Professional doubter of software: privacy, location, map data. Addresses aren't real. Still at Google so far. Lifetime +26% CO₂ already. Honk if you passed P-Chem.
(avatar pic is Tove Jansson's art)
Watch now | Haitian Woman, 31, Dies Alone at Pittsburgh Bus Stop Days After ICE Released Her Far From Home to Die.
“AI-powered writing tools are increasingly integrated into our e-mails and phones. Now a new study finds biased AI suggestions can sway users’ beliefs” “We told people before, and after, to be careful, that the AI is going to be (or was) biased, and nothing helped,” Naaman said. “Their attitudes about the issues still shifted.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-autocomplete-doesnt-just-change-how-you-write-it-changes-how-you-think/
Last year Mandy Brown shared with me and a few others the notion of “far-fetching”. I’ve been meaning to e-mail her and ask where she found it, or if it’s her own.
As I received it, it’s the idea of reaching out into a desired, or necessary, future and finding some piece of it—however far-fetched—to bring (‘fetch’) back into the current moment. Something practical to do with hope, in hope. There are, and have been, many small things to far-fetch in this way.
> But when I think back to myself at the start of my career, and the things that pulled me towards this industry, I don’t see myself making that same decision if I were making it now. This is not a place of honor.
> “Once, technology solved problems. People liked having problems solved, so they liked technology. Tech execs started to think of that sentiment as their due. So when they stopped solving problems, and people stopped liking them, they became outraged.“
https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-grow-strawberries/
Little One has friends with two mums, two dads, a single mum, an adopted family, divorced parents and knows both non binary people and a friendly adult who has transitioned their gender while we knew them.
We've been to drag queen story times, which Little One enjoys, because dressing up and telling stories and singing is Fun.
None of that has been confusing or an issue at all.
You know what this child finds confusing and upsetting?
That there are people with no home, sleeping in the streets. With nothing to eat.
That makes no sense to them. And rightly so, because it has no justification.
Happy Friday!
Lots of folks in tech are looking for work right now, so here's a thread of some tech for good (or at least, hopefully not explicitly evil) roles I found around the web.
Epstein Backed ‘Billionaires’ Dinner’ Network of Prominent Anti-Trans Figures:
(The network in question also tried to discredit women who accused powerful men of rape. Transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, rape culture: it's all part of the same phenomenon.)
https://transnews.network/p/epstein-backed-prominent-anti-trans-figures
Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and other anti-trans influencers personally benefited from a right-wing academic social group backed by infamous human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, sometimes meeting at his island.
In our neighborhood today a teen was just taken from his car. Groceries left in the front seat. Probably he was just out shopping for his family who are sheltering at home.
We've been seeing this at the grocery store, young kids doing the shopping with their parents on a video call. The assumption maybe is the kids are natural born citizens and definitely not criminals or whatever so ICE would leave them alone.
I case you were wondering, ICE is still terrorizing #Minneapolis
allison
Brian Kerr
Ika Makimaki
Stuart Celarier ❌👑
Jess Rose
Charlie Stross
Aaron In Minnesota