Category: Local / Living

To Draw Legs on a Snake – If it Aint Broke, Don’t Fix it

Boss said we MUST take lunch at 12:00. So we did

at my old job we used to have flexible lunch breaks at work. Could go anytime between 11:30-2:00, just made sure someone was covering. Worked fine.

New manager comes in, says “Everyone MUST take lunch at exactly 12:00. No exceptions.” Okay then.

12:00 hits. We all just
 walk away. Phones ringing, customers mid-sentence—not our problem. Boss looked panicked, trying to handle it all.

By the time we got back, it was a complete mess. Next day? New rule: “Lunch between 11:30-2:00 is fine.”

Oh, so back to normal? Cool, boss.

Fubaryall
Some folks aren’t meant to manage.

lunaDolliey
Yep, dude tried to fix what wasn’t broken and broke it instead.

khaelic
Fun fact, there’s a Yiddish word, farpotshket, which means something broke because you tried to fix it.

DeletedByAuthor
It’s “Verschlimmbessern” in german

netelibata
Malay got a whole phrase: “tikus membaiki labu”. Translates to “rats fixing a pumpkin”

Neat_Tap_2274
In Taiwan, it’s this: ç•«è›‡æ·»è¶ł “To draw legs on a snake.”

reddit

Palestinian Rights, Free Speech, and AI

The dystopian future is here. Yale University has suspended a scholar in its law school after a Jewish news website that uses AI to produce articles called her a member of a terrorist group. It comes as the Trump administration has launched a relentless campaign to silence any speech sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

Already, ICE has arrested an activist at Columbia University who helped lead Palestinian protests. It was also recently reported that the State Department will use AI to scan social media and deport international students who express pro-Palestinian views. The Trump administration has pulled federal funding from universities that continue to allow protests that are supportive of Palestine, which it claims are antisemitic. Conservatives care a lot about protecting free speech on social media platforms, except when it is speech they disagree with.

Helyeh Doutaghi, the scholar at Yale Law School, told the New York Times that she is a “loud and proud” supporter of Palestinian rights. “I am not a member of any organization that would constitute a violation of U.S. law.” The article that led to her suspension was published in Jewish Onliner, a Substack that says it is “empowered by A.I. capabilities.”

Yale Suspends Palestine Activist After AI Article Linked Her to Terrorism

Bad Habit of Overthinking

But looking at it from another angle, if we’re able to control our mind, maybe we’ll be able to stop the continuous thinking that goes on in our head, dictating how we behave. The problem here is that the mind has a habit of looking for stronger stimulation and can get out of control if we let it. Because negative thoughts have a much stronger impact on our brain than a mild, gentle sense of happiness, it’s hard to prevent that from happening.

The Practice of Not Thinking: A Guide to Mindful Living
Ryunosuke Koike

Denver Takes Initiative on Sidewalks

Like a lot of US cities, Denver has a dearth of decent sidewalks. According to an analysis last year, the city is missing 300 miles of pedestrian pathways; of the 2,300 miles that do exist, around 30% are too narrow and an unknown proportion are in disrepair, making them treacherous to negotiate.

Sidewalks are the unsung but essential infrastructure of millions of mundane daily journeys. But they tend to be chronically neglected — especially in neighborhoods whose residents rely on them most.

Denver is seeking to change that. Last month, the Mile High City began to fully fund and maintain its entire sidewalk network, taking over from private citizens. Most property owners will pay a $150 fee for sidewalks per year; a small minority with more than 230 linear square feet facing the street will pay $3.50 per additional square foot. The goal is to build and improve more than 1,000 miles of pavement within a decade. “It’s the largest city in the country that’s made this move,” said Michael Pollack, a professor at Cardozo School of Law in New York City who is writing a book about sidewalks. “It’s a really important step — one that I’d like to see more municipalities adopt.”

Who Should Pay to Fix the Sidewalk?
Denver has made sidewalk upkeep a public responsibility, becoming the largest US municipality to fund and maintain this critical but unsung pedestrian infrastructure.
By David Zipper