My Facebook Problem

...ked to the press last year revealed Facebook’s ability to monitor, in real time, the mood of teens and serve them ad content based on “when young people feel “stressed”, “defeated”, “overwhelmed”, “anxious”, “nervous”, “stupid”, “silly”, “useless” and a “failure”.” To blame social media itself is not entirely fair and would be what academics call “technological determinism,” the idea that technology drives ideology rather than the other way around...

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There’s No Such Thing as a Free Watch

...al media “influencers.” These watches begin not as a practical way to tell time but, rather, as a physical manifestation of social media interactions. Amidst the shifting winds of Alibaba sites, dropshipping networks, Shopify templates, Instagram accounts and someone somewhere concocting the details of “Our Story,” a watch was formed, like a sudden precipitate in an unstable cloud. And almost immediately after being produced, it is reviled, doomed...

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We Are in This Together

...Unfortunately, people will die in a country where you have to launch a GoFundMe campaign to pay for your COVID-19 treatment. As Senator Sanders said regarding this crisis, “Now is the time for solidarity. Now is the time to come together with love and compassion for all, including the most vulnerable people in our society.”...

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The Frog Notices It Is Getting Boiled

Oops. It’s been a week of conflicting curfew alerts. Each time my phone buzzes with these alerts my already simmering anger boils over, mainly because I think that this mess we’re in could have been easily avoided. Rather than simply stew in my own anger this morning, I thought I’d sit through the Los Angeles Police Commission’s emergency Zoom meeting held, ostensibly, to address the unrest that’s taken place over past few days. The meeting remin...

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How’s that Tomato Grafting Project Going?

...o stagger the days I started my seeds rather than planting them all at one time. The healing chamber needs to be a carefully controlled environment. I improvised a greenhouse by putting my seedlings in plastic bags. This worked but I had trouble re-introducing light in a uniform way. Grow lights would make this easier. And it was a pain to open all the individual bags to mist the plants. Because of my lack of stem sizes to choose from I ended up w...

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