apple juice

Hey everyone,

Welcome to my mostly dormant blog that I’ve kept running, in one form or another, for a long time. I might even go so far as to say it’s been an internet lifetime since I started this thing.

Feel free to explore. You’ll find silly poems about my dog, my thoughts on climate change, bicycling, politics, train travel and other random stuff. Most of it written when I had a job in a bank where I spent vast quantities of time with headphones in my ears, sitting at my desk. I haven’t really kept up with it because until #coronavirus hit, and basically ever since I began work at school, my days have been filled with interactions with people… blogging has not been at the top of my priority list.

But… we have a new world in front of us, and at least for the next couple months, we’re embarking on an exciting new experiment in teaching and learning. I don’t think it’s an understatement to say this is the biggest experiment in educating kids that has ever happened in history. There will be a lot to process. It might be fun to do a little blogging again.

The Green New Deal aims to get us there—and remake the country in the process. It promises to give every American a job in that new economy: installing solar panels, retrofitting coastal  infrastructure, manufacturing electric vehicles. In the 1960s, the U.S. pointed the full power of its military-technological industry at going to the moon. Ocasio-Cortez wants to do the same thing, except to save the planet.

Source: Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal Is a Winning Climate Strategy – The Atlantic

This is the most exciting package of climate change policy to come from the Democrats in a long time. Great article that dives into the messaging problems that have existed in the past regarding climate change policy. I don’t know that it actually has a chance to be passed, but the clock is ticking to 2030…

THE BOLD MORAL leadership of newly elected members of Congress like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has me feeling more optimistic about our collective chances of averting climate breakdown than I have in years.

Source: Video: Naomi Klein Interviews Bernie Sanders on Climate Change

Worthwhile video – we have 12 years…

The Insect Apocalypse

When his parents took him driving, he remembered, the car’s windshield was frequently so smeared with insect carcasses that you almost couldn’t see through it. But all that seemed distant now. He couldn’t recall the last time he needed to wash bugs from his windshield.

nyti.ms/2DMT70v

Good article today in the NYT about screen time and kids. No hard research, but the gut feeling of a number of people in tech that we all need to dial it back when it come to screen time.

This idea that Silicon Valley parents are wary about tech is not new. The godfathers of tech expressed these concerns years ago, and concern has been loudest from the top.

A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

Did you see the headline that stated GM was calling for a national electric vehicle program. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, when the details are reviewed, it’s not as forward thinking as you might hope. Proposing what you already expect to happen as binding policy is not visionary.

Several other countries, including major markets in Europe and China, have much more aggressive targets on shorter timespans.

Elektrek https://electrek.co/2018/10/26/gm-weak-national-zero-emissions-vehicle-nzev-program-china-electric-vehicle/

As Donald Trump says… sad.

We do not face a simple choice of digital or analog. That is the false logic of the binary code that computers are programmed with, which ignores the complexity of life in the real world. Instead, we are faced with a decision of how to strike the right balance between the two. If we keep that in mind, we are taking the first step toward a healthy relationship with all technology, and, most important, one another.

From Our Love Affair With Digital Is Over