I'm not the only one to have noticed (Day 77)

Today was a run-through tour of the Commons with a good friend (and my husband). She did a good job and I would recommend her, but what made me laugh and groan was her statement, repeated twice, that the same names come up again and again because apparently there were only ten people living in Boston at any one time. 

Weird how it doesn't take much to notice that. Small city, small country, small world. 

Deb in the City

TikTok is so bad, only Steve Mnuchin can save it (Day 54)

I don't care about TikTok anymore than I care about Facebook or Twitter, but I do care that TikTok is being singled out for doing exactly what every other platform does. Cory Doctorow explains why the platform is as garbage as the others; worth a read. 

I would applaud the US Congress for trying to control TikTok if they were also trying to do it with other platforms. This is not the case. Well, of course it isn't. 

The big winners, based on what happened in India (I'd link to this, but it's from an Economist Newsletter), are going to be YouTube--sorry, Google--sorry, Alphabet and Instagram--sorry, Facebook--sorry Meta. Those services ended up eating the local services that were developed after India banned them. (India and China get into a hell of a lot more than China and the US, in case anyone was wondering.)

Fine, here we are, China should divest, yada yada...but how should we be sanguine when Steve Mnuchin, aka Trump's Treasury Secretary, is now said to be trying to buy TikTok? Are all the people who were concerned about the Chinese government getting a hold of user data and weaponizing it, that somehow wouldn't be a concern if it's Mnuchin's crowd? Uh. Huh. 

Good thing I wasn't going to use TikTok anyway.

Deb in the City

Degradation (Day 12)

My recently departed son forgot a couple of items when he left. Like the helicopter parents we are, my husband and I mailed him a package immediately. We asked if he wanted a sweater, especially after telling us he was cold the first night, and he said no.

Two days after receiving that package, he told me that no, actually, he does want the sweater. Because I don't want to do this again, I also bundled up a few other items. 

Off to the post office, but the one in my part of town is an unfunny joke. It is understaffed, which isn't the fault of the employees, but half of them are disdainful on a good day, and given how long the lines can get, good days are few and far between. Given that, it made more sense to take the train to the Prudential Center, which has a famously speedy post office.

But somehow I had forgotten the train part.

After 8:30 and before 10 in the morning, the train isn't crowded. Okay, good. But the trade off is that the service is slow. The train that was supposed to leave two minutes after I arrived lingered for at least five, and then it "stood by" for their regular "schedule adjustments" at a station halfway between my origin and destination. 

This is to say nothing of the poor man sleeping with his face leaning against his bicycle's handlebars, or the person who got off of the same train, loudly talking to no one in particular about a choice he made that kept him out of prison for 25 to life. How comforting to see a member of the transit police on the platform. I'm so glad the state is spending its resources wisely to deal with the problem. 

Oh, look, another empty storefront I passed on my way to the Prudential Center

And of course, the unbuilt storefront within the mall

But hey, the post office at the Pru worked just as well as I hoped, and this time the employee there didn't start in on a mini-rant about how some people deserve services and some don't. (I'd forgotten our last encounter, but it probably wouldn't have changed my mind.) I would have nothing to complain about at the Pru if the water fountain had been functional. But hey, since I could buy a $6 latte as well as gourmet chocolate, it's all a wash.

On the train back now, and it's already "paused" twice. My husband could have picked me up, but since the only thing worse than the MBTA is Boston traffic, he'll just meet me at a train station. 

I have the time to spend, I suppose, even though there are other things I could have done with it. But I do not like to think about people who don't. It shouldn't be too much to ask for a safe and functional postal service and public transit system in this day and age, but here we are.

Deb in the City