Author: Chris Aldrich
I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history.
I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.
❤️ EatPodcast tweet: Proposal for the book of Our Daily Bread is on its way to publisher.
Jeremy Cherfas | Eat This Podcast (Twitter)Well, this is exciting, and a little bit scary. Proposal for the book of Our Daily Bread is on its way to publisher. Now to wait. Fortunately, baking with natural leavens teaches patience.
— Eat This Podcast (@EatPodcast) October 18, 2018
👓 The Harvard Trial Doesn’t Matter | The Atlantic
The lawyers challenging the university are testing out their arguments to see which ones stick ahead of a potential appeal to the Supreme Court.
👓 Perspective | Even janitors have noncompetes now. Nobody is safe. | Washington Post
One of the central contradictions of capitalism is that what makes it work — competition — is also what capitalists want to get rid of the most. That’s true not only of competition between companies, but also between them and their workers. After all, the more of a threat its rivals are, and the more options its employees have, the less profitable a business will tend to be. Which, as the Financial Times reports, probably goes a long way toward explaining why a $3.4 billion behemoth like Cushman & Wakefield would bother to sue one of its former janitors, accusing her of breaking her noncompete agreement by taking a job in the same building she had been cleaning for the global real estate company but doing it for a different firm.
This is just a bit silly… particularly in the land of both “opportunity” and capitalism.
👓 Sears’s ‘radical’ past: How mail-order catalogues subverted the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow | Washington Post
Monday’s announcement that Sears would file for bankruptcy and close 142 stores came as little surprise to anyone who has followed the retail giant’s collapse in recent years. Still, the news inspired a wave of nostalgia for a company that sold an ideal of middle-class life to generations of Americans. A lesser-known aspect of Sears’s 125-year history, however, is how the company revolutionized rural black Southerners’ shopping patterns in the late 19th century, subverting racial hierarchies by allowing them to make purchases by mail or over the phone and avoid the blatant racism that they faced at small country stores.
A rehash and an expansion of a tweetstorm I saw the other day.
🎧 Lectures 26-27 of The Story of Human Language by John McWhorter
John McWhorter from The Great Courses: LinguisticsLecture 26: Does Culture Drive Language Change?
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proposes that features of our grammars channel how we think. Professor McWhorter discusses the evidence for and against this controversial but widely held view.Lecture 27: Language Starts Over—Pidgins
This lecture is the first of five on how human ingenuity spins new languages out of old through the creation of pidgins and creoles. A pidgin is a stripped-down version of a language suitable for passing, utilitarian use.
📺 “The Great British Baking Show” Advanced Dough | Netflix
Directed by Andy Devonshire. With Mel Giedroyc, Sue Perkins, Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood. It's the quarter-finals of the competition and only five bakers remain. Mary and Paul up the ante to see which bakers will rise to the challenge. The competitors must make enriched sweet fruit loaves for their Signature, followed by a Technical challenge that stretches them to the limit. Finally, the bakers must make 36 showstopping doughnuts, demonstrating skills and ideas that take baking to a ...
📺 “The Great British Baking Show” Pastry | Netflix
Directed by Andy Devonshire. With Mel Giedroyc, Sue Perkins, Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood. The bakers must make a dozen savory parcel pastries, kouign-amann, and two dozen éclairs.
👓 Half-million-dollar settlement offer would bar embattled director from ever returning to work at the Altadena Library | Pasadena Weekly
A local attorney contends that an element of a settlement offer made by the Altadena Library Board of Trustees to embattled Library District Director Mindy Kittay would bind future boards in choosing a qualified person to run the library. In a letter to Jeffrey Thompson, lawyer for the Library District, Kittay’s attorney Dale Gronemeier said his client, who is currently on administrative leave, would not agree to a $501,000 settlement offer if it included a clause prohibiting Kittay from accepting future employment at the library. “Director Kittay does not assert an entitlement to be the next full-time director, but she will not agree to prevent the new board from bringing her back if it chooses to do so,” Gronemeier wrote.
Sounds like she’s a relatively innovative librarian following the trends of many local libraries in the US to redefine themselves. It’s sad to have a contentious outcome like this with such a huge settlement in which the money could have been far better used for public good instead of in-fighting like this. We deserve better from our public officials.
👓 Squatters’ takeover of Torrance home illustrates landlord frustrations with state law | Pasadena Star News
California law protects squatters who take over rental properties, drawing the ire of landlords such as Cindy Oye-Marquez, who must initiate an arduous eviction process to force out the people who …
👓 ‘Madness’: 1,000 Disney fans wait hours to snap up coveted Hatbox Ghost tiki mug | Pasadena Star News
Fans began lining up at 2 a.m. to pay $30 for the souvenir, which can fetch several times that amount online.
👓 School Closings and “Draconian” Budget Cuts Dominate Pasadena School Board Meeting | Pasadena Now
Hundreds of angry and saddened students, staff, parents, and teachers packed the Pasadena Unified School District Board chambers, overflow meeting rooms and hallways Thursday, while the award-winning Wilson Middle School Lion Drum Corps performed outside in formation in the parking lot. The PUSD Board had convened a special meeting Thursday to discuss the District’s Financial Stabilization Plan and proposed budget reductions for the upcoming three school years.
👓 Old School Knife Sharpening Meet Peripatetic Knife Sharpener Julio Toruno | Pasadena Now
Julio Toruno is intimately involved with knives everyday. But he’s not a survivalist, a knife collector, nor a cutlery dealer. He doesn’t live in a remote compound, and he’s never heard of all the TV survivor actors. Toruno is a quiet man who’s found his peace through the art of knife-sharpening. Many times a week, he sets up temporary shop from the back of his truck, mostly at farmer’s markets, and not far from Sierra Madre. “Have stone, will sharpen,” seems to be his motto.
👓 New Stater Brothers Market in North Pasadena Sets Grand Opening for November 14 | Pasadena Now
A much-anticipated new Stater Brothers Market at 1390 Allen Avenue is scheduled to open November 14, a company spokesperson said. The store’s remodeling construction is reportedly virtually complete. Remaining work includes the final paving of the parking lot, employee training, and stocking of shelves with goods for sale, which is expected to start about Wednesday, October 17.
👓 Power Outage in East Pasadena Not Related to Preemptive Power Shutoffs, SCE Says | Pasadena Now
An early morning power outage in Northeast Pasadena affecting 3,100 customers is not part of Southern California Edison’s announced pre-emptive circuit shutdowns designed to reduce fire hazard, a company person said. The 5:06 a.m. outage struck a wide area in the Hastng Ranch / Kinneloa area. SCE spokesperson Lois Bruce said the area affected was confined to Sierra Madre Boulevard on the north, Altadena Drive on the south, Santa Rosa Drive on the east and New York Drive on the west. It is not connected to the power shut off program, and “we do not have a specific cause” yet identified, Bruce said.