Sasha Akhavi @sakhavi@social.cleverlibre.org
Reasonably happy almost all the time, somehow. Extremely lucky father & husband; 20+ year software veteran / exec now studying the software industry as Ph.D @York University Science and Technology Studies. Blog at https://sakhavi.wordpress.com
Joined Oct 2022
"The ruling attracted widespread criticism from industry representatives, who said it creates legal uncertainty for many companies who commonly transfer data across international waters."
What uncertainty? It's now certain that what Meta did broke European privacy laws. What you mean is that it creates a *problem* for companies who have come to rely on doing this now clearly illegal thing. #meta #privacy #europeanunion
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/22/meta-fined-eu-facebook-data-privacy/
@PavelASamsonov almost a perfect metaphor: hard-coded links to your local environment don’t work in production.
My mom passed away
@actualham I’m so sorry, Robin. Love to you.
Sasha Akhavi
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The most important social media question for academics right now is: how are we going to create networking opportunities for junior scholars as Twitter declines?
That's why I'm so impressed with #AoIR , the Association of Internet Researchers, who are offering scholars a Mastodon account as part of membership at https://aoir.social/about
This is amazing! It seems like the headline’s assertion that it could “recast history” is no hyperbole. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/05/20/mayan-civilization-pyramid-discoveries-guatemala/
Sasha Akhavi
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I think many see comparisons of this moment for trans Americans to genocide as a hyperbolic attempt to reach ppl emotionally, and what I want to describe in this thread is that yes, we're trying you reach you emotionally, but it's also as clear a description as we can give.
In TX, authorities are going after trans children's medical records. Based on that, families are trying to decide whether they should flee because they're worried the state might put them in jail.
Sasha Akhavi
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***** When Google Doesn't Care *****
Why am I pushing a "Users' Bill of Account Rights" now? While this does not apply only to #Google, I frankly am deeply tired of people coming to me desperate, pleading, for help trying to restore access to locked out Google accounts. Google won't respond to them. They ask who they can talk to? Who can they PAY? Personal and business emails, precious photos, files. They trusted Google. They followed the rules. They did nothing illegal. And they've lost access to everything. To Google, they're just in the noise at Google scale.
It's been this way at Google since the firms' start, but over the years Google has encouraged ordinary, nontechnical people to trust them more and more. And that usually works great, until something goes wrong.
Up to now, I've sometimes been able to informally help in these situations, via contacts at Google. But even that has become much more difficult. This is getting worse, not better.
Google has the resources -- money and smart minds -- to solve these problems. This is not rocket science, or even computer science. There are straightforward ways to make this far better for Google users otherwise locked out and left to swing in the wind. The sad fact is that Google simply don't consider them to rise to the level worth helping.
This must change now. -L
Sasha Akhavi
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Stop imagining that you can be ok via force and start imagining that you can be ok via relationships with others.
Sasha Akhavi
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People in security and computing have been saying for years - there's no cloud. There's just someone else's computer.
Right now, there's no AI. There's just someone else's work.
Stop calling generative text and image programs AI. It's inaccurate and insulting. They are just the evolution of corporate creative theft that's been going on as long as media corporations have existed.
Sasha Akhavi
boosted
I post a fair amount of concerning news about #COVID19, so here's some potential good news. A vaccine developed at Rutgers is showing promise for long-lasting protection from COVID, and it's cheap to produce and distribute without special low-temperature handling. It needs more testing, but perhaps better population-wide protection is on the horizon?
@JuliusGoat One weird thing is that usually when some group achieves status as real or genuine (e.g. MLB player or Baruch College grad), they’ve had to earn it with effort, but it seems you get “real person” status in this scheme specifically via lack of effort, literally refusing to consider stuff because of laziness. Seems like that’s a potentially persuasive point that would be useful to highlight more.
@JuliusGoat To which we might add: The definition of such a crime is subject to change at any point, like a Big Tech co’s terms of service. Only the “real people” (I think of Sarah Palin’s “real Americans” here) get to consent to such changes.
Sasha Akhavi
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Sasha Akhavi
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I had to explain to someone today that the blue check is Twitter’s MAGA hat.
I wonder if the Globe’s editorial board has heard of wisdom teeth. They exist, and they link us to millennia of biological tradition. Moreover, most of the world’s truly great human beings have had them. And yet, many of us go to great length and expense to have them removed, because doing so is worth it. But anyway, about the #monarchy #CharlesIII #KingCharles
Sasha Akhavi
boosted
Every State Trying To Ban Racial Equity Efforts In Colleges And Universities https://www.essence.com/news/state-dei-ban/
Reasonably happy almost all the time, somehow. Extremely lucky father & husband; 20+ year software veteran / exec now studying the software industry as Ph.D @York University Science and Technology Studies. Blog at https://sakhavi.wordpress.com
Joined Oct 2022
