Notices by ✨Ben Hamill✨ (benhamill@witches.town)

@distelfliege The number 1 reason I miss this is because I hit send without writing one, THEN remember, but it's too late. I need an delay-and-undo for this like Gmail has.

Me: OK, Sprout. I'll see you in the morning. I love you. Goodnight.
3yo: Wait! Daddy. I tell you a joke
Me: OK. Tell me a joke.
3yo: Why was the banana joking on mommy?
Me: Why?
3yo, barely keeping the hilarity under control: Because it's a banana boodah!

I think my 3yo might be Andy Kaufman because I have no idea.

I think one of the central realizations required to be an adult, at least it has been for me, is that fault matters almost not at all. Responsibility and fault are almost entirely decoupled. If something is a way and you want it to be another way, there is often no one else that will make it that other way except you.

When younger, I felt a deep injustice had been done to me if I was being held responsible for something that wasn't my fault. But now I see that this is sort of the whole idea of responsibility: You're on the hook, no matter whose fault it is. And that sort of sucks, but it's also sorta zen once you get it.

me out to the ball game. Chosa take me out to the crowd. Chosa buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks. I don't care if I never come back.

@JasonFruit Context matters. The tech industry is overwhelmingly cishet white dudes. We are the demographic with institutional power. Saying something about the group in power is not the same as saying that thing about a group that is systemically disempowered.

I have an open position on my team (just me & my manager) at work (Under Armour) for a senior software engineer. Our job description is so bad, though. It doesn't accurately reflect what working here is like or what I'd say my team is looking for. I'mma figure out who to talk to about making it better.

BUT: If you live in Austin and have questions about what we do and how we do it, please feel free to hit me up on here. Boosts welcome. I promise it's welcoming, not bro-ey; collaborative, not competitive; and that work/life balance is highly valued. It's a really great place to work and I'd really, REALLY like to not have a funnel full of cishet white dudes.

I am easily confused by the collision of three letter abbreviations. American Medical Association.

My own horn.

Think about high fives. Like, think about that feeling you get behind your breastbone when you do a really good high five with someone you like. Sit with that feeling a second.

OK. Virtual high five, then, from me: You made it another day, another 24 hours. Another week. Wherever and whoever you were a week ago isn't where and who you are now. You're growing and changing and living life. And that's worth a high five.

✋🏻

The Internet of 10 Things I Hate About You

So recently in discussion, @lindar pitched an idea I really liked. Here it is, with an addition by me, so it's not hidden in threads. Please share and use if you like it.

The idea is that interacting with other folks' selfies can be somewhat fraught because you don't know where their boundaries are. And asking, "Can I compliment your appearance?" sort of short-circuits consent.

So when you post a #selfie, add tags:
• nocom (no comments/compliments)
• okcom (comments/compliments OK)
• rqcom (comments/compliments requested)

Also, if you want to specify the difference, you could replace -com with -flirt and/or use them in combination like [rqcom, noflirt].

The word "initial" is about 43% the letter i.

…

That is all. Continue about your business.

Good morning, friends.

I've been thinking a lot about "incipient" this morning. It's one of my favorite words. It means, like, "becoming", but it's an adjective. I try to be incipient. I try to always be becoming who I am or who I will be.

It's easy when you're a teenager or in college or whatever to be incipient. Society generally expects it from you and whether or not it did, you still NEED it. As you get older, I feel like it's easy to fall into a place of thinking you've figured out who you are and you're sort of "done" now. I'd rather continue to grow and change and learn and… become.

Also it makes a greaterrible portmanteau with my name: Bencipient.

Has anyone else ever thought about the MASSIVE security problem represented by the fact that both Incom and Sienar allow the schematics of two of their most popular starfighters to be printed on bed sheets and sold to civilians at Target?

According to the update the teacher pushed to our app, the 6yo's class learned the other day about "the unseen world and how it affects their day to day lives." Like... the Unseen World? Is my kid learning to be a witch? If so, no real objections. I just didn't realize that was a normal part of the curriculum.

(In seriousness, I think it is maybe just a weird way to refer to microscopic stuff? And there was some stuff about sunlight and vitamin D and sun dials, so IDK).

#introductions

Uh. I like to kindpost, I guess. It's a new skill I'm learning, anyway. Also real bad joaks.

I try to learn about intersectional social justice and am trying to develop the habit of taking concrete, real world action about it more often.

I've got a linguistics degree that I don't use professionally (I'm in software), but I love to talk about words and things.

I think play and playfulness are super important. I enjoy roleplaying, board and video games.

I'm a mod on #WitchesTown. Ask me if you have questions (though I only speak English, do I'm not much help to our large population of French speakers).

The 6yo just read me a bed time story. I'm a super proud papa. #DadOps