Amanda Unvarnished

Thoughts on Twitter, Mastodon, and owning your data

It’s a bit wild thinking about 2022. On one hand, COVID is still here and a good part of the year was dealing with the Omicron wave. This meant more lockdowns with curfews, vaccine passports and other sanitary measures.
As I discussed in last year’s review, the curfews were very rough on my ment...

Lawmakers prefiled many anti-trans bills ahead of state legislative sessions — newly targeting health care for trans adults under 21 or 26 years old.

Understanding cognitive bias's are not only important for UX Research and UX design, but also for navigating every day life. Bias seeps into our judgement and thinking which can warp the reality of…

House Republicans are facing an internal revolt from radicals who oppose Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker. There are no moderates in the House GOP caucus, but the far right demands the House impose its will on the Democratic president.

Elon Musk said Twitter would begin authenticating users who pay $8 for Blue. Our tech columnist was still able to get a checkmark for an impostor Sen. Ed Markey.

Let's take a look at one of Twitter alternatives: Mastodon. Will it scale?

Journalists (And Others) Should Leave Twitter. Here’s How They Can Get Started by Mike Masnick (techdirt.com)

Summary: Elon Musk has demonstrated contempt for free speech in general, and journalism in particular, with his behavior at Twitter. He is also demonstrating why it is foolhardy for anyone to rely on centralized platforms to create and distribute vital information. Journalists — among many information providers and users — should move to decentralized systems […]

Plus, my take on Independent Sinema, and: why do we all feel like political losers these days?

Special Edition

Those of us who revere the late rabbi must learn from his failures too, and resolve to never again accept as leader an unrepentant protector of sexual criminals

Who could possibly have predicted that the leopards would eat My Kevin’s face, too?

Proving you're a human on a web flooded with generative AI content