Notices by Bill Hunt (krusynth@mastodon.publicinterest.town), page 2

Happy 40th Anniversary of the day the Breakfast Club had their detention.

My least favorite dark pattern is when an app or website adds a new notification setting, and even if you have all of your other settings set to "off" it still defaults to "on." I'm looking at you this morning, Teams. 🤬

If you are an employed technology worker of any type, are not a manager, and you do not have a union, you need to start a union IMMEDIATELY.

These profit-driven layoffs will only continue. Collective bargaining is the greatest power we have as workers!

There is no minimum size for a union. You only need 50% of the other workers to agree. It’s not super easy but it’s not hard, and there are free resources.

Short version:

https://www.wikihow.com/Unionize-Your-Workplace

Long version:

https://abookapart.com/products/you-deserve-a-tech-union

I’m struggling to deal with this version of the internet, where hosts are removing people for voluntarily nudity, but not removing nazis.

And a big part of that is because banks & credit card processing companies won’t allow nudity and sex stuff but are totally ok with hate speech.

From a risk perspective this is asinine - very few people have ever died as a result of naked tits, while we’re watching people be murdered in hate attacks daily.

Everything is fucked and backwards.

A reminder that Spotify continues to find new ways to not pay smaller artists while simultaneously paying hundreds of millions of dollars to white supremacists like Joe Rogan.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/02/17/joe-rogans-spotify-deal-allegedly-worth-200-million-doubling-initial-report/?sh=4de75c9c2c39

https://loudwire.com/spotify-payouts-less-smaller-artists/

Please consider other ways of getting your music.

A ransomware organization exploited a financial services organizations, and when they didn't get paid, they reported the breach to the SEC themselves. Incredible.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ransomware-gang-files-sec-complaint-over-victims-undisclosed-breach/

If you need any further proof that the internet has truly become bloated garbage, look to weather.com, where the last thing to load on the page, almost a minute after first byte, is the current weather. 😒

I don't understand how we've reached 2023 and none of the major popular desktop operating systems actually allow you to configure basic UI interface settings, like default button size, shape, color, font, etc. What is this madness?

(Don't @ me about linux.)

GSA is currently doing a study to investigate racial bias in facial recognition technology, particularly for automated identity proofing. PLEASE share this as widely as possible so that they can get a wide range of feedback, not just from white folks. Thanks!

https://identityequitystudy.gsa.gov/