itappearsthat

idk I'm workshopping things, sticking words together. What does this slogan mean? It seems provocative.

I was sitting at my computer by the window (email job) and a carpenter bee came up to the window and hovered there for several seconds. What was it looking at? There are no flowers around here. CIA?

UPDATE: it returned - I raised my phone to take a photo and it zoomed away. Evidence.

Yet another reason to never touch that piece of shit language ever again:

CppCon leadership and the C++ Foundation board have worked in secret to protect a person convicted of rape and possession of Child Sexual Abuse Imagery. They have refused any transparency into a process where they have decided to allow this person full access to CppCon as an attendee, speaker and trainer. This person is well-known and trusted in the C++ community.

For some reason a lot of material around this avoids naming the person. He is Arthur O'Dwyer. Here is an article about his arrest and conviction: https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/yonkers/news/sex-offender-convicted-of-raping-drugged-victim-reports-move-into-yonkers/773166/

In the USA. Up until a few years ago dental visits were nothing to really think about. I went twice a year and got a cleaning. There was one bad place I went to a decade ago that kept "finding" small cavities to "proactively" fill but thankfully I switched to another and all is well. My home care routine is perfect. I use an electric toothbrush twice a day, floss, use mouthwash, wear a nightguard to protect against grinding, and don't really drink or eat sweets.

Yet two years ago dentists started hitting me with all this talk of periodontic cleanings. Deep cleanings. Scalings, whatever - getting in the pockets under the gums. At this point things took a turn. It started to feel like I was a cash cow being milked for all I was worth. I was even convinced to fork over a few grand for a gum graft. It literally made things worse, like I had more recession after the graph - more of the tooth was exposed. The dentist then gaslit me saying it was totally fine and it didn't need to be redone even though it was objectively worse than before when they were emphatic that it needed to be done.

Now I go to a new dentist because I move and the entire thing feels like an upsell from front to back. I think I got upsold on procedures four separate times during the visit. They even refused to give me a regular cleaning and told me I had to do the expensive periodontic cleaning where they charge me out the ass. Like what the fuck is going on? My gut after I left the office was just reeling and screaming at me not to trust the dentist. I can't even put my finger on why, they seemed very professional and answered all my questions. But the gut can pick up on stuff the brain can't, maybe.

This is all just really upsetting. I'm lucky enough that all my interactions with the medical system so far have not had this air of conning me into doing expensive procedures. Now I feel like I can't trust these people that went to these crazy expensive/prestigious/exclusive schools to spend years of their lives learning how to care for my health. Am I going crazy? Are dentists really all scammers?

I picked up the whole "bite size" series a few weeks back and am very impressed! They're perfect for if you have some experience with the zine topic but don't know all the pitfalls or fun notable features or generally how everything ties together. And they come with stickers! I used to hate bash but now I mostly can tolerate bash.

I'm reading Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus about how the USA shifted to the right an unthinkable amount between FDR and Reagan. Obviously there are a lot of things that don't survive transposition across 75 years of political realignment but I am starting to think nearly all dems would find themselves to Nixon's right if they were sent through a time machine.

Like most neoliberal institutions, Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs.

Damn that's the most relatable thing I've heard in a while.

EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE NEEDS TO HAVE AN ENTIRE COPY OF GOOGLE CHROME IN IT TO DISPLAY A BASIC USER INTERFACE, HAVING 10 SLIGHTLY DIFFERNET VERSIONS OF ELECTRON INSTALLED AND LOADED INTO MEMORY IS THE OPTIMAL SYSTEM SETUP

Never played it, anybody know whether it's good?

Honestly in awe of their courage. Subjecting yourself to the carceral system in the south as a trans person is just unbelievably brave.