Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1180 (SoD #1631) - Throwback Thursday 1908.08 - Toni Morrison RIP, Carly Simon, the milky way, and more
Hi Mom,
It hasn't been a full week since the last Throwback because I posted it on Sunday instead of Thursday, but that's okay.
I have been using photos of other people and things than photos of me or you or our family for these weekly throwbacks.
Still thinking of you a great deal, Mom, more than usual, probably because I have more thinking time on my hands. I had a good week. I am making progress with my job search and all the related things: code samples, writing samples, documentation samples, and so on. The next three weeks are the litmus test. I make a big application push and see what happens.
And so, the weekly gallimaufry, hodge podge, and amalgam of good stuff. I have a couple of good articles here, one on coding and one on Megan Thee Stallion and "Hot Girl Summer," a great article from BITCH MEDIA.
Here's a quote:
If you don’t support Black women, give them access, and make them feel seen in the products you’re peddling, then you shouldn’t adopt their intraracial phrases to line your pockets.
This material was in place already when news that Toni Morrison has passed away shot across my prow like warning missiles.
SO, lots of Twitter activity and a tribute for one of the single greatest authors of all time of any gender, of any race, of any time period.
And then there's some sports stuff (CUBS) and the Milky Way galaxy, which is warped and twisted, which explains a lot about people and this planet. Plus, my dilemma about what book to read next.
But first, a puppy.
WHAT?? Carly Simon wrote a memoir??
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2015/11/20/these-six-tragic-revelations-from-carly-simons-memoir-will-make-you-ashamed-to-be-a-man-if-you-are-a-man/
She was ignored by her father, sexually abused at age 7 and, even at her commercial peak, treated like a notch on the bedpost by more hit-makers than could fit on the Billboard charts. And James Taylor? The love of Carly Simon’s life gave her two children – and a decade of dysfunctional heartbreak. Forget “Mockingbird.” Simon’s unofficial theme song should have been the old Nick Lowe tune “All Men Are Liars.” So talented and so fragile, Simon deserved better than how she was treated, which she lays out in her new memoir, “Boys in the Trees.”
WHAT TO READ NEXT?
These are the book (above photo) that I contemplated reading after finishing Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan. I eliminated Spark by John Twelve Hawks because I have it on audio, and even though I am listening to Stephen King's 11/22/63, which is 840 some pages of amazing but a long slog. So I won't get onto it soon. BUT the good news is that I started it Friday 1908.02, and I am already on page 166.
I have made more time for reading, which is how I finished Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan in a month after taking like six months to complete the last book that I read.
So Spark was out, and I eliminated The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter the same way. Though I do not yet have the audio, I could get it.
That left the others, I know neither Brin nor Sterling's novels are available as audio, but I am not ready to read those. The Arne Dahl book may be available on audio, but I want a crime read right now, so that's the pick.
https://news.yahoo.com/journalist-former-espn-host-jemele-130322268.html
NEW YORK (AP) — Jemele Hill, the ESPN host who departed the sports network a year after tweeting that President Donald Trump was a white supremacist, has a book deal.
Hill's memoir will be published in 2021, Henry Holt and Company announced Tuesday. The book, Hill's first, is currently untitled.
"I'm excited about the opportunity to stretch myself and grow," Hill said in a statement issued through her publisher. "I hope that by sharing some very personal experiences in this memoir — things I've never shared publicly before — people will have a better understanding of who I am. I also hope by sharing my story, people realize their circumstances don't have to dictate their capabilities or contributions."
We’ll take a #WorldSeries MVP with a side of fries. Thank you @benzobrist18 for providing a fun pre-game meal to the #SBCubs! @McDonalds pic.twitter.com/tvuOl23F5q— South Bend Cubs (@SBCubs) August 3, 2019
https://sports.yahoo.com/ben-zobrist-provided-pre-game-010717896.html?src=rss
It a really nice gesture from Zobrist. You see this from time to time when well-known veterans get sent on rehab assignments in the minors. Major leaguers, with their guaranteed contracts and minimum $555,000 salaries, do a nice thing for the minor leaguers who don’t have those luxuries. Yu Darvish, for example, bought steak and lobster for South Bend on a rehab assignment last year.
It would be nice if minor leaguers didn’t have to rely on the kindness of veteran players and locals to afford to eat. Zobrist essentially subsidized the Cubs’ frugality. The Cubs — valued by Forbes at $3.1 billion earlier this year — should be paying for that spread, not one of its players. Let’s not forget that Major League Baseball lobbied to have language in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 changed so that minor league players could not qualify as seasonal workers, which would mean they are not owed a minimum wage and overtime pay. With more take-home pay, minor leaguers could afford to go to grocery stores and, for example, buy the ingredients to make a salad or just buy a pre-made salad.
Due to relative cheapness and ubiquity, unhealthy fast food is a major part of minor leaguers’ diets. One would think a billion-dollar business like a major league team would want to ensure that its investments — minor league players — have the highest chance of yielding big returns by providing them healthy food options. Alas, that is not the case for most organizations.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27323068/five-years-javier-baez-skills-smiles-swag
Asked why Baez might be the biggest star on the team, Bryant -- a star in his own right -- said this:
"The energy. The persona. The flashiness and ease he goes about things. People love that stuff. The tags and the baserunning. He has an eye for the camera. He's so unique. No one is like him."
That, more than anything, is what attracts even casual fans to Baez.
"He's my favorite, for sure," said Cubs fan Jill Oldham, from Highland Park. "I love watching him. And I love his smile."
Oldham isn't a season-ticket holder or even someone who watches or attends that many games. But she'll stop what she's doing when "El Mago" is doing his thing. And Baez's smile tells you everything you need to know about his attitude toward the game.
"It's fun," Baez said. "It's fun everyone knows you and expects big things from you. I don't let that get into my game. I have to play my game, and when I make mistakes, it happens. Just play the game hard."
https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/08/06/014220/best-milky-way-map-yet-confirms-our-galaxy-is-warped-and-twisted
Best Milky Way Map Yet Confirms Our Galaxy Is Warped and Twisted (cnet.com)
Posted by BeauHD from the galactic-maps dept.Astronomers from the U.S. and Europe have put together a new 3D model of the galaxy based on the distance between stars and found that our galaxy is warped and twisted. "I'd say that it is shaped like a Pringle," said study co-author Radek Poleski, an astronomer at Ohio State University in Columbus. CNET reports:The research, published Thursday in the journal Science, draws on a population of stars known as the Cepheids, which are pulsing, massive, young stars that shine brighter than the sun. Using data from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), a sky survey run by the University of Warsaw out of Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, astronomers were able to pick out 2,431 of the Cepheids through the thick gas and dust of the Milky Way and use them to make a map of the galaxy. Dorota Skowron, lead author on the study and astronomer with Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, says the OGLE project observed the galactic disk of the Milky Way for six years, taking 206,726 images of the sky containing 1,055,030,021 stars. Within, they found the population of Cepheids, which are particularly useful for plotting a map because their brightness fluctuates over time.
Using that fluctuation, the team produced a 3D model of the galaxy, confirming work that previously demonstrated the galaxy was flared at its edges. They were also able to determine the age of the Cepheid population, with younger stars located closer to the center of the galactic disk and older stars positioned farther away, near the edge. By simulating star formation in the early Milky Way, the team showed how the galaxy might have evolved over the last 175 million years, with bursts of star formation in the spiral arms resulting in the current distribution of Cepheids ranging from 20 million to 260 million years old.
https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/
Why Can't Programmers.. Program?
I was incredulous when I read this observation from Reginald Braithwaite:Like me, the author is having trouble with the fact that 199 out of 200 applicants for every programming job can't write code at all. I repeat: they can't write any code whatsoever.
The author he's referring to is Imran, who is evidently turning away lots of programmers who can't write a simple program:
After a fair bit of trial and error I've discovered that people who struggle to code don't just struggle on big problems, or even smallish problems (i.e. write a implementation of a linked list). They struggle with tiny problems.So I set out to develop questions that can identify this kind of developer and came up with a class of questions I call "FizzBuzz Questions" named after a game children often play (or are made to play) in schools in the UK. An example of a Fizz-Buzz question is the following:Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print "Fizz" instead of the number and for the multiples of five print "Buzz". For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print "FizzBuzz".Most good programmers should be able to write out on paper a program which does this in a under a couple of minutes. Want to know something scary? The majority of comp sci graduates can't. I've also seen self-proclaimed senior programmers take more than 10-15 minutes to write a solution.
A surprisingly large fraction of applicants, even those with masters' degrees and PhDs in computer science, fail during interviews when asked to carry out basic programming tasks. For example, I've personally interviewed graduates who can't answer "Write a loop that counts from 1 to 10" or "What's the number after F in hexadecimal?" Less trivially, I've interviewed many candidates who can't use recursion to solve a real problem. These are basic skills; anyone who lacks them probably hasn't done much programming.Speaking on behalf of software engineers who have to interview prospective new hires, I can safely say that we're tired of talking to candidates who can't program their way out of a paper bag. If you can successfully write a loop that goes from 1 to 10 in every language on your resume, can do simple arithmetic without a calculator, and can use recursion to solve a real problem, you're already ahead of the pack!
Between Reginald, Dan, and Imran, I'm starting to get a little worried. I'm more than willing to cut freshly minted software developers slack at the beginning of their career. Everybody has to start somewhere. But I am disturbed and appalled that any so-called programmer would apply for a job without being able to write the simplest of programs. That's a slap in the face to anyone who writes software for a living.
The vast divide between those who can program and those who cannot program is well known. I assumed anyone applying for a job as a programmer had already crossed this chasm. Apparently this is not a reasonable assumption to make. Apparently, FizzBuzz style screening is required to keep interviewers from wasting their time interviewing programmers who can't program.
Lest you think the FizzBuzz test is too easy – and it is blindingly, intentionally easy – a commenter to Imran's post notes its efficacy:
I'd hate interviewers to dismiss [the FizzBuzz] test as being too easy - in my experience it is genuinely astonishing how many candidates are incapable of the simplest programming tasks.
Maybe it's foolish to begin interviewing a programmer without looking at their code first. At Vertigo, we require a code sample before we even proceed to the phone interview stage. And our on-site interview includes a small coding exercise. Nothing difficult, mind you, just a basic exercise to go through the motions of building a small application in an hour or so. Although there have been one or two notable flame-outs, for the most part, this strategy has worked well for us. It lets us focus on actual software engineering in the interview without resorting to tedious puzzle questions.
It's a shame you have to do so much pre-screening to have the luxury of interviewing programmers who can actually program. It'd be funny if it wasn't so damn depressing. I'm no fan of certification, but it does make me wonder if Steve McConnell was on to something with all his talk of creating a true profession of software engineering.
A WHOLE BUNCH OF TWITTER
So much to mourn in the passing of our greatest American writer.— eileen chengyin chow (@chowleen) August 6, 2019
Remembering Toni Morrison by rereading her today, and by this wonderful picture of her and Angela Davis circa 1974. pic.twitter.com/dbRnF90boP
And to add: this program was aimed at young women, but the majority of students seriously interested in making comics right now ARE girls. Across the board. Summer classes, degree programs, serious amateur creators, young professionals. (And a TON of nonbinary folks, too!) https://t.co/O48Btw4r2x— Dylan Meconis (@dmeconis) August 6, 2019
I'm sure he's just trying to get attention, so I'm blacking out his ID, but I suggest none of these women need to know who Jack Kirby, Alan Moore or Geoff Johns were to make comics. Rose O'Neill, Ethel Hays, and Nell Brinkley made comics before these men were born. pic.twitter.com/iE9CCOBE8C— Colleen Doran (@ColleenDoran) August 6, 2019
Just finished reading the short story Late Returns by @joe_hill and I absolutely adored it. It made my librarian heart sing! pic.twitter.com/3Je694GqYc— Pam (@cavecibum) August 6, 2019
This Toni Morrison quote changed my life. pic.twitter.com/oLHbqolz25— Aisha Saeed (@aishacs) August 6, 2019
Yesterday was the birthday of America's 44th President, @BarackObama , age 58.— Bill Sienkiewicz (@sinKEVitch) August 5, 2019
Feels like a lifetime since we had an intelligent dignified leader; one who didn't embarrass us on the global stage every single day. A man who actually loves America.
Happy Birthday, Mr. President. pic.twitter.com/hX1BxZXb96
Toni Morrison was a national treasure, as good a storyteller, as captivating, in person as she was on the page. Her writing was a beautiful, meaningful challenge to our conscience and our moral imagination. What a gift to breathe the same air as her, if only for a while. pic.twitter.com/JG7Jgu4p9t— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 6, 2019
What Portland is talking about
On a more somber note, the author and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison died yesterday — but the words she shared at Portland State University 44 years ago won’t be forgotten any time soon.
Quotes from Morrison’s speech in 1975 have resurfaced everywhere from the Washington Post to Elle, and PSU shared the full two-hour audio recording yesterday on Facebook.
In one especially memorable segment, Morrison described racism as “a con game” that obscured what racial bigotry is actually about.
“Nobody really thought that black people were inferior,” Morrison said. “They only hoped that they would behave that way. They only hoped that black people would hear it all and weep or kill or resign or become one.”
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay transcribed Morrison’s full remarks in Portland about racism and the power of distraction, and they’re well worth a read.
Science has a lot of questions about the causes of gun violence and how to stop it—but scientists have some answers, too. https://t.co/NiYhbwD1fB— Adam Rogers (@jetjocko) August 6, 2019
Well? ARE you trying to be like Hitler? Answer Dr. Mid-Nite's question you little shits https://t.co/uJITmKT7fL— Parker (@jeffparker) August 5, 2019
Incredibly powerful statement from El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles. pic.twitter.com/Ro1A2DSFkW— Bob Moore (@BobMooreNews) August 4, 2019
Here is an expert on white power movements with why it is important to give context and make connections when you have a extremist attack. https://t.co/JMPwpExnBV— Lulu Garcia-Navarro (@lourdesgnavarro) August 4, 2019
🤔 You can’t have a non profit with this mission statement then open your doors to Trump. https://t.co/sNBWfEXvLn pic.twitter.com/nNkRf2wJep— Kenny Stills (@KSTiLLS) August 7, 2019
https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/brands-co-opting-hot-girl-summer
Straight Capitalism, No ChaserBrands Are Butting into “Hot Girl Summer” to Make a Quick Buck
Megan Thee Stallion is experiencing career momentum that other artists only dream of: After several of her freestyles went viral in 2017, she released Make It Hot, followed by 2018’s Tina Snow, (which featured one of her biggest songs “Big Ol’ Freak”), and, in May 2019, she dropped Fever, the first mixtape from a woman rapper to reach the top 10 of Billboard’s Top 200 chart. And while her musical influences, including Lil’ Kim and Juicy J, resound throughout her mixtapes, her songs are still tailored to suit her specific musical taste. She’s a self-defined “hot girl,” or an unbothered and carefree woman who unapologetically chases and secures bags, and her songs are sex-positive, full of confidence, and include catchy lyrics that are perfect for Instagram captions.
Megan introduced her alter ego “Hot Girl Meg” on Instagram on May 8 as a part of the roll out for Fever’s first single, “Realer.” In “Realer,” Megan defines some of her hot-girl tendencies for listeners, the tenants of which include keeping it real, saying fuck the critics, and getting money. The meaning has evolved to include wearing white toe-nail polish, drinking brown liquor, and indulging in girl’s nights—and its caught on in a major way. When summer 2019 rolled around—earlier and hotter than normal, thanks to global warming—Megan declared it the “hot-girl summer” in a tweet: “Being a Hot Girl is about being unapologetically YOU, having fun, being confident, living YOUR truth, being the life of the party etc.”
Her rapidly growing fanbases on Twitter (where she has more than 980,000 followers) and Instagram (where she also shared the tweet with her 3.7 million followers) immediately joined the movement. Big-time Black Gen-Z voices like Jordyn Woods and Chloe X Halle along with ordinary Black girls around the world used a combination of selfies, captions, and videos to pledge their allegiance to Megan’s season of carefree fun. (The hashtag #HotGirlSummer has been used more than 200,000 times on Instagram alone.) As the phrase gained visibility, though, the twisted hand of capitalism has brought an onslaught of brands attempting to commodify Megan Thee Stallion’s lifestyle.
Being a Hot Girl is about being unapologetically YOU, having fun, being confident,living YOUR truth , being the life of the party etc— HOT GIRL MEG (@theestallion) July 17, 2019
Both companies’ attempts to cash in on “hot-girl summer” continued an urgent conversation about brands co-opting Black lingo without treating Black girls and women well. In late 2015, a Wendy’s in Colorado came under fire for including a racist note in a young Black girl’s kid’s meal. The child’s mother, Manige Osowski, returned to the restaurant to speak with a manager, which led to management confiscating the card and ripping it up. She was then escorted out by police officers. The two employees who slipped the playing card into the child’s meal were quickly fired and Wendy’s apologized to Osowki and her daughter, but the blanketed apology wasn’t enough for Osowski; she asked Wendy’s to directly apologize to her daughter. “While I do understand that two individuals were responsible for this, there’s a systemic problem that this isn’t addressed to the people it hurt,” Osowski told Fox News.
Maybelline also hasn’t been historically kind to Black women. In 2016, the cosmetics company released a 12-shade foundation line that didn’t include hues for darker-skinned Black women. (To make matters worse, the first six shades were the only ones released in the United Kingdom.) Like so many other companies, Maybelline’s failure to account for darker skin alienated Black women buyers, who, according to a 2018 Nielson report, spend “nearly nine times [more] than our non-Black counterparts on ethnic hair and beauty products,” but also made the relationship between cosmetics lines and Black buyers even more difficult. “Even though I am annoyed by this[,] I am not surprised, this is an issue that plagues any woman who is not white,” beauty and fashion blogger Nadia Gomos wrote on her blog in February 2016. “Getting anything to suit your skin tone from global beauty brands is almost impossible…They always make the same excuses saying there is no market for the product[,] which is just not true. There is a huge population of Black women in the United Kingdom.”
If you don’t support Black women, give them access, and make them feel seen in the products you’re peddling, then you shouldn’t adopt their intraracial phrases to line your pockets.
“The year is 2080. @LilNasX asks us to be featured on his 200th remix of Old Town Road. The music video is shot in space as he floats in on a horse dripping in Body Lava. Hot girl summer has prevailed for 60 seasons in a row. Life is good,” Fenty Beauty, a Black-owned beauty and high-fashion business that has been intentionally inclusive, recently tweeted. Noticeably, there hasn’t been any backlash; Fenty Beauty may be one of the only brands that has the range to endorse “hot-girl summer” without it feeling appropriative because it affords its platform to both rising and already iconic Black figures, has made Black current events a part of it’s social content (a Black woman, Aja Jade, is on their social team), and Megan Thee Stallion has been publicly vocal about being an avid user of Fenty Beauty. All of the elements make their reference to Megan Thee Stallion’s now-viral concept a bit more natural, mutually beneficial, and not solely rooted in one-sided financial gain. Both Rihanna and Fenty Beauty have given Black women space to be their authentic selves, which is really what “hot-girl summer” is all about.
If you don’t support Black women, give them access, and make them feel seen in the products you’re peddling, then you shouldn’t adopt their intraracial phrases to line your pockets. While it’s nice to see Megan Thee Stallion being mentioned by big-name companies, knowing that these same companies have had racist incidents in the past and are directly benefiting from Megan’s work without paying her for it dampens the celebration. “Real hot girl shit” is knowing when to let Black women enjoy things without feeling the need to insert yourself into the conversation for a dollar.
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Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you, Mom.
I miss you so very much, Mom.
Talk to you soon, Mom.
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- Days ago = 1496 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1908.08 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27 and 1907.04) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. Dropped "Talk to you tomorrow, Mom" in the sign off on 1907.04. Should have done it sooner as this feature is no longer daily.
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