of being part of a group while witnessing all of those around me.

The multi-faceted, the code switching. Differences and similarities. Challenges and opportunities. The rules, the edge cases. How the fuck am I supposed to navigate that? It’s a lot to layer, analyze, act on, disregard. Trying to make the best move simultaneously for myself, for black people, for the way I was raised and to make my ancestors proud while doing my best, I guess. It is busy in my mind. It keeps me alert.

Crossing racial boundaries is like muffled and lonely fireworks in a dark city park when in some way, you don’t even know why it’s some kind of celebration. It shouldn’t be one. I just be.

Texas: It don’t go down

Perfectly parked. Busted as hell. This one looks like it can roll around though. I just giggle.

Shout out to people working directly with the public out there because, SHEESH.

After the first month of global, “we’re in this together, clap your hands” fragile empathy at the start of the pandemic, things have been pretty rough in the customer and business relationship department. Let’s be honest.

Lately though, we’re on another level. The rudeness and randomness are part of the job but I can tell how the past two years are compounding on folks. Sick and tired fr fr. Lashing out in any kind of way.

Stay safe y’all. Double down on patience. Yes that water, stretch that body etc.

Hey not too shabby for a first time, without cheating much!

It’s amazing to be back on a computer that just works. That you don’t fight. That does what you want it to do.

It’s amazing after months to re-open everything, just like it used to be. All sessions, files, settings and everything working as it should. Where I had left off. So all weekend in my living room I was literally like

Thankful. Let’s get it.

Look,

I have three computers running Windows 8, 10 and 11. At work I use everything, iPads, Android phones, MacOS, old Vista machines, Linux etc.

I’m used to things being weird, lacking, crashing, etc.

But I’m still amazed that my fastest machine -in terms of feel- is the oldest one, running Windows 8 with the least amount of memory. The laptop is ten years old and SNAPPY. I just got it back from being fixed and it is still snappier than my brand new laptop running a fresh, clean install of Windows 11 with twice as much RAM.

There’s so much lag and latency in 10/11, I don’t know if it’s the telemetry or some background security stuff, but it makes those OSes bad to me. Unlike the old days, fixes and hacks are tedious and hard now. One update, and all custom modifications are gone.

Conclusion: a stable and snappy computer is the best computer. The idea of one Operating System GUI for all doesn’t cut it anymore. We need massive customization here.

The Atlantic’s article on singularity from last year stayed in my mind.

I like that quote:

“While the way to wisdom leads through knowledge, there is no path to wisdom from information.”

Folks conflate information with knowledge. They forget how information needs to simmer and connect efficiently with context, which takes times. That’s how knowledge emerges and from there, wisdom. It takes time, this is not after a single tap on a touch screen.

The best one if from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:

“I notice what I find increasingly troubling: a cold-blooded grasping, a hunger to take and take and take, but never give; …an ease with dishonesty and pretension and selfishness that is couched in the language of self-care; an expectation always to be helped and rewarded no matter whether deserving or not; … an astonishing level of self-absorption; an unrealistic expectation of puritanism from others; an over-inflated sense of ability, or of talent where there is any at all; an inability to apologize, truly and fully, without justifications; a passionate performance of virtue that is well executed in the public space of Twitter but not in the intimate space of friendship.”

Ma’am you are cutting deep here. This is spot on.

We need to get ourselves together.

“What has replaced profit on the one hand and markets on the other? My answer: Central bank money has replaced private profit (as the system’s main fuel and lubricant) and digital fiefdoms/platforms have become the realm in which value and capital are extracted from the majority by a tiny oligarchy.”

Big and wonderful Economics interview with Yanis.

So, my questions would be:

– If Central bank money, aka QE aka money printed out of thin air is given to a tiny oligarchy, why don’t we not do that but rather, give it more equally to us, folks?

– If this money is imagined and printed by the government, why isn’t it given to people for them to at the VERY LEAST house themselves?

I’ll wait.