Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

The most blatant and yet pervasive lie is that neurotypicals are well-organised. Complete fabrication! Neurodivergent folk will send you all the info. More, actually. In advance. They're probably sending it later than *they* had planned, but still earlier than NTs. NTs just *seem* more organised because they don't stress about it because they themselves don't care all that much about timely information.

There. I said it. And I stand by it. Get it together, NTs!

#neurodiversity #ADHD #Autistic

Maybe a better analogy for people who still think "chat AI" knows what it's saying is that it's like a parrot. Parrots can talk like humans but they don't have any idea what they're saying. They're just repeating patterns of sound they've heard us make. If you ask a parrot a question enough times it can even learn that after the sound pattern that your question made another pattern follows that makes up the answer. It still doesn't know what you're asking it, or what the answer means. It's just making sound patterns

These AIs are doing the exact literal same thing with letters. It doesn't mean anything, because it doesn't understand any of it, because IT'S A FUCKING PARROT, BRENT

and the brain-genius typed "no one would do anything without a profit motive!" and hit send on a button rendered by an open source front end framework firing off an event handled by an open source programming language that sends a packet in a format conforming to an open specification over a protocol developed at universities with public funding until it reaches a web server running an open source operating system that files the hot take away into an open source database for safe keeping

here's the really crucial parallel which i am sure will infuriate many a techbro:

the essay linked has this bit of

The engineer can resign himself to the truth that there are some things he doesn’t know.

techbros fail this the way many a fundamentalist does. they don't actually want to acknowledge there's something they don't know. he doesn't even go to something as elegant as denying the concept of a holy mystery. the fundamentalist doesn't want to acknowledge that there's things he doesn't know, or didn't know, when he first read genesis - he doesn't want to know about the minutiae of translations, or even that maybe something could be a metaphor. whatever he first imagined in his head at the time is his absolute truth. he is not inclined to ever think about how he could be corrected, because that would be showing ignorance - and he is more interested in the vanity of being always right than actually learning, or especially actual truth.

a techbro takes the same sort of approach to technology. he may say that he doesn't know things, but rarely does he actually act like this is the case. if it's not something that is just as he first imagined it, he ignores it. to admit that maybe he was wrong would be to admit fault. he's not actually interested in being correct, or truthful, or helpful. he's interested in the vanity of always being right, where always being right also includes thinking of himself as this brilliant paragon and all-knowing dictator of electrons shepherded around a rock we tricked into doing math.

it's not actually about anything truly important. it's about having power and not giving it up.

that's why the techbro always leaps at the chance to use his power to oppress others. he's not actually interested in helping. he's interested in having the power to hurt other people, and will take any excuse to do so.

if techbros have been mad after being called techbros, i'm gonna laugh

but here are several definitions of the term "techbro" for those who may be confused:

what happens when a script kiddie gets older, but doesn't mature in the least
guy who thinks he's the main character of all technology and thusly the entire world must be solved with his applications of technology, and everyone else must be condescended to
person who has outsourced all morality, ethics, and thought to the computer, and then wonders why his attitude of "the computer lets me so it must be correct" makes shit programming
the sort of "brogrammer"/programmer bro that makes sillicon valley hellish
a compulsive programmer as per this essay https://www.sac.edu/AcademicProgs/Business/ComputerScience/Pages/Hester_James/HACKER.htm
to elaborate on 5, it's someone who only likes technology because he can order it around, and that's the only real thrill he gets from it. he doesn't truly think they're tools to solve problems. they're the means to a power trip. and in his interactions, he makes sure people know that technology is a power trip for him and only him - which is why he'll belittle and mock you to make sure he has the power and you don't.
imagine the very worst stereotypes of the most annoying and obnoxious computer science student you ever had the misfortune to meet in any of your classes, just fifteen odious fuckers combined to create the most odious one imaginable. focus in on that mental picture. yep, you got it, that's a techbro

This has been a blight on #OpenSource software for a long time.

33% of the web is run on #Apache web server.

My web server runs on it. It's offensive.

Please sign the petition in this article to "End ASF Mascotry"

#NotYourMascot #Native #Indigenous #NDN #NativeMastodon #IndigenousMastodon

https://blog.nativesintech.org/apache-appropriation/

this whole post is great but the last line KNOCKED ME OUT

Any Mastodon instance that is acquired by a for-profit organization should get an immediate fediblock.

#fediblock pawoo.net

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mask-network-acquires-pawoonet-one-of-the-largest-mastodon-instances-301707919.html

@mhoye and also with a litany of references of the historical usage of that phrase, because "nobody wants to work anymore" has been in newspapers and many other places for a good couple centuries at least.

It's the fundamental litany of capitalism, trying to guilt people into accepting less than their labour's worth.

One thing I will say about that chart going around that shows monkeypox in rapid decline:

I can't help but notice that all the media outlets that bought into the gay disease panic narrative are reeeeeeeeeeal quiet about how effectively queer community mobilized to shut that danger down.

I would love to see someone list general-interest tech media which published articles describing Mastodon/the fediverse as complicated and confusing, a couple of months after assuring readers that crypto wallets and apps were “not that hard to get the hang of”.

OK #Mastodon. I've seen several toots on #accessibility for #screenreader users, however, I've not seen one from a screenreader user (as far as I know). I've used ZoomText, Outspoken, JAWS (AKA JFW), Supernova, NVDA (Windows), and VoiceOver (both on Macs and iPhone). I don't have experience with Windows Narrator or TalkBack. I would like to rectify and clarify a few small things.
First off, any awareness of accessibility issues, and endeavours to make things more accessible is great. Keep going!
But…
Blind/low-vision people have been using the internet as long as everyone else. We had to become used to the way people share things, and find workarounds or tell developers what we needed; this latter one has been the main drive to get us here and now. Over the past decade, screen readers have improved dramatically, including more tools, languages, and customisability. However, the basics were already firmly in place around 2000. Sadly, screen readers cost a lot of money at that time. Now, many are free; truly the biggest triumph for accessibility IMHO.
So, what you can do to help screen readers help their users is three simple things.
1. Write well: use punctuation, and avoid things like random capitalisation or * halfway through words.
2. Image description: screen readers with image recognition built-in will only provide a very short description, like: a plant, a painting, a person wearing a hat, etc. It can also deal with text included in the image, as long as the text isn't too creatively presented. So, by all means, go absolutely nuts with detail.
3. Hashtags: this is the most commonly boosted topic I've seen here, so #ThisIsWhatAnAccessibleHashtagLooksLike. The capitalisation ensures it's read correctly, and for some long hashtags without caps, I've known screen readers to give up and just start spelling the whole damn thing out, which is slow and painful.
That's really all. Thanks for reading! 😘

Been seeing a lot about #ChatGPT lately and got my first question at the library this week from someone who was looking for a book that the bot had recommended. They couldn't find it in our catalog. Turns out that ALL the books that ChatGPT had recommended for their topic were non-existent. Just real authors and fake titles cobbled together. And apparently this is known behavior. 😮

Hey website boy? Can I make a humble suggestion for upstream? I think it really suits the new brand push for better marketing data for our new journalist friends.

#MastoDev #Surveillance

Nieuwe blog … 📣

*Mastodon is geen revalidatiecentrum voor white innocence*

https://blog.joenepraat.nl/mastodon-is-geen-revalidatiecentrum-voor-white-innocence

"Wat een eer! In het zoveelste artikel over #Mastodon staat mijn #mastofittie (hierbij als nieuw woord gelanceerd) met ene Caroline (what's in a name). Zelfs Todon.nl wordt in het zonnetje gezet! 🎉 Helaas word ik wel gemisgendered (ondertussen op mijn verzoek online gecorrigeerd). 🙄

De context was dat op 19 november jl. de bus van #KOZP (waar ik in zat) net daarvoor was belaagd door (inderdaad) fascistische terrorboeren in de buurt van #Staphorst. Tijdens de terugreis naar de beschaafde wereld maakte ik in een sarcastische toot/bericht met een (uiteraard) fake motie om dat zwaar gereformeerde dorp om te toveren tot een Natura 2000-gebied. Een manier van mij om deze afschuwelijke ervaring te verwerken. Dit werd door vele mensen zo begrepen en gewaardeerd, dus ging die trending (ja dat hebben ze ook op Mastodon) en kwam het op het beeldscherm van deze Caroline terecht. Die kwam hier op Mastodon voor haar geprivilegieerde rust 🤦🏻 en dacht een activist die nog vol met adrenaline zat de mond te kunnen snoeren (tone policing). …"

#StaphorstKanHetNiet #ZwartePietNiet #ZwartePiet #activisme #solidariteit #blog #Volkskrant

Edit: Ik had door alle euforie het misgenderen over het hoofd gezien. 😢