Mitch's Blog

Something I saw while walking the dog this morning: This tiny sticker on a street sign post.

The microphone on my Apple Watch stopped working weeks or months ago. I know the common wisdom is that Siri is useless, but I use it frequently to set timers and alarms on the Apple Watch and I missed being able to do that. Today I once again tried following the care instructions on apple.com and wiping the microphone with a clean lint-free cloth and then trying to scrub it with a toothbrush and tap water. I have tried that before and neither technique worked. Feeling reckless, I decided to poke at the microphone with the end of a dental proxabrush — and by gosh it worked! The proxabrush pulled out a small waxy, white plug, which I think was dried soap. And now the microphone picks up audio, nice and clear.

This has been a vexation to me for weeks or months and I’m happy to have it resolved.

I did another hour of get-out-the-vote calling for Harris-Walz. This time I called Arizona. One of the men I called signed off, “Live long and prosper.” I blanked on the proper response (it’s “peace and long life.")

Bluesky and enshittification: No one is the enshittifier of their own story

Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr:

I will never again devote my energies to building up an audience on a platform whose management can sever my relationship to that audience at will.

…

Bluesky lacks the one federated feature that is absolutely necessary for me to trust it: the ability to leave Bluesky and go to another host and continue to talk to the people I’ve entered into community with there.

I got started much later than I intended, and the website directed me to a zoom meeting in conjunction with the dialing. After 10 minutes they ended and wanted to have a debrief. I did not want to go to a zoom meeting or debrief. I am varsity level at this stuff – just give me a list with phone numbers and names and a script and I’ll jump in and do it.

Today’s calls went to Nevada. Nobody picked up; nearly all went to voicemail. Yesterday’s calls were to Georgia and I got no voicemails. Why is voicemail popular in Nevada but unknown in Georgia?

I just made a final round of donations to the Harris campaign, Swingleft.org and the San Diego Democratic Party.

Swingleft is an organization that supports Democrats in competitive races nationwide.

I don’t know how many Ms there are in “hummus.” Definitely more than zero and fewer than three.

I did it from my house, from my home office, the same place I work all day. I did it after work.

My work involved making cold calls many years ago, so I have no phobias about doing that. When I was in the cold-calling business, I used to dial each number manually, like a caveman; the Harris campaign has an autodialer, so you just call up the website in your web browser and click to dial. The campaign provides a script with contingencies on what to say if the person says they’re not sure who they will vote for, if they’re undecided on whether to vote, if they’ve already voted, etc.

The auto-dialer assigned me to make calls in Georgia. There was (cough) a bit of a language barrier on many of the calls. In theory, Californians and Georgians both speak English, but in reality the dialects are drifting. I predict in a hundred years the languages will be separate.

All the calls went to Democrats. That’s the purpose of making the calls — to get out the Democratic votes.

90+ percent of the calls didn’t pick up. Many of the others hung up on me as soon as I identified myself.

I had a lovely conversation with a 91-year-old woman who said she is not planning to vote this year. I gather from the conversation that she’s not well enough to do so.

Three people I talked to said they want to vote but don’t know where and how. The auto-dialing software has a contingency for that — I arranged to text them information on where and how to vote.

Those three people are why I volunteered.

I only had one outright hostile caller. He answered the phone, “Who the fuck is this?” and I literally laughed out loud at that. I ended the call soon after that. I clicked the button on the website to let the campaign know that I had encountered a hostile caller.

While waiting for the callers to pick up, the software displayed a series of Halloween-themed Dad jokes. It seems possible, though not likely, that Tim Walz picked the jokes himself.

I will try to do this phoning every day between now and Election Day, both to help put Kamala in the White House and for more Dad jokes.

Anyone call do this. Here’s where to sign up. go.kamalaharris.com/calls/ There’s a five-minute video orientation, which is rather confusing; I suggest watching the video and don’t worry about being confused; just push through. You’ll figure it out as you go, and if you make mistakes, it’s not a big deal.

Photos of the outrageous monumental architecture of Turkmenistan, the most isolated country in Asia.

Japan’s mundane Halloween costumes include “Person listening to the song they’re about to sing next at karaoke,” “Cast member at some kind of theme park,” “parents when they were young,” and “That person who brings you weird gummies as souvenir from their vacation.” More. Via