Does anyone know why we say "back-to-back meetings?"

I mean, that's a weird alignment -- our meetings are all facing away from each other?

I figure at least one of you knows this phrase's origin story...or can come up with something pretty convincing!

@GaryPoole Hair.

@IrelandTorin Every form of corporate propaganda is suspect, that's for sure.

@singlemaltgirl I hear you.

This is going to get rocky. I'm seeing the writing on the wall, too.

A lot of people in my life depend on things that will be disrupted in ways it's difficult to even imagine.

It's pretty clear that the conservatives are gearing up to take Canada for a joyride. I hope our systems are prepared for their nonsense.

@singlemaltgirl They may, and if they do, they will inevitably make a bunch of bad decisions that will make life harder for many.

That's the nature of pathological privilege.

But it doesn't mean that there isn't an answer to it. There are innumberable opportunities to support and lift up people on the margins, to counter corporate greed and its associated ecological degradation, and to build sustainable economic policies which benefit all.

There is work to be done!

I saw a bumper sticker today that read: "Warning: You are being conditioned to believe that your freedom is selfish."

I'm sure it'll come as a total shock to you that this was stuck on the back window of a late-model, full-size SUV... /s

This rhetoric is what will drive the next election in Canada. The so-called freedom convoy schtick has saturated our political landscape.

Pockets of Western civilisation are waking up to responsibility. Other pockets are entrenching obliviousness and neglect.

@feloneouscat @DavidSalo Hey, that is just about perfect for my daily commute!

Information doesn't matter if it's forgettable.

This is both a bold call to action, and a huge relief!

@DavidSalo @feloneouscat "People call me up on the phone all the time. Do you remember phones? Maybe not. I remember phones.

All kinds of people, regular people, from all over the world, they call me on the phone and they ask me questions. And I answer them. Because that's a good thing to do; answer questions. And one of the questions that all kinds of people are asking is if the tanks are for the sharks or the sharks are for the tanks.

Can you answer that? Most people can't. I can."

@thewebrecluse I've been musing about this.

Even when an image is created with a camera, or a stylus, if it is edited with AI in some way, it is no longer an original creation. A lot of software tools use AI to make image adjustments.

The lines are all becoming more blurred, and the implications of AI being so integrated in all creative workflows are only starting to be considered.

@MakerWerks There are a lot of Teslas here. I was bracing myself. But Rivians are more popular, thankfully.

They're what electric trucks of the 2020s should look like.

I think it's fair to say that Tesla's controversial leader has done the company no favours in this part of the world.

@MakerWerks I've seen one of these in my home town now. To my great shock -- I didn't think this was possible -- it's even worse in person.

@redenigma It is people on the margins who see it for what it is.

Also, the privileged who use their own "marginalisation" to score political points for themselves have muddied the waters -- they have distorted fascism into a facile, meaningless epithet.

Their leaders are manufacturing a culture war, and selling words like they're arms-dealers.

It would be quite remarkable if a religion's primary text was translated into English using exclusively male pronouns for its god and, over the course of 100s of years, the whole religion didn't turn out to at least subtly centre masculinity.

@BlueStateBabe The dominant controls are the same on all good cameras (perhaps named slightly differently):

P for program, means automatic
A for setting the aperture
S for shutter speed
M for manual control

In A and S modes, the camera will try adjust the other controls to match your input.

On a digital camera, you also choose the ISO and white balance. (On a film camera those are controlled by the film.)

All the other bells and whistles are add-ons to these, and can be largely ignored.

@DavidSalo Also, this is a recognised bot strategy for sowing chaos in various social media and commenting platforms.

It's worth noting that people who do this consistently may not be people at all.

(I remember how super-excited some tech pundits were when Musk was taking over Twitter and was therefore going save the world from bot-generated noise. I wonder what they're doing now...)

@BlueStateBabe There are quite a few smaller cameras on the market, but DSLRs are going away.

Mirrorless cameras operate in a similar way as DSLRs, and have some advantages.

Examples of smaller mirrorless cameras I can think of:
Sony ZV-E10
Nikon Z50
Fuji X-T30

Pentax sill makes new DSLRs, but that company's long-term prospects are shaky at best.

@thewebrecluse I would actually like to hear that rant.

I hadn't realised how far things have devolved.

I was employed in IT in 1997-1999. One of my friends at the time was making good money in an older language -- I think it was Fortran -- when companies were scrambling to mitigate the Y2K bug.

He'd thought he'd pretty much aged out of the industry, and then he received this massive windfall.

IT is a weird world!

@thewebrecluse And fixation on the latest, shiniest tool makes everything even more volatile.

I remember friends of mine diving into Flash's ActionScript because Flash had such high market saturation, and they were finding such rich potential in it.

Then the iPhone came out, and to the shock of the whole industry, Flash suddenly evaporated.

All of that research, learning and work was rendered useless in an instant.

@thewebrecluse Oof. That lag is brutal!

When I was in IT, people moved fast. Here one week, at landed at a company the next, usually with some kind of a financial incentive.

What you're experiencing can't be regarded as a sustainable way to continue an industry!