⊥ᵒᵚ Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️ @falken@social.cleverlibre.org

Good grief the mansplainers are out in force this morning, trying to tell me which weird random text processing package of the month I should FORCE my publishers (hint: billion dollar multinationals) to adopt in place of the Word/InDesign/PDF workflow they finally standardized on after a decade or two of growing pains ...

@Keltounet @hywan I watched my mother progressively (and completely) lose the ability to use her iMac during her final decade because Apple kept f*cking around with the Mac OS X user interface, the way Mail worked, the colour of the window maximize/minimize buttons, and stuff that probably looked trivial to a 30-something UI designer but was deeply disruptive to an 80 something with impaired memory. And by losing that access, she lost touch with friends (via email).

Another day, another suggestion that you’d be better off using a standard grid reference than What3Words.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/01/what3words_geolocation_criticism/

We can't (and shouldn't) bring back the old, good internet.

We can (and must!) make a NEW, good internet.

https://doctorow.medium.com/enshitternet-c1d4252e5c6b

#enshittification #interoperability #labor #news #FreedomOfReach #bossware

Pornhub wins injunction that blocks Texas age-verification law

Texas was supposed to start enforcing the law tomorrow.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/pornhub-wins-injunction-that-blocks-texas-age-verification-law/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

UK peeps: Please consider signing this parliamentary petition (Stop the passing of the Online Safety Bill)? https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/634725

"Whoa there" yourself, Adobe. I am mildly annoyed by the phrasing that makes it look like it's my fault that a corporation can't be bothered to develop for Firefox.

When I joined Amazon in 2017, it prided itself on being a data-driven company. If you had an idea for a product or a service or a process, and could back it with credible data, you’d get support to implement it.

Andy Jassy has lost sight of that core principle. In a much-newsed temper tantrum, “Mr Jassy declined to share data that motivated his decision to require employees to return to the office. … “Mr Jassy told Amazon staff he had spoken to many other CEOs and ‘virtually all of them’ preferred having their employees back in the office.”

Oh, honey… talking to other CEOs who share your executive blinders (and lower level managers who tell you what you want to hear) is not the same as having actual data about the productivity you claim will be gained, and indeed Jassy “said it was a ‘judgement call.’”

IMO, the real drivers of the back-to-office push include:

• All that expensive commercial real estate sitting empty looks bad to shareholders.
• All those expensive homes near the office (owned by the higher echelons of the companies, who can afford them) will lose value if being near the office no longer matters.
• Executives feel that employees gained too much power during the pandemic, and are desperate to regain control — even at the cost of reneging on “forever” promises. Forcing employees to do something they don’t want to shows you’re in control.
• Managers and execs are stuck in an old worldview where being able to look over your crew of peons in person and “actively manage” them is a marker of power, regardless of what useful work those people are actually performing.
• Executives are like teenagers in their need to be part of the in crowd. The in crowd of corporate execs has now decided that a “strong leader” gets people back into the office, and they are increasingly draconian in their anxiety to catch up with their peers. Their employees are not their peers, and execs do not care what those employees think about them.

…probably you can come up with more on your own!

“Facebook has already shifted users’ agreements for UK users away from the EU to its US terms, does not allow UK users to opt-out of personalised advertisements, nor do they plan to switch to a consent-based model of advertising like is happening in Europe.

It's more than obvious that Facebook doesn't believe the Information Commissioner's Office will enforce UK data protection standards."

🗣️ @marianods for ORG

#GDPR #dataprotection #meta #ukpolitics

https://theferret.scot/uk-privacy-watchdog-threads-app-probe/

Have a very lovely lady (late twenties? smart, fun, well travelled, very positive and chatty) who I have placed in a London role (front end dev, Oxford Circus) moving to London for first time and looking for a flat share or room. Ideally within 30 mins public transport of Oxford Circus, and obv with someone lovely. Please can you boost this for reach? She needs a place in the next 2 weeks. Thanks! (thayer@team-prime.com)

Today we are running our first #joydiversion as part of the Right to the Streets project in Trafford. It will be a day of meandering, exploring and discovery. Using avatars, maps and unusual activities. #psychogeography #meandering #safety

KTM X-Bow (Pullback)
#klemmbausteine #lego #afol #afob #pullback #ktm