You don’t have to read it, but you just might learn something.
Leading Thought
Prime
The Structure of Digital Design Revolutions
While this post talks heavily about design, the message is applicable to many domains. Paradigm Shifts are mini-revolutions, whether in tech, society, business, or other spaces, some aspect of our lives experience a fundamental shift. From sprinkler systems, to smart phones, to accessibility, some revolutions are more painful than others for people to embrace.
This is definitely a thought-provoking essay that is worth the time to read, no matter what perspective you are coming at it from. You may recognize in yourself those changes that have been easy to accept, as well as those that have been a challenge. More importantly, you may find yourself asking why this was the case and that may make all the difference in teh world.
Any change to a process brings discomfort. But the circumstances that call attention to the shift seem to have an impact on the community’s willingness to embrace it. How we come aware of the need affects our enthusiasm for addressing it.
Yes, Life Isn’t Fair
I know student loan forgiveness isn’t quite the hot-button topic it has been, but I’m finally getting the opportunity to share this essay from Charlotte Clymer. To say that she makes exceptional points is an understatement.
If you are one of the people who believe that it is unfair to forgive the loans of people who have them because you managed to pay yours off, this may give you pause. There are a lot of things that are unfair in the world, chances are you’ve been on the receiving end of some of the plusses in the equation. If you’ve never had a leg up, in any way, then perhaps this is a valid viewpoint; however, chances are this isn’t the case and this may just give you pause. Definitely worth a read if this is your position, or eve if you simply lean this way.
I think it’s unfair that Arlington National Cemetery is filled with the graves of young people who joined the military to pay for college and avoid crushing debt and were killed in needless wars and never got to see the life ahead of them, let alone use those benefits they had earned.
Local libraries can save democracy, one reader at a time
As a parent, I can completely understand the desire to protect kids from content that they aren’t ready for. But I’m not willing to impose my thoughts on what is appropriate on everyone else, especially when a lot of content used to justify the removal of a book is cherry-picked and taken out of context – in context, things look different and provide a perspective that may not otherwise be clear (Toni Morrison’s Beloved is one of those books under attack).
I’m also not onboard with removing books that tell a true history of our country simply because some parent feels it may make their child feel bad. No, we no longer have formal slavery, but that doesn’t mean we ignore it, nor does it mean there are still large ripples impacting us today. One need only look at the war on drugs or current voter suppression tactics to understand how the same mentality impacts people today. The only real remedy is to educate our kids about how this happens, why it is wrong, and build the future we want.
Books are an important part of a well-functioning democracy. You have a choice not to read things you find offensive (which, oddly, all the petitioners force themselves to read in order to be outraged). Chances are, without raising even more awareness, most kids wouldn’t know about many of these books. For those that truly need them for support, including the LGBTQ+ community, these books can be a lifeline to understanding themselves. If you consider yourself someone who believes in personal freedom, then you can’t be in favor of banning books for everyone based on your own personal beliefs.
Public libraries offer free access to books, makerspaces, preschool story-times, and tech centers for teens to learn coding and make music. Public libraries provide numerous social services such as information on health care, housing, finding jobs and using technology to help shrink the digital divide. Public libraries are a bulwark against censorship and a bastion of knowledge. Our public libraries stand as antidotes to book banning and other threats to democracy.
Our Chosen Chains
Regardless of which side of the debate around The Second Amendment you are on, this is an essay that everyone should read. It’s an interesting look at what freedom actually means, whether to have a gun or be safe from one, to have algorithms keep you focused on social media or not, or even to be fed a diet of consumer goods ads that lead to debt or pay for the service(s) you enjoy using.
To this end, how many of these things are meant to divide us? To distract us from the real problems we face? Do you really have the freedom to choose, or are you being manipulated into following someone else’s whims? You may find yourself questioning some fundamental behaviors you have by the end of this.
After remaining stable for decades, a measure of income distribution called the Gini coefficient has reached levels of unfairness not seen since the Roaring Twenties. America has one of the most skewed Gini coefficients of the industrialized world, on a par with ancient Rome’s. (Pre-tax, the U.S. Gini coefficient is even worse — on a par with that of wildly corrupt countries such as Haiti, Namibia, and Botswana.) According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 10 percent of Americans now control half of national pre-tax income and over three-quarters of the national wealth.
Humble Bundles
Machine Learning and AI 2023 Book Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting Direct Relief – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $18 you get 25 titles, including:
- Machine Learning Security Principles
- Artificial Intelligence with Python - Second Edition
- Machine Learning in Microservices
- Creators of Intelligence
- Applied Machine Learning and High-Performance Computing on AWS
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Game Programming with C++ & Unreal Book Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting Direct Relief – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $20 you get 22 titles, including:
- C++ Game Development By Example
- Hands-On C++ Game Animation Programming
- Elevating Game Experiences with Unreal Engine 5
- Hands-On Design Patterns with C++
- C++ Data Structures and Algorithms
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Software Architecture Book Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting Code for America – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $25 you get 15 titles, including:
- Fundamentals of Software Architecture
- The Software Architect Elevator
- Foundations of Scalable Systems
- Learning Domain-Driven Design
- The Art of Agile Development, 2nd Edition
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Cybersecurity Month MEGA Bundle Book Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting Code for America – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $25 you get 16 titles, including:
- Security Chaos Engineering
- Agile Application Security
- Defensive Security Handbook
- Security and Microservice Architecture on AWS
- Practical Data Privacy
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Become a Python Expert Book Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting NPower – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $25 you get 15 titles, including:
- Python without Fear
- Begin to Code with Python
- Python Programming with Design Patterns
- Data Structures and Algorithms in Python
- Foundational Python for Data Science
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The A-Z of Full Stack Development Software Bundle
New offering from Humble Bundle benefitting Girls Who Code – and, if you don’t know it’s there, there is an Adjust Donation button that will let you give more of the take to charity! For a minimum donation of $25 you get 29 items, including:
- AWS, JavaScript, React - Deploy Web Apps on the Cloud
- Docker - A Beginner’s Hands-On Guide
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DE&I
Supreme Court To Weigh ADA Protections
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was a landmark in ensuring that everyone is treated fairly, and has equal access to everyday things like stores, buildings, websites, and more. Given the sheer volume of places that have been, and still are, inaccessible to large swaths of people, an inability of the government to find and correct them all, how do we ensure that the law is obeyed? Enter private citizens acting as canaries to find accessibility issues.
Of course, making things accessible is not free, and some businesses – either willfully or not – forego compliance waiting for someone to have an issue. The question at hand is that, if a person finds a violation but is not harmed directly because they are only looking for issues, should a business be held accountable? To be fair, harmed is loaded here because, even if I don’t use your website and can’t access it, the harm is done to the community at-large. History has also shown that the accommodations required by the ADA also bring benefits to the abled community as well.
A ruling from the Supreme Court that says a business must only comply when someone is actually using a resource would be a huge blow to the ADA and disabled rights. The fact that it would take a person experiencing direct harm simply puts off the need for the business to do the right thing before a person needs that resource, and they would still need to do that. It’s almost like saying, until you’re caught committing a crime, no crime has been committed which we all know is false. Shoplifting still hurts a store whether the shoplifter is caught or not.
This will be interesting to watch given the current make up of the court.
In the case at hand, a lower court dismissed the matter, finding that Laufer was not injured because she had no plans to visit the hotel. But, that decision was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit which determined that “Laufer’s feelings of frustration, humiliation and second-class citizenry” were “‘downstream consequences’ and ‘adverse effects’ of the informational injury she experienced.”
Personal Development
Cleaning with ADHD: 7 realistic tips for neurodivergent brains
My daughter and I both struggle with cleaning (and, to be fair, I’m talking more about dealing with clutter more than actual cleaning). This is a great list of tactics for overcoming the executive functioning challenges that some neurodiverse people face. While we’ve tried timers, I especially like the 5 Things strategy this suggests (it rings of the University of Texas at Austin 2014 Commencement Address by Admiral William H. McRaven* where he talks about making your bed). If you or someone you know struggles with this, maybe something here will help; I know I’ll be giving a couple of these a try at least.
Working Remotely Can More Than Halve an Office Employee’s Carbon Footprint
I like when people put in time to get at the real data behind an assumption, even if it’s not a result I particularly like. In this case, the assumption that working from home is really good for the environment – I mean, we did see a drastic improvement in air quality during the pandemic. But what about in normal every day life? Turns out the answer isn’t so simple.
The study found that the green-ness of working from home relies quite heavily on a lot of factors: how energy efficient the home is, for example, or how much power is drawn from green sources. Interestingly enough, the study also found that while a commute may be avoided, telecommuters often take may short drives during the day, which may in fact be worse than the commute emissions.
“It’s not all about how many days you work from home,” says Yanqiu Tao, a sustainability engineer at Cornell and first author of the paper. “It’s about how well you live sustainably.”