How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

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From President Barack Obama:

So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.

He’s right. Voting out national officials is important and something we should be striving for but the place to make a real difference in the fight to reform police departments and our entire criminal justice system is at the local level. I also love this point:

the more specific we can make demands for criminal justice and police reform, the harder it will be for elected officials to just offer lip service to the cause and then fall back into business as usual once protests have gone away.

All too often, these sorts of protests turn into a culture war distraction instead of a catalyst for a discussion on the specific issues. Let’s not allow cable news and social media to distract from the reforms that are needed. Of course, Obama wouldn’t be Obama without thinking this angle through already. He’s linked to a really great (153 page!) plain-English set of resources you can consult when trying to advocate for change in your local community. Additional resources were posted on the Obama foundation website as well.

The bottom line is, police officers in many communities do not see the folks they’re supposed to be protecting and serving as one of them. They’re insulated from their communities, often don’t look like the demographics they serve, and are outfit like warriors due to military surplus programs. No wonder they treat criminals, especially black ones, the way they do.

A lot of cities in the south are sprawling and so concepts like community policing are not deeply ingrained at the level that they should be. But even if they aren’t walking a block or two and interacting with the community, there are other ways they can get involved and make a difference in breaking down barriers between themselves and their community. Turn the corner on that and roll back the programs that allow local police departments to be outfit like they’re going into battle and we might be on the right path.

James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution

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From Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic:

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.

In case you don’t remember General Mattis, he was the Marine general who resigned from his role as Secretary of Defense in 2018 due to Trump’s pullout of Northern Syria without any warning. He, like so many of us, are shocked to see our greatest fears about Trump’s antidemocratic tendencies come to fruition.

I’m hopeful that people like Mattis speaking out will give more oxygen to other Republican leaders who are looking for permission to speak out against the president. A statement like this is likely to make a dent in Trump’s support in Washington, the traditional conservative media, and possibly the armed forces. Will it affect normal folks who have seen everything that’s happened since 2017 and thinks “yeah, I’d like 4 more years of this”? Not so sure.

Forget Dragon, the Falcon 9 rocket is the secret sauce of SpaceX’s success

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From Eric Berger at Ars Technica:

Over the course of the decade, she said, SpaceX has used the Falcon 9 rocket to not only capture the commercial satellite launch market, but NASA’s cargo and crew programs, some of its science missions, and, increasingly, military contracts. The Falcon 9 rocket first stage also is the foundation of the Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful booster in the world. “SpaceX has really demonstrated that vehicle as being very adaptable,” she said. “It has quite a record.”

Around the world, companies and countries are struggling to compete. In America, United Launch Alliance is retiring its Atlas and Delta rockets in favor of the more competitive Vulcan booster. Japan’s H3 rocket was inspired by a need to reduce prices. Russia is phasing out its storied Proton rocket. Arianespace is retiring the venerable Ariane 5 rocket in favor of a lower cost Ariane 6. It remains to be seen whether any of these boosters can catch up to the Falcon 9, because SpaceX is always moving, Christensen said.

A great story of the Falcon 9 rocket, which has pretty much single-handedly turned around the USA’s space fortunes in the past 10-15 years.

Biden Is the Politician America Needs Right Now

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From Franklin Foer at The Atlantic:

But in Philadelphia yesterday, Biden delivered perhaps the most thorough-going and hard-hitting critique of American racial inequities ever uttered by a major presidential nominee. Certainly, no nominee has ever proposed such a robust agenda for curbing the abusiveness of police, and with such little rhetorical hedging.

What makes Biden unique (and maddening if you are far left or far right) is he lack of hyper-partisan politics and desire to make a “deal”. More often than not, that means he’s open to working with both parties and all people to push the country in the right direction. It’s likely you’ll disagree with some of his positions, but you’ll feel heard and understood. Biden will attempt to represent and govern all Americans, not just one party or race or interest group.

Black Lives Matter

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It’s easy to feel powerless living through the current state of affairs. Our leaders are trying to quiet the voices of those who want justice for yet another black man murdered by threatening more police violence. Continued bluster and threats from our president have only pushed things closer to the brink. Everything I feared about Trump being elected has come to fruition, and in some ways even worse. While he isn’t responsible for all of what ails us right now, his promise of to deliver a “law and order” presidency was obviously a lie. And he’s making things worse nearly every time he wades into an issue.

That said, there is work to be done and we can get involved today even if you aren’t marching in the streets.

I think it’s important to make our voices heard, even if it’s via blogs or social media. We can also make our impact felt by donating to causes who think about these issues all day, every day. A few causes you can donate to:

  • ACLU – The ACLU believes in civil liberties, freedom of speech and voting rights amongst other things. I’ve been happily donating to them monthly for years now.
  • Color of Change – Fighting against injustice and racial discrimination.
  • Campaign Zero – We can live in a world where the police don’t kill people by limiting police interventions, improving community interactions, and ensuring accountability.

You can also get involved in your community. I found this article helpful, as it highlights a lot of local and national causes you can get involved with as well as behavioral changes you can be mindful of:

  • Put pressure on your local police departments to reduce deaths due to excessive force by adopting common-sense de-escalation procedures, using body cameras and opt out of buying used military hardware.
  • Contact state and national officials to work on reducing minimum sentences. Attend town halls, talk about important this is to you.
  • Talk to your children about how slavery, the Civil War, and the Jim Crow era are being taught in your local school.
  • Seek out a diverse group of friends for your kids.
  • Vote for competent leaders who are interested in governing the entire nation, not just the ~45% that voted for them.

I’ll never be able to fully understand what it must be like to live as a black person in America – but I know we all have a job to do to make it better. It will take time – 400 years of racism can’t be changed overnight – but I’m hopeful this generation is the one that turns the tide.

Killer Mike speaks about Atlanta protests

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I’m so tired of seeing police officers murder black people.

Glad to hear Mike give a measured breakdown of how angry he is, but how we can change things without trashing Atlanta. I will say though, if we don’t give folks hope that we can change things by voting, we leave them with no other option but to burn things down.

SpaceX’s 1st Crew Dragon with astronauts docks at space station in historic rendezvous

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From Space.com:

SpaceX launched Behnken and Hurley into space Saturday on a test flight, dubbed Demo-2, that lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Their Crew Dragon docked itself at the station 10:16 a.m. EDT (14216 GMT) as both spacecraft sailed 262 miles (422 kilometers) above the border of China and Mongolia. 

“Dragon, arriving,” NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy said from inside the station as he range a traditional ship’s bell. “Bob and Doug, we’re glad to have you as part of the crew.”

It was so amazing to watch this with my family this weekend. It’s been over 9 years since the USA could launch our astronauts into orbit and the entire SpaceX portfolio is so fascinating to me. It’s nice to have some good news these days.

100,000

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From BBC News:

No country has had more deaths, more infections. Anywhere else, so far, is not even close.

Heartbreaking, embarrassing and infuriating. We deserve better.

Donald Trump’s move against Twitter factchecking could backfire 

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From The Guardian:

But the regulation could backfire, at least in terms of creating the internet Trump desires. By barring social media companies from using the nuanced forms of moderation they currently employ, the executive order could force them to resort to heavy-handed actions: deleting posts, or blocking users, rather than simply factchecking or reducing the reach of the worst material.

Similarly, removing section 230 protections entirely from a technology firm would be unlikely to force it to act as a politically neutral “mere conduit”, since any moderation at all – even simply deleting the vast quantities of automated spam that hit platforms such as Facebook and Twitter each day – would then open them up to lawsuits about the content they had left up.

I feel like this kind of sums up Trump’s presidency. He’s been flailing from one self-induced blunder to the next with no real strategy in mind. Rather than, you know, acting presidential and posting ideas that are truthful, he’s getting emotional yet again and will potentially create a situation that compels social media to disallow or fully censor the sort of hate, lies and misinformation he’s so well known for.

To be clear, I don’t think that a more tightly regulated social media landscape is an overall good thing. However the irony of the President issuing an order that makes it more likely to have his posts outright deleted does bring me some joy.

Apple’s butterfly keyboard failed by prioritizing form over function

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From Chaim Gartenberg at The Verge:

But the deeper issue isn’t that the butterfly switches often break; it’s the flawed design goals that led Apple to make a bad button in the first place. Apple chose to make an entire keyboard full of buttons that resulted in a more aesthetically pleasing design with shorter travel and a thinner overall laptop, rather than making ones that are mechanically functional. And it nearly wrecked an entire generation of Apple’s laptops.

Apple is a massive company that has a ton of stakeholders but I honestly believe that one of the biggest mistakes Tim Cook made was to give the reigns to Jony Ive with no real counterweight. With a lot of the other voices in the room silenced or gone (such as Scott Forstall), Apple leaned way too hard into form over function, and many of their products have suffered as a result. iOS 7 was a mess and many of the hardware products from 2015-2020 were also way too focused on how something looked rather than how people used them.

Ive was a visionary in a ton of ways and he’s not completely to blame for many of the issues Apple have had with their hardware and software design in the last half decade. But with strong leadership at the top, a team of rivals approach tends to get better results. Let’s hope the next 5 years are more focused on users and their needs as opposed to just making things as thin as possible.