The Enshittification Lifecycle of Online Platforms:

The Amazon example he uses is really easy to follow. Early in the company’s history, the site used to be a great place to shop; their customers loved Amazon. But then Amazon’s sellers became their real customers and the user experience started to suffer. And now, much of the value generated by the users and customers goes to the shareholders (which, functionally speaking these days, means several dozen people who run hedge funds or large investment funds).

Things to do and not to do during a wave of tech layoffs | Christian Heilmann:

Be there for others

If you worked in a place resembling some human society, you will have colleagues that reach out to you and tell you how sorry they are. Take these moments and thank them. Also reach out to people who have been laid off and just offer to be available for a chat. These are annoying, frustrating and bad times, and there is period of flooded job markets and even more layoffs coming.

• via: The Tao of Mac

Florida teachers told to remove books from classroom libraries or risk felony prosecution:

Teachers in Manatee County, Florida, are being told to make their classroom libraries — and any other "unvetted" book — inaccessible to students, or risk felony prosecution. The new policy is part of an effort to comply with new laws and regulations championed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R).

Evil.

Mastodon Brought a Protocol to a Product Fight | by M.G. Siegler | Dec, 2022 | 500ish:

But, but, it’s not a product, it’s a protocol. Yeah, that’s a nice thing to say. And to believe in. But I truly believe the ship has sadly sailed for such idealism in this space. Jack Dorsey can talk about how this should have been what Twitter was from the get go until he’s bluesky in the face. It’s just not going to happen. And he’s more to blame for that than most everyone else. As is he for the Elon element of this current equation. But that’s a different story.

I mean, who thinks this “Web” thing is ever going to unseat Prodigy or CompuServe - I’m don’t trust these link things, and it’s ludicrous to think people are going to host their OWN servers.

Snark aside - It’s probably dubious to expect everyone to host their own ActivityPub/Mastadon servers… But the idea should be sharding much more by identity/community rather than jumping onto the same service. That’s where the power begins, taking the control of identity and server control closer to people you trust, and spreading the social footprint far enough that no single pillar can take down the roof.

Amy Grant pisses off conservative Christians, again | Boing Boing:

"To me, it's so important to set a welcome table. Because I was invited to a table where someone said 'Don't be afraid, you're loved.' …Gay. Straight. It does not matter," the longtime supporter of LGBTQA+ rights told Proud Radio podcast host Hunter Kelly in 2021.

Angelo Badalamenti, David Lynch’s composer on Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and more, dies aged 85 | Music | The Guardian:

Angelo Badalamenti, the acclaimed composer who created haunting music for David Lynch projects including Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, has died at the age of 85.

Lynch and Badalamenti would become close friends and collaborators, working together on Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway, The Straight Story and Mulholland Drive. Badalamenti also appeared on screen as the coffee-loving gangster Luigi Castigliane in Mulholland Drive, and played piano with Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet.

The classically trained musician also worked with the likes of Nina Simone, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Shirley Bassey, Marianne Faithfull, Liza Minnelli, Pet Shop Boys and LL Cool J over his varied career, and composed themes including Inside the Actors Studio and the torch theme for the 1992 Olympic Games.

On 1986’s Blue Velvet, his first collaboration with Lynch, he was brought in to work as a vocal coach for Rossellini. Lynch asked him to write a tune for the score, saying “let it float like the tides of the ocean, make it collect space and time, timeless and endless”, which became the song Mysteries of Love, performed by Julee Cruise. Eventually Lynch tasked him with writing the film’s score, asking for Badalamenti to be “like Shostakovich, be very Russian, but make it the most beautiful thing but make it dark and a little bit scary”.

Diablo IV developers allege mismanagement, crunch and disturbing creative decisions in new report | Rock Paper Shotgun:

Employees also spoke about the "disturbing" creative decisions by Sebastian Stępień, the former creative director on The Witcher 3 and head writer on Cyberpunk 2077, who became creative director on Diablo 4 in 2019. Stępień allegedly undertook a rewrite of Diablo 4's entire script, creating what multiple employees called the "rape version" due to repeated references in the script to the rape of a love interest, and to the script referring "to this female character as the raped woman as her primary description," according to the Washington Post.

Two employees also told The Post of a line in the script which read, “And then she was raped, brutally”, and that employees would repeat the punctuation out loud to each other, “comma, period - alarmed by the direction Stępień had gone with the script."

Maybe it’s time to just let Blizzard burn.

MarsEdit 5 - Powerful web publishing from your Mac.:

Browser-based interfaces are slow, clumsy, and require you to be online just to use them. Web browsers are wonderful for reading articles, but not for creating them. If you're writing for the web, you need a desktop blog editor. And if you're lucky enough to have a Mac, nothing is more powerful, or more elegant than MarsEdit.

Marsedit is such a great app for interacting with weblogs. On every other platform I’ve touched - Windows, Linux, even iOS and iPadOS - I have searched for something similar, or even close, and fallen short.

My only wish in relation to this is that there was an iOS/iPadOS version so I can keep up my workflow across my more personal devices. It would be an insta-buy for me, and I’m sure many others.

Daring Fireball: The Onion’s Supreme Court Amicus Brief Defending Parody:

Speaking of entertaining legal documents that address serious issues, I’ve been meaning to link to the amicus brief filed by The Onion on behalf of Anthony Novak, who is suing the police department of Parma, Ohio in a case now before the Supreme Court. Long story short, Novak created a parody Facebook account for the police department; the police arrested him and he spent four days in jail, simply for having mocked them; and when Novak subsquently attempted to sue the police department for civil damages, the Sixth Circuit court of appeals held that the police could not be held responsible under the bullshit doctrine of “qualified immunity”.

“Robert Moses Is A Racist Whatever”:

I remember his aide, Sid Shapiro, who I spent a lot of time getting to talk to me, he finally talked to me. And he had this quote that I’ve never forgotten. He said Moses didn’t want poor people, particularly poor people of color, to use Jones Beach, so they had legislation passed forbidding the use of buses on parkways.

Then he had this quote, and I can still hear him saying it to me. “Legislation can always be changed. It’s very hard to tear down a bridge once it’s up.” So he built 180 or 170 bridges too low for buses.

Institutional Evil.

If Alejandro Jodorowsky filmed a Tron sequel:

Easily my favorite use of AI image generators yet: Jodo Tron. Outstanding work by Johnny Darrell, which should wake up anyone, like me, that tends to downplay the impact of the technology. (Though note that to animate and film this credibly, you would have to have humans painstakingly recreate every detail as costumes, sets and 3D models)

It's too bad this is on Facebook, I'd be intritgued to see the rest of the set.

Daring Fireball: Report: Amazon Alexa Is a ‘Colossal Failure’ on Pace to Lose $10 Billion This Year:

The thing about Siri is that it was always at heart about making Apple’s platforms more accessible. Siri is there to make iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple TVs, Apple Watches, and even AirPods better. And Apple isn’t losing money on any of those. Siri will serve the same purpose on future platforms from Apple, too. Apple’s investments in Siri are part and parcel investments in their OS strategy for everything they make.

Study Finds That Female Octopuses Intentionally Throw Debris at Males Who Harass Them:

Scientists have discovered that female octopuses will deliberately hurl shells and other debris at males they feel are harassing them.

Amazon’s PAC is now backing Republicans who voted to nullify Trump’s election loss:

After top leaders of the Republican Party aided and abetted an actual damn coup in 2021, mostly by promoting hoax claims meant to discredit the election and justify Republican efforts to nullify its results, a number of United States corporations announced that they would no longer support lawmakers who participated in the effort.

This was because a good number of U.S. corporations did not want to be seen as backing the overthrow of U.S. democracy. Our corporate betters are fine when it comes to backing politicians that support pretty much any vile act you can name, whether it be political corruption, prisoner torture, or the slow destruction of the planet’s oceans, lands, and atmosphere, but supporting the violent overthrow of American government was a bit too on-the-nose for any company that depends on the wider public to buy their products. We finally found where the line was drawn: You’re not allowed to participate in an attempt to overthrow the government.

Except you are, because the corporate promises to not back lawmakers who engaged in a scheme to undermine democracy lasted (checks notes) zero election cycles. That’s right, zero.

The online buy-everything company Amazon, under the control of billionaire Jeff Bezos, was one of those companies that promised to cut support for lawmakers who voted to override the voting results of the 2020 presidential election. Judd Legum of Popular Information now reports that Amazon quietly resumed donations to those same lawmakers as of last September. Amazon’s PAC donated $17,500 to nine House Republicans who voted to overturn the election results in September, even though none of those Republicans have expressed remorse for their votes or for promoting the hoax election claims that they used to justify their votes.

Lawyer in Florida who fought against helmet laws killed on motorcycle while not wearing a helmet | Boing Boing:

The most shadenfraude form of FAFO.

jwz: The Terrible New Normal:

Because there is basically no chance that things are going to materially improve any time in the next 2, 3 years, or maybe ever. There comes a time when "I'm just waiting for things to get better" is self-delusion. Because they aren't going to get better. This is the new normal. Forever.

jwz: Ignaz Semmelweis:

The doctor who discovered that hand-washing saved lives, especially in obstetrics care, was ridiculed and discredited, and it looks 30 years from that discovery before it was really accepted as maybe a good idea.

jwz: Trump Betrayed by His Diet Coke Valet:

When FBI agents first interviewed Nauta, he denied any role in moving boxes or sensitive documents, the people familiar with the situation said in interviews before Nauta's name became public. But as investigators gathered more evidence, they questioned him a second time and he told a starkly different story -- that Trump instructed him to move the boxes, these people said.

Chef kiss

Trans Eighth Grader Was ‘Shaking and Distressed’ As Texas Agency Pulled Him Out of Class for Investigation:

If you think the 2nd amendment was intended as a political tool, Greg Abbott is the kind of tyrant it would have been intended for.

Earlier this year, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate instances of “child abuse” in families who’ve provided gender-affirming care for their trans children, people were rightly, extremely alarmed. Not only is gender-affirming care not child abuse, the lack of it is actually associated with risks of depression and suicide in trans children and teens. LGBTQ advocacy groups, public health experts, and health associations feared this bigoted and authoritarian directive would harm trans youth. They were right.

via Boing Boing

Lisa Loab - Penny Arcade:

Gabe has been more careful than anyone I know, he's still retained many talismanic practices I have softened on, at least in my own neighborhood - but one of the ways your world is trash is that kids at school will bully you if you wear a mask until you take it off and get COVID. And then your dad takes care of you, and he gets it. At home! At fucking home. In the end, he got it at home.

This is BS. People are still dying from other people being deliberate assholes… May Gabe at PA recover swiftly, and may the POS people who minimize the impact and threaten the rest of us all fuck off and die in a fire.

The Steve Jobs Archive:

From: Steve Jobs, sjobs@apple.com

To: Steve Jobs, sjobs@apple.com

Date: Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 11:08PM

I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds.

I do not make any of my own clothing.

I speak a language I did not invent or refine.

I did not discover the mathematics I use.

I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.

I am moved by music I did not create myself.

When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.

I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.

I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.

Sent from my iPad

Steve Jobs is one of my heroes… Not a saint by any means, but someone who really, truly, worked to make it easier for everyone to create and inspire others. I look forward to exploring the archives more.

The U.S. diet is deadly. Here are 7 ideas to get Americans eating healthier | MPR News:

The data are stark: the typical American diet is shortening the lives of many Americans. Diet-related deaths outrank deaths from smoking, and about half of U.S. deaths from heart disease – nearly 900 deaths a day – are linked to poor diet. The pandemic highlighted the problem, with much worse outcomes for people with obesity and other diet-related diseases.

“We’re really in a nutrition crisis in this country.” says Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University

jwz: CDC’s updated guidelines for living with the zombie apocalypse:

Great news! The zombie war is over! You can come out of your bunkers now!

Did we win? No. We did something even better than winning: We suddenly became aware of the passage of time! Wars can end lots of ways – by winning, by surrendering, by a negotiated settlement, by simply deciding in our minds that they are over with or without consulting the facts on the ground.

Why are there new guidelines if nothing has changed?

Look, it is hard, and everyone’s trying! That’s the takeaway here! We’ve all learned and grown, and it’s time to move on!

But is the zombie war over?

Well, the fighting-zombies phase of the zombie war is over!

The way you phrased that made it sounds like the zombies are not … gone.

Yes, technically, in the most literal sense, the zombies are still among us, but much as we would like to be living in a totally zombie-free world, that was never the goal, except for a brief time when we were way too optimistic about what people were capable of.

Look, some people decided that the effort of eradicating the zombies wasn’t worth the inconvenience. Imagine having to bring a heavy, metal bat with you every time you go out! Imagine living like that! Well, because some people couldn’t do that for a limited time, now other people will have the opportunity to do that forever.

Long Covid is affecting millions of Americans and the consequences are devastating | Boing Boing:

If anyone wonders why I keep masking and avoiding indoor gatherings, it's not because I think I'm going to die of COVID. It's because of long COVID, and because I don't want to be complicit in spreading COVID around to anyone else.

For me, it’s all about not killing anyone I care about, given that at least one or two of the VERY few people I do interact with are immunocompromosed or have co-morbidities which would make an infection more dangerous…

CDC drops quarantine, distancing recommendations for COVID | AP News:

This reads to me like an admission of defeat - Like as a culture we’ve accepted a certain level of death and long-term repercussions because people couldn’t be bothered to follow guidelines when we still had a chance of controlling things.

What this means for me, and those around me, is that we have to remain hyper-vigilant pretty much forever because we can’t trust that anyone else will do even the barest preventative measures.

Reference CDC page: www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volu…