Sure, I mean, I get it. You don't become a billionaire without fucking over a lot of people. But once you are in this position, having a solid DEI program, respecting workers rights, treating people with respect and so on would not jeopardize your position in any way. It just shows how deeply entrenched white male supremacy is in these people. SMFH
What always makes me shake my head in disbelief about things like this is that, as a trillion-dollar company, they can easily afford to behave ethically and pay everyone properly and avoid lawsuits and bad PR and still be a trillion-dollar company. And yet…
I think this has to be the best thread I have ever seen on Mastodon. Start at the top with the linked post and read all the way to the end. It is epically funny. With this story, @sundogplanets has done so much to raise public awareness about the rain of space trash the tech bros intend to rain down on us. This needs serious regulation, and fast.
Y'all...please stop with the "scorpion and the frog" metaphors. Scorpions only sting when hunting prey or when threatened. They raise their stinger aggressively when threatened, giving any would-be predator or attacker ample warning, much the way rattlesnakes rattle or skunks raise their tails.
Scorpions are reclusive creatures and want to be left alone. So, not only does this BS fable pointlessly demonize innocent creatures, but it completely fails in a literary sense.
See also: "boiling frog." Just cut that shit out, k?
I've been thinking about what would make a better metaphor to replace the parable of The Scorpion And The Frog. How about this: The Capitalist And The Sea Turtle.
A capitalist is shipwrecked on a remote island. He sees a very large sea turtle on the beach and asks if it will carry him back to the mainland.
The turtle says "But you are a capitalist. If I let you onto my back, you will kill me and sell my flesh and shell for profit."
"But that would be foolish because we would both die," said the capitalist. "It is inconsistent with my own enlightened self interest!"
Accepting this logic, the sea turtle allows the capitalist climb upon its shell. Halfway across the strait, the capitalist tries to strangle the turtle. But the turtle, being at home in the sea, dives deep, forcing the capitalist to let go. Safely out of reach, the sea turtle asks the capitalist, now flailing helplessly, "Why did you do that?"
"I am a capitalist. I could not help myself," the capitalist replied, before sinking out of sight.
I had been contemplating driving to someplace like maybe south of Mount Shasta so I would have that in the frame with the northern lights, but NOAA's map showed the aurora not being visible that far south. I went out on my rooftop this evening, snapped a couple long exposures, realized it looked kind of cool so I came up here on the ridge. And then it went OFF!
Giant sky-filling rays that are moving, with light colors. Very, very visible to the naked eye. I'm doing a time lapse with my DSLR and those pics look fabulous.
I saw it once in Northern British Columbia back in the '80s with waving sheets of color ripping across the sky. This is the closest I've ever seen to that. Completely did not expect it this far south. #Aurora
After a lull, the aurora is picking up again. My iPhone SE doesn't pick it up, so you'll have to wait till I process my DSLR pics. I have my second camera but feel a little sheepish at not bringing both tripods 🤦♂️ I really didn't expect much. 🤷♂️
It's so cool the way the light moves from one part of the sky to the next. Now it has shifted off to the east of north. It was way off to the west earlier.
Imagine this aurora event, but 30 years ago. Only a very few dedicated photographers would be getting photos and it would've taken a few days at least to get them processed and printed and put "online", had there been an online back then.
10 years ago DSLRs sensitive enough to record good aurora pics were fairly common, but expensive. Now, cell phones are good enough to take shareable photos.
So, because of the democratization of camera technology, we get to have this fun, global, real-time shared experience of a beautiful astronomical event.
Wonder what would Copernicus think of it all? #aurora
What I was really going for here was a lightning strike in the background. There was a teeny tiny chance of lightning yesterday afternoon, but none ever showed up. Chance today as well, but I have to be elsewhere. That's the nice thing about photographing during storms: virtually any scene is made better by dramatic clouds.
#SphinxMoth#caterpillar eating a primrose at Anza Borrego State Park yesterday. These caterpillars were everywhere, devouring a range of plants. They are native and this is normal. Pretty soon they will burrow into the ground to pupate, eventually re-emerging as adult moths. #BloomScrollIng#BloomChewing
So, maybe you can 'splain me something about the threads federation controversy.
People act as if following someone on Threads will somehow subject their personal timeline to Meta's advertising and suggested (toxic) content. That seems… incorrect? What am I missing?
If I follow a user on a Mastodon server or on Threads, I will only be seeing what they post or boost, not what their follows post and not ads or suggested posts that Meta injects into their timeline on their Threads account. Right?
I see a lot of discussion here that seems to suggest that if a Mastodon user follows someone on Threads, Meta will be able to inject whatever content they want into your personal timeline here. Am I missing something?
I understand there are plenty of reasons to not associate with Meta at all because it is such a toxic company that never, under any circumstances, has any of our best interests in mind. But here I'm just referring to the technical aspects that seem to confuse a lot of people (maybe me?).
Interested in All Of The Things, which is probably why I follow you. Things I do: #LandscapePhotography and #Protest #Photography, #paragliding, #StormChasing, #border and #HumanRights #activism.Intellectual hobbies I watch from the sidelines: science, security/privacy, online sociality and general internet theorizing. My camera shoots fascists. Photos my own unless noted. Direct sharing photos: yay! Scraping: no.You can write to me via my website, though Signal gets the quickest response.