Blogaround

1. Why Tech Alone Won’t Free Women From Their Chains (May 9) "Since smartphones allow for multitasking, women often perform a variety of decentralized, invisible digital tasks at the same time. It can therefore be difficult for family members, and even those completing the chores, to distinguish between housework, social communication, and leisure time, with the result that women’s work is often misinterpreted as play, which diminishes the effort they put in and generates new family conflicts." Oh this is SO REAL! I'm in China- and the article is about China- so I don't know if this is similar in other countries. Probably yes. I have an app for grocery shopping- every time I think of something we need, I go put it in the cart in the app. I have to think about what we're having for dinner, keep track of whether we need toilet paper and other infrequently-purchased things, and think about what time the groceries should be delivered. And my husband handles the communication with our kid's school. All of this is through apps on the phone.

Also from Sixth Tone: Chinese Detergent Brand in a Spin Over Sexist Ad Campaign (May 11) "'It’s Mother’s Day, and you still want moms to do housework?' one user wrote on microblogging platform Weibo. 'I suggest you run the campaign again on Father’s Day to make laundry easier for dad,' another posted."

2. “Unprecedented” Google Cloud event wipes out customer account and its backups (May 18, via) "But no, the actual worst-case scenario is 'Google deletes your account,' which means all those backups are gone, too."

3. An exercise in frustration (May 20) "For the image below I asked ChatGPT/DALLE3 to keep each detail exactly the same but to make it so that we can see it's raining outside the tent. Not only did it completely change the image, but it's not even raining."

4. The Case For Open Borders (May 17, via) "The difference between an invasion and migration, is that an army comes over the border with guns to seize territory, and migrants come over the border in order to, for example, take a job in a restaurant and send their kids to school."

This is an interview with John Washington, author of a new book, "The Case For Open Borders." Wow I am so interested in this! 

I am an immigrant- I am American and I've lived in China for 10 years. Back when I was thinking about moving to China, I totally believed that I could just move to whatever country I wanted to. My whole life, I had heard about American missionaries moving to so many different countries around the world (and my decision to move to China was very much influenced by Christian missions ideology), and about Americans going on vacation to beautiful and interesting places all around the world. 

And at some point- I think after I moved to China- I found out that many people, because of where they were born, can't just go galivanting around to whatever country they want. *I* can, because I'm American, but many citizens of other countries can't. That was shocking to me. Everyone should be allowed to live wherever they want!

That's what radicalized me. Support all immigrants- legal immigrants, undocumented immigrants, refugees, third-culture kids, etc etc etc. Support all immigrants.