Do you like having the news and feeling "up" on things, but lately (or heck, even for the past several years) the news has been too much to bear?
This is my recommendation: focus on your local news. This has three benefits:
1. You'll stay up on the things that would actually impact your day-to-day.
Coronavirus cases up in your city? Take extra caution this week.
New local black-owned coffee shop? Time to try a new brew.
Nearby neighborhood impacted by food insecurity? Join an effort to help.
2. At the local level, there's usually a balance of "wins" and "losses." So it's not, almost ever, ALL doom.
And even the "bad" things are local, which means you aren't powerless. You live here! You can help!
3. You have conversation topics besides the presidency/the pandemic/the weather that are timely, impactful, and interesting.
Of course, your topical interests also work here, but only for conversation partners who share your hobby or profession. Local news is general-purpose!
OH WAIT I HAVE A BONUS FOURTH ONE
4. You get to support a local business. Mine is @BlockClubCHI. Local outfits are often staffed by folks who really care about the community and are trying hard to bring you real information, rather than clickbait. Reward their hard work!
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It's about social justice and change and privilege and all that stuff. But please bear with me. I am going to try to be gentle. But it's going to be uncomfortable.
A thread.
So I need to start with this: a lot of what I'm about to share, I learned the hard way—that is, by realizing that I was wrong about it, and had been operating like that for a long time.
So I'm not saying I'm some grand teacher; I struggle with this stuff too. Anyway, here goes.
I've seen the following with the COVID response and the worldwide racial justice protest.
Programmers jump in like "What TECH thing can I do to help? Can I build an app? Can I write a machine learning model to help?"
I'm organizing an "Allyship for People with Racial Privilege" workshop for my neighborhood's mutual aid org. (I used to teach these with @surjchicago).
I'm posting my notes for folks to peruse. Please also follow/learn from black folks at the #BlackLivesMatter tag.
1/
First we are going to talk about is the immediate present: participating in protests. (I know there's other stuff to get into but that's top of mind right now and if I don't address it first people are going to be distracted until I do).
Here's how I show up to that:
2/
First of all, choosing protests:
I don't go to every gathering I hear about. I go when I know who organized it. I've seen their faces; I know their names. They usually have (or get) my phone # so they can text me where they need me/what they need during a protest.
3/
We are currently in the keynote. The speaker is talking about how popular Neo4j is
Keynote now telling us about all the new Neo4j features. Examples: location filter, including 3d. Auto cache reheating. I'm interested to know if auto cache reheating is working with query patterns or meant to replace them or what