Notices by Athena (athena@chaosfem.tw)

YSK playing Tetris for a while (20 minutes in the study I’m gonna link) immediately (<6h) after a traumatic incident can disrupt the formation of visual/spatial memories associated with the trauma and reduce post-traumatic symptoms. Probably any game that requires visual/spatial thinking and holds focus we’ll would work, but like, might as well just keep a copy of Tetris on your phone just in case you or someone else might need it. I recommend an emulator and a copy of a console ROM so you don’t have to deal with ads or whatever in the current official Tetris apps. Even if this is BS it’s not like it’ll be harmful either.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5822451/

… did BTech #HamRadio stuff always come with Bible verses on the packaging or is that new?

The other side has John 14:6 (“Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.””) which is slightly less friendly

@hellomiakoda from a trans person, directed to a general audience:

• write your congresscritters. Normally I would say this barely matters but even Democrats are throwing us under the bus and I think it’s important harm reduction to show both parties that people care. https://resist.bot is easy mode
• if you are earning tech money: go to hashtag TransMutualAid and give some trans people money. A lot of us are having to move right now and otherwise under a lot of financial stress. A few hundred dollars total can often save someone’s life.
• be loud that you care. Put trans flag stickers on your stuff (yes it’s okay to have trans flag stuff if you’re not trans, I promise), post links to educational stuff like https://genderdysphoria.fyi to places where people might be accepting but not knowledgeable. It’s really encouraging when I see a cis person being really loud about trans stuff.

Thanks :QueerCatHeart_Trans:

Paging @cstross, paging Charles Stross, your fiction has breached containment again. Please report to Summoning Chamber 42, we need to repeat the ritual.

(“The Labyrinth Index”, if you haven’t read it)
https://mastodon.social/@newstephie/113596020195825122

If you say “a study” says shows something or other the next thing I see better be a fucking DOI

Mozilla wants to know what you want them to focus on in the next few years. A lot of them are stuff about AI. Y’all should tell them how you feel about that https://mozillafoundation.tfaforms.net/100

The eight genders

Did you know that the CIA has a declassified field manual detailing the kinds of sabotage an ordinary person can do with lots of plausible deniability? With like, details for both specific industries and also general office work? I’ll quote some of the office work section, but the whole thing is only 20 pages.

“(1) Insist on doing everything though “channels." Never permit shortcuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(…)
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
(G) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(…)
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might confict with the policy of some higher eschelon.”

https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/SimpleSabotage.pdf

@ra6bit a security engineer’s “are you sure?” and a D&D DM’s “are you sure?” are identical

I’m shocked. This is my shocked face

“Overall, the analysis, released as a pre-print, found that RTO mandates did not improve a firm's financial metrics, but they did decrease employee satisfaction.

Drilling down, the data indicated that RTO mandates were linked to firms with male CEOs who had greater power in the company. Here, power is measured as the CEO’s total compensation divided by the average total compensation paid to the four highest-paid executives in the firm.

Before the analysis, the researchers hypothesized that RTO mandates may be used to blame employees for poor firm performance. (…Snip…)

Although CEOs often justified RTO mandates by arguing it will improve the company's performance, "Results of our determinant analyses are consistent with managers using RTO mandates to reassert control over employees and blame employees as a scapegoat for bad firm performance," the researchers concluded.”

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/rto-doesnt-improve-company-value-but-does-make-employees-miserable-study/