u/WylleWynne

I read a 1657 book called the Art of Simpling by William Coles. Wiktionary says Simpling is "an expedition to gather plants; a herborizing."

I wondered if it was a variation of sampling, but Wiktionary says it comes from simple. I was wondering if anyone had any insight into the origin of this word.

Received this mass email from Michael Bernstein today.

---

The city's antics with the 267.5 acres in Lester have taken up quite a bit of my time this spring and summer. After the council put the cart before the horse by initiating conveyance of former golf course before a land use study was completed—thus signalling their ultimate intention to sell the land—I had to figure out how to start a citizen initiative petition, organize volunteers to gather over 5,000 signatures, and collect many of those signatures myself. After the city refused to count the petitions I had to figure out how to prove their invalid count, enlist people to help me prove it, and go down to the clerk's office to count and sort them ourselves. When they still refused to count them I had to figure out how to file a mandamus lawsuit (a subject I had no prior knowledge of), draft the petition, and then prepare for a hearing with the judge. After they still refused to put the issue on the ballot under a novel legal theory that I predict has a very slim chance of succeeding, I had to write a 28-page brief to convince them and a judge they were wrong. If they vote tonight to kick our ordinances from the ballot, I will likely prepare for another hearing in front of the judge, subsequent litigation, etc. 

All this to say they are wasting a lot of my time, and a lot of other people's time too. This includes the people who volunteered to go door-to-door, notarize petitions, validate signatures, and prove the undercount of petitions at the clerk's office. At the end of all this it feels pretty shitty to have to attend not one, but two meetings to beg them to do the right thing and put the ordinances on the ballot. Why should we have to beg for anything at this point? This is ridiculous.

I'm going to the meeting (and will be speaking), primarily on the offchance two councillors, namely Roz Randorff and Jordan Johnson, are persuadable. Roz has written about wrestling with the preemption issue (under the law, "wrestling" with it means our ordinances are not "manifestly invalid," and necessitates putting it on the ballot). Jordan was clearly rattled by the response he got when the perception was that he had put the resolution up for a vote and raised the issue of whether housing at Lester would include any housing for Duluth's homeless population. At the last Lester Open House, Arik Foresman and Nik Bayuk said specifically that affordable housing would not be possible at the site (Arik alluded to this in a blog post earlier this year), even though the city's 2022 agreement with DEDA for the 37.5 acres mandates at least 80 units be affordable and 20% of all mixed-income housing be affordable. 

I'm also going to the meeting to ensure every councillor up for re-election in 2027 who opposes this measure (Nephew, Foresman, Randorff, Kennedy) knows that their vote on this issue will mobilize and energize a large group of people to prevent them (or their ilk, execs with Minnesota Power, real estate agents, etc.) from ever being on the power-side of the city council dais again. I will do my darndest to ensure that. That's not a threat. That's a fact and a promise.  

So yeah, hope to see you there, and I urge you to make your voices heard in whatever way you see fit. How can we entrust 267.5 acres of Duluth's best property to a mayor-controlled city council, a mayor-appointed planning commission, and a mayor-appointed DEDA board when City Hall can't be relied on to uphold a simple democratic process? When they can't count approximately 347 sheets of paper, each holding up to 10 signatures of Duluth voters? I don't think we can. 

Best,
Bernie

Has it already been three months that I've been stationed here? The mountains and the plains have not lost their grandeur, but the dust has. And everywhere as I continue inspections is the feeling of danger, boredom, and alienation.

I need not tell you that the needs of our Empire require surveyors, archeologists, soldiers. At times, however, as I look at the faces of the locals impressed into building our walls and cisterns, I wonder whether the Empire is truly worth its cost...

I never thought I would miss the Capital, yet here I am. If you would but share some notes of your daily life there, I would be dearly appreciative.

Yours,

I haven't touched a console in decades. Can a game like GTA VI really fit on a disk, or is it a ceremonial thing?

https://www.reddit.com/r/videogames/comments/1uexde1/i_dont_like_where_this_is_going/

Years ago, maybe a decade or more, I used to be a prolific pen pal. The world has changed so much since then, and I suppose I have as well -- but I find myself drawn once again exchange of correspondence. There's something magical about it.

I'm currently in a nice time in my life, where I work at a charming cafe & community center in a harbor city. And in my free time, I write a lot. Mostly theory about gathering, smiling, and joy. I love beautiful language. Let's be as the rain is to meadows.

What else? I love many partner dances, and singing; I love the neighborhood trees and following the stages of the moon. I take lots of notes on everything I read, which tends to be historical in nature.

With the US being so shaken by corruption, violence, and bad priorities, it's been a strange time to live and make plans, and it's created a kind of live in the moment feel. Do you feel like we're on the cusp of something new, too? (Good or bad, I don't know.)

I spend so much time talking to people in person, I'd love to counterbalance that with some writing. I am not looking for a best friend or anything: just a summer correspondence, the pleasure of sharing some time, reading and writing, life through words, that sort of thing.

I prefer the medium of my youth: keyboard-based emails. But I know the zeitgeist has shifted away from that over time. So we can play it by ear.

Say hello! I would be more than happy to hear from you.

Am I really a dragonfly? This is something you will have to find out.

I have a love of tasty gnats. That sounds like something a dragonfly would say, doesn't it?

On the other hand, I love ice cream. Now, have you even known a dragonfly to eat ice cream?

With my thousand thousand facets to my compound eyes, I behold everything a million times.

But you probably want to know about me and my interests.

Well, if it's a sunny day, you can find me bathing my handsome wings while lying on a rock.

If it's a pink-streaked evening, you can find me partying in the sky, sometimes sixty feet up or more.

I invite you to correspond with me, whether you are gnat, spider, bat, mouse, or cat. I am not particular.

Google is promising Hermantown $130 million dollars of upfront infrastructure investment in exchange for 30 years of tax breaks. Once the infrastructure is built, it becomes Hermantown's responsibility: they are on the hook for it from then on out.

The public works department in Hermantown has 12 employees and an annual budget of $1 million. Can they manage this? And accurately handle the information to make informed decisions?

This sort of investment happens all the time, but the scale here is staggering. We are talking about a town dealing with 100x their annual expenditure of infrastructure, and this risk has enormous consequences for the whole region. (Imagine trying to gauge whether it would be sustainable to scale up where you work by 100x in a few years.)

The kicker is that Hermantown has a population of 10,000, and Google has 200,000 full time workers. I'm reminded of a fortune 100 company getting involved in third world villages. There's a power and capacity dynamic that cannot be bridged.

This is an interesting angle of criticism, because we often get bogged down in WHAT is being built. But even if we don't know, it's a crazy thing for a tiny town put risk on an entire region like this.

(Of course, I would say a data center is probably the worst possible variation of "cash now, we'll overcome debt later" -- since data centers don't employ a lot of people, and may still be speculative infrastructure.)

The article I linked to argued that tiny organizations -- like Hermantown Public Works -- should not be making these decisions alone for structural reasons.