rlamacraft @rlamacraft@social.cleverlibre.org
Software engineer by trade. Programmer by hobby too (in addition to basketry and spoon carving). Personal website: https://rlamacraft.uk/. Gemini capsule: gemini://gemini.rlamacraft.uk
Joined Jan 2020
rlamacraft
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We really need a FOSS search engine with, and this is important: its own in-house, FOSS crawler
rlamacraft
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Facebook policy changes fail to quell advertiser revolt as Coca-Cola pulls ads https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/26/facebook-policies-hate-speech-advertisers-unilever
rlamacraft
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A lot of rambling about abusive tech and people who code it
Years ago now I worked a gig that was doing some crap with ISP-grade software that was not great for privacy/safety.
When I realized what was going on I started making noise. I began filing bug reports against privacy/safety/freedom breaches I identified, they got ignored. I finally went up my management chain going "We can't sell this, it's abusive!"
I dunno if it was my cage-rattling or someone else's that got to the CEO, but he eventually announced to the company something to the tune of "We're not alone in this emerging market. If we don't do this, others will anyway so really we're not doing anything that won't happen anyway"
And that stuck with me, because at the time I didn't have a coherent argument against it. Now? My stance on it is pretty solid-- we need far more ethics training than we get now, and we need a union or unions to back up refusal to do this crap on moral and ethical grounds.
So many people in tech feel helpless because they can just ultimately be replaced. It may HURT to replace some people, but the entire industry is kind of a meat grinder and everyone is just a cog in the machine. If you refuse to turn, the org cuts you and spends 3 days to 3 months training a fresh grad to replace you, depending on role.
People need the training to identify the misuses of what they build, the conviction to refuse to build abusive software, and the backing from their peers when they put their foot down. We don't have any of that right now.
When I realized what was going on I started making noise. I began filing bug reports against privacy/safety/freedom breaches I identified, they got ignored. I finally went up my management chain going "We can't sell this, it's abusive!"
I dunno if it was my cage-rattling or someone else's that got to the CEO, but he eventually announced to the company something to the tune of "We're not alone in this emerging market. If we don't do this, others will anyway so really we're not doing anything that won't happen anyway"
And that stuck with me, because at the time I didn't have a coherent argument against it. Now? My stance on it is pretty solid-- we need far more ethics training than we get now, and we need a union or unions to back up refusal to do this crap on moral and ethical grounds.
So many people in tech feel helpless because they can just ultimately be replaced. It may HURT to replace some people, but the entire industry is kind of a meat grinder and everyone is just a cog in the machine. If you refuse to turn, the org cuts you and spends 3 days to 3 months training a fresh grad to replace you, depending on role.
People need the training to identify the misuses of what they build, the conviction to refuse to build abusive software, and the backing from their peers when they put their foot down. We don't have any of that right now.
Maybe things are different in Latvia, but here the health services routinely transmit private health records via fax and the government has spent the past two decades conducting widespread surveillance - and it’s Silicon Valley I should be fearful of? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/16/google-apple-dictating-european-democracies-coronavirus
Fantastic multi-part series on various different patterns for using source-control systems from Martin Fowler - great read for anyone interested in understanding different approaches and their pros/cons https://martinfowler.com/articles/branching-patterns.html #CI/CD #git
@CornishRepublicanArmy@hellsite.site @breakfastgolem @pizza Yeah, nobody does crazy names like we do: toad-in-the-hole, spotted dick, faggots, bubble and squeak, chip butty - the list is endless
rlamacraft
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Any police officer who quits in solidarity with a colleague who put an innocent person in the hospital is a police officer we're better off without.
As a data structure, sets are seriously under-rated; the simplicity of the interface (union, difference, etc) makes code so much more elegant
rlamacraft
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My meditation app constantly nagging me to turn on notifications is very 2020
rlamacraft
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Facebook engineer's resignation letter
"Mark always told us that he would draw the line at speech that calls for violence. He showed us on Friday that this was a lie."
rlamacraft
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Why are people scared of the riots and looting?
The flu kills way more people every year.
The flu kills way more people every year.
rlamacraft
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Modern web browsers seem like they were designed by someone who saw a document retrieval system and said, “How can I make this more like TV?”
rlamacraft
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Not to forget the good news today: the SpaceX Crewed Dragon docked with the International Space Station moments ago
“Cybercriminals are not eligible for unemployment insurance or relief if they quit their job. Some of them have employees and third parties to pay” - won’t somebody think of the cybercriminals! https://portswigger.net/daily-swig/eu-calls-for-ceasefire-on-cyber-attacks-exploiting-coronavirus-pandemic
@freemo National leaders always get a boost when there’s a crisis irrespective of whether they’re doing a good job, just as they take blow when there’s a financial crisis irrespective of whether they’re doing a poor job. Events are changing so rapidly I don’t think Trump’s ratings today will have any impact come November, but I can’t tell you as an outsider looking on it’s all very dramatic to watch
Been reading up on how Safari/Firefox implement their reader modes, and my god are they horrible, horrible hacks… what ever happened to writing HTML that described the content of the page in a semantically sensible way?? Why must we guess what is the actual content from the occurrence of commas, the length of paragraphs, and the total length of text???
Great video from 3b1b, as always, about viral modelling https://youtu.be/gxAaO2rsdIs
rlamacraft
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Apart from September 14th 1943, the US Senate canteen has served bean soup every day, from the same recipe, for over a hundred years.
“Security. How should a bank handle customers wearing masks coming into a branch? It may be difficult to distinguish between a customer and a bank robber.”[1] - since when do bank robbers wear surgical masks??
Source: Matt Levine @ Bloomberg[2]
[1]https://www.fdic.gov/coronavirus/faq-fi.pdf
[2]https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-20/senators-picked-a-good-time-to-sell-stocks
Software engineer by trade. Programmer by hobby too (in addition to basketry and spoon carving). Personal website: https://rlamacraft.uk/. Gemini capsule: gemini://gemini.rlamacraft.uk
Joined Jan 2020
