Earlier today, I was asked to comment on the current state of American disaster preparedness.

That was already a fraught question, even prior to present chaos, but then I saw today's headlines. 🫠

"Top Disaster Response Official Claims He Teleported to a Waffle House"

I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):

For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.

Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

https://types.pl/@pigworker/116211919028571818

Random thought.

If public libraries didn't already exist, capitalism wouldn't let you invent it. Can you imagine how many billions Jeff Bezos would plough into fighting the idea, destroying any politician who dared to back it?

Support your local library.

I don't want a city on Mars.
I don't want AI in every app.
I don't want data centres in space.

I want clean water.
I want a stable climate.
I want bees to survive.

It's kind of impressive how widespread is the view among US foreign policy types and media figures that you can indiscriminately bomb another country and they will not only love you for it but immediately reform their entire country to be accommodating to your whims.

Like, it's never once come true but that hasn't stopped them from insisting on it every single time.