only a few things have improved, placed in overall context (in my case of a poliitically progressive us citizen living in san francisco who has been in ordinary times a world traveler.)
0. mRNA vaccines seem to work pretty well in reducing severe illness and death (even for fast-spreading delta variant). (now, if only the anti-vaxxers would look at that as the bottom line measure and stop cherry-picking issues around the margins, and turning it into a political issue. even there there’s some good news: they are winning the Darwin award.) 1. conferences are now routinely remote or hybrid (with locals in the studio audience). this means they are much more inclusive of people who don’t have the time or wherewithal to travel two days for a two day event. and because there is no cost for an expensive venue, meals, comping speaker travel, the registration fee is often much lower and there is virtually no limit on attendance (or maybe no limit on virtual attendance.) 1b. i am going to my first in-person large meeting this weekend. everyone is required to be fully vaccinated and we’re wearing masks when not actually eating. the age distribution skews toward old, so i earnestly hope it isn’t a superspreader event. 2. the internet archive, where i “work", has been hosting virtuosic musicians of all kinds to play minigigs over zoom before our twice a week group meetings. (for a decent honorarium and tips from an audience of close to 100). since i have a long history in music, i've been lookin' and bookin’ people whose playing i like. all kinds of music, from balkan musicians in amsterdam to piano prodigies in new york. and jill sobule! so recently i’ve gone to a lot of musical events i wouldn’t otherwise have attended — piano competitions, “flower piano” (an event with 12 pianos in the san francisco botanical garden), watching instagram performances, hunting down young artists, etc. so for me it’s quite a musical revival. and it’s been very tough for musicians in covid times. in case you are entertained by this concept the recordings are accessible at https://archive.org/search.php?query=musiczoom but also, since it’s likely you tasteful people know suitable players, please point me at them by email. (but this is not precisely an open casting call…. i don’t have the bandwidth for that.) 2b. people are finally learning to use zoom — unmute, check “use original sound”, and the like. even musicians! 3. speaking again of the internet archive, which just celebrated a 25th anniversary, you may have hard we are being sued by several large publishers for e-lending out too many books at a time when all the libraries in the world were closed. (these publishers are generally acting as if libraries are the enemy, unless they pay them for electronic lending as if they were lending a paper book.). their requested remedy is to force us to delete millions of books which we and our > 100 library partners have scanned at great expense. just defending against this kind of a lawsuit is an enormous waste. communities of libraries, knowledge workers, authors, librarians and organizations such as EFF are uniting with us to help out. the immune systems takes a while to react even to existential threats. (sometimes i wish there were a vaccine for greed). 4. until this year, i resisted food deliver services, except an occasional chinese food delivery in new york city in foul weather. i’d shlep out and pick up a take out order instead. but: shef.com is a us-based food delivery business fronting for home cooks, who cook like they would in their home countries — often like their grandmother or mother taught them, and festival meals with special food (e.g. Onam Sadhya, Diwali, Dia de los Muertos). They can prepare food they love which you can seldom find in US restaurants, except in a few neighborhoods which have enough people from “there" (e.g. south indian and korean food in sunnyvale-santa clara, for example. “little hanois” in orange county/san jose, jewish deli in new york city, every kind of chinese food in flushing, thai food in elmhurst, etc.). apologies to dangle this in front of a mostly international group, but for those in US areas served currently including San Francisco Bay Area, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Seattle, New York, Washington DC, you can get $10 off by filling MARKS6 into the promo code field when you check out. this is not a boutique product. it’s downhome cooking at a fair price. at least, i hope it’s fair, they take 15% of the food price as their fee. this bought me back at least one night a week. enough spouting for now. thanks for asking this question, Udhay. something you are particularly good at. > On Nov 1, 2021, at 7:22 PM, Udhay Shankar N via Silklist > <[email protected]> wrote: > > I have a question for the collective. > > With so much not going well with the world, at almost all levels of > abstraction, what are the things that are still great? In fact, what are the > things about your own life that have improved over the past two years? > > I thought this would be a good way to (re)gain some perspective. > > Udhay > > -- > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com <http://pobox.com/>)) > ((www.digeratus.com <http://www.digeratus.com/>)) > _______________________________________________ > Silklist mailing list -- [email protected] > Manage your membership here: > https://lists.digeratus.in/postorius/lists/silklist.lists.digeratus.in/
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