The US seems like an actual dystopia.

It is. Compared to a lot of the rest of the world, and nearly all of the Western world. A conversation I’ve had with more than one person:

Them: I sent them an email two weeks ago and I haven’t heard back yet.

Me: They’re in Germany, right? And it’s August. They’re probably on a month-long vacation to the Med or the Azores. You won’t hear back any time soon.

Them: But surely it’s not that long? That’s not allowed, right? Who can take a vacation that long?

Me: Everywhere is not like the US. Suffering is not de rigeur. Many countries pretty much shut down for a month or so in late summer, like Germany and France.

Them: How am I supposed to get the project done if I don’t hear back from the Program Manager? Won’t they be checking email?

Me: No, they won’t be checking. Just wait. It’s not the end of the world. Everyone’ll live.

Them: grumbling vaguely about the unfairness of it all now that they’ve realized not everyone gets treated like American workers

On Zoom calls when I share my screen, everybody complains about how massive it is (and therefore has tiny text etc.) to them because it’s 4K. But no one complains that I get my work done 4x as fast as anyone else. And I can do that because I can see everything well.

Words like podcast and token booth outlive their origins. We still use them.

This piece seems like something someone wrote to fill column space, but FYI all y’all: a “floppy disk” was called “floppy” because the media inside (the disk) was floppy, not the case. Just as a “hard disk” is called that because the disk inside is rigid.

And today you have learned something.

What did teachers do when you were in school that they would be fired for today?

• Have class parties at their houses. Can you imagine that today? Dang. There would be firings, lawsuits, etc. that lasted for years. Normal then.
• Talk about drinking in class frequently. Same as above.
• Had male and female chorus students changing costumes in the same room. Also same as above. (We were all fine with it, but today? Nah.)
• Teacher with a shirtless Bon Jovi poster in her classroom. And she’d talk about how much she wanted to get it on with him.
• A very cute, 20ish teacher would deliberately lean over in low-cut shirts to make male students have a reaction to being able to see completely down her blouse (yes, she was doing it on purpose — she said so quite often in class).
• Having first grade kids crawl around on the floor to pick up any “smidgen” (as she put it) of detritus in the classroom.

Can’t imagine any of that stuff being allowed for long today.