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
@jeffjarvis You have to understand, erupting is part of a long tradition for the volcano. The point is not that it endangers all life in the region; it’s that the volcano gets to release its sincerely held lava and assert the geologic freedom of volcanoes everywhere. You might say it’s heritage, not hate.
Sasha Akhavi
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Here's why? Because the volcano has finally had it with Elon Musk? Because the volcano had too much pepperoni on its pizza? Headlines promising 'why' are so idiotic.
Sasha Akhavi
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Or. Or . . . wait.
Is *this* the logic billionaire philanthropists are using?
"I stole hundreds of millions, but now my debt will be absolved by giving $100,000 to a charity."
Maybe *I'm* the outlier here.
@mcc I tend to agree with this in our current context. I can appreciate the alternate view that if we sufficiently lower the barriers that keep users from becoming creators, they will create more products that will better serve their needs, and that will change the context.
Sasha Akhavi
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Crazy brain-fart idea: if the app has a gui, once every couple of weeks, it should splash screen a picture, a paragraph, and a link, all at one of the actual makers who actually made the app.
Just a splash screen. Just every couple of weeks. And not a model. An actual maker. And not blurbissimo, whatever paragraph they write. And not a link to the company site, a link to their personal site.
Too many users don't understnad the most basic fact of software development: humans do it.
Sasha Akhavi
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Hear me out: Disney on Thin Ice
Sasha Akhavi
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@timbray @andy @rachelwilliams @Sanlear @kailagenevieve @kathygriffin @Jslez @jeffjarvis @Michele This feels likely an argument where people are shouting across each other. There's a reasonable point of intersection between (a) algorithms of major social networks have not worked in user's best interests and (b) a heuristic could be built (maybe with control by individual users) that makes their feeds more personally useful - even if only surfacing content from those they follow. Both can be true
Sasha Akhavi
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Spoke with an engineer over the holidays who maintained that Meta is blameless for abuses on their platform. He asked me, mockingly, "should they stop scaling just because they can't moderate everything?"
The answer is YES. Scale is not just a technical issue. If you cannot control your system, stop growing it.
(btw this is also a good example of how #UX comes from more than just the buttons on the screen)
Sasha Akhavi
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@Michele @kathygriffin @jeffjarvis
I'd like mastodon users to be given more individual algorithmic powers.
There are already a few: following certain tags, blocking boosts from specific people u follow, filtering certain words. Those are all algorithms.
I'd like to see more, like: only show posts from X follower after Y boosts or stars. (to soften those over-posters). etc.
In sum: I'd like more powers to craft my personal algorithm, to reflect, as @timbray says, my personal interests
@jeffjarvis I had this impulse a lot, among contradictory others, when he was rising to power the first time. I still don’t know how to reconcile it with Gandhi’s advice (“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”).
Sasha Akhavi
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Ayeeee I'm starting to see #BlackTwitter come through with #BlackMastodon 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. Keep coming through, because we ain't bout to have this joint looking like 90s-2000s internet.
It's time to see just how accepting and inclusive this place is.
@PavelASamsonov Just like Nonna used to make
Interested in others’ experience of the content-hiding feature On Here. As of yet, for me as a privileged person not dealing with ptsd, I’m so far at about 100% click-to-reveal and 90% confusion about why the person who posted it hid it to begin with.
Sasha Akhavi
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Georgians please dump Herschel "wayward" Walker and reelect Senator Warnock. We need to bring home the Senate! Please and thank you!!
Somebody do one of these for Charles Babbage; we need an apology for setting humanity on course to create the computer.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/25/walmart-black-friday-sam-walton/
Sasha Akhavi
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Want to help redesign one of the most popular and widely-used tools for researchers?
Zotero is hiring a designer: https://www.zotero.org/jobs/ui_designer
Would do it if I could. Ideal for someone else who has great UX / product design chops.
Sasha Akhavi
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it's hard to explain to people that software is a fundamentally communal activity because they're like "ohh you're a dev! you must be so smart!" and like. it literally does not matter how smart i am. none of this works at all unless we can collaborate across time and space.
My #oped on Elon #Musk, #twitter and the myth of the lone #tech genius ran in the #globeandmail today:
Hope you enjoy.
@5tevieM Also the pre-treat isn’t bad for you in any way bc it’s not the real treat.
@taz You can change the country; you're changing it right now. One reason we didn't move "beyond" racial division more durably after the 70s? No reparations. And if you can't solve any problems with money, what is money for?
Are reparations the only part of the solution? Ofc not. We need diversity in our social circles like you mention; we need to unlearn our own tribal mentalities; we need to teach our children, etc. But it's a lot easier to do all those things in a context when people 1) have some material resources and 2) can see that those with power in society think it's important that they have those resources & acknowledge their previous deprivation was unjust.
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
