Aron Roberts

Consults with @BetterShowers, making great showerheads & @landimprinting, restoring damaged lands. Semi-retired after 31 years in IT @Cal. Opinions mine alone.

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

Voting in California? Still undecided about your choice for Governor?

Here's a handy quiz from @CalMatters to help you find the candidate(s) who most closely match your criteria:

https://t.co/BWJcb8niD9

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@Interior For those curious:

https://t.co/1c99j7hK91

[Adventures in California History @pitsenberger]

It's decision time on the Oregon Trail! You're at the classic fork known as the "Parting of the Ways." The left fork led toward Fort Bridger, offering better access to water, grass for livestock, and routes to California or Utah.
The right fork was the Greenwood Cutoff, a riskier shortcut that saved roughly 46 miles and 2–3 days but required a brutal 50-mile stretch across the arid Little Colorado Desert with almost no water or grass.
Here you said goodbye to others you have travelled and shared so much with. Diaries and accounts describe tearful goodbyes, exchanges of mementos like friendship quilts, carved pipes, or small tokens, with the heartbreak of parting from friends forged in adversity.
Which way, pioneer?

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@ProfessorSayi @DeanOwe34944173 Plus, it doesn't seem to be solely a "wage thing."

Among major issues are that the work – particularly in, but not limited to, agricultural and food processing (e.g. meat cutting) – is often extremely grueling.

And sometimes seasonal: w/on-off wages, moves maybe required, etc.

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@ProfessorSayi @DeanOwe34944173 "Give the market time to adjust wages then see what jobs are still vacant."

I appreciate & understand the argument. Yet we've had many local "natural experiments," where immigration enforcement created openings, and/or earnest attempts were made to hire American citizens. No go.

[Ancient History Hub @AncientHistorry]

Around 1,950 years ago in Pompeii, a weaver named Successus fell in love with a barmaid named Iris.

She did not love him back.

We know this because his rival, a man named Severus, decided to humiliate him publicly. He grabbed something sharp and carved this into a wall for the whole city to read:

"Successus the weaver loves the innkeeper's slave girl named Iris. She does not care about him at all. But he begs her to have pity on him. His rival wrote this. Goodbye."

Imagine walking to work and seeing that with your name on it.

Successus found it. And instead of letting it go, he carved his reply directly underneath:

"Envious one, why do you get in the way? Yield to a man who is better looking and being treated very unfairly."

Severus came back one more time to end it:

"I have spoken. I have written. You love Iris, but she does not love you."

Then, in 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted and buried the wall, the tavern, and the entire argument under 20 feet of ash. The thread was frozen mid-beef for almost two millennia until archaeologists dug it up and translated it.

We will never know who got the girl. We do not even know if any of the three survived.

Pompeii has over 11,000 of these inscriptions. Bar reviews. Bragging. Bad poetry. A bakery wall that says "Welcome, hungry people." Two guys fighting over a girl in the comments.

The technology changes. We do not.

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@hipcheck5 @SinsemillaGC @UsaRidge True!

And there are still some wild-type American Chestnut trees, as well. You can still grow either or both:

https://t.co/i6S4T55Abq

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@The_Mean_One20 @CBSNews @CHueyBurns "You can't schedule getting sick, retard."

If you get sick, don't show up for work, and don't tell your employer or customers anything about your being absent – or why – for 7 weeks, in how many situations would you keep your job?

That's what Rep. Kean did.

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@The_Mean_One20 @CBSNews @CHueyBurns You're living up to your handle.

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@The_Mean_One20 @CBSNews @CHueyBurns 1. Scheduled her absence, rather than going AWOL for 7 weeks (Mar 5-Apr 27) like Rep. Kean.
2. Reported her specific medical procedure, rather than remaining vague about her condition.
3. Continued working in her local district, during her recovery.

https://t.co/fILNnKwtHz

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@ASimpleManView And we're thinking somewhat alike about election reforms, as well ... 🧵

https://t.co/socLsvwEmd

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@GOPChairwoman Perhaps some bipartisan compromise is possible?

- Mandating auditable paper ballots
- Instituting reasonable Voter ID requirements
- Carefully and fairly cleaning up voter registration rolls, and keeping them up to date
- Looking into security risks with absentee & mail ballots

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@ASimpleManView 👍

- Federal settlement abuse ('slush fund,' @tedfrank on Dems' equivalents)
- Pardon/commutation excesses
- Stock (and futures, prediction markets, etc.) trading by gov't insiders
- Independent redistricting commissions, with no intra-census redistricting except via court order

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@ASimpleManView @SeanTrende @baseballcrank Asked Grok about this. With usual AI caveats, here's what it came up with:

https://t.co/Mrno3SHen7

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@ASimpleManView @SeanTrende @baseballcrank That's an excellent point. Wondering what best approaches are? Tariffs impose a tax on importers (and hence on US businesses and consumers). So while they can be a negotiating chip to seek better labor protections on the part of our trading partners, they're a blunt instrument.

[Aron Roberts @aronro]

@ASimpleManView @SeanTrende @baseballcrank Concurring heartily that "conflict sells" and that there are far too many incentives which monetize it!

One key reason that some media outlets and influencers (as well as *possibly* some foreign parties who wish us harm) seek to play up division over our commonalities.