Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

Hashtag threat model

some guy is gonna be here between 10 and 12 to check the heating, so now i'll be cycling my idle animation while waiting next to the door for two hours

Ask people for the calendar date they think the pandemic ended and show them the wastewater charts spanning 2020–present challenge

how do people remember names of ppl irl when like. there's no nametag floating above their head at all times

Hearing about a young hacker whose being extorted by the University of Washington, not cool UW.

The student claims they built an app to help kids get the course schedules they want, a hack as old as time, and the university decided to expel him until he ports his app to the university's internal systems.

This would be unpaid labor.

Until then his class registration is on hold and he can't register or attend his last few classes. 🥴

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jdkaim_github-jdkaimhuskyswap-huskyswap-project-activity-7282891503142641664-nA8Y

#UW #Seattle #HuskySwap #CS

Gone is the clause saying you cannot compare women to "household objects or property." Also removed is a prohibition on claiming that there is "no such thing" as a trans or gay person.
Added in to the policy are new clauses apparently designed to explicitly allow common anti-trans arguments, such as advocating for trans people to be banned from public bathrooms, school sports, or certain jobs.

"We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation," reads one exception. The same section previously said that users couldn’t call protected groups “freaks” or “abnormal”.

Meta also replaced language banning “generalizations” about a protected group’s “inferiority” on the basis of “intellectual capacity”. Now the new language merely bans “unsupported comparisons” between protected groups’ on the basis of their “inherent intellectual capacity” — seemingly opening the door to scientific racism.

Fucking awful. Absolutely do not want to hear "good thing I don't use Facebook" etc. Because your parents probably do and most of the people you grew up with do too.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/facebook-fact-checking-hate-speech-meta-b2675311.html

Got a button

a reminder to US folks that you can see how much your doctor has been bribed at https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov

#PSA

As an antidote to all the horrible US Tech Bros in the news, what are some nice, encouraging stories about thoughtful/ slow/ kind/ humane tech catching on and doing well?

It's funny to see how Eugen went from "shut up, Zuck" to "omg yes, we're federating with Threads 😍 " back to "Zuck is a threat"

If you are planning to attend the event, please do make sure you're vaccinated, mask up, take rapid tests.

Most importantly, if you have any suspicion that you are starting to get sick do not hesitate to skip the day's talks and stay home. It is unlikely that any of the talks will be good enough to justify spreading covid and any of the other pathogens that tend to spread during this season.

#covidIsNotOver

@time_for_kindness A note for men who think "I couldn't help her because she'd think I was a creep too": you can absolutely help her. You go up to the dude and say something along the lines of "hey man, great to see you again - didn't we meet at that conference (party, concert, etc)? The one with whats-his-face?" and get him talking to you instead of to her. And if he follows her anyway, then you start in on "hey man, I don't think she wants to talk to you - leave her alone”.

I wish people would spend more time thinking about what is possible, and less about what isn't possible. Don't let your thoughts be a prison

This is a really excellent read - @cafkafk going out to Eurorust to essentially investigate the military contractor Helsing and their footing in the Rust community, to determine the impact of such contractors on FOSS communities.

https://cafkafk.dev/p/eurorust-2024-helsing/