@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io
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skinnylatte

@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io

Queer Southeast Asian in California working on #civictech. I lead the product team at San Francisco Digital Services.

I write about food, immigrant life, pets, steel bikes, photography and other analog hobbies.

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skinnylatte, (edited ) to random
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Every single ‘software engineer’ I know who has ever over-valued their own work over blue collar work has, without fail, turned out to be MAGAs or incels. They tend to be the people who have their self worth wrapped up in their compensation and status, and are quick to anger when transit workers or delivery drivers, who work long hours in ways that are taxing in every way, break their narrative for themselves

skinnylatte, to random
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I want to go back to the late 90s and tell everyone that Fran Drescher and Dolly Parton are going to be more important in 30 years than you expect

skinnylatte, to zerowaste
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Every time I am forced to put something in recycling, I think of how that actually means dumping it in my home region, SE Asia

https://youtu.be/kXpzWWv0b0U

The only reliable way to recycle is to eliminate plastic as far as possible.

Plastic recycling is a failed idea, and a pollutant of the developing world.

#Plastics #Recycling #TootSea #Climate

skinnylatte, to random
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Good shop.

skinnylatte, to random
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This article on ‘man or bear’ was surprisingly great

https://bikepacking.com/plog/man-or-bear-debate/

skinnylatte, to random
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All of your substacks could have been a blog post

skinnylatte, to SanFrancisco
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San Francisco public library has a digital lab where you can use their equipment to digitize videotapes, cassettes, super 8 video, photos and other things for your personal archives

https://sfpl.org/locations/main-library/digicenter/diy-digi-lab

skinnylatte, (edited ) to random
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The more I read about gut stuff, the more I have no patience for the fatphobic people who claim Americans are fat and it’s all their fault. (Also fatphobia is bad pls don’t be like that)

There is something very seriously weird with the food supply in this country. In this study, the gut microbiome of Hmong immigrants changes almost immediately upon moving to the US.

https://archive.ph/2018.11.13-163417/https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/11/how-immigration-affects-microbiome/574585/

skinnylatte, to SanFrancisco
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In the 1980s, the firm that had the contract for upholstery of BART seats paid people to slash the seats. People slashed in specific patterns so the company would know who to pay.

What a wild story

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-seat-slasher-Hurwitz-Service-Systems-Inc-14544785.php

skinnylatte, to ai
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Cool job: the NAACP is hiring a Digital Justice Fellow to “critically examine and address the role of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data in the creation, maintenance, and furthering of racial inequality.”

https://www.naacpldf.org/about-us/fellowships-internships/digital-justice-fellow/

skinnylatte, to random
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Someone needs to make a travel booking engine that lets you exclude Boeing 737 Max flights

skinnylatte, to food
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I'm and I know food preparation is difficult for many folks in the community.

But learning to feed yourself is a skill that has cascading effects (I get severely depressed if I don't feed myself food I like). Not to mention, not everyone has the $$ for takeout

I've been sending this 'sad bastards cookbook' to everyone https://archive.org/details/sad-bastards-last

It focuses on 'boil water and eat' and 'ingredients that don't go bad'

skinnylatte, to random
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Something I’ve learned, that I feel very strongly about:

All of us grew up believing myths about ourselves. ‘I am not creative,’ or ‘I am like this’. I am a person who doesn’t like cabbage, who loves coffee, I can’t draw to save my life, I can’t cook, I like dessert, or I don’t.

Allowing myself the space to explode some of the myths I’ve believed about myself has been the best thing ever. Who cares if I can’t draw? I’m drawing anyway.

skinnylatte, to random
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‘Fahrenheit is what humans feel’

No, Fahrenheit is what Americans feel

skinnylatte,
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There’s this thing I call the ‘Internet Walgreens test’. It helps me understand how insular a person is on the internet.

It’s when someone says ‘hey where can I find this? I’m in Japan / Thailand / Germany’.

The people who say ‘you can find this at Walgreens’ and are surprised that there’s no Walgreens where you are, are people who have no concept of how the world works beyond their own. However the rest of the world knows about Walgreens.

skinnylatte, to random
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I follow a Gaza food blogger (Hamada Sho) who has been showing how he’s been cooking for the community using aid packages

He linked to this fundraiser

https://gofund.me/474fb55a

skinnylatte, to random
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Something that’s been on my mind for a while:

Sometimes I read Americans here having very absolutist ideas on ‘freedom’ or ‘democracy’. For example, ‘why do people live in Dubai when it’s an autocracy?’ I can tell you why.

My Syrian friends, who no longer have a home, live there because they won’t ever get a visa for the U.S., nor anywhere else in the western world.

My skilled Iranian best friend who just got his life upended by a Canadian visa that took 3 whole years then rejected.

skinnylatte, to random
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“In every reported case where police mistakenly arrested someone using facial recognition, that person has been Black”

https://www.businessinsider.com/in-every-reported-false-arrests-based-on-facial-recognition-that-person-has-been-black-2023-8

skinnylatte, to random
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One of the storiest stories I’ve ever heard: when Laos was being bombed into oblivion during the Vietnam war, an Aussie photojournalist sought asylum for his Laotian girlfriend in Thailand by.. scuba diving with her from Laos. They were sharing a breath at a time in the Mekong until they got to Thailand. Then he was put in a Thai prison (the prime minister pardoned him).

Today their child is a leading Thai actor, and a movie was made of them called ‘Love is Forever’

skinnylatte, (edited ) to singapore
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A few brave Singaporeans unfurled this banner in front of the iconic Marina Bay Sands, in a country where any public protest is illegal without prior approval and approved protests are only allowed at one park (and the authorities already said all registered protest applications relating to Gaza will be denied)

If they were foreigners they would almost certainly be deported. As citizens they’ll definitely see some legal action

https://www.wethecitizens.net/here-comes-the-wong-administration/

#Singapore #Gaza #TootSea

skinnylatte, (edited ) to ai
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What people forget about Luddites isn’t that they protest technology, it’s that they were protesting factory owners who used technology to create shoddy products while oppressing labor.

Editing to say: Whenever I hear someone say Luddites in a derogatory way, especially about , I try to offer them links about this and am surprised when some people still take an anti-Luddites stance

skinnylatte, to BelieveInFilm
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Late last year, I ran a small project with a nonprofit in San Francisco. We gave out instant film cameras (color and black and white) to 5 people who were either unhoused or who lived nearby in one of the 'SROs'. We did a tiny, tiny exhibition.

I'm still working to figure out how to make this a more regular thing, and how to show their work, because they have such amazing stories to tell.

#BelieveInFilm #FilmPhotography #Photography #SanFrancisco #Tenderloin

skinnylatte, to random
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Why jalapeños are no longer spicy

https://www.dmagazine.com/food-drink/2023/05/why-jalapeno-peppers-less-spicy-blame-aggies/

skinnylatte, (edited ) to random
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They should give out a ‘welcome to Murica’ info pack to immigrants. Chapters: health insurance, how to write a check, why are money transfers often not instant, what the heck is a strip mall, if it’s a ‘nice neighborhood’ look closely for the racism, why are there no shops and restaurants in residential areas, they put mayo instead of butter into sandwiches, and if you don’t have a drivers license you don’t exist (just explained all of this in one afternoon to friends who just moved here)

skinnylatte, to ai
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Wrote a post on 'what is generative AI' for public sector employees specifically.

If you are asked by your work or by elected officials to look into 'using AI', this is for you.

https://publicsectorai.tech/posts/what-is-ai/

#AI #PublicSector #GovTech #CivicTech

skinnylatte,
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

quotable quote (by me): "If my five years of public service have taught me anything, it's that our jobs are never about using the latest technology: it's always about using stable and safe technology, as far as possible, to deliver services that the public needs. Our jobs are not to use AI or to be AI researchers or experts, but if down the line, the field has proven itself so thoroughly that it's a vital part of our work, then it will be one of many tools we use."

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