Notices by EVHaste (haste@mastodon.social)

@arstechnica Cool tech.

It reminds me of the recent Smithsonian story about corporate interests in undersea manganese harvesting, and the cynical side of me assumes this is why government bodies such as the NSF would be interested in funding it.

According to the original paper, they provided some financial support in the form of a DMREF grant, for research that “accelerates the materials discovery-to-use timeline”.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/weird-metal-balls-discovered-ocean-floor-may-be-tech-companies-dream-180954339/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202407588

https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/dmref-designing-materials-revolutionize-engineer-our-future/nsf23-530/solicitation

@eff @bumble @mozilla it would be helpful if the research in question were included in the article or even this thread. The petition contains no details, just a vague claim that they “may” be doing it.

@Mastodon Oooh, I like this.

@Gargron thanks fam! Is this something that was already on your radar or the first you’re hearing of it?

@Gargron Concerned there might be something fishy and novel going on here.

This is a network of bots boosting each other to the front page of .socials’s popular feed, despite none of the folks boosting it being on this instance. They’re all coming from a bespoke one. I’ve seen it a few times this week.

The result is basically an ad and I’m wondering 1) what underlying system causes this to happen and 2) if it represents undesirable behavior from your perspective as an engineer/admin.

@chloe cancelled by math

This is the...fourth one I've witnessed personally, now? I was laid off with even less grace than this over a year ago. I can call it out because I've got no skin in the game anymore. I'm not getting rehired; I don't need to cultivate a professional image on the net anymore, so I'll tell y'all what you need to hear:

Unionize.

If your work doesn't have a #union . Make one. Start right now.

Collective action is the only thing that will protect you from your boss's greed and incompetence.

An early morning surprise all-hands, with an ominous "don't come to the office today" and no details.

If you survive that heart attack, you're treated to performative PR jargon over Zoom, taking no questions.

Instructions to wait quietly for half an hour to see if you receive the "you're fired" email.

Watching your peers accounts wink out like dead stars in Slack.

And then you have to go back to work and, what, give delivery estimates?

Not a shred of humanity anywhere in the process.

Y'all execs are so particular about abolishing remote work because human connections and face to face interactions are so important to you, until it's time to tell someone they're about to pay for a mistake you made.

And that's not even touching the elephant in the room, that these companies are making massive profits in what may be the greatest wealth transfer in all of human history?

I sat off-screen and listened to a peer's #layoffs at a major #tech company last week. I didn't even work there, and even with that distance, I am astounded and disgusted at the state of this industry, and the spinelessness of the proceedings.

If you haven't experienced one yet, let me tell you the playbook.

@Gargron Thanks for making the cool place I get to hang out. Take care of yourself.

@arstechnica Jesus Christ, the way execs talk about their peers is vile.

“I recognize this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions… to be blunt, many smart, talented, and hard-working people will be departing us.”

But you’re not being blunt, you’re being a weasel. This is passive language. They’re not leaving by magic. You’re firing them. These are *people* and you’re putting them in danger in exchange for money. The money they *made* you.

@Gargron we love Blahaj

@arstechnica I love the catch-22 of “you have to prove we trained on it, but also we won’t share any information about how it works or what we trained on, also no we won’t look ourselves”

@arstechnica He can’t even manage his own money responsibly, and he thinks people are going to trust him with theirs?

@arstechnica “…the new fee structure was seen as a sort of bargaining chip that Unity could agree to waive for mobile developers who agreed to switch from AppLovin to IronSource…”

I am baffled as to how this can be legal

@arstechnica My favorite bit:

“You may nitpick naming the scale after someone who doesn't achieve a perfect score on it, but remember, the issue here is misinformation—it would be inappropriate for the name to be completely accurate.”

@Gargron @kissane

Yeah, that's a bummer. I try to provide gentle, private feedback to the unsolicited-tip dogpiles.

My hope is that if, culturally, we got to this point where providing alt-text is part of the Mastodon identity (which is rad af), we should be able to do the same thing for the new user welcome and not dogpile folks for perceived CW transgressions, etc.

@kissane This article is fantastic, Erin! And what a cool experiment to do.

I actually almost bounced off of Mastodon originally because of the two highest frequency feedback points here. I'm really glad I pushed through it but I really, really get why most people don't.

Tagging @Gargron , since you basically did a bunch of free product work for the Mastodon team. :)

“Help,” cries the journalist, “I’m being held captive by Elon Musk!”

He calls out from the unlocked cage, door wide open, to which he holds the key in his own hands.

“Quickly,” he begs now, “I can’t bear the thought that someone might think I’m paying for this.”

He gestures to the searing blue legacy checkmark, a brand affixed not to his skin, but the cage.

Concerned passerby leave treats at the door, in the hopes he might free himself. But alas, he shall surely starve.