Notices by Athena (athena@chaosfem.tw)

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/