I was talking to my dad today. He’s close to retirement and he was kinda reminiscing about his early days with his employer, the US fed govt, especially with all the shit lately.

He told me the story again of how he got his first federal position. He went to some job fair in like 1990 after he finally finished his degree, and the guy manning the booth offered him a job on the spot. And the rest is history.

I’m also a federal employee. It took me 15+ yrs of applying for numerous federal positions, having to do stupid aptitude tests online, or even in person – I once flew across the country to literally sit for an ACT/SAT-type aptitude test, on my own dime – all to get two interviews over that whole time period. It was only in 2023 that I finally got an offer, which I started like 5mo ago.

Offer on the spot at a job fair? That’s unheard of these days. I don’t even see the point of going to job fairs anymore, since all they do is say, “just apply online!” The few I’ve been to in the past weren’t even accepting resumes in person or doing any on-the-spot interviews. Then what’s the point of this?

And having sat on the “other side” of the table, helping conduct interviews, it’s all shit. Not the candidates (well…sometimes), but the process. If the whole rigmarole is to help find and select better candidates, then it’s not working. I’d rather pick a couple candidates, hire them on probation for 90 days, and evaluate them that way. Then let go of the less-performing one. Or both if neither are worth it. We’d be able to really evaluate them, while at least they’d maybe learn something and get paid.

Griffin, who for now remains a judge on the state Court of Appeals,

The fact that a judge is doing this somehow makes this so much worse. I would be constantly be questioning this judge’s impartiality on basically any topic.

Of course, that’s just one of those idealisms. That judges and courts are above the fray. It looks like NC Court of Appeals judges are elected anyway. In partisan elections, at that. Which is insane to me for judges. Non-partisan retention elections are about as far as I’d go involving elections for the judiciary.

Damn that’s a game I haven’t thought of in a long time. And I forgot that the SNES had a mouse! at all I even remember that hard plastic mouse pad it came with.

Very interesting article. I’m not a Washingtonian, so don’t have much to say, other than that the state certainly has some hard decisions to make going forward. Especially in the face of a likely hostile federal trifecta, even if weak.

It’d be interesting if everyone “started” in the same place. For example, Mastodon.social. But then eventually, like maybe after 90 days, one was forced to choose a “home” instance to migrate to. Could be through a list of servers presented, or maybe a user has found one through friends, so they just type in the server and it kicks off a migration process. I’m almost thinking like an MMO starting area.

During that 90 days, the user has to (or should) learn about federation, why decentralization is important for privacy and security, what defederation means and blocking options, how and why instances are a thing, how to migrate an account, etc. Maybe even some info on how and why one could stand up their own instance.

And this doesn’t have to like a classroom/book setting. It doesn’t have to be “read this documentation.” Maybe some 1min video clips, brief tooltips, little reminders to read a brief paragraph of two on some Mastodon topic. Gamify it; let people collect badges and achievements.

During all this, users have full access to everything Mastodon users can do. They can interact with anyone on the entry server, plus any server that’s federated with it. Or maybe they’re an already experienced user and want to go straight to another instance; they can either skip all this and migrate or start straight at another instance.

Though I wonder if that’s still too much friction.

Because Mastodon and the Fediverse is confusing, especially at first. I’m a techy person. I work in IT. But when I started to looking at the Fediverse back in 2023, it was confusing. Where do I go to sign-up? There are different services on the Fediverse? Which do I get access to? Do I need an account for each service? How do I know that this instance for this service (Pixelfed, Lemmy, Masto, etc.) is a decent one? What happens if my friends/people I follow are on a different server? Will we be able to interact? What does it even mean to federate/defederate?

These are all the questions I asked as I was looking to all this. And it wasn’t a quick 15min look. No, I spent a few hours looking into it.

But the average person isn’t going to ask all this and research this. They just want a place to follow famous people, post about their life, and post pictures of their food and pets. When these people (myself included) signed up for Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, etc, they just went to the appropriate site and signed-up.

It’s not nearly as simple for Mastodon. Sure, Mastodon.social acts as the flagship and “gateway,” but there are still the other questions that probably need some answers. Otherwise, a user may have a bad experience (“Oh, my friends aren’t on this Mastodon server thing? And we’re not federated? I gotta make a new account there? Ugh…”). Twitter and even Bluesky don’t require those questions. Everyone is on the same instance, all the time.

The reality is that most don’t really care for options and choice. Or even security and privacy. They want ease of accessibility. Mastodon is likely a better product (in most regards; I have and use both Mastodon and Bluesky, daily; Bluesky does a few things better), but the options Mastodon provides, especially at the start, are really more roadblocks or offramps than anything.

Oof, sorry to hear that. Lots of illnesses going around this time of year, which is expected, but Strep can’t be particularly fun. Nor getting your tonsils out. When I got back from visiting my family for Xmas, I definitely picked up a little something. Had a scratchy throat, minor body aches, and a low fever. But it was gone within a couple days.

Otherwise, pretty chill this week so far. Unplanned WFH on Monday and Tuesday due to snowstorm. Then today (Thurs) is a paid “holiday” for Pres. Carter’s funeral, and I took Friday off to make a 4-day weekend. So yesterday (Weds) was the only day I went into the office. I could’ve WFH again today, but thought I should make an appearance. Been a week since I was last in office, due to holidays, and next week I’m full WFH for online training. It was good to see people, anyway.

Thinking about visiting NYC for a day or overnight trip this weekend. I’d just take Amtrak up. I’ve been all over the States, but somehow never to NYC. So why not do something other than game and sleep for 4 days? Only thing I’m worried about is another potential snowstorm headed to the region. I don’t want to get stuck in NYC if trains get cancelled for weather. But right now, the plan is to go. Just need to, you know, actually buy the train tickets and perhaps book a hotel room. The important things.

Finishing up Frostpunk. I started last year, then put it down basically for a year. Anyway, I recently finished 2 of 3 DLC campaigns. Working on the last one right now. Easily the hardest colony manager I’ve played, but it’s so good. Can’t wait to start Frostpunk 2 after this.

With friends, playing Barotrauma. We’re doing our annual playthrough/attempt to get the to the end. Which we done once. There’s 5 of us regularly playing (a 6th sometimes joins), which for us, seems to be the minimum we need. Think we just entered The Great Sea, which is the 4th of 5 biomes. Just upgraded to a Tier 3 sub.

Wonder when we’ll see US-style tariffs in Europe on Chinese vehicles, particularly EVs. In the name of protecting European jobs and auto marketshare. Which would be unfortunate, given the need to move to EVs to mitigate climate change. As an American, I would’ve loved to have a $20k Chinese EV. I don’t think there are ICE vehicles in the US that cheap these days.

But I also get the jobs issue, too. I think much of the West is in the situation we’re in because of offshoring of jobs and competition from cheaper labor overseas. Loss of jobs, income, ability to support family, etc.

Curious to see how this plays out.

Hope everyone’s 2025 plans come to fruition!

When I want to pirate, torrenting is my go to. I don’t do it very often, so I’m not really up-to-date on more modern methods. For some movies, I know there are those websites like 123movies or whatever. And I’ve used those. But Idek what additional methods there are anymore.

That said, I’ve tried torrenting over I2P, but it’s just slow. Not necessarily super slow, but obviously slower than doing it over the clearweb with a commercial VPN. Additionally it seems like there’s less available content with torrenting over I2P. At least in the little experience I’ve had with it.

Oh god, please no. I need some mind’s-eyebleach.

Oof. I’m in DHS. I’m assuming that in the event of any shenanigans, that’d be a “safer” place to be (though some components like FEMA and TSA maybe less so). But HUD? Definitely top of their list.

Here’s hoping for the best. Because that’s all we can do right now.

I started a job with the federal government two months ago. I’d been applying for like 18yrs; finally got one! Now a part of me wonders if I’ll even have a job next year. Potential for Schedule F designation, layoffs of the federal bureaucracy, whatever other shit a hostile administration throws at us.

Last warning. Be(e) nice.

How do one sign up to get one or a few of these twink concubines? Asking for a friend.

I don’t even know what that liberal nation would be anymore. Sure, for example, Europe is still largely pretty good, but even some of those countries are facing the rise of the right. And they have same objectives as the right here in the US has. Just because it’s not as bad as the US right now, doesn’t mean it can’t be in the future, or even near future. Look at what’s going on in Germany or France with the right or even far-right parties making large gains in recent elections and polls.

Feel like it’s fucked in much of the world right now.

FYI, you’re on Beehaw. Be(e) nice. I know times are crazy right now, I get it. But we still expect people to follow our rules here.

FYI, you’re on Beehaw. Please be(e) nice. I know it’s crazy times right now, I get it, but we do want folks to still abide by our rules and such here. Thanks.

This is normal shit in Missouri. The state voted for medicinal and eventually recreational marijuana. But then they sent people to state legislature and offices who vehemently opposed it. Can’t remember which type it was, but IIRC, the courts had to step in to force the state to license dispensaries and grow ops and such.

They voted lobbying and redistricting reform. But then they sent pols who absolutely didn’t want it. This time, the pols got their way and lobbying and redistricting reform went away before it ever got put into practice.

Every so often, the GOP-controlled legislature sends RTW legislation to the people. The people reject it time and time again, but they don’t reject the people in the legislature who keep bringing it up time and time again.

So I was super confident that Amendment 3 in MO would pass, based on past results. But I was also super confident Trump, Hawley (fuck Josh Hawley), and a multitude of other GOPers would be voted in. Based on past results.

Because Missouri makes no fucking sense.