I grew up going to South Square too. Lots of fond memories. I've also been living near Northgate for the last decade or so, and that has been a depressing experience. Watching it decay, finally shut down, and some of the newer, more attractive nearby tenants like Planet Fitness now packing up shop has been incredibly saddening. I just hope Randy's Pizza and C&H Cafeteria will stick around, but it's more likely the entire strip with be torn down to be developed into condos that start at $2k/mo.
I would love to see some of these spaces be repurposed for more affordable housing, which we desperately need, but it isn't "financially feasible" in the eyes of these developers [1].
This recent news clip was almost hilariously blunt in the way things have been trending here [2].
1. the state of being apart from other people or concealed from their view; solitude; seclusion
2. the state of being free from unwanted or undue intrusion or disturbance in one's private life or affairs; freedom to be let alone
I don't draw a distinction between "your house" and "your data." Whatever your rational for having those barriers - that's your decision, right? Just because other people enjoy living on communes doesn't make it any less absurd for a country to outlaw locks on doors (or e2e chat apps...). Taken even further, people tend to do horrific things (sexual &/or domestic abuse) behind locked doors. But plenty of other people, like you & me, tend to sleep better behind them.
Everyone has something to hide -- it is a matter of how much and from who(m). In our world of Big Data/surveillance capitalism, I don't see how you could even argue against stronger privacy rights...
> "Since the pandemic began, Americans’ happiness has cratered"
As if this isn't mostly because of the disruption to normal life caused by the pandemic?
I don't think that paints an accurate picture of the situation. Many people (I would say generations) are coming to terms with an increasingly bleak outlook on their future prospects - and that flies in the face with the sort of American exceptionalism & exponential economic growth that characterized the mid-20th century. People have been sold a tale and that just isn't coming true, and what's worse is that these same demographics often feel overshadowed by previous generations, such as the Baby Boomers. Look at the overall makeup of our government these days - the Speaker of the House & our President are the oldest they _have ever been_. It doesn't feel representative. Rent and real estate prices have sky rocketed almost everywhere, and many people (myself included) are giving up hope of ever owning a home. Climate change also looms large.
The pandemic gave many people an opportunity to pause and reevaluate their life and priorities. I'm part of the demographic that entered the workforce during the Recession of 07/08, where I worked shitty fastfood jobs to survive, and I parlayed it into a career in the restaurant business that I aggressively pursued for a decade+. I would rather put a bullet in my head than go work in a kitchen again. Especially running one. I then started a career in the trades because that seemed like the best economic opportunity for someone with limited education, and I got to work through all of 2020 + 2021 because I was 'essential', but yeah, like the article mentioned, it strongly reinforced my status as disposable and meaningless.
The issues are deeper than 'the disruption [of] normal life.'
Some of my favorite gaming memories! Swapping IPs in chat rooms before MSN Zone picked it up. All the "hacks" were so inventive and fun - the Jail Hack by EaH in particular blew my mind. I remember some clan having Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise playing on their page :P
Edit: I wanted to say too, that I think for people of our generation, we understand completely that much of what goes on here will eventually be lost. Almost all the websites or forums that I participated in the 90s and early 00's are gone. And I think I prefer that to everything be recorded & saved for posterity.
Carpal tunnel isn't about being sedentary, is it? It's about repetitive movements (from people I know who suffer from it, vibrations also exacerbate their conditions, which is why I brought up power tools) - just like the common plumbing activities that I mentioned. This isn't about aches. If your body can't handle sitting at a computer, then you are out of your mind thinking that working a trade will somehow 'be better.' Buy a standing desk, ergonomic keyboard + mouse, and go for some walks.
Have you considered taking some time off and going WWOOFing? It can be a fun experience.
Personally, I believe that knowing how to navigate this (increasingly) digital world is an essential skill. I'm enjoying trying to build foundational knowledge about computing & networking for these reasons - and I also just feel like there is _so much_ to learn, and that is both exciting and overwhelming at times. I have some negative views towards the way technology has trended in the last decade or two (bordering on tin-foil hat territory :P) but I think that is all the more reason to understand it.
I don't have any interest in pursuing SWE, esp. for financial reasons. But I am enjoying learning about programming. I'd be happy if I could hack on things at home & contribute to some OSS projects. I'm hoping to land a junior position at a NOC in a year or so, but who knows? I've given up on the idea of any career giving my life meaning or purpose, so I'd be happy with an education + skillset that makes me employable, especially with remote opportunities. Not having to destroy my body is a bonus!
I think that is just the way of the world, especially in America. Even though I have worked in fields that produce a more "tangible" product, I can't say that I have contributed or helped much of anything. And now I'm in my 30s without an education and I only have experience doing things that I never want to do again.
Bosses are always terrible, but it's a little different when your life is literally at stake. I've had "old school" foremen who want to sit and call you a pu$$y because you don't want to stand (without a harness) on a flimsy piece of wood over a six story shaft, cutting and then brazing 8" copper pipe. It's also harder when you don't have dedicated recruiting networks and the ability to WFH like many do in tech/SWE.
(Just my perspective! I appreciate the discussion.)
If your idea of physical abuse is carpal tunnel from using a mouse + keyboard, don't go into the trades. Seriously. Go to Home Depot, buy a stick of 1" copper pipe, a Ridgid (wheel) pipe cutter, and some sandpaper. Now go to your backyard, in the cold, kneel on some bricks/concrete, and spend 30 minutes cutting off little portions of the copper stick, and then clean the ends with sandpaper. For bonus points, consider reaming the insides too.
Now tell me how your wrists and hands are feeling. How about your knees? Imagine that everyday, plus an array of powertools such as impact drivers + drills, rotary hammers, sawzalls, band saws, and crimping tools that can weigh 20+ lbs.
That mouse & keyboard will start to look very, very comfortable.
This is more a reflection on that period of your life than the work itself.
Part time at a pizza shop in your teens/20s? Time of your life! Doing that exact same work in your 30s when you're trying provide for a partner and potentially kids? When you have bills stacking up, rent is shooting through the roof, and your hopes of one day owning a home are slowly circling the drain?
What do you do now, when that is your sole skillset to fall back on? Being on your feet doesn't feel nearly as nice as it did when you were in your early 20s. Those slow times become stressful because you know it means you could be out of a job like that. Sure, people might always want to eat pizza ("there's always work") but that doesn't mean your quality of life is going to increase _at all_ because of that. Your only hope out - opening your own pizza shop - is an incredibly fragile & stressful undertaking. You're much more likely to lose all the money you borrow/invest into it than ending up with a successful restaurant that provides for you financially.
This is a very shallow view of what it means to be working as a plumber...
As someone who spent a couple years doing commercial plumbing:
1) You are lifting very heavy 10-20ft long sticks of cast iron pipe, often 10+ ft in the air. There is technology to aid with this (scissor lifts) but it is brutal work.
2) You spend a lot of time in the air - on ladders or lifts - often overhanging the edges. You are constantly drilling hangers in the ceiling, breathing in dust that will ruin your lungs permanently. And again, you are also fitting cast iron pipes in this environment. You will feel the sway and it's pretty easy to hurt yourself. OSHA is a joke. I've been caught in the middle of a huge storm, since the foreman didn't want to let us off early, and we had to run down 8 stories of scaffolding while heavy material is being thrown around like ragdolls.
3) People on job sites generally don't give a @$%^. Toxic fumes? Check. Concrete/cement dust? Check. Crazy welders that don't care that they can potentially ruin your eyesight? Check.
4) Your company will track you with apps, often not pay you until you arrive on the jobsite, but you still need to be at the shop @ 6AM to help load materials. Unpaid.
5) Depending on where you live, you can expect to listen to nothing but conservative talk radio on that morning ride. I've worked with people from all paths, so this didn't really bother me, but something to consider if you have spent most of your life doing white-collar work. You can expect to be around some hateful ignorance.
6) If you're not doing new construction, you can expect to be in the ceiling, crawling among ducts, trying not to fall through. This is generally with copper pipes, which is another ball game as far as cutting, soldering/brazing, or crimping. Otherwise, you are often trying to do this standing on a 12ft ladder.
Commercial plumbing pays better than residential (fixing a dirty toilet) and is often in more demand. It is also a pretty good way to wreck your body. Most of the older/senior plumbers that I worked with spent their time trying to do as little work as possible, and were drunk after lunch. Addictions are very common.
IME, people who often are shouting "get in the trades!" are the exact people who have never once worked in one (or they own a business in it). It ain't all that.
Shout out to Telco Inside, oldskoolphreak, PLA, BinRev, Default Radio and all the other late torchbearers of phreaking in the early '00s =] Miss those days.
There used to be a Strowger switch still functioning around that time period... Sure it's gone nowadays but it was really cool to call in & play around on it.
I don't really see any reasons to doubt that literature will survive the 21st century. Its place is always going to be there, right? But the publishing industry and academia? I think that is a different issue altogether and they are certainly having their day(s) of reckoning. I think we feel its impact even more strongly because other economic & technological forces have intersected to completely destroy adjacent industries like, well, bookstores :P
For many of us growing up, books (esp. fiction) were the best possible form of escape/recreation. Now we're seeing a generation growing up with high powered tablets & phones that must seem magical. To socialize with friends they can talk while playing video games, send videos, or take pictures. The written word doesn't seem very incentivized for them... & I just don't see any of this changing. Luckily for us, though, you can spend a few lifetimes digging through all the literature produced up to this point, and I don't see that going anywhere.
Interesting in regards to writing as a solitary vs social act. Have you ever read Paul Auster's The Invention of Solitude? For me, similar to computers/the Internet, one of the beauties of literature is how it is both a solitary & deeply connected 'thing.' How do you feel about some of the common criticisms of MFA programs[0]? Obviously a throwback beatnik/bohemian cafe/store has a very different barrier of entry than these graduate programs, but sorta relevant when we're talking about writing as a solitary act vs social.
Edit: I wanted to say that if you haven't been, Quimby's Bookstore in Wicker Park is a really cool spot! Been over five years since I was living there but the nerd in me thought their selection of zines was amazing.
> ... could learn a thing or two about the dynamics of lifestyle-brands.
I think that is out of touch with the way that American culture has been trending. (Yes, the world is much bigger than America, but this article is focused on US literary mags.) There is a continual push for efficiency & profit - driven by capitalism & technology - so I think it's clear the audience for this 'literary lifestyle' is continually shrinking.
Getting a bachelor's degree in the Arts in America basically is just a setup for entering graduate school (ie, spending more money + time, and even then, only making a fraction after graduation compared to other degrees... like CompSci). Pew Research Center found almost 25% of Americans in their survey admitted to not reading a book in the last year - and this is during the pandemic[0].
Our middle class is shrinking and being squeezed in ways that haven't been seen for over a century. The gig economy means people are often working multiple jobs, for low pay and no benefits. And most of the upper class is also continually trying to hustle and stay atop all the new technologies/products.
I love reading and completely agree that it is valuable -- I just don't believe that our society agrees. Most of the 'Bar Arcades' in my area have closed down during the pandemic (along with many restaurants, also a 'lifestyle brand'), so I can't help but feel your potential business model has a long road ahead of itself. I wish you the best in it though!
I appreciate this comment. Being an "adult student" (30s+) is a rough road and I definitely understand the attraction of self-paced online degrees. That WGU includes certifications as part of its tuition is pretty appealing too. I'm slowly trying to whittle down community college credits so I can hopefully transfer to a state school, but it often feels like a helpless situation. I'm just grateful I don't have children - work, bills, and a wife are hard enough to juggle as it is.
I think this is just the current state of the job market today, though.
In order to "be successful", it requires an almost constant engagement with your curated social/online identity. And for many fields, being an attractive candidate for employment means you should have: a blog promoting your side-projects; a Twitter account engaged in networking & self-promotion; a GitHub account linked to your identity; maybe even a YouTube channel; and, of course, a highly polished LinkedIn account.
Sure, if you have 20 years of experience and plenty of industry connections, this might not apply. But for anyone else? Hustle, hustle, hustle + Promote, promote, promote. Personally, I find it pretty gross...
I would love to see some of these spaces be repurposed for more affordable housing, which we desperately need, but it isn't "financially feasible" in the eyes of these developers [1].
This recent news clip was almost hilariously blunt in the way things have been trending here [2].
[1] https://indyweek.com/news/durham/northgate-mall-durham-rezon...
[2] https://www.wral.com/local-business-owners-pushing-back-agai...