Cos

DNS registrar recommendations?

cos — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 17:21:38 GMT

Looking for a place to transfer my domain registrations to.

Years ago I transferred most of my domain registrations to Google Domains, because I had already transferred my DNS zones from my own nameservers to Google Cloud DNS, and it's been convenient to have the domain registrations in the same system. But Google Domains is moving everyone to Squarespace and shutting their domain registration service down, so I will no longer have that advantage, and might as well look around. I could stay with Squarespace, but no particular reason to.

Google Domains charges $12/year/domain for all of my .com, .org, and .net domains; most other places seem to charge more like $24+/year. Friends and coworkers have suggested a couple of places that don't charge more than Google - namecheap and porkbun.

If you have any domains, what do you use and recommend, and why?

I'm not looking for other services, like hosting my email, or web sites, or primary DNS. Just domain registration. It's okay if the same company provides those other services, but if they expect most of their users to combine a domain registration with other stuff like that, that may be a drawback because their user interface may make it easy to accidentally have it take over my primary DNS without me intending to, or just be annoying to deal with.

Crossposting no longer working, come to Dreamwidth

cos — Thu, 18 May 2023 11:58:45 GMT

[Re-posting this as a reminder, since I haven't posted here since I first posted this over a year ago]

When I moved from LJ to dreamwidth after LJ adopted rules against political and "activist" speech (probably forced to do so by the Russian government), I set it up to crosspost automatically so everything I posted on dreamwidth came here too. That worked for years. But in the past few months, it stopped working, because LJ stopped cooperating with dreamwidth and is no longer letting dreamwidth post here. More complete explanation at https://dw-maintenance.dreamwidth.org/86004.html

As a result, my last few posts have been on dreamwidth only, except for one or two that I separately sent to LJ as well. I'm not going to continue doing that, so I guess this means goodbye to LJ for me. If you want to read my posts, and you're still here on LJ, come on over to dreamwidth.org.

My journal there is https://cos.dreamwidth.org/ which I'm sure doesn't surprise anyone.

Crossposting no longer working, come to Dreamwidth

cos — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 15:24:18 GMT

When I moved from LJ to dreamwidth after LJ adopted rules against political and "activist" speech (probably forced to do so by the Russian government), I set it up to crosspost automatically so everything I posted on dreamwidth came here too. That worked for years. But in the past few months, it stopped working, because LJ stopped cooperating with dreamwidth and is no longer letting dreamwidth post here. More complete explanation at https://dw-maintenance.dreamwidth.org/86004.html

As a result, my last few posts have been on dreamwidth only, except for one or two that I separately sent to LJ as well. I'm not going to continue doing that, so I guess this means goodbye to LJ for me. If you want to read my posts, and you're still here on LJ, come on over to dreamwidth.org.

My journal there is https://cos.dreamwidth.org/ which I'm sure doesn't surprise anyone.

SIFT

cos — Sun, 27 Feb 2022 16:43:19 GMT

This twitter thread describes a very good method for dealing with and sharing online information about breaking news, very relevant now with the invasion of Ukraine but it's relevant all the time: https://twitter.com/holden/status/1496889691936727042

S - Stop, and consider whether you know what you're seeing/reading and what you know about it.

I - Investigate the source, with an eye towards a) is it a source likely to know about what they're reporting, and b) does this source have incentives to check themselves and get things right?

F - Find better coverage. Search for others reporting the same thing. Look for sources you know have credibility.

T - Trace the origin of the information. Sometimes several articles report the same thing, but when you read you find they all attribute it to the same source, and that initial source may have unknown reliability.

Click the link to read Mike Caulfield's thread summarizing it, or here for more: https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/

Jorts the Cat

cos — Sat, 18 Dec 2021 15:17:54 GMT

You've probably seen this by now, but it has come to my attention that not everyone has!

Read the story of Jorts in two parts, here:

AITA for “perpetuating ethnic stereotypes” about Jorts?

UPDATE: aita for perpetuating stereotypes about Jorts?

A of my favorite Jorts the Cat bits from the net since then...

Time's cat of the year? https://twitter.com/no_dead_weight/status/1470929434962243590

An animal shelter put up this sign: https://twitter.com/BARC_Houston/status/1471255841135341571

Jorts sea shanty: https://twitter.com/JortsTheCat/status/1471953638176137219

"Billie Jean implies the existence of Billie Jorts, who is not my lover." https://twitter.com/LShalott/status/1471925138958520328 - someone added some lyrics: https://twitter.com/Macchupeach/status/1471947788414029827

In the comments, add some of your favorite Jorts the Cat content?

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Moderna booster

cos — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 15:45:14 GMT

When Ceila scheduled her Moderna booster shot and texted me about it, her phone keyboard or speech-to-text rendered it as "Madonna booster". So that's what we've been calling it ever since. I'm going to get my Madonna booster this week. Yes I know it wouldn't make any difference to boost Madonna with Pfizer instead, but this happens to be what the nearest CVS is offerring.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Oh really, AT&T?

cos — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 15:08:59 GMT

I've had AT&T cell service on my iPads since I got my first iPad more than a decade ago. It was simple, you sign up from the iPad cell data settings menu with an email address and password, and it charges your card once a month, pre-pay. When I travelled internationally, I could also buy 30 days of international data, logging in to AT&T from the same settings menu on my iPad. I'd choose how much data, which date it should start, and it would charge my card and I'd get cell data in whatever country.

When I was about to go out of the country for the first time in a couple of years, this summer, I couldn't find that option in the menus! I made several phone calls to mostly-clueless AT&T support people, most of whom weren't even aware that AT&T could be used on an iPad, and didn't know how to deal with service that wasn't on a cell phone. Each time I called I would have to get transferred at least once but usually multiple times before getting to someone who could even look up my current account. My question was "how do I buy international data" but they were used to directing me to use a login on their web site that apparently is not available for iPad prepaid customers, and also were mostly not aware that buying international data was something AT&T offerred. Some tried to convince me that I can't have ever done that, even though I've done it many times over the years. Fail #1

Eventually I found someone who knew more, and after some research they found an answer: AT&T had discontinued the international data option for iPad pre-paid data plans, in spring 2021. After having it for at least a decade, they just quietly got rid of it and didn't bother to tell anyone, not even their own customer service. Fail #2

Someone else, after another couple of transfers, told me that to get international data I would need to change to an AT&T post-paid account, and that it would need to be on a new SIM - they could not put a postpaid account on the Apple SIM that came with my iPad. They could mail me a new SIM, but at this point my flight was the next day, so they said I need to go to an AT&T store to get a new SIM with a postpaid plan. Okay, fine, there's one a few blocks from my house in Cambridge, so I went.

There's a whole other adventure in there, which involves going to two different AT&T stores, an AT&T employee waiting on hold for more than an hour on the same AT&T customer service phone system that I had been on hold for, and more. Eventually they had to create a "business" account for me to be able to get cell service on an iPad without also getting a phone (my phone is on T-Mobile). I'll skip Fails #3-#6 (at least) in getting that account set up, or this post would get way too long :)

Skipping to the end, I was at an AT&T store with with my iPad, they had replaced the SIM and my new postpaid account was activated. I asked them to cancel my old prepay account, and told them it was due to be charged for another month the following day, so I'd like to cancel it now. They checked on their computers and told me that actually that charge for next month had already gone through, but it would be refunded later.

Indeed, the charge showed up on my card on August 15th, the day after I flew out of the country. I expected it would take a while for the refund. What I didn't expect was to be charged again on Sep 15th. Fail #7. Since I had been on the hotspot plan most recently, each monthly charge was $55, so now up to $110 for two extra months of a plan I had supposedly cancelled.

I called AT&T again a few times over the next few weeks. Nobody could locate my account. Nobody could confirm it had been cancelled. Nobody could figure out why I was being charged, nor could they give me a refund for a charge they couldn't locate in the first place. Of course I had the same problem as back in August, in which most AT&T customer service people don't seem to know iPad data plans exist and are managed separately from all other AT&T wireless plans, but even when transferred to the people who seemed to know how to work with iPad data plans, they could find no account for me. Fail #who knows.

Since you sign up for an iPad account with email address and password, without ever being asked for a name, they tried to locate it by phone number (which I had fortunately written down, even though it was never usable as an actual phone number since this is a table). Several people told me that since they could find nothing under that phone number, that meant my account must have been cancelled - but could not say why I was never refunded for August and why I was charged again in September.

Eventually I gave up and reported both charges as fraud to my credit card. I got back a nice automated note from my online banking system telling me the charges were removed, they would try to contact the merchant, and if the merchant said the charges were legitimate they might ask me for more info or put the charges back on my account. Ha! Good luck getting AT&T to even confirm they had made those charges in the first place, let alone that they were somehow linked to me!

Of course, the bank never asked me for more information, nor did they put the charges back on my account. Some poor bank employees probably had to try to contact AT&T about it, and I'm sorry for their pain, but I'm sure they didn't get any answers.

On October 15h, I got a notice from my bank: AT&T had tried to charge me again for $55. They had denied the charge, presumably because it matched the charges I had already reported as fraudulent. Cool. AT&T Fail #even more.

And now comes November 15th, and the reason I was reminded about it again this week and inspired to post.

From: AT&T Customer Care for Wireless <att-service.sbp.387627327@emaildl.att-mail.com>

DEAR VALUED CUSTOMER,

Account Login: [my email address, removed from this post to avoid web crawlers]
Your iPad's Cellular Data Number: 617-852-3540

Your data account above has been canceled either at your request or due to inactivity on the account.
To re-subscribe, please visit SETTINGS > CELLULAR DATA on your iPad.

Thank you for choosing AT&T.

PLEASE DON'T HIT REPLY

(Yes, that number matches the number my iPad had when it was on the pre-paid data plan. The same number I was giving when I called customer service a number of times in late September.)

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

FedEx is the worst

cos — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 23:08:53 GMT

Another installment in a long series of FedEx failures over many years...

According to tracking, my replacement macbook arrived at a FedEx facility in Seattle on Wednesday evening. However it was scheduled for delivery Friday by 1pm, not Thursday. Oh well, it's not an overnight or 2-day package, I guess that's fine.

Friday morning, their tracking was still staying that, but shortly after 1pm, I got an update notification that it was delayed and would be delivered Monday by 1pm. When I checked tracking, the new entry for that day was "not scheduled for delivery", whatever that means.

Monday morning, today, it still said it would be delivered today by 1pm, and later in the morning it said it was out for delivery. And then, another update that my package is delayed, and now their tracking system says it's because "the recipient's business is closed for a holiday". WTF? This is a residential apartment building, and although there is a business in the building directly next to our front door, it's a dentist's office that has been lit and obviously open since early morning.

First call to FedEx, customer service says they're going to transfer me to customer service. Second person takes my tracking number, and oops, suddenly I'm on their post-call automated survey asking me to rate the quality of service I got.

Second call to FedEx, this time I get a customer service person who doesn't need to transfer me. She tells me she'll send a message to have the driver come "back" (I say that in quotes because I don't think they ever came here in the first place) to "re"-attempt.

Early afternoon, another notification, and FedEx tracking now says the item was returned to their local facility at 1:24pm.

Third call to FexEx ends up similar to the first - I start talking to someone and before I can even give them my whole tracking number, I'm on the automated post-call survey.

Fourth call to FedEx, I get to talk to someone new, and she says she'll ask to have a driver deliver it. She promises I'll get an update within 15 minutes.

Hours later, fifth call to FedEx after not having received an update, and I get a customer service person who tells me they will not try to deliver today because it's not a priority item.

...

Although I try to remember to tell any business who's sending me something to not use FedEx, and try to choose non-FedEx shipping options when I order online, sometimes I don't have a choice :( Apparently Apple always ships with FedEx? They didn't ask me. FedEx is by far the worst at delivering packages, consistently, at several different places I've lived, on opposite coasts. Avoid them if you can.

Update: Tuesday, it was again marked "business closed". A few more calls caused them to open a "case" that unlike the previous day's case, was transferred to someone who actually called the local FedEx location a couple of times. They eventually tracked down that it was not even sent out that day at all, and that nobody could explain why it was scanned as "business closed". They promised to send out out the next day (that is, today). We'll see.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

We are hiring a lot more tech people, want to work here?

cos — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 13:47:15 GMT

The department I work for is looking for software developers, cloud engineers, SREs, product managers, and probably a bunch of other roles I haven't thought of. If you may want to come here (virtually), let me know and we can talk about what it's like, and I could refer you.

I've been working at McGraw Hill since early 2020. A couple of years before that, it was basically an educational textbook company, with a software division on the side doing online education software. When I joined was right around the time that digital products were passing 50% of the company's revenue, and now it's getting closer to ed-tech company that still does a bit of textbook publishing on the side.

The digital products division, which I work for, is explanding a lot over the next year, and we have a lot of openings. It's a pretty nice place to work. It doesn't pay at the same tier as Google-Apple-Amazon-Facbook, but if you have the background and skills to work at one of those companies, this is a place where you can be an opinion leader and make a big difference, and with less effort. It's a more relaxed job, yet still exciting, and with great coworkers. It's exciting because the digital products leadership has been really good, and thoughtfully shifting the whole organization from its old traditional dev vs. ops vs. IT practices and software on dedicated servers in data centers, to a more cooperative developer+SRE way of working, with software running in containers on cloud, and etc. I've seen a lot of change in this direction in the past year and a half, including reorganizations, and it has been done much more smoothly and thoughtfully and well than I've seen at most organizations I've been at. It's also exciting because there's more to go, and I can shape or drive big parts of it - and so can anyone else here who wants to.

Tech-wise, it's mostly on AWS with some things still in older data centers, lots of javascript front ends, some mobile apps, many back end APIs and pipelines in a mix of Go, Java, Python, and a smattering of other things, newer services on either kubernetes or ECS or serverless (lambda), and a variety of acquisitions at different stages of integration.

A lot of these jobs are full remote. The main offices are in New York City and Columbus, OH. Engineering had been mainly in Seattle and Boston but they decided to close both of those offices and convert all the Seattle and Boston based employees to full remote, and my group also has people in Germany and Argentina and other faraway places. Most of my coworkers are near Boston, NYC, Columbus, or Seattle, but I think we're open to hiring from just about anywhere now.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Paid in full

cos — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 23:58:53 GMT

I just got today, in the mail, my "paid in full" papers for a mortgage I refinanced (and thus paid off in full) in August 2019.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Job opening in my group

cos — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 14:59:35 GMT

The group I'm in has a job opening for Lead Site Reliability Engineer (SRE). This is to replace someone I worked with who left to join a company his friends recruited him to, so I will probably work with whoever takes this job.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Our social media

cos — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 17:22:20 GMT

Just copying this from Twitter and leaving it here...

https://twitter.com/lmansley/status/1425261951106617346

Just learned there is a YA book coming out soon in which a teen looks for clues about her birth mother in HER DADâs LIVEJOURNAL. I donât know if Iâve ever felt older than in this very moment.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Room available in Central Sq again

cos — Sat, 07 Aug 2021 22:18:24 GMT

I posted elsewhere but forgot to post here too!

Know anyone who wants a small inexpensive room in Central Square near the T? My small bedroom is available again, but Ceila and I are here less than half the time, so whoever stays here would get the apartment to themselves a lot of the time. I posted on craigslist for $600/month with Internet included, though if it's someone I already know and trust I would go a bit lower.

I'm probably going to give it to one of the people who responded on craigslist very soon, unless someone I know (or their friend) is interested.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

May 20th

cos — Thu, 20 May 2021 22:43:46 GMT

Earlier this week I intended to make a post this morning noting that it is now two weeks after Ceila and I got Moderna shot #2. That is still true, but it turns out today is also the day my father died. Both are things I have known were coming for about the same amount of time.

In April 2014 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We thought he had a year, or two. He got the Whipple operation, which can often give people a couple more years. He got 7.

He completely beat the cancer, and it never came back, but the whipple procedure has some damaging effects that hardly ever make themselves felt because so few people live this long after having it. Last year, one of those after-effects acted up in spring and into summer and we thought we'd lose him, but he cheated death again. I spent 4 months in Boston and returned to Seattle when it looked like they had it beaten and we'd got some more years. But another, related problem kicked in this April.

I learned about it shortly after Ceila and I got the first Moderna shot in early April. When we came back from that adventure, I wrote my parents to tell them about it, and that I'd come out to visit them after full immunity in late May. A few days later, they got in touch to tell me that late May might be too late, if the hospital couldn't figure out some treatment option. I flew out in April instead. The night before my flight is when we learned that there were no options, and this was it. When I arrived, we didn't know if he'd have a week, or a month, just that it was very unlikely to be much more than a month.

He stuck around for three more weeks of mostly coherent and able to hang out in the living room and have conversations. Many friends visited. Two sets of family from Israel visited. He made it to his 79th birthday, Friday. Monday evening, it still seemed like he might even make it to June, and we were still having conversations. Then on Tuesday night his condition took a dive, and he lasted less than two more days. He had reached his goals of getting to see everyone important to him in the last few weeks, and he did not want to linger.

...

A good friend just flew out of town yesterday to spend time with her mother who is on hospice care, also from pancreatic cancer.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Know anyone who wants a room in Central Square?

cos — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 14:17:28 GMT

A couple of rooms available one of my 3-bedroom apartments in Central Square, Cambridge, for the summer.

It's just a couple of blocks from Mass Ave and the T, but on a very quiet block. Shared laundry in the basement.

One of my tenants on the 2nd floor wants to stay for the summer, after their current lease ends on May 31st. I told her I'm happy to extend for 3 months, if she and whoever she finds to sublet will pay the full rent, so she's going to do it if she can find people to take the other two rooms (or one person to take both, or whatever arrangement). Currently, the other two rooms are paying $980/month, so it'll probably be approximately that.

If you know anyone interested, I can put them in touch with her.

(And if she can't find people and commit to extend soon, then the whole place is available June 1st, for 3k/month)

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Proteins

cos — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 16:35:48 GMT

I kind of want to start referring to getting the vaccine as "getting spiked".

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Vaccination adventure

cos — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 23:46:03 GMT

Ceila became eligible for making a vaccine appointment at the beginning of the month, while I'm still not eligible (to even make an appointment) - she has health conditions, something I pretty much entirely lack. Usually a good thing!

She searched, couldn't find any appointment slots near us in Seattle, so searched farther and farther out... and found one for April 8th! ... in Sequim, WA, 2.5-3 hours away by car, including a ferry ride (or 3 hours the long way, without the ferry).

I've been to Sequim once before, a long time ago, on my own - it's near Port Angeles and the northern section of Olympic National Park, which I've wanted to go to again with Ceila for the past few years but we hadn't done yet. Excellent excuse for a day trip, with her appointment in the late afteroon so plenty of time for a nice hike if we left early.

Riding a ferry was pretty cool, it's been probably more than two decades since the last time I was on a car ferry. Even better: We had to stop and wait for orcas! Ceila actually spotted them on our side of the ferry (we were parked by the edge) well before the announcement, so we got to watch them for a while. And since we'd been planning to hike, we had our good binoculars.

Near the end of the ferry ride we also saw a pair of pigeon guillemots appearing to kiss. Kind of turning around each other and touching beaks gently several times.

We did get the planned hike, from a lake up to a nice waterfall. And then her vaccination appointment, at the pharmacy inside a huge Safeway supermarket. And then, as I was getting groceries waiting for her to come out... she came and brought me back there to get a shot. They had a few no-shows earlier in the day, this was now the end of the day, and they had to use their extra doses before they expired, so I got one that was meant for someone that morning probably.

Now we both have appointments for Moderna shot #2 in Sequim in early May. I think we'll go out there the evening before and stay in a motel and have more time. It'll be the beginning of shorebird season! And perhaps more of Olympic will be open (a lot of it is closed for winter still).

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Mushrooms

cos — Sat, 03 Apr 2021 00:41:20 GMT

Having almost finished the regular mushrooms, I put mushrooms on our shopping list. Ceila was the next to go to the store, and bought shiitake mushrooms, a bit different from what I expected. A few days later...

Me: "I've been using the shiitake mushrooms and found that there are a few foods that they don't go as well with as the regular mushrooms."

Her: "You mean they're not fungible?"

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

A new frontier in spam

cos — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 16:59:32 GMT

I got spam email with subject line "Deal" and message body just "I have a deal for you." Just that, nothing more. It's not a multipart message with an HTML version, it's just text/plain.

Maybe they're just fishing to see who responds. But spam with no typos or awkward grammar? Bold move!

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

New Georgia Senators

cos — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 16:03:27 GMT

Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff just got sworn in yesterday, after the inauguration, because the Georgia runoff election results only got certified on Tuesday.

Almost four years earlier, Jon Ossoff made his first run for elected office when he ran for Congress in Georgia's 6th district in a special election in spring 2017. I'd been planning to visit Audra in Georgia during that time so I extended the trip so we could spend a few days canvassing for him, and we got to meet him at a campaign office we were volunteering out of.

It was supposed to be a solidly Republican district but that's when the reaction to Trump really started showing, and to much surprise the race was competitive. He ended up losing by about 3 points to a Republican, who in turn got knocked out by Democrat Lucy McBath in 2018 - she got re-elected in 2020, so that district has shifted. Even though we didn't succeed in 2017, I hope Ossoff's efforts helped make that shift and that the time we spent contributed a bit to that. And now he's a US Senator!

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Mask questions

cos — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 16:26:48 GMT

Considering only their effectiveness at a) slowing the spread of covid-19 and b) protecting you from covid-19, in public and grocery stores and similar (that is, I'm not asking about bacteria, fungus, healthcare settings, etc.)...

If an N95 mask doesn't quite fit as tightly as it should, is it still significantly better than all surgical & cloth masks? Or does the imperfect make it likely not much better than a surgical mask?
I've seen it claimed that multi-layer cloth masks are better than actual approved surgical masks. I'm very skeptical. But is there some validity to this claim?
Is there any difference between US N95 masks and Chinese KN95 masks for this purpose? Other than the fact that I've never figured out how to actually fit a KN95 to my face :) But aside from the fit, are they effectively exactly the same thing (for this purpose)?

If you have helpful references or sources for answers to any of these questions, I'd like to read!

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Transfer of power

cos — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 20:05:36 GMT

Until now, the US had a very long history of peaceful democratic transfers of power. That is very decidedly over. This violent coup attempt failing will not change the fact that this transfer of power will not have happened peacefully, even though we get the legitimately elected government at the end of it.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

Pescatarianism puzzles me

cos — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 20:33:43 GMT

I've been wondering, why are there so many people out there who categorically won't eat any animals from land or air, but will eat any animlas from the sea?

I've heard lots of different reasons why people choose to be vegetarian. Some of them are,

- Moral objection to killing animals for food.
- Environmental impact.
- Saw a dead animal and got grossed out at the thought.
- Cruelty of factory farms.
- Health, and the idea that humans weren't evolved to eat so much meat.

There are more, though I think this list covers the majority more or less. And some of them, I feel too, though I choose to not eat meat most days but still eat it sometimes, rather than categorically never at all. Still, I benefit from the people who made vegetarianism a movement and continue it, because they're the reason our economy has adapted to make a lot of no-meat and less-meat options available. So I thank them for it.

But if you're going to make exceptions to a general policy of no meat, why does the exception "if it's from the water, it's fine" make sense?

People whose main reason for avoiding meat are animal cruelty issues, generally make exceptions for humanely raised meat. If someone does that, and applies a similar logic to seafood, that makes sense. That's not what I'm wondering about.

Environmentally, fishing is far far more destructive to nature than some kinds of land meat, especially poultry. And poultry's carbon cost is also less than that of fish. Shellfish such as clams and oysters are actually a net benefit to the environment, and eating more of them to support shellfish farming is a good thing. Shrimp, on the other hand, are mostly caught by bottom trawling, so cheap shrimp may be the most environmentally destructive food in the world.

Moral objections, or just gross feelings about eating animals... those seem like they should apply to animals from the sea as well. I know for some people it's a matter of how much of a consciousness something has, but I assume people who see it that way would sooner eat a chicken than a tuna! Not even mentioning the fact that so much of commercial fishing kills sea turtles and dolphins and porpoises as a side effect.

[BTW, as a related thing I've also been wondering why there isn't a common practice of avoiding all meat except for poultry & shells, since that seems to make sense from a carbon and ecosystem impact standpoint. But that's a tangent to my question here.]

And when it comes to health, top predators of the see accumulate toxins, so I'd expect a health-oriented mostly-vegetarian who makes some exceptions to also avoid fish like tuna, and make exceptions not just for shells but also for occasional land meat as well.

Do you or someone you know practice pescatarianism, where all land meat and poultry is off limits, but all/most seafood is acceptable? Can you tell me what reasoning or motivation lies behind this, for you or them personally?

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

The DNC debate qualifying rules made one huge mistake

cos — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 22:46:30 GMT

Democratic candidates for president this year had to qualify for the official debates based on a set of simple, neutral rules published in advance - standards that got progressively a bit harder to qualify for with each debate. Each candidate had to get a certain percentage of support in a certain number of qualifying polls, and a certain number of donors. For the first debate, it was 1% in three polls or65,000 donors, and with each debate the standard got a bit higher.

Overall a pretty clever system, and a good way to solve the problem of choosing who the important candidates are for people to see, without bias or too much public perception that it's rigged in favor of or against particular candidates because of their views. But I think they made a huge mistake with the rule about polls!

Especially in the beginning, this summer when the debates began, lots of potential voters were undecided and most of them were considering most of the candidates. Even after the first few debates, there were still a lot of undecided voters, and most voters who did have a favorite were still considering others. The point of rules like this should be to show you the candidates you may still be considering, not the candidates you or someone else have already chosen. With these rules, it was quite possible for a candidate who nearly everyone was still seriously considering to be exluded from the debates, while someone else (such as Tulsi Gabbard) who very few people were considering, and who most voters had already decided against, would still be included.

What the DNC should have done is announced in advance that they would *only* consider polls that ask who you're seriously considering voting for. They could've set much higher thresholds, starting with 10% rather than 1%. Debates would then have emphasized showing us all the candidates people actually want to learn more about.

There weren't very many polls like that, but you can bet that if the DNC had announced a rule like that in late spring, there would have been plenty more. And the DNC could have commissioned a few national polls themselves to add to the mix.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)

What goes in this film festival

cos — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 20:10:09 GMT

Imagine a hypothetical film festival that would show:
- The Martian
- Interstellar
- Moon
- 2001: A Space Odyssey

Alien does NOT fit into this festival.
The Star Wars films do NOT fit into this festival.

What's another movie that you think belongs on the list?

No spoilers!!

Crossposted from Dreamwidth - link to original post ( comments on DW)