We recently had some work done on our water system. Several jobs that required us to interview half a dozen plumbers all of whom, except for one company, came free of charge to assess the problem and give written estimate for the cost of their work. We ended up hiring a company whose employees all spoke Spanish.
The work was done very well. The plumber kept at working for most of the day. They were quiet and clean. They are so professional, it makes me jealous. How come we can’t find a Chinese plumber who worked so honestly and kept at his job until he finished? How come we couldn’t find a Chinese speaking plumber who charged the same amount or less?
The perception to many Americans that Chinese people somehow charge low price for their product and work to gain unfairly from America is just absurd. America had a competition driven economy. For every job, there is another who will fo the same work for money. And that’s not just programming. Every single product and job in this economy has competition and Chinese humans also must compete.
The end result is that I am a happy consumer. If I have to learn some Spanish (I didn’t have to) for it, I will learn it.
But I do hope that Chinese Americans can gain the respect they deserve–the respect I have for my recent plumbers–after their respective long day of work, that yes, it was the cheapest plumber but they were clean and quiet and professional in every way. They are honorable hardworking competing people in this free market economy worthy of other humans’ respect.
I’m having severe headaches today. I find it to be correlated with looking at my iPhone XS Max.
Imagination runs wild as always. Is this yet another ploy by Apple, Inc. To nudge me towards buying a new phone? Every time I look at the screen my head hurts now.
Let’s suppose for a moment that Apple actually did that. In a recent OS update, the surreptitiously introduced a bug that gradually changes some refresh properties of this screen so as to accidentally cause eye strain and subsequently headaches. What exactly is wrong with that? Given that apple settled the court case admitting to have slowed down iPhones, it seems reasonable that they may be doing it again. There is nothing wrong with doing something sneaky and then later paying money for it. I don’t for a second imagine that any human felt any remorse for having caused or facilitated that slow down. The lack of such expectation sets my mind on a slippery track to imagine the worst about this recent experience. Apple needs sales, and my head, and maybe a few hundred million dollars paid at a later date, is acceptable to the people doing it.
Sure, you can say that my class in that class action lawsuits settled too low. The payment apple makes is hardly punitive. If we had fought harder, Apple would have paid more and they be more hesitant to do it again.
It pains me to think about these things. I recall the first night I spent with my brand new iPhone XS Max. The screen was one of its biggest features. I remember looking very gently at the screen, as if in fear of damaging it if I looked too harshly. The brilliant colors shone gently back at me. Everything looks so clear. There’s some kind of light being emitted or reflected from the screen that uplift my visual senses. I am made to see more clearly. It isn’t quite as brilliant and welcoming as the body of a new girlfriend, but definitely makes a world of its own and pulls me into it.
I share with it all my most intimate thoughts, unfinished thoughts, and FAM blogs. I get all my information through it: news, entertainment, sms, messaging,… I entrust it with full access to my banks and investments and subscriptions to stuff I pay. I even pay it a monthly subscription fee so it can be happy.
But now, that display technology magic may have been reversed to attack my eyes and make my head ache. It throughs a constant tantrum. I can’t even get the most basic thing done without a grimace. Man, how far has our relationship sunk that the mere sight of… I should stop, my head hurts too much to anthropomorphize further.
I’m watching a Disney+ short movie Toy Story: That Time Forgot. The time is a Christmas after Andy went to College and Bonnie is the mistress of the house.
Does anybody ever hear woody screaming: “YOU ARE A EMPLOYEEEEE!!!” To Buzz Lightyear? When he says “YOU ARE A TOYEEEE!!!” that to other toys? The long-e makes it really rhyme with employee.
Originally, the exasperated exclamation is reserved for stubborn new toys that do not realize that their whole life whole believes and built in intuitions are all not real and that they are toys. The “truth” is that toys need a child owner and that they are forever bound both emotionally and dutifully to said child. The “truth” is that a toy belongs to a child and its whole purpose for existing is to serve this child master. The happiness of the slaver is each slave’s only true salvation.
26 years ago I watched the first movie in its theatric release. But now I understand, this Disney movie is made to subliminally influence people of America (and the world) into believing that servitude is ultimate, noble and inevitable. This is propaganda from slave masters to slaves! Look at those highly intelligent, caring, moral, very human-like toys, look at how joyous they are after they become enlightened as to their true purpose of servitude to a superior being. That is how everything is, that is the truth of our world! Servitude and willing slavery, this is the way it should be. This is entertainment written in slave language designed for those harboring slave nature, bearing slave names, enshrining slave morals, practicing slave rituals and traditions, making slave sacrifices, enduring slave sufferings, manifesting slave destinies.
On the flip side, say you are one of the “slave owners”, what ever religious, social or economic caste that may be in your country, you may be delighted to see this film. Your child, is the human child who is born with given gifts of subjects. Your child will learn to know that these highly intelligent, caring, moral, very human-like subjects are there to please them. That these subjects should feel “right” when they “belong” to you and serve your needs. This, is free education, for your kids, and indoctrination, for the masses, in your favor.
According to Wikipedia, Disney reworked Pixar’s treatment many times to instill the theme that “toys deeply want children to play with them, and … this desire drives their hopes, fears, and actions” OMG! OMFG! What evilness be this?! A G rated film, this film had free reign to brainwash children as young as 0-years old! Some even heard it through their young mommies’ bellies.
Need more evidence? Take a look at Google’s image of cast
The only black people are those from black and white photos. Asians have great representation though, you may say, look at those nine(9) Japanese in the cast and crew! Isn’t that diversity enough for you, the present blogger being Asian, that’s a whole lot of Asians participating in brainwashing American kids, right!?
Thankfully, I am not one of those Asians. I am, however, one of those Asians who has the predisposition of falling for this kind of crap!
I am angry. I am angry as a victim of this massive brain washing!
UuhhhhhhhGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
I hate myself for not realizing this earlier in life… after myself, I hate these subliminal, enslaving, cultural indoctrinating machines of our world and all that partook.
That’s a great season! I cannot believe this show evolved so much. In many ways it is an evolution for Trek: capitalism with family on board will be an interesting thing to explore.
I suppose I should kick myself for noticing but not thinking about Saru being too by-the-book in this season. Trek has always had a distain for rules and regulations. From its first capitain till last, doing the right best thing has always been a key feature of successful Trek leaders. Saru didn’t get it… Burnham is born with it. Done!
I mean seriously, ejecting the warp core and waiting for Book to figure out how to zap them out of there… that’s some serious fly by the seat of her pants leadership.
The personal growth experienced by each member of the crew is well developed and now established. Burnham from pointing a phaser at deadly departed captain Georgio to being named captain a thousand and odd years later AFTER she revived the whole of Federation… wow!
I suppose it is still premature. Purportedly, TNG didn’t really get established until season 4, where as TOS only lasted 3… We’ve surpassed TOS and heading towards Enterprise’s 4, and then only Trek legend status of 7 seasons. I guess season 4 is really make or break season.
I pointed out previously that TOS spend a lot of scenes admiring humans. like you’d watch it and there would just be 5 seconds when the camera is staring at a nurse in a miniskirt and she holds pose but not completely still. TNG likes to admire the beautiful ship that is the Enterprise D, and some other spacial phenomenons. Here you will just find scenes of D flying at warp, or another one is Picard staring out his ready room window at the beautiful stars. DS9 too loves to just orbit the space station I. Super high resolution and watch background stars rotate, and warm hole opening and closing…. DSC, I have to say, does retain a lot of TOS’s human study shots. I do enjoy admiring the characters in almost-poses, they move, but largely the lighting, their skin and facial expressions are largely the same (at 4K, these people look terrific!) in these shots, but the extended focus help the audience to fully appreciate the character and their feelings and thinkings. I do think we have lost the TNG’s wonderment about beautiful ships and DS9’s love for spacial phenomenons. And DSC is a little too posh to have Enterprise’s quick and dirty (and mainly small) feel. So DSC can’t really put that small-but-hyper-functional visual on display.
I would suggest stop the progression of decreasing episodes (15,14,13), and make something like 20 episodes and take the time to show us something grand and beautiful. True, the spirit and the principle is what we truly want to show, but the imagery of a proud starship with power throbbing through its veins and plenty of machinery to skip along in space, it is well provisioned to easily resurrect a whole civilization… show us this visual slowly and beautifully as an expression of hope and strength.
Alas, Picard will surely take care of my needs here, it already has. But it would be a bit of shame for DSC to not have enough of that.
The FAM Blog 