Its my last finals week and I’m grading. Next week I’ll be unemployed. I’ve had three interviews and got close. So I’m keeping at it but thinking long and hard about what to do next. You can view my post history for that, I’ll spare you here. Anyone want a researcher/disaster scholar/history nerd for stuff? I can bring cookies. :-)

Noting that, doing ok. Hit a PR on dead lift -150kg- that given my age I am super happy about. My short children’s story I threw out with no marketing via self publishing just to do it sold a copy. It was an organic sale to a stranger. I made a wonderful gluten free artisan bread.

All the little things added up and I don’t have a caas of the Mondays.

Directness is appreciated. As an aside, it is absolutely mind blowing how far and fast Project 2025 swept through society. Higher ed is the obvious example but everything from nonprofits to your local farmers market. In about a year, people of all walks of life except the wealthiest simply hit hard. It is, indeed, a challenging world.

The Roberts’ Court has entered the chat

Hell. I feel this so hard and empathize. Admin at my former university are asking everyone to write qualitative summaries of why their programs add value to the school. Then they cut funding based on abstract metrics. The only people left are the muppets. They will be administrating themselves soon as all the professors and students will be gone.

In solidarity, feel free to vent any time via DM.

Yeah. I’d even say we went beyond late stage capitalism. We are now on the cusp of a feudalistic society more akin to the corporate dominance in Blade Runner or Eve Online, maybe The Expanse, then anything resembling capitalism. Corporations are more powerful than nation states, many people are indentured to their workplace via healthcare needs or non competes, etc. So there’s that. This is an entirely new thread though so I’ll stop it there. TL;DR - This shit sucks.

Kevin, if thats even a real person at this point in media, is just pushing stories and discourse aligned with corporate speak. Let’s consider it less stupid and more complicit, which I argue, is even worse.

I bought an older Samsung and only use it for doom scrolling, 2FA, and podcasts. Its fine stripped down to nothingness. My next purchase, once the cracks from me dropping it spread, will be an older Pixel so I can run GraphineOS. I’m hopeful that like my Linux experience, it’ll extend the devices life given my use case. Like buying old laptops and kicking windows to the curb in favor of Linux buys you tons of time and product life.

I am not an economist. I am not an expert on anything consumer. It is, however, plainly obvious that companies are trying to squeeze blood from a stone at this point. They can’t make money anymore with pay to own and innovation like they used to for a variety of reasons. From greed to enshitification. If you look at it with a different view, everyone is poorer because they are greedy, they’ve ruined everyone’s lives but must make numbers go up. So they find new and terrifying ways of screwing you over for diminishing returns. Like this. Relying on turnover sales and nothing else.

sensible chuckle

Doing OK. Have an interview coming up. Fingers crossed.

Been getting into Enshrouded with friends and really enjoying the social connection and fun. Needed the brain break, as I feel burned out from the application treadmill.

Finally, want to spend the time to learn a new skill. Mid life so was thinking R and getting further into Python to enhance my data science chops. Recommendations welcome on that front.

Oh man, she was an awesome human! What a great gamer and person. She’s featured in the Netflix documentary “High Score” which I highly recommend if you want to learn about the early days of video game development.

Academic. 50+ applications to universities across the EU and UK. Finally got an interview but did not get the job. Inching closer! Its an insanely bad job market for academics, and an insanely bad job market generally. I’m going to keep at it but looking at alternatives. I am lucky to have my job through December.

I’ve started working with a career coach to help me deal with defeatism. I’m also tired of the rat race - publish or die. Grant competition. Favoritism. AI everywhere and metric tracking everything. I’ve done everything right and am looking at finding new meaning that doesn’t involve so much free labor and struggle.

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Academic. 50+ applications to universities across the EU and UK. Finally got an interview but did not get the job. Inching closer! Its an insanely bad job market for academics, and an insanely bad job market generally. I’m going to keep at it but looking at alternatives. I am lucky to have my job through December.

I’ve started working with a career coach to help me deal with defeatism. I’m also tired of the rat race - publish or die. Grant competition. Favoritism. AI everywhere and metric tracking everything. I’ve done everything right and am looking at finding new meaning that doesn’t involve so much free labor and struggle.

To tune of the lego movie - Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you’re part of a capitalist evangelical exploitation team!

The Ralph Nader Radio Hour Podcast. They talk about a ton of people and orgs doing things.

My problem is I WANT to fight back. But I don’t know where to go as many of the orgs are lawyers, consumer rights, or environmental. I’m an academic who fled and desperately want to do something - form a research institute or think tank that helps inform. Where to start, though…

Im going to start physical mailings and cold emails. I’m over this job market, its AI/ATS nonsense, and the people who think its OK.

JFC…I had to take a second to blink and realize you were being facetious. I totally expected him to rename the medal.

Not great. My job is ending in ~10 weeks. Academic. My market is saturated and some. The amount of rejection letters for applications rivals the post 2008 world. Tried everything. Trying to continue my work, seek funding, but I don’t do grants and schmoozing for money well. I’m starting to wonder if I’m aging out or just so far down the pecking order that the surge of new and fleeing academics is making it impossible to continue. Lots of doubt. I get so much joy from my classroom, my students. And I may not get to do that again. Its terrifying and is shaping my day, overwhelming the good that is there.

So I’m scared, doubtful, and its compounding.

I find some of the subreddits that aren’t attractive for selling/marketing are ok. Otherwise…it’s been falling faster than my self-confidence. Which is pretty damn fast.