Water and wildlife in the nation's public forests are slowly being poisoned by insecticides and other chemicals used in illegal marijuana operations, say forest police and researchers. They warn that the potential environmental damage could last generations. Many of the grows are the work of highly organized drug cartels that take advantage of the forests' thick canopy to help hide their operations. Some sites go undetected for years. "The true crime here is the fact that they're killing off basically America's public lands, killing off the wildlife, killing off our water," says Kevin Mayer, a U.S. Forest Service law enforcement assistant special agent in charge. "This is stuff that, you know, it's not gonna repair itself." Now, an unlikely coalition in California — including environmentalists, law enforcement agents, politicians, wildlife ecologists and representatives of the legal cannabis industry — have joined forces to try to reduce these illegal operations and the environmental

A days-long tense standoff between protesters and police is grinding on at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The numbers of protesters barricaded inside the school has dwindled to about 100, and their food supplies are rapidly depleting after police surrounded the campus on Sunday. The situation is growing so desperate for the remaining protesters that several of them unsuccessfully attempted to escape the police siege by climbing through sewer drains, according to local media . Police say they've arrested about 1,100 people in the past day. At a Tuesday news conference , officers accused the protesters of crimes such as taking part in riots and possessing dangerous weapons. Authorities have threatened to use live ammunition against the demonstrators, though they say that level of force is a last resort. Protesters are pleading for help. A video posted by protest leader Joshua Wong features a message from a masked woman who is identified as a student at Polytechnic University. "We have

St. Louis' first black prosecutor, Kim Gardner, has sued the city, its police union and five others for what she calls a racist effort to block her reform agenda. "Gardner was elected in 2016 on a promise to redress the scourge of historical inequality and rebuild trust in the criminal justice system among communities of color," reads the lawsuit filed Monday in federal court. "Unfortunately, entrenched interests in St. Louis ... have mobilized to thwart these efforts through a broad campaign of collusive conduct" to protect the status quo and remove Gardner from office. Jacob Long, a spokesman for Mayor Lyda Krewson, said the city "vehemently denied what it considers to be meritless allegations levied against it" and expected to be "fully vindicated." Jeff Roorda, a police union official named in the suit, called it "the last act of a desperate woman." The suit has its roots in the 2018 prosecution of then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. Gardner hired an outside investigator to look into

U.S. authorities have seized the domain name of a website that allegedly sold access to billions of usernames, email addresses, passwords and other sensitive information stolen in data breaches. Now, visitors to the not-so-subtle website – weleakinfo.com — are greeted with a homepage that reads, "This Domain Has Been Seized." The Justice Department and the FBI took control of the site as part of a "comprehensive law enforcement action" involving authorities in Germany, Northern Ireland, the U.K. and the Netherlands. Two men in Europe have been arrested so far in connection with the site. WeLeakInfo billed itself as a "search engine" that subscribers could use to pore over data illegally obtained from more than 10,000 data breaches, U.S. authorities said in a statement . In all, the Justice Department said the site was offering access to more than 12 billion indexed records. "The website sold subscriptions so that any user could access the results of these data breaches, with

The Trump administration has revived the debate over "end-to-end encryption" — systems so secure that the tech companies themselves aren't able to read the messages, even when police present them with a warrant. "It is hard to overstate how perilous this is," U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in a speech last fall. "By enabling dangerous criminals to cloak their communications and activities behind an essentially impenetrable digital shield, the deployment of warrant-proof encryption is already imposing huge costs on society." Barr has been concerned about this for years, but he has become more vocal recently as encryption goes mainstream. It's now built into popular services such as Skype and WhatsApp, and even Facebook may soon be encrypted . Republican senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham recently floated legislation that would strip tech companies of their liability protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act unless they comply with as-of-yet undefined

For police, the new coronavirus poses a dilemma: How do you apprehend a suspect in the era of social distancing? In India, they've come up with a way to lengthen the long arms of the law: giant tongs. In what looks more like a scene from a cops-and-robbers cartoon, this week police in the northern city of Chandigarh tweeted a video of an officer demonstrating how to use a 6-foot pole with a two-pronged claw at the end to detain a suspect. The officer, wearing a surgical mask, clamps the device around a man's waist and forces him into a pickup truck. "We call it a 'social distancing clamp' or a 'lockdown-breaker catcher,' " head constable Gurdeep Singh told NPR by phone from Chandigarh Police headquarters. "This is especially used in instances where we suspect that someone has the coronavirus and they are not cooperating with us." Chandigarh, the joint capital of the Indian states of Haryana and Punjab, has been declared a containment zone , with a high concentration of COVID-19 cases.

Der Türkei macht der erneute Absturz der Lira zu schaffen. Für einen Euro wurde am Dienstag zeitweise bis zu 7,62 Lira gezahlt. Das Land war bereits zuvor finanzwirtschaftlich angeschlagen - wegen politischen Streits zwischen der Türkei und den USA.

Die EZB justiert bei den bisherigen Hilfen nach, verzichtet aber auf grundlegend neue Maßnahmen – trotz eines „beispiellosen Schrumpfens der Wirtschaft“, sagte EZB-Chefin Lagarde. Neu ist ab Mai ein Programm für Banken.

Gerade Anlegern bietet die epochale Pandemie einmalige Chancen: Sie können sich neu am Markt positionieren. Dafür müssen Sie nicht mal einzelne Aktien kaufen. ETFs spielen die Rendite von allein ein. Diese neun Indexfonds bieten die besten Chancen.

Zehntausende Eigentümerversammlungen fallen zurzeit aus. Denn Wohnungsbesitzer dürfen sich derzeit weder real noch online treffen. Viele Reparaturen bleiben deshalb liegen. Doch in der Krise werden die Regeln für Eigentümer neu definiert.

Bürger müssen sich nicht nur das Virus vom Leib halten, sondern auch die vielen Betrüger, die jetzt an ihr Geld wollen. Wie Kriminelle die Lage ausnutzen – und wie Sie sich dagegen wappnen können.

i guess you would call this my quarantine album - i call it solskifte, which means sun division - and in a lot of ways, not just seasonal, that's what seems to be going on - much more inside on march 31, i got an email announcing that there was going to be an rpm challenge for april, in addition to the one in feb they have every year and i do albums for every year on march 24, i had to leave work early because after lunch i felt like i was going to drop - i had been feeling some slightly annoying sinus trouble that i had thought was allergies, but i realized i had something worse i didn't know if i was running a fever or not - i made a quick trip to the med center - i called first - and after a brief exam, i was told i had a low grade fever and was instructed to quarantine for 14 days - this was also something my company's new covid-19 policy demands, so there's no problem here and i even get partial compensation so i spent the next few days trying to feel better - it wasn't until sunday that i was starting to feel that maybe i didn't have this bad thing - or that maybe in spite of being 62 with a few medical problems i was going to make it meanwhile, my poor kid's stuck with me in the apartment and not real happy well, this is long - but on april 1st, i decided to try coming up with new music and ended up writing some songs that are about how i felt about being in my apartment, sick, and wondering what would happen next sometimes it's been warm enough to open up my window for a bit - and this is what i felt about that calling on the wind to give me back my name remembering an old world that used to seem tame clouds outside my window never give us rain i used to go out there but i won't do that again in the cruelest month the birds eat seedlings in the cruelest month i dare not confess my feelings in the cruelest month the world is awry tossing out its life like trash thrown aside staring at the glass and wondering what i am sense the blood within my body - still wondering what i am my thoughts are like birds, but they never rise above my feet are nailed onto the earth and i do not know love in the cruelest month the birds eat seedlings in the cruelest month i dare not confess my feelings in the cruelest month the world is awry tossing out its life like trash thrown aside

hoping that some of the things we like, which seem to be shallow comforts until we're deprived of them, will manage to come back sometime soon time to go walking - time to go singing time to go loving - that's what i want to just wander supermarkets of desire and see what's mine there - that's what i want there is nothing on the wind that doesn't blow away something will be saved there is nothing on the wind that doesn't blow away something will be saved maybe be wiser - maybe be foolish maybe there is room where we can be both maybe live a little sweeter knowing we can win or lose maybe there is room where we can do both there is nothing on the wind that doesn't blow away something will be saved there is nothing on the wind that doesn't blow away something will be saved

A standard fiddle tune on mandolin with backing guitar.

I never finished my entry for the Kate Bush music challenge a while back, but I liked the bit I did get done.

Allein auf großer Fahrt – darauf freuen sich bundesweit Millionen Schüler und Azubis. Zu Jahresbeginn registrierten Kinder- und Jugendreiseveranstalter Buchungszuwächse – und trotz Corona-Krise gibt es kaum Stornierungen.

Zunächst sah sich unser Autor auf seiner Weltreise durch die Pandemie kaum beeinträchtigt. Doch irgendwann bekam auch er Angst. Denn mancherorts in Asien gibt es Tipps gegen das Coronavirus, die kaum beruhigen.

Im Interview mit WELT verteidigt Außenminister Heiko Maas die Entscheidung für eine Verlängerung der weltweiten Reisewarnung bis 14. Juni. Auch wenn eine Reisewarnung kein Reiseverbot sei, werde die Bundesregierung weitere Rückholaktionen im Sommer nicht wiederholen, so Maas.

Abenteurerinnen, Entdeckerinnen, Flaneusen: Die Geschichte ist voll von Frauen, die nichts zu Hause hielt und hält. Dabei mussten sie alle gegen Vorurteile kämpfen und gesellschaftliche Grenzen überwinden.

Five great websites that offer a variety of professional quality sample libraries and audio tools suited for any type of project or genre.

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The post 5 Websites That Offer Professional Quality Sample Libraries appeared first on Dubspot Blog.

Dubspot's Rory PQ explores Generative Music and demonstrates an effective technique used to generate complex sequences of music using Live's native devices.

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The post Ableton Live Techniques: Creating Complex Sequences appeared first on Dubspot Blog.

Dubspot's Rory PQ explains how to route audio and sidechain with third-party plugins in Ableton Live.

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The post How to Sidechain Third-Party Plugins in Ableton Live appeared first on Dubspot Blog.

This plugin spotlight features the Moog Multimode Filter Collection by Universal Audio, a set of truly authentic, analog-sounding Moog filter emulations.

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The post Plugin Spotlight: Moog Multimode Filter Collection by Universal Audio appeared first on Dubspot Blog.

'God knows all about us. This is comforting and gives us security and the assurance that we are in His care.'

'The Bible gives us formulas for practices that will keep us grounded in God and are designed to maximize our happiness. What can we do to seek to keep faith alive in our homes and families, even if we have made wrong decisions in the past?'

'As we face the challenges of the twenty-first century, we need to recapture the perception of God that is so vividly reflected in the book of Daniel.'

'Whenever we face a big problem, we also should recognize that our God is great enough to resolve even the most unsolvable challenges.'

What are ways in which our society and culture profane the truth of God’s Word? How can we be careful not to take part in that profanation, even in subtle ways? At what point can we say that we are acquainted with all the truth that we need to know?

'What kind of witness do we present to others in regard to our faithfulness to God and to His law? Would people who know you think that you would stand for your faith, even if it cost you your job, or even your life?'

'What should this study tell us about how precious and important the knowledge of biblical truth really is in contrast to human traditions?'

'Christ’s sacrifice in our behalf is our only hope. How should this help keep us humble and, even more important, make us more loving and forgiving of others?'

'This week we will look at sola Scriptura in greater detail. We will learn that sola Scriptura implies some fundamental principles of biblical interpretation that are indispensable for a proper understanding of God’s Word.'

'If we approach and interpret the Bible wrongly, we will likely come to false conclusions, not just in the understanding of salvation but in everything else that the Bible teaches.'

Hey, have we thought about switching up our affiliate links (at least for books) from Amazon to Bookshop? It's apparently a platform for indie bookshops set up specifically to keep them afloat and to break Amazon's stranglehold over online book purchases.

Bookshop is designed for generating affiliate revenue. Our team is working to build a network of publishers, authors, bookstagrammers, celebrity book clubs, and other media sites to target socially-conscious online consumers who are not yet buying their books online through an independent bookstore.

Pros:

- It's a B-Corp and supports indie bookstores and it isn't Amazon, so almost certainly more in line with MeFi's moral compass (at least until a couple of years down the line, when we find out that they've sold out to a PE consortium led by Northrop Grumman or whatever);
- More affiliate cash (10.0% vs 4.5% for Amazon);
- Seems to be on the level, with big affiliates already (NYT, Slate and Vox per the insidehook article)
- Presumably can be achieved at relatively low cost and posters could link to whichever they prefer / we could always switch back to Amazon.

Cons:

- The affiliate scheme is kind of complex? I don't know anything about affiliate marketing but it's explained in their FAQ for anyone who does. I don't really get the pool part, although it sounds great?;
- Currently don't ship internationally (although I always use Amazon dot com links on here anyway, rather than a local site, and Bookshop apparently intends to add this functionality anyway);
- Don't do ebooks, audiobooks, secondhand books, store merch, etc (although again, they apparently intend to);
- Don't sell cookware and electronics and shoes and so on, although of course we still have Amazon;
- Possibly more expensive than Amazon and less convenient for Mefites with Prime;
- Probably a load of other things that haven't occurred to me.

Is this something worth experimenting with?

It is May 8th and time for the latest check-in thread. As previously ([4][3][2][1])) this is for actual news, updates, personal experiences, and more mutual support from and to people dealing with this virus in their daily lives. All hail the mods for continuing to provide this sanctuary for us, and good health to readers and commenters alike. How is one doing?

I have successfully eliminated feeding time drama. I will tell you how.

But first - if you're willing to make a small screw hole in the pantry door, you can get an inexpensive metal latch hook that will improve that part of your system. If that won't work, you can find another way to keep that door securely closed. If you get stuck, just use your second AskMe question. You should be able to solve this problem :)

If you can't, well, it doesn't sound like you're getting a ton of help from the robot. Would it be just as easy to store the food in an air-tight container and serve whenever you feel like it?

Now - here's how I got my round little foster cat to stop harassing us for food:

I convinced her that I was not responsible for deciding when to feed her. I had an old phone with a distinctive, not-unpleasant alarm sound (harp glissando), set the alarm for her feeding times, and made a huge show about hearing the alarm sound, running over to it (to shut it off), and feeding her exactly then. It was clear that I was controlled by the harp sound. She made the connection very quickly, and would go sit and watch the sound/alarm system when it was close to meal times. My life improved. Safety improved (no cat weaving around my ankles). My estimation of my own cleverness improved also :)

People tend to overthink this, and I am speaking from real experience. Just keep the requisite number of gallons of water you'd use in the timespan for which you're planning and change them every couple of years, just for the sake of doing it. They'll last for eons in reality.

In an emergency, water's great, but in a longer-term bad situation, it falls pretty far down the list. Unless you're in an unusually arid place, a means to obtain the water necessary to live (maybe not to shower, run the dishwasher or laundry though) will make itself known. And you'd never store enough to matter for *that* long, while a few gallons of cooking oil or a bag of salt would make you a local hero for a long, long time.

What people tend to really wish they'd planned for, but don't:

1) cooking oil
2) toilet paper, paper towels
3) spices, herbs, pepper and salt
4) sugar, chocolate (especially for its fat), candy, honey
5) soap, shampoo, cleaning products
6) seeds for easy-to-grow stuff
7) vitamins
8) if you can keep a couple of hens, you won't regret it.

Nothing's as tradeable (relative to effort) as eggs!

Aside from the last three, these things can be stored for a long, long time. And in reality, #6 and #7 would be good for a few years.

I am a Sarajevan who lived during the siege with no heat, electricity, water, phone (etc) for the most of a three-year period. What's on the list above is what I was almost always missing. We got "dry" food packages from various sources. These tended to be Truman eggs (good for a little protein, but thats about it), macaroni, rice, powder potatoes, Vietnam-era "biscuits" - supposedly with vitamins, but these were from the late 1960s and of dubious nutritional value.

What was missing was: fat, protein, flavor and variety. Boiling was the only way to cook things, due to lack of any cooking oils. To fry something was a rare miracle - even if you were frying reconstituted potatoes from powder. And to have a little pepper or salt was nirvana.

My work has been doing mandatory, camera-on videoconference "socials" every Friday -- scheduled at 4pm just to twist the knife. I hate them so much and finally told my manager I'm not going to attend anymore. People seem to think that because we're working from home, they're free to push on the boundaries between work life and private life in a way that is super uncomfortable for me and it has definitely been adding to my COVID stress in isolation.

If you're so ignorant that you think any promotion involving a gun on the streets in this day and age is appropriate you are a fucking idiot and detainment is the least of your worries.

This is the sort of mentality that leads to minority kids getting killed for having the temerity to play with toy guns.

If your location is correct, the Humane Society will do the communual cremation for $35 and there's a campus in your city. If that's too much but you can get her there, I'll cover it. If group cremation isn't the correct choice for you for this pet, however, no pressure.

I've found that about two-thirds of the way through any large knitting or crochet project, most stitchers get bored and antsy and often start a new project instead of finishing, so I'm familiar with this type of thing in another context. But I think anyone who thinks we're in the third quarter of this situation now has another think coming.

Many trans people have never been able to trust or access public toilets, even if they are present and unoccupied, and excluding trans people from bathroom use is currently a mainstream political stance. I was disappointed to see this not addressed in the article. I'll continue to hope (while also cynically doubting, I contain multitudes) that we will use the societal changes required by the pandemic to benefit everyone, rather than re-creating the previous dysfunction.

Do you actually like this guy? You've written an essay here and the only positives you list about this person are qualities you assumed about him during the period you had no personal contact. Of course he makes himself look interesting in his own blog.

Stop worrying if he likes you or not, or likes you enough or more than your friend maybe. For the next few weeks, your sole focus should be "do I actually like this guy, really?"

If it's your anxiety telling you you're not good enough that's one thing, but I don't get the impression from what you've written that you've spent a lot of time looking at this dude with a critical eye. HE needs to be right for YOU before you start concerning yourself with whether you're good enough for him.

Well, somebody didn't click through before commenting... Great job, 100%

I have a health condition with a high mortality rate, where about one quarter of us die within the first year, and two-thirds of us don't last five years. I'm on Year 4 now and I'm doing okay, and I'm thankful to be receiving excellent care, and I'm generally optimistic that I'll get to stick around for a while.

Ramping up to my diagnosis, I thought my life was over. And that was both utterly untrue and completely true at the same time. You can't really know what it's like until you have the actual diagnosis, and even then it's been a world of surprises. You may or may not be able to do some of the things you would like to do.

For me to deal with it in a healthy way, I kind of had to create a hard line in the sand. I had to take time to grieve the person I'd been before falling ill, take stock of my accomplishments, and most importantly, I had to REALIZE MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS WERE ENOUGH for my lifetime. If I'd been hit by a bus, my life would have been over in a snap, and whatever I'd accomplished by that point would have had to be enough. Taking that pressure off myself was the kindest thing I could do for myself.

I found I had to let a lot of things go and not compare Previous Me to Sick Me. Previous Me was active, enjoyed travel, able to hold down complex and interesting work. Sick Me can't do much of that, but Sick Me does pretty okay for a sick person, and Sick Me does so much more than Dead Me could possibly do! Seriously, compared to Dead Me, Sick Me is a total winner. Sick Me can do a little modest gardening, enough to keep the weeds away. Sick Me can care for my dog and handle the occasional load of laundry. Sick Me finds a lot of joy in my friends and family and internet communities, and has transferred my social life to text, email, and the occasional dining out when the stars align and energy allows. (Metafilter is a lifesaver because I can pick it up whenever my energy level allows and people are so welcoming and understanding.)

As you're waiting for news, it's easy to fall to worry. Please be kind to yourself and don't suffer those fears and losses before you need to. Right now, you are there for your children. Don't put yourself through the punishment of losing them multiple times unnecessarily. And don't say you won't ever get to do a painting class -- I took my first painting class last fall and it was a boon to my soul and it renewed my capacity for beauty.

In the meantime, take as much control of the situation as you need to. Write down a list of questions to review with your doctors. (I've actually typed them out and distributed copies for them to follow along.) You can google, and it's hard not to, but please never tell a doctor that your questions or concerns are coming from google. Also, do not call yourself a hypochondriac -- what you are feeling is what you are feeling, and your concerns are valid and deserving of respect.

Waiting is hard. Please be extra kind to yourself.

Everyone Expects The Spanish Influenza: There is one solution and one solution only: Stop using Amazon. Period. Nothing else will work. Nothing.

The other solution is to get laws passed which don't allow them to engage in these practises. Laws like that have been passed before; they can be passed again.

"fascinating, and I'm going to assume it's not hoax. But it doesn't so much raise my impression of the inherent decency of humanity as get me wondering what sort of values etc they were propagating at that exclusive school in Tonga."

This is actually pretty well-studied -- I have a friend who did a Ph.D. in the total collapse of local civil authority and what happens next -- and Lord of the Flies is flat wrong. Humans in an emergency situation lean on each other and help each other. If they fall into despair and think survival isn't possible, they might destroy themselves -- but they don't (usually) take others with them. But generally they pool resources, create organization, find ways to help the group, and find ways to care for the helpless and infirm. People get really frustrated when they're NOT able to assist the group, and even people who have very limited physical abilities try to find ways to help, maybe keeping an eye on the little children, or teaching kids to read.

"Because by the time I read Lord of the Flies in Grade Nine or thereabouts, I'd experienced enough suburban schoolyard/playground savagery and whatnot to not really find its extrapolations all that unbelievable."

So part of the problem with children and schoolyard savagery is that we keep them in a HUGELY artificial structure and limit their ability to participate in society and contribute to it. We MAKE them savages by refusing to allow them to contribute to the group. One of the things we know about children who find themselves without adults and with a need to organize and survive (which might be like these boys, in an actual hardcore survival situation, or they might have plenty of food and water and heat and just need to wait for the blizzard to end and grown-ups to fetch them from where they got snowed in) is that they are amazing at it. Given a chance to be competent and responsible, they usually do really really well! And children have a HUGE innate sense of fairness (it's a developmental phase), so kids under 14 or so basically IMMEDIATELY sit down as a group and hash out how they're going to make decisions and hold people accountable. Generally, they decide on a democracy -- it's not "fair" unless everyone has a say -- and that everyone will have to take turns at gross jobs, and create some kind of punishment for those who don't do their work, which is usually either an extra turn at gross jobs or having to sleep in the worst spot (where they otherwise take turns). They tend to be very conscious of what they know about safety (problems come in with what they DON'T know, like not using a grill indoors for heat b/c you can die from the smoke), and cautiously warn each other to be careful cooking and with sharp objects, and take care to learn from each other's knowledge. If one kid knows how to build a fire, the others will defer to his expertise and will have him teach them and follow his instructions carefully.

Kids do CRY a lot more than adults do, and they get their feelings hurt a lot, but kids are also very conscious of and used to the fact that you can't just avoid people or cut them out of your life (kids don't have that power), so they tend to do a really good job reconciling in-group disputes. They might not all LIKE each other, but they find a way to work together and just complain about each other.

Do you remember that reality show that was meant to be "Kid Survivor" and they hoped it would turn into Lord of the Flies, and it was a SPECTACULAR FLOP? The producers had set up better and worse "houses" in the "abandoned town" set and expected the kids to race for a free-for-all to get the best stuff, and instead they arrived, explored, and then all sat down and made a group decision about how to divide it all up. A couple kids tried to be selfish and stubborn, but got shamed into compliance by the rest of the group, and one of their first concerns was that the littlest kids be buddied up with older kids because it would be too hard for them otherwise "and they might get scared." They agreed on a decision-making procedure the first night and basically stuck to it through the show. When one kid was a jerk, they would all go sit around the campfire and talk and talk and talk until the jerk agreed to stop being a jerk. The producers would create survivor-like challenges where the "winner" would get extra food or some special thing, and every single time they kids would either a) refuse, as a group, to compete, because it wouldn't be "fair" or b) agree to compete because it would be fun or because they wanted/needed the reward, but the winner would share his winning equally with the group AND ALWAYS DID.

Margaret Mead said that in her opinion, the first sign of civilization was a 15,000-year-old human grave with a healed thigh bone. Which means that the nomadic group rescued that person, immobilized his femur, and then cared for him for MONTHS while he recovered and could not contribute to the group. Wild animals die if they break a bone. Humans became civilized, she felt, when the group cared for the individual and allowed them to heal from such grievous injuries. Turns out that's still how we roll.

So like, nobody else finds the timing of this story kinda culturally suspicious? We had years of warnings of Africanized bees, and now we've got deadly Asian hornets, at a moment when anti-China rhetoric has reached a fevered pitch? Literally two of these bugs have been spotted in the US, and the guy who is the focal point of the NYT story isn't sure these were even involved, but now the Paper of Record and the entire American internet is talking about Asian Murder Hornets? Gaaaaaaaah I'm just going back inside for a while.

I think a lot of managers don't know how to manage. When you're in an office, they can perform all sorts of work theater. When they're not, they have to find substitutes to prove they're doing something.

Bing - fuckin' - o

One of the things I do professionally is to help organisations move to flexible and remote working (yes, business is great right now) and the hardest thing is always the cultural and performance management aspects. Many/most managers have never had any training in - nor done any serious thinking about - management. They're like newborns with no object permanence, when things are not in their field of view, they don't exist. When you ask them to evaluate their staff, they give vague answers not backed up by evidence or linked to specific objectives.

It's not that hard. Assign people tasks, check that they have completed them correctly, give feedback. I don't care how much time my team spends wanking, watching prestige television, or reading during the day as long as they deliver me the stuff I've asked for when I've asked for it. I'm genuinely curious what kind of jobs even exist that can be done remotely but are not amenable to an output based way of working. Seriously, name one!

This kind of stuff makes me want to start putting people against the wall.

Tim Bray is a smart guy who's been around tech for a long time. Presumably most people here know that, but in case you don't, he's got a very solid nerd pedigree.

To have him get near the top of Amazon, and then walk away because of his principles, says both that things at Amazon are really bad, and also that he's got integrity.

Yes, he probably has a decent retirement nest egg stashed away, but it's still nice to see someone with privilege (particularly in Silicon Valley) be vocally on the correct, humane side of an issue.