Depends if you find it sexier to submit to the will of charismatic evil or to be overwhelmed by animalistic power. And that’s not a decision I can make for you.
i am totally going to come across as a boomer in this post but as an engineer it’s common sense to not build systems with a single point of failure. and i’m starting to realize that our usage of the smart phone is exactly that. a single point of failure. the calling/texting is the implied function of the smartphone, which is fine. that’s what it’s built for. but nowadays we don’t think to keep a physical map or atlas or gps unit in our car because our phone has google maps. we don’t keep address books anymore because it’s all stored in our contacts. i serve customers who no longer carry a wallet/physical card because it’s all on their phone. this is literally a single point of failure. if you lose or break your phone when you are in a foreign place you are fucking screwed. maybe you’re still screwed even in your home town because so many people have become accustomed to using a smart phone to take them anywhere.
For the love of god if your native language is different from the majority language of the country you’re living in don’t raise your baby speaking the local language. Either have each parent speak to them in a different language or only speak your native language at home. The kid will be okay. Get your native language in their head. You may think you’re helping them in the long term giving them the local language but no. When they’re an adult they’ll wonder why you never taught them your language. They can and will learn the local language in school. They’ll be okay. Produce more bilingual children. They are good for society.
And also, being bilingual helps with executive function. Not all kids have to reach the same language development at the same time as everyone else, it’s okay to have your kid speaking in more complex sentences a month or so later than the “normal” kids.
I’ve studied the science linguistically but I’d like to put that aside. PLEASE teach your kid the native language. It can go so much deeper than “wondering why”, it can create a schism-like pain when you know there’s a heritage you have but all access has been cut off. Yes, ALL. If you’re fortunate enough to visit the country of your native language but dont teach your kid, they will be miserable, quiet, and alone, and go through difficult phases of hating that heritage because the ladders were cut for them.
And in the United States, this starts young. I’ve seen teachers tell a Kazakhstani parent that she should tell her kid to speak English INSTEAD. The kid was 2 and a half. A friend’s five year old told him “Dad this is America we dont speak Chinese”. If you don’t teach your kid your native language this country will wrest all pride and heritage from them by force. An occasional visit or two to the home country will not stop the bleeding.
The pain of not speaking the language of my heritage is something I don’t wish on anyone. And that language is one of the most spoken in the world, imagine if your native language is rarer. What happens? What happens?
I miss when library books used to have little paper pockets inside with a list of all the people who borrowed it and when… I hate that this is now exclusive knowledge of librarians. I do care that a miss Mariana borrowed this book in 1985 and then Dario in 1997. They’re my brothers and sisters
but really, there’s a million reasons why it’s an issue for users and staff of the public library to have immediate access to a record of who has borrowed a specific item and when.
and that’s not even about keeping the information “privileged” to the library staff, these days they don’t even keep a digital record of an item’s history of borrowers; once you return a book, there isn’t a list of everyone thats ever taken that book out that your name gets added to (though they probably take a tally of how many times it is checked out for circulation statistics).
i think the card system is a remnant of a culture that could only exist in the world before the internet as it exists today, where this identifying kind of information wasn’t always readily at your fingertips, even for those at the “information professional” level.
don’t get me wrong here, i do understand the nostalgia factor to it as being part of a different time, but i think it’s always important to understand why this kind of system has its flaws and has been (at least in north america) taken out of practice
bear in mind that US public libraries spent most of the past twenty years fighting off lawsuits that they were prohibited from disclosing to the public because when 9/11 happened the federal government wanted a list of every person who read certain books and the librarians had a really bad feeling about where that kind of policy would end up going, for some reason.
not keeping the records in the first place is a way for the libraries to protect themselves when they stand up for your privacy.
Ive noticed recently that my generation has… no concept of what the various economic classes actually are anymore. I talk to my friends and they genuinely say things like “at least i can afford a middle class lifestyle with this job because i dont need a roommate for my one bedroom apartment” and its like… oughh
You guys, middle class doesnt mean “a stable enough rented roof over your head,” it means “a house you bought, a nice car or two, the ability to support a family, and take days off and vacations every year with income to spare for retirement savings and rainy days.” If all you have is a rented apartment without a roommate and a used car, you’re lower class. That’s lower class.
And i cant help but wonder if this is why you get kids on tumblr lumping in doctors and actors into their “eat the rich” rhetoric: economic amnesia has blinded you to what the class divides actually are. The real middle class lifestyle has become so unattainable within a system that relies upon its existence that theyve convinced you that those who can still reach it are the elites while your extreme couponing to afford your groceries is the new normal.
Middle class is being able to live 3 months comfortably without a paying job.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health released a full report with names, ages and IDs of those who were killed – maybe at least in part as a fuck you to Western media and the US president who suddenly cast doubt on the number of fatalities. Over 7000 people died. Whole families wiped out forever. It’s beyond comprehension. May their memory be eternal.
