Blog

Okay, so, return to work.

I feel like there is a systemic inequality that people haven’t really been talking about as much.

Bosses and extroverts and neurotypical people are saying “oh, we don’t like emails and Zoom calls, because there’s information that doesn’t get communicated through these methods.”

What?

What is that information?

If you are communicating a substantial amount of secret coded information that can’t make it into the literal syntax of the words that you are saying, you should be concerned about that.

Both because you are doing a shitty job at communicating, but also because of the types of people you are choosing to exclude.

—@steven

I often think about finally getting some of my music onto streaming services. But every time I look into this, I’m always halted by one big thing: album art. I’d finally decided this time that I don’t really care what the album art is – I’m not making money from this after all – but the streaming services have pretty specific requirements for quality, etc. So I’d need to figure out how I want this to look, pay someone to design it, etc. I’m blind and music is just a hobby for me. I don’t want to sink hours and how ever much money into album art I can’t even see. So… I guess I’m not doing this. Again.

—@jcsteh

I think this is the primary reason #Tumblr has not implemented #ActivityPub on their site.

They are making silly business decisions (charging money to add a custom domain), which screams of desperation.

Reading this makes think Tumblr will probably not join the #Fediverse this year.

👉🏾 Tumblr is losing $30M each year, CEO says https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/12/tumblr-is-losing-30m-each-year-ceo-says/

—@darnell

So, I’ve decided to drop this giant non-enshittified Python course out there for your ongoing amusement. https://github.com/dabeaz-course/python-mastery.

It’s the same course I took on a decade-long world tour of corporate training. Some people who took it went on to do dumb things like land rovers on other planets and stuff. Anyways, enjoy!

—@dabeaz

@gulovsen Whoever decided that KISS needed [checks notes] a full string orchestra for a song about blowing off your girlfriend to party with your boys all night should be sent to The Hague.

—@BklynMichael42

Today we woke to a scandal (GASP) that would make a tabloid journalist widdle themselves with glee here at our current housesit in a small #UK village.

Waking to rain on the roof, we went downstairs to breakfast with our lady #cat hosts, Madame Harriet and Miss Smudge.

But to our pearl clasping horror, we immediately detected an aroma that was unmistakably none other than–and I hazard to type this in Miss Smudge’s delicate company–FOX!

Clutching our noses, we beheld Madame Harriet lounging on the kitchen tiles, revelling in the stench of five thousand fermented rhino farts on holiday. And to our horror she was purring. PURRING!

I’m afraid I reacted in a most unseemly way and exclaimed “What the hell have you been doing you manky little baggage?!” before immediately bellowing for some kind of emergency de-foxing equipment.

To which Madame Harriet went on an impromptu tour of the cottage, making her view of my opinions clear!

A caper ensued that included language that I will not besmirch your ears with, all proclaimed by Madame Harriet who has the mouth of a pint wielding tavern wench.

We finally de-foxed both cat and house before serving breakfast as usual.

Madame Harriet is now residing on our bed, contemplating either the error of her ways, or how to clandestinely meet the fox again, either way, she’s been muttering swearing meows about the Great Bath Trauma of 2024 for the past hour.

The saga continues…

#cats #fox #catsofmastodon

—@georgepenney

Super happy #StreetPass is finally available for #Safari

The browser extension’s great way to discover new people to follow on #Mastodon and in in the #fediverse

After you install it, the extension will check the sites you visit for a verified account & add them to a list for you to follow later

(It’s made by @tvler and is also available for #Chrome & #Friefox)

https://streetpass.social

—@saila

Hats off to @patrick_h_lauke for the Social Media Alt Text Mastodon fix! Update rolling out now.
Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/social-visual-alt-text/bkpbmomfemcjdeekdffmbohifpndodmi
Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/social-visual-alt-text/
#a11y #Accessibility

—@nickdenardis

Have a listen (or read the transcript) and sit for a while with three of the workers who did content moderation for ChatGPT. Thank you @karenhao for this important window into the human impact of this work.

https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/the-hidden-workforce-that-helped-filter-violence-and-abuse-out-of-chatgpt/ffc2427f-bdd8-47b7-9a4b-27e7267cf413

>>

—@emilymbender

Stuart Geiger highlighting importance of recognizing varied types of contribution to open source projects in his talk at #FOSSY.

One example he cites is the “All Contributors” bot, which is a nice way to continuously update your README with contribution credits in areas like design, accessibility, translation, user testing, bug reports, …:

https://github.com/all-contributors/app

Underlying spec:

https://allcontributors.org/

—@eloquence

“Begs the question” does not mean “raises the question,” and while I don’t expect *everyone* to know that, I do expect people who write for a living to be aware of the distinction. (Yes, I ran across another professional journalist who embarrassingly used the incorrect phrase.)

—@arossp