Dear Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez:

First off, I'd like to thank you for the hard work you do as a Congressperson. We may not be always in agreement politically, but I respect the work you do and the office you hold.

I was reading the above article about the situation that members of Congress are in, having to maintain two homes in order to properly do their job. This is something I've actually thought about often,because I've been in a similar situation. For several years I had a temporary gig in Northern Connecticut, but still maintained other work back here in New York City. After working the CT gig for a month, spending 4 hours a day commuting on top of the 8 to 10 hours a day working was getting to be too much for me. Since the gig was open to renewals, I didn't know when things were going to end.  So I found some temporary Connecticut housing in a SRO which I rented on top of my Astoria, Queens apartment. I understand something of the costs of maintaining two households as well as a longer than average commute and the costs that entails both financially and personally.

I have to question your discussion is when you say it's difficult  to maintain 2 households on your $174,000 salary. The average New York City salary is about $75,000 a year, so you were making $100,000 more than your average constituent. In my head, I've always justified congressional salaries because of the added expenders Congresspeople have with housing and commuting.

I got to thinking about the numbers.  An average rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in the Washington, DC is just under $3,000.  If you figure another $500 a month for maintenance and utilities on the apartment and $1000/mo to fly back and forth from NYC, you're still collecting $120,000 a year, $45,000 a year more than your average constituent.

In my younger days, like you, I was a service worker. I couldn't imagine how I'd react if somebody at one of my tables was complaining to me that they had trouble making ends meet on a salary that was twice what I was making.  I imagine I'd feel this person who is out of touch with people in the lower and middle class of society.

Again I respect who you are, I respect what you do, but I wish you'd think of the large number of people you represent who aren't earning what you're earning in times where inflation is running amuck and it's harder each day for the average New Yorker to make ends meet. I don't like using the word "privilege" but this is what it feels like.

Thank you again for your service.

A local Popeye's has one of those Coca-Cola Freestyle machines. It was a little unusual because it didn't have a touchscreen, instead you join their WiFi network, scan the QR code with your phone which sent you over to a website where are you made your selections which filled the cup. Found it interesting for a couple reasons, although smartphones are popular, I'm surprised that they've gained such ubiquity that they become the default way for a person to fill their drink. Also I'm surprised, that people would willingly be joining Popeye's internal Wi-Fi network in order to get their soda filled.  

It was interesting to see people young and old trying to dope about how to fill their cups.  The advantage of the freestyle machine with the touchscreen is that there was very little learning curve push your cup against the thing that said ice, put your cup under the spout, select the flavor you want and poof you had soda. No joining networks, no scanning barcodes, you need to little if any tech-support. Here they had to be an employee that stood there showing people how to use it and filling soda for people who didn't have phones or were technical neophytes. It's funny although QR codes seem simple, I've heard them referred to as the herpes of technology. I'm not sure that's exactly the case but I think that there are people who are intimidated by them and don't get exactly how they work.  When you consider that the customer facing soda machines were installed because it's cheaper to allow a customer to refill their soda several times than it is to pay an employee to fill sodas, we've taken a step backwards and I don't suspect it'll improve with user education.

As always I wonder how easily this could be abused. Imagine joining the Wi-Fi net work, sitting at the opposite end of the restaurant and just screwing with the machine. Causing the machine to run with no one in front of it so soda is spilling all over the floor, we're changing somebody's flavor as they're filling their cup.  Also, I presume like most other Internet of Things devices the webserver is running on the soda machine so I wonder about the potential exploits  and what one could do if they pwned a soda machine

I was in the store today and it's like we learned nothing The line so close the people could physically touch each other. I understand that variants of Covid aren't as severe as they were when I had it and that we have treatments now which we didn't have two years ago, but maintaining distance was something I was hoping for when this thing ended. I don't care if it's Covid, the Flu, or a Cold, I don't want your germs and maintaining a reasonable distance in line is the least we can do to keep people healthy.

I'm of such mixed opinions here. I support making it easier for a person to vote, but I'm a technologist who spends a good deal of time thinking of man-in-the-middle attacks, I can easily see how drop boxes can be abused to intercept, change or discard votes