Notices by Joelle (joelle@social.joelle.us)

@skinnylatte
I remember watching a woman who *literally created a programming language* give a tutorial about *that language*, where men (paying to hear her!) in the room criticized her for not knowing what she was talking about.

The misogyny in tech spaces is awful.

Here's an AuDHD hack I found:

For stuff I don't want to lose in a pile of crap, get it in a bright color -- orange, hot pink, neon green, etc. Don't do this for everything you own, just the stuff you really don't want to lose (I.E. for me, things like my phone).

The *entire* selling point to investors of LLMs is "we won't need to employ people."

That's it. That's all. That's why "AI" is worth trillions of dollars. No pesky humans to bother with.

It's not "the workers will be more creative" or "we'll help the disabled." There's no investment money for that. A company is what the worst investors are.

Are you 18+, neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+, and live in the USA? The PRIDE Study (pridestudy.org) would potentially love you to review our next annual questionnaire, from a neurodivergent perspective!

More details here:
https://stanforduniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ermeCWynM8JBXz8

Downtowns are like "Why are we dying?"

Downtowns are also like "You can't be here more than a couple hours because we basically don't allow anyone to use any bathrooms, unless you're in a bar."

Trans folks who have flown recently or soon:

I'm creating a list of experiences of trans travelers with airport security, because there is a lot of scary stuff out there, and it's hard for people to know what the "ground truth" is. Please add your experiences when you go through security!

PLEASE boost & share!

The form is here to provide anonymous airport security experiences: https://forms.gle/Ui2jq8u8qEGEfCMw6

You can see the responses as I approve them (can take days) here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12IHWmQgBww2rW7Smi-wQxYTpE0FacE2A7KRvJzL1x4M/edit?usp=sharing

My experience flying from DEN to LAX today: pretty darn uneventful. Almost no line at TSA, no ICE anywhere I could see.

It's important to post when things are horrible. But also important to post when they aren't, or we'll get a very distorted view of the risk environment.

Note I'm not saying trans folk and others shouldn't be scared. I'm scared. Horrible things are happening. But there are also things that aren't horrible that happen too.

So you joined PSF (Python Software Foundation) as a supporting member because they gave up money for the sake of inclusion. Great! Donated? That's great too!

I'd also encourage you to look at The Carpentries and give them some money. They did the same thing. And they do good work!

https://www.carpentries.org

I finished my annual autism top-off. Make sure to keep your autism full!

(I got a COVID and flu shot, this is satire because of course they don't cause autism, nor do any other shots, but some people believe in a flat earth and vaccines causing autism...)

Privilege:
Not being blamed for what someone else does.

For instance, if a white cis dude does something bad, that in no way impacts all other white cis dudes. But if a trans person does something wrong, all other trans people have rights restricted as a result.

Hell, in some cases a cis dude does something bad and trans people get their rights restricted.

This is how privilege functions.

The next time you hear a politician talking about how there isn't money for pedestrian or public transit infrastructure, look up what an intersection with traffic lights costs to build (at least hundreds of thousands of dollars). Then look up what a freeway interchange costs (millions).

When was the last time you heard a politician ask if a traffic signal or an interchange will bring in enough revenue to self-fund?

@ireneista
Ideally, a device will support a kid saying <description of sex assault>. Or "I am gay" without a potential abuser or unsafe person knowing. This is really important.

The kid should also be able to say "fuck" to another kid and laugh at how naughty it is during recess out of teacher earshot.

@ireneista
IMHO, text to speech or speech to text used by disabled people should have "no" and "fuck" in the most minimal vocabulary option.

What do you do if a kid hits "fuck" over and over and over again and laughs? Probably the same thing you'd do to a non-disabled kid who says fuck over and over again.

The next most important thing on devices is privacy. Too many devices have logging modes that log communication without user consent. Disabled people (inc. kids) should have some privacy.

"AI is great for accessibility!"

Also: Google's AI-based autocaptions won't transcribe "fuck".

We are not all children. But, as @ireneista points out, even if we are children, accessibility requires the same rights for disabled people as non-disabled people.

The lack of cussing, the lack of vocabulary for sex (beyond, if we are very lucky, clinical body part names, menstruation, and reporting abuse) and other "adult" things in our devices is infantilizing.

https://adhd.irenes.space/@ireneista/statuses/01K4GZCAQVNQNBEJGX0Z91YZC4

You know what I'd love to see from the Dems?

Countering the narrative.

Have a trans-positive commercial with a trans kid playing with her friends saying in voice over "While the GOP is focused on trying to take Emma's childhood away, I want Emma to enjoy her childhood...and to be able to afford to buy a house when she grows up."

Seriously, confront this bullshit.

If there is one thing I wish I could take from Perl and give to the current hot languages, it's the importance of not breaking shit when you release new versions of stuff. If someone's code worked yesterday with your library, it should also work today after you add a new feature.

Yet, apparently, this is not the way we do code. We expect every developer to be so devoted to a random library that they keep track of all the breaking changes and are excited about them.

Please stop that.

Old Voight-Kampff test: "Tell me about your mother."

Improved Voight-Kampff test: "Say a swear word, any swear word."

That'll catch AI nearly every time.

The reason Texas is part of the USA is that Mexico made slavery illegal.

Remember the Alamo? A lot of white people don't know is that what the "brave" people in the Alamo were fighting for was slavery.

That's also why it took two years after the civil war ended for enforcement of anti-slavery in Texas. (it wasn't because of slow communication, as is told in revisionist histories, it was because white people willfully defied the law).

Freedom is always worth fighting for.

So Elon Musk wants us to know he has drug-free urine?! I’d just say that there are 100 ways to pass a urine test (and more if you’re a billionaire), but if he really isn’t taking drugs and this is his natural personality and character, just wow, that’s fucked up. Drugs were the charitable explanation.

Colorado Trans+Autistic folk: if you are interested in a trans+autistic peer support group (not therapy, no cost to you), we'd love to have you there (I'm one of the facilitators). You can get info at http://transautistic.org/ . We do ask you email the facilitators at meetings@transautistic.org to get the zoom link.

It helps expedite things if you tell us:

1) You have a connection of some kind to Colorado
2) You are trans/questioning
3) You are autistic/questioning (self-dx ok!)
4) You are 18+