Notices by Kat (kats@chaosfem.tw)

@roadriverrail Now that sounds like affirmation!

@GossiTheDog That is one of the most reassuring things I've heard from Germany in quite a while.

@roadriverrail Agreed on all counts.

There's also a widespread issue of conflating an identifier with the identity, along with an assumption that identities are atomic (because apparently none of us show different sides of ourselves in different contexts).

I prefer this emergent culture of embracing people however they are.

@roadriverrail The idea of having a name for each context appeals to me, quite strongly.

Our culture does like to constrain people, doesn't it?

It might be "correct," but signing paperwork with my legal name (i.e, my deadname) feels like fraud. It feels weird, and icky.

That isn't my name any more, or even my identity. But it's the one still recognised in officialdom, so that's who I roleplay as when I do official stuff.

Now I'm starting to wonder whether that isn't a feature - after all, real names have power.

Maybe "deadname" isn't the right term, at least in my case.

That was me, in a former life (a series of them, in a way). But I've pupated and hatched now; my wings are drying and I'm figuring out how to use them.

It's a shame that "caterpillar name" and "butterfly name" are such unwieldy terms because, at least in my case, they're so poetically apt.

@roadriverrail Same. Every damn time.

"We're against DEI here!"

So... you want me to preferentially hire and promote young white men who are (or pass for being) cisgender, heterosexual, christian, able-bodied, neurotypical and extroverted?

Meaning you want me to pass over the majority of the available talent until and unless I've shown that I simply can't fudge my way into filling the job with the minority of your choice, however underqualified?

Listen, I'm trying to start up a business, not run a snowflake refuge. If your boy can't cope with the variety of people that exist in the real world, and needs to be coddled in an artificial environment populated only by people who remind him of himself, then he just isn't ready for the rough-and-tumble of life in business.

I can't afford to restrict the quality of my team's problem-solving and decision-making to the inferior results you get from a monoculture dominated by whoever shouts the loudest and beats his chest the hardest.

And if he's going to talk over people, disregard their input, or outright bully and/or sexually harrass them because he can't control himself? That makes for a toxic atmosphere where people just don't put their heart into their work, and things are hard enough without putting a saboteur on the payroll. He needs to grow up.

Sorry if this hurts your feelings, but the facts don't care about those. Want your cishet white boys to do well in life? Fix the broken institutions that cripple them from childhood with protectionist policies, and start equipping them with the skills and attitudes they need to cope with the real world.

Oh, and stop trying to turn everything into a competition you can rig. If you want to stand on a podium by yourself with a trophy in your hand, get into athletics or something.

@WideEyedCurious @marlies Indeed, and I've always gotten improvements from targetted practice.

@neil There's a search facility in the system I'm preparing to bring on line. Thanks to the vagueness of that language. I'll have to assume it's covered by the Act and block any attempted use from the UK, until/unless I can get to grips with the legislation and feasibly implement what's demanded. Or even figure out whether this kind of thing is covered.

And that's just one of the jurisdictions to which this applies.

After I deal with the CRA, and everything else that applies within the EU.

I'm one person. I don't have the budget to employ a full-time UI designer or operations people, never mind legal specialists in multiple jurisdictions.

But let's give three cheers for the legislation that mandates us to figure out the details of a technical solution to a social problem. Remember, the important thing is that they're showing Big Tech who's the boss.

@skinnylatte This is what keeps me thinking about trying to get back into metalwork - forging and welding. But mostly forging.

I did a course about 20 years ago, and really enjoyed the way you can make and reshape your own tools to suit the job.

Also, powerhammer go BAM BAM BAM :)

About John Cage's infamous concept piece 4'33" and his equally infamously litigious estate:

They claim copyright over any "recording" of silence of that length, including any purported sample thereof.

However, my understanding is that the silence of the performers is only a backdrop for the substance of the piece.
It's about the sounds the audience makes.

Without the sounds of the audience, it's not a performance of 4'33".

Has this seriously not been brought up in court, to invalidate these claims?

@inthehands That's an almost impressive perversion of a perfectly good argument.

Somebody had interviewed the CEO of a software development company (can't remember who or which; doesn't matter). In a time when "you must fix all bugs before release" was popular dogma, they asked whether he was comfortable with shipping releases that he knew contained bugs.

"Absolutely!" he said with a big smile.

Then he explained. Their customers got more value from having the software as it was, even with those bugs, than from not having it. Perfect, good, enemy, value of "now" vs "eventually, when it's perfect" and all that.

I think he was also enthusiastic about fixing those bugs to improve the quality over time. I'm taking that approach, in any case.

@beka_valentine You got the result and they're complying now, yes?

If they've stopped doing the bad thing, the punishment worked, and now it's time to show them and others that if you do comply, then the punishment stops.

If you continue boycotting them after they've acceded, you've shown them and others that acceding accomplishes nothing, and they should simply ride out boycotts.

I can't help much with the icky taste in your mouth of doing business with a company you had to boycott, sorry.

I would like for everybody responsible* for the UI pattern of disruptive pop-ups interrupting every page or message transition, to be unable to focus on anything ever again.
That should get them out of the way of the rest of us.

I'm a little tired of websites interrupting with a blocking upsell advert while I'm trying to use the services I'm already paying for. Or that I'm trying to pay for, and am now having second thoughts about.
At this rate, I'm going to start specifically checking for this issue as part of the vendor-selection process.

*Please don't explain to me that the people implementing things don't always have a choice. I said "responsible" for a reason.

@Jaden3 Some will, and you can't help that. But some of us grow up eventually - I can give you that much hope.

When I started university, I found out that two places in my pre-law class were reserved for Maori students whose high school grades hadn't been high enough to be admitted the regular way.

As a deeply ignorant white kid, I though it was ridiculous.
Eventually I understood why, and now I'm completely behind it. In fact, I'd put money on those kids studying many times harder than I did.

Besides which, have you tried studying law? The first year is basically a nonstop hazing to see who actually makes it through to the second year. IDGAF what your grades were beforehand; if you get through that, you've earned your place. Doubly so if you're dealing with the kind of shit that keeps Maori kids back.
(I did not make it through)

@roadriverrail That goes for anything else, too.
Having well-developed taste doesn't necessarily mean you always go for the super-refined stuff. It just means you're better equipped to appreciate all of it.

Besides, sometimes the cheap trashy stuff is just plain fun, and there's nothing wrong with that.
:looks back at own dating history:
There isn't always anything wrong with that.

If you're already preparing to flee your country, and you're looking at Spain as a destination, talk to me. I may be able to help you with somewhere to stay when you get here.

I'm not ruling out other people, but for obvious reasons my primary focus is on helping other trans folk.

No promises yet, because I need to verify how I can make this work.

@roadriverrail I'm being mean.
Her voice is lovely, their cover of Bela Lugosi's Dead is inspiring and, from the live footage I've seen, they don't miss on stage either.

It's just that for me this is disconcertingly girly.

Pet peeve: no, compression does not make the quiet parts of your signal louder, and I really wish people would stop repeating this.

• Compression makes loud sounds quieter. That's all.
• Compressors usually have a compression stage, followed by a separate volume-boost stage which makes the entire compressed signal louder.
• These are not the same thing.

Why does this bother me? For many years, I looked in vain for an explanation of how compression makes quiet sounds louder.

There actually is a related technology that dynamically makes the quiet bits louder. It's called upward expansion. It's a crucial part of how Dolby noise-reduction works.
Yes, there's also downward expansion; that's how noise-gates work.

Thankyou for coming to my TED talk.

#Music #GuitarEffects