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I am really pleased with this photo. Straight off the camera and it looks SO WEIRD. So many questions. Why such a HUGE arched bridge over what appears to be such a small distance? Why only one solitary pedestrian using it? Where are they going? Where have they been?

I love it.

#photography #Scotland #bridge

long-ish, climate politics 

@isotopp@chaos.social @vladh I have mixed feelings about this. In a strictly technical sense, you are correct, but that's not the only sense that matters here.

Activism isn't really interchangeable; different people can do different things, and crucially *can't* do some things. For example, some of those who might be able to improve energy use of software, may not be able to engage in politics in a meaningful way.

Is it then better if they do nothing at all?

I feel like it ultimately comes down to what the choice is between; if it is between large systemic change and small changes like this, the former is obviously the better option. But if it's between this or nothing... well. Better this than nothing.

So personally I don't see a problem with smaller efforts towards change like this, *as long as* it is explicitly acknowledged that it is only a small first step, and those involved are encouraged to get involved in bigger efforts (like systemic politics) when they are able to. Diversity of tactics and all that.

I realized recently that
1. I'm about to install a little library in front of my house, and
2. I have a laser printer, which means my cost to print simple black and white booklets basically rounds down to 0$
So, uh, any interesting free-to-print (ideally black and white) #zines out there that would be interesting to share with the general public? Especially those related to #solarpunk, community, #anarchism, #environmentalism and similar subjects. Bonus points if they're in French

"After careful consideration, we have decided to proceed with other candidates whose qualifications more closely align with the specific needs of the role at this time" :boost_ok: 

A lot of people are looking for a job right now, and I've seen many of them on fedi taking the automated messages from recruiters at face value and questioning why exactly are they not a good fit for this role. Especially when the role still stays open for a while.

The rejections come in multitude of different wordings.
"You already possess a lot of important skills for this position but unfortunately, we have other candidates who are a closer match overall."
"Although your background is impressive, we regret to inform you that we have decided to pursue other candidates for the position at this time. At this stage, we have decided to move forward with candidates that have more experience as fullstack developers and more experience with our tech stack."
"Even though your profile seems very exciting, we decided to shortlist other candidates who match our qualification profile for the advertised job even better."

This all is bullshit.

All these texts are just a part of a standard template not even for rejection; the messages that you're getting are the messages sent automatically after recruiter clicks on "end the process for this candidate" button.
They're not even sent at that moment; instead, often they're sent by a cron job that fires, say, precisely at 8:00 on every day Mon-Fri (even when that's a public holiday) and send rejection messages to all the candidates who are no longer in hiring process but didn't receive the rejection message yet.

I've had a couple of recruiters later telling me this explicitly (when the rejection with this reason just didn't make any sense not just because of my profile).

And on this screenshot, the most recent case in point.
This company felt that I match their requirements very closely. So closely, that I passed all five interview stages successfully and they made me a job offer.
For reasons outside the scope of this post, the conditions the offer came with really didn't suit me. We discussed this for a few more days, they decided that they won't compromise on these conditions, and gave me time to think if I'm going to accept their offer.
I thought about it for a few days and eventually had to reject the offer. They personally thanked me for the information, wished me good luck... and the next day, exactly at 8:00, I'm getting this automated message. It's beyond ridiculous.

So whenever you get a bullshit message telling you that your profile is very exciting but they decided to move forward with other candidates whose profiles are even more exciting but you should not hesitate and please contact them whenever there is another role... it's just a very elaborate way of saying "your application process for this role is over". It doesn't mean that they found your profile exciting, or that they even looked at your profile. It doesn't mean that profiles of other candidates are now exciting, or that there even are any other candidates. It doesn't mean that they rejected you because you're not a good fit, or that they rejected you at all (as opposed to, say, you rejecting them, or them restructuring the company and cancelling the job opening). It doesn't mean that they want you to apply to them in the future. It only means one thing: that you won't be getting the job you applied to, period. Nothing more.

@piegames @esther@strangeobject.space FWIW, the experience was the same for me, until I realized that I just needed to detach from things for *longer* before my brain stopped actively wanting to check in on things.

Detach for a few days? Didn't work, idle polling. Detach for a week? Suddenly, the entire drive to constantly check things disappeared, as I *really* started to engage with other non-pressured things.

I receive these kinds of e-mails because a shitty 'adtech' company erroneously added me to their "business leads" list at some point, despite that not being a business address at all.

But most of the recipients on that list are going to be actual businesses, and I bet that at least some of them will have been caught out by this, and will be paying the "invoice" without further thought.

This is how you scam a company.

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The e-mail purports to be from a supplier, more specifically a contractor; it has all the right business speak that a contractor might actually use when trying to gently remind you of an unpaid invoice.

The "end of fiscal year" adds further pressure; it sets a deadline for the payment of the invoice, and crucially makes that deadline something that is imposed by a third party; that way, the scammer discourages attempts to argue about the payment term and makes faster payments happen.

Perhaps you *do* reply, though, to inquire about the line items, despite your "colleague"s approval - the e-mail will go to an e-mail that's *wrong*, but not obviously so!

A lot of companies legitimately use Sendcloud for their internal e-mail affairs, and so it going through a Sendcloud address is a credible thing. This domain, sendcloud-management.com, is probably not actually owned by Sendcloud, but it will *appear* to be to a hurried accounting employee trying to keep a supplier happy!

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This is an excellently-written attempt. First of all, the headers. The subject line is crucial here - "Overdue since January" puts on the pressure, trying to make the reader panic, believing that they've somehow overlooked an invoice for months. This makes it likely for them to overlook small things that aren't quite right.

The sender, for example; it's worth noting that the person named here, Kris Marszalek, *does not exist*. It's a randomly generated name! This takes advantage of the fact that in most companies, most departments have *no idea* who actually works there, and will just assume "oh, that must be the new hire".

The e-mail address for both the From and Reply-To headers may be wrong, but the name (which in some e-mail clients is the only thing that shows!) explicitly includes "via cryto.net" (my domain), making it look like it came from someone inside of the "company".

This is important for the scam; having it be forwarded by someone internal, or at least appearing that way, serves as an implicit 'approval'; it will lead the reader to assume that "oh, someone else already checked this and concluded it's legit".

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Ever wondered how those corporate invoice scams work, where companies are tricked into paying bullshit invoices for services they've never purchased? Well, I just received one of those, so let's look at it!

I just rediscovered something poetic I wrote in a private forum dedicated to nude photography of ordinary people (not models!). I'm reposting it here, because it's worth remembering:

"A normal body is beautiful in its banality. It is the result of genetics and the physical labors and ordeals that this body has endured. The fact that an ordinary person is willing to let the world see their banal or 'imperfect' naked body celebrated in art is a gift to us all."

#bodypositivity #bodypositive

re: political party, bigotry 

@marlies Also just noticed her involvement with Blckbx...

Watching the Federated feed and looking up unfamiliar terms is like a 50/50 split of "oh huh, interesting topic" versus "oh god I am instantly exhausted just from reading what this is about"

re: political party, bigotry 

@marlies I missed that part. Have any links to read more about that, by any chance?

segregation in sports is unjustified by all metrics. it's unjustified by physical parameters — all people have different ones, and there are men, women (both trans and not) and others who can be both strong and heavy or more agile and light. it's unjustified by psychological parameters — there's no gender-specific differences in brain function. the only reason why sports are gender segregated is because men feel humiliated when they see other genders win

political party, bigotry (2) 

And like, we're talking "literally was one of the main presenters of a fascist TV broadcaster and runs a crowdfunding platform that all the fascists use" here. Their bigotry is not exactly a secret.

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political party, bigotry 

So it looks like the Dutch Pirate Party still harbours right-wing bigots (Ahmed Aarad, in this case), or at least still tolerates their involvement.

This sort of shit is why I can't take the Pirate Party seriously here.

meta griping 

@vantablack Ah yes, "I would have listened if only people had done <arbitrary thing that conveniently isn't the thing that was done>, oh well", the classic excuse

tangential, mutual aid 

@aroacemagicalnerd I wonder if this kind of focused "we're trying to complete these fundraisers now" thing might be a good idea in general as a long-term thing, to get more mutual aid going (particularly from those not 'tuned in' to it, ie. most wealthier folks).

@ben (Another organization which fits this profile, incidentally, would be Cloudflare)

@ben Or to phrase it slightly differently: "platform that has a really good reputation because of a few high-profile privacy/security things while dropping the ball on the bigger picture and ignoring criticisms" is *exactly* the kind of profile I would expect from a hypothetical organization that is trying to entrap high-value targets.

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