I would have preferred it in the form of a limerick, but that’s why I listen to NPR.

If history serves me correctly, his first name is Uncle and if you follow him everything will be alright.

Imagine a world where the most toxic narcissists of us find their AI partner that obsesses over them, and how the rest of us could live our lives in some semblance of safety away from their predation.

This is challenging but it could be one of those excellent opportunities for you to learn and grow as a person and a professional. As a lawyer, you probably already understand that personal relationships and references are essential to this line of work, especially if you plan to move up to senior or partner.

Moreover, you seem to have some animosity towards her ways of working. You’ll need to work past that. Perhaps she had reasons that she arrived late, like a child at home and lack of childcare. Maybe an agreement with her boss due to work/life. As a lawyer you likely understand already that you really don’t know someone and what they’re dealing with until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.

So here’s how I’d handle it:

1. Prime the pump. Do you have client references that you could leverage? Could they start asking about you to your former boss?
2. Do you have senior members that you worked for that would be willing to have a chat about you to her to check her sentiment?
3. Crank the starter. Would you be willing to meet up with her professionally outside of work, coffee, drinks. To catchup, test the waters, play the game. During the meeting I wouldn’t outright talk to her about this new position, you want to make her feel comfortable with you again first. When you anticipate the timing is right, have a discussion about what her perceptions were, what went wrong and feedback on how you could improve. Listen, acknowledge, try not to push back on the little things, let ‘em slide. Certainly don’t be a pushover if it’s something that confronts your values or ethics. Actively seek her feedback here. You want her to recognize that, although you two had your challenges in the past, that you respect her as the senior professional that she is. Thank her for her time and offer to buy the coffee.
4. Shift into drive. Once you’ve at least partially mended the relationship (it may take a few meetings, you decide) and know where she’s coming from, that’s when you can matter of factly ask what she would need to consider being a colleague again. See how she responds, that will give you your answer and her requirements. If she’s somewhat decent judge of character, she’ll have understood your motives by now and knows the game y’all are playing.

Personal anecdote, last year I had someone dead-ass quit on me with no notice. He was smart, qualified, decent worker, had military experience which I appreciate. He reached out via email a month ago and said he was struggling with PTSD at the time, was trying to hold on, and underwent some therapy over the last 6 months. He asked if I’d consider hiring him again. Like lawyers, it’s damn hard to get decently qualified people in my line of work and it takes years to ramp them up to processes and procedures. I wasn’t willing to hire him back, because I can’t trust someone that flat out quits like that on me. But you know what I did? I sent him a list of contacts of people I know at sister agencies and said I’d be a reference for him if he wants to get back in the line of work. I think most people in this world generally do want others to be successful, we don’t like to see people suffer. I also think we as individuals get in our own heads a lot more than what serves us. So take the opportunity, see where it takes you. You miss all the shots…etc etc.

Lovely, reminds me of games I have played by Mateusz Skutnik.

Zappa has entered the chat.

Wanna sound super cool with just a few simple licks? Pick up a bass. I liken it to skiing. It’s easy to get passable on it, but takes years and years of experience to actually be an expert.

Dude’s heels were probably sinking into the dirt during press conferences.

I wonder what kind of entry fee he’s going to concoct now that it has been new and ruined improved.

How deep would you like to go?

• There was a rare large cloud in the atmosphere just a few weeks ago.
• They found minerals that can only be made by a sea of water just the other day.
• There are structures on Mars that resemble river deltas.
• The largest mountains on Mars like to have frosted tips in the winter
• A few years ago during the summer, a dark suspicious liquid was leaking from the dunes near the equator
• There are suspicions that Earthen life originated from a Martian meteorite.
• Twice per epoch, when the Earth, Mars, Phobos and Deimos align, Cthulhu wakes from his slumber deep within the bowels of Valles Marineris, and with him, the undead arise to lay waste to the land. This is why in the Ancient Roman texts, Mars is the God of War and Destruction.

And then someone can reply that it’s not really as red as we’ve been made to believe. And that sometimes, in just the right light, standing on Mars, the sky would look blue, too.

Durham, NC still has one. Guy sells fruit flavored helados and some of the old classics.

Yo dawg, you wanna play some b-ball?

Thinking quickly, Japan constructs a homemade blood from a scientist, a shell and a blood.

Joking aside, I remember articles on artificial blood from 20 years ago, but it always failed in trials. I’m glad to hear things have progressed a good bit.

I wish people would spend 10% of the time that they doomscroll towards activism. 15-30 minutes a day in real life. Join groups that align with your worldviews. Meet face to face, donate, call representatives, volunteer.

If we all did that across the country, our numbers would be so overwhelming that the people pulling this shit would be put back in whatever hole they crawled out of.

But instead, we all sit here, reading this, wringing our hands, doing nothing but worrying, and they pick us off one by one, among the nearly silent tap tap taps of our fingers on our phones.

Perhaps be more descriptive and abstract?

“The clouds cry tears unto the land.”

My $ is that it’s been someone in the last 30 years who is a big eater with an opiate habit.

It’s log scale.

This seems like a tragedy of the commons line of thinking, with a dash of whataboutism.

I’m reminded of the quote “be the change you wish to see in the world.”

If you wish to reduce plastic consumption, perhaps the single step along that journey begins with you.

And if that journey includes sacrifices that you are not willing to make, then it’s good to be cognizant of that, so that you understand your impact on the world and the consequences your decisions have upon your future self.

Distilling this to an example you mentioned above, if you are unwilling to use bar soap, then perhaps look for bath products where some of the company profits go towards environmental restoration. Depending on the company, it may not mitigate your full impact, but reduce is one of the 3 tenets of sustainability.

I think it’s important that consider that, for now, we only have this one spaceship.

Not to answer why, but I just thought to add this excerpt as I thought it relevant to the conversation.

The excerpt is from Napoleon’s era. This sort of debt borrowing has been happening for a long time. The carousel stops when the borrower can no longer afford the interest and has nothing left of valuable assets to sell off.

Despite Count Bezúkhov’s enormous wealth, since he had come into an income which was said to amount to five hundred thousand rubles a year, Pierre felt himself far poorer than when his father had made him an allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim perception of the following budget: About 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land Bank, about 30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow, the town house, and the allowance to the three princesses; about 15,000 was given in pensions and the same amount for asylums; 150,000 alimony was sent to the countess; about 70,000 went for interest on debts. The building of a new church, previously begun, had cost about 10,000 in each of the last two years, and he did not know how the rest, about 100,000 rubles, was spent, and almost every year he was obliged to borrow. Besides this the chief steward wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests, or of the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first task Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude or inclination—practical business. He discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward. But he felt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt that these consultations were detached from real affairs and did not link up with them or make them move. On the one hand, the chief steward put the state of things to him in the very worst light, pointing out the necessity of paying off the debts and undertaking new activities with serf labor, to which Pierre did not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that steps should be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by showing the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank, and the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation. The steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested selling the forests in the province of Kostromá, the land lower down the river, and the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible: all of which operations according to him were connected with such complicated measures—the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits, and so on—that Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied: “Yes, yes, do so.” Pierre had none of the practical persistence that would have enabled him to attend to the business himself and so he disliked it and only tried to pretend to the steward that he was attending to it. The steward for his part tried to pretend to the count that he considered these consultations very valuable for the proprietor and troublesome to himself.

Or perhaps the dollars are being factored into to other workstreams in the system. We may be comparing apples to oranges here.

• Do other countries use student busing? If not, are they considering that impact into their public transportation?
• Do other counties have school meal programs?
• Do other countries factor out athletics into its own separate budget?
• what’s the average age of a public school?
• Is sexual education separated into health budgets?
• Physical Plants just cost more in America than most places, as we contract out both the design and construction and sometimes even the planning/permitting. Are these costs being factored in?
• Are the average class sizes per teacher similar?
• Are special needs costs factored in?

I’d first like to understand the diffs of what comprises that 30% more calculation, from there we can explore why the fundraisers are needed.