Defunding police is unthinkable but every other tax-funded service—from education to transportation to healthcare to after school programs to libraries to the arts— will be first on the chopping block as a remedy to the economic downturn caused by the mismanagement of COVID-19 1/
— Bree Newsome Bass (@BreeNewsome) November 9, 2020
November 10,
In the 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, bestselling author and renowned technology and security expert Ronald J. Deibert exposes the disturbing influence and impact of the internet on politics, the economy, the environment, and humanity.
Digital technologies have given rise to a new machine-based civilization that is increasingly linked to a growing number of social and political maladies. Accountability is weak and insecurity is endemic, creating disturbing opportunities for exploitation.
Drawing from the cutting-edge research of the Citizen Lab, the world-renowned digital security research group which he founded and directs, Ronald J. Deibert exposes the impacts of this communications ecosystem on civil society. He tracks a mostly unregulated surveillance industry, innovations in technologies of remote control, superpower policing practices, dark PR firms, and highly profitable hack-for-hire services feeding off rivers of poorly secured personal data. Deibert also unearths how dependence on social media and its expanding universe of consumer electronics creates immense pressure on the natural environment. In order to combat authoritarian practices, environmental degradation, and rampant electronic consumerism, he urges restraints on tech platforms and governments to reclaim the internet for civil society.
hat tip:
Canada’s #MasseyLectures is among the anglosphere’s great lecture series, on par with BBC’s #ReithLectures. This year’s lecturer is @RonDeibert, whose @citizenlab provides forensics and protection for civil society from despots and corporate bullies.https://t.co/Zbw5HI4QYK
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) November 10, 2020
Dictionary lookups of 'boffo' are trending on Merriam-Webster.com.
@maggieNYT There has never been a time in either of my two Campaigns when I felt we had a stronger chance of winning than we do right now. Early voting reports look far stronger than originally anticipated. Every RALLY is BOFFO. @MarkMeadows & team are doing a fantastic job....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 19, 2020
As an expert on the word boffo, I can guarantee that nothing about Trump or anything related to him could be described as such. Biden and democracy on the other hand: boffo and socko.
We bring you the strangest, most elusive beasts in the dictionary.
Acquired Dyson V8 Animal vacuum cleaner
The Dyson V8 Animal stick vacuum is engineered for homes with pets. Captures dust, animal hair and allergens.
I got one of these at Bed Bath & Beyond for $239.00 which was one of the better deals I’ve seen recently. I was loathe to try out yet another vacuum cleaner and didn’t have much hope that anything could win against the inimitable German Shepherd Lily. However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen our carpets cleaner! I think the first pass at the living room rug took about two whole dogs’ worth of hair out. How did I manage to live without this for the past two years.
Now if I could just get the Furminator version of this vacuum so we could get it at the source…
gRegor Morrill (gregorlove.com)Here is a simple thing you can include as part of your online profiles: list the pronouns people can use when referring to you. This removes any ambiguity and helps normalize the practice of sharing our pronouns. Not everyone uses pronouns that match the gender they present as and some people use no...
👓 The Web’s Arrow of Time | Parallel Transport
Kartik Prabhu (kartikprabhu.com)I was looking into adding some navigation links to my post feed/archive pages, when I ran into an old confusion of mine. The Web has a completely messed up arrow of time!
👓 Using Hypothesis Groups in the Classroom | Hypothesis
A couple of weeks ago, we quietly released a new feature here at hypothes.is: the ability to annotate websites and PDFs in groups. Previously, all annotations created using hypothes.is were either public or private (“only me”). Now you can create a hypothes.is group and invite others to join you in annotating a text or set of texts amongst yourselves–here’s a tutorial to get you started.
👓 Introducing Groups | Hypothesis
Our mission here at Hypothesis is to enable a conversation over the world’s knowledge. So far that’s been a public conversation. But some conversations need to flourish in private spaces. You’ve always been able to create private annotations that only you can see but, until today, not annotations visible only to a group. That’s what we’re launching today, it’s already transformed our own experience of annotation, and we’re confident it will do the same for you.
It works very simply. At the top of the sidebar you’ll find a new view control set to Public. That’s your default group. The dropdown menu has, initially, one option: New group.
Protected: Hypothes.is groups
WordPress plugin to control media playback speed. Originally for shortcode tags. - CODESIGN2/media-playback-speed
Get a fully functioning Matomo in seconds with our new WordPress plugin.
Once I knew the conference dates in the States I realised that the IndieWeb meetup in Austin would be happening on the first Wednesday of the month, which was an evening when I would be in Houston. Noting it was a mere 2.5 hour drive (far closer than a 28 hour door to door flight) I decided to drop by.
👓 Have y’all been following what’s happening with Instacart this week?
Sasha Perigo (Twitter)Have y’all been following what’s happening with Instacart this week? The company is retaliating against workers, and it’s really, really bad. I’m going to share what I know in a thread. Instacart is a grocery delivery service. “Shoppers” are the workers who pick up items at the store and deliver them to customers.
Instacart keeps wages really, really low. A Shopper in Menlo Park says she makes a few hundred a week.
Shoppers went on strike this week with two demands:
- The app increase the default tip option from 5% to 10%.
- Instacart stop charging “service fees” and pocketing them. Instacart not only didn’t honor the workers strike demands, but they retaliated and cut pay further!They cut bonuses which can be up to 40% of the workers’ income.
The workers are contractors so they aren’t as protected from this retaliation.
Instacart Shoppers wrote a Medium post explaining what’s happening to them and asking for software engineers and other employees to speak out against their bosses. @GoogleWalkout shared it today.
Instacart flagged it to Medium, and it’s been TAKEN DOWN!
link.medium.com/VW7Oy3D9r1What can you do?
- Share this story widely and generate bad press for @Instacart.
- DON’T use Instacart right now.
- Organize with the gig workers at your company. Their struggle is your own!
- Follow @GigWorkersRise for updates and donate to support them.
Calling Instacart to give them negative customer feedback could help turn this around too.
If you're a customer who's boycotting, let them know!
for sure! beyond what you already put out there, I'd say that any customer who's able could contact IC to express disapproval. like any gig company they are VERY conscious of their customer base and if they realize customers care about this, it may shift something.
— breathe deep the gathering gloom (@mircifer) November 9, 2019
I’m tempted to write a series of short chapter books about a quirky kid named Junipero B. Jones from California who gets into zany misadventures while attempting a patriarchal, colonialization of his kindergarten and 1st grades classes along with his friend That Chumash.