Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

Shut it down!

You know what’s a surprisingly good cleaner? Baby wipes. If it’s gentle enough for sensitive baby skin, it’s gentle enough for your most prized delicate surfaces. If it’s good enough to clean poop, it’s good enough to clean whatever common messes you’ve got. Baby wipes are PH-balanced and far less harsh than the equivalent Lysol stuff. I keep a pack of them in the car for any spillage emergencies.

The United States government shut down just as my passport renewal was submitted for processing. Fortunate for me, I don’t need to travel anytime soon so the fine folks over at the State Department can take their sweet time. Even better: I received the new passport in the mail but a few days after the shutdown began. Another case of in before the lock, but in real life.

My sympathies to all people who are relying on a functional and operational federal government for their livelihood. It cannot be an easy pill to swallowing knowing the very people (read: the United States Congress) who are messing with your money are, by law, still getting paid during the shutdown. The utter lack of skin in the game should be infuriating for all Americans.

In fact, new rule: if a shutdown happens during a congressmen’s term, they should not be allowed to run for reelection. By shutting down the federal government, congress essentially caused a failed State. Unduly causing harm towards the citizenry over ego, and the inability to compromised, is inexcusable. School children have better diplomacy and discipline than our current members of Congress.

And don’t you dare jack yourself off to the American armed forces when your very action caused them to miss paychecks.

World heavyweight champion.

SFSU cancels classes

It took one extra day then they’d probably wanted, but San Francisco State University - my employer - has suspended in-person classes for the rest of this month, due to the ongoing coronavirus threat. All instruction will be converted to remote and online starting next week, while for the rest of this one, staff and faculty is to prepare intently for that change, and the other affects of the prolonged campus shutdown.

You didn’t think I’d be free from the duties of work, did you? Plane tickets are cheap, sadly…

The horrible situation in Italy shows the potential chaos should the coronavirus be mishandled. While the circumstances in San Francisco are still in its infancy we should be doing everything we can to prevent a sudden and exponential increase in cases. That includes limiting or eliminating the opportunities for people to gather, such as crowded workspaces, and classrooms at schools. Of course, individually we should wash our hands thoroughly and often, while refraining from touching our faces with bare hands.

When this coronavirus business is done and over with (relatively quickly, we pray), I think it’s going to create paradigm shifts in different industries, perhaps lasting ones. Take for example universities taking classes completely online: what if a sizable amount of people - both students and teachers - discover that taking classes remotely and asynchronously is actually rather awesome? For a commuter campus like ours, who wants to sit in traffic for an hour, then fight desperately for parking, just to take one class for the day?

If enough people prefer the online method of attending class, I suspect there will be a big shift towards it even after things returns to normality. Support staff like us would benefit, too, because supporting remote classes using online ticketing systems can be done anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. The flexibility to work from home is not to be discounted lightly, because the commuter campus label for SF State doesn’t only apply to the people attending, but for a large portion of the staff as well. I have a colleague who travels all the way from Stockton; every single day.

Things are changing; it’s going to be a weird few weeks.

All the clouds but no rain.