Kind reposts

not sure who to attribute this to - there is NO reason any of us should have to "thrive in a fast paced environment" or "work well under pressure." most of our daily work is not an emergency and our culture of fake urgency and immediacy just to make more profit for people in the c-suite is burning people out. stop sending people into fight or flight and expecting them to bend over backward because you dont know how plan or manage resources properly

The thing about #tech #layoffs that people who haven’t been through it often don’t understand is that morale never recovers. The employees who remain will never have the same relationship with that company, bosses or peers. Watching people you respect pack their stuff and crying on the phone with their spouses is something that never goes away. When I survived a layoff in my 20s I became a “do exactly what the ticket says” person. I stopped suggesting ideas, providing feedback, believing anything a manager told me. If you are a company considering layoffs, especially a profitable company, you should approach it as “this department will have 100% turnover”. The second I got another job offer I left that company and six months later nobody who had been there at the time of layoffs remained. I’ve seen that pattern play out multiple times.

Oof, just heard about a massive dick move scenario for corporations that somehow hadn't occurred to me before: 1) Mandatory Return to Office 2) Employee moves to be near office 3) Employee is laid off Like, seriously, fuck these companies into the sun

It *really* grosses me out when I see/hear YouTubers and Podcasters promoting BetterHelp. They should have gone out of business when this happened. https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/2023169-betterhelp-inc-matter https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-ban-betterhelp-revealing-consumers-data-including-sensitive-mental-health-information-facebook

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Talking to people about your big rewrite/re-architecture project feels a bit like talking to people about your imaginary friend — people are really polite about it but keeping giving you that “are you serious?” look

Please, don't force me to log in. One aspect of software enshittification that really grinds my gears is that more and more apps require you to create accounts and login. https://hamatti.org/posts/please-dont-force-me-to-log-in/

gaze not into the abyss, for they shall make you the editor of the international standard of abyssal management

If you've ever wondered why some Wi-Fi is free (like in hotels), it's because typically data about your browsing is sold to countless ad companies that will happily buy it. Had to use the hotel WiFi recently on a trip, and after clicking "agree" to their terms of service, the Little Snitch firewall on my Mac went bonkers. I must have denied 20-30 outbound requests to advertising networks. It still worked, though, so I'm guessing I didn't manage to block all of it.

Attached: 1 image Kudos to the one person on Hacker News who is actually funny.

Hey, you! You are beautiful, you are valid, and you are loved.

Attached: 1 image From Atlassian’s remote work study: Team gatherings increase sense of belonging for 4-5 months, but sporadic office attendance does not https://atlassianblog.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/lessonslearned.pdf

Random thought I had earlier that I'd like to run by some #FLOSS software people or FLOSS lawyers: Could we start a "union" of FLOSS software developers that would support us legally and help us bargain for better terms when negotiating license exceptions, support contracts, etc.? 🧵

The product team is too busy with incidents to prioritize work to prevent incidents 🤷

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What? Forcing people to return to office was never about productivity and was always about power? https://fortune.com/2024/01/13/managers-scapegoating-workers-return-to-office/

Ouch. A large OpenStreetMap group has been using a proprietary chat platform as a community space for ~10 yrs. Now they gotta pay a $80k/yr (or $10k??) for usage. 🤯😱😢 Slack (now Salesforce) now wants to charge @OpenStreetMapUS for all ~6k users on their server. 😢😢 Ouch. This sort of bait & switch is why open, community owned platforms (like this!) are vital! read more on the slack (while you still can??!): https://osmus.slack.com/archives/C029HV951/p1705438543546349 #OpenStreetMap #OSM #FreeSoftware #Cassandra

In the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced, caused by overuse of energy, our Tech Bro magicians continue to invent technologies that not alone are not energy conserving, they are massively, massively energy consumptive. From bitcoin to AI, tech becomes greedier and greedier for energy.

Recently I've seen a few people comment on the air quality readings inside large art galleries; the results were far better than on trains, in planes and airports, in movie theatres and so on, due to the need for conservation of the artwork. It's just so strange thinking about how we apparently care more about protecting art than we do about protecting our own lives.

The secret to software engineering is to focus all of your energy as a team (and a company) on learning how to share information between each other better. Build that understanding. Build that ability to uplift and teach each other. For fuck's sake, stop worrying about over engineering and worry about under understanding the problem. The over engineering goes away the second you start putting humans first and start prioritizing understanding over an artificial roadmap built without context

Pro-tip: before setting your three security questions to 36 random alphanumerics, be aware that you might have to recite them to a customer service rep instead of just copy/pasting them into the website.

Attached: 1 image I'm doing my part!

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Part of why tech workers at huge orgs like this need a union: Being compelled to relocate to a forced birthing state is violent as hell So much more to collective power than just getting paid https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/14/24037904/apple-san-diego-siri-ai-team-relocating

I am GDPR compliant (If you tell me personal info I will forget)

Instead of a game jam, how about a "play jam" where everyone plays an unplayed game from their library and writes up the session(s)?

the autistic urge to use parentheses in every sentence (because you're afraid people will misunderstand it (or interpret additional meaning into it (which has happened before (many times (with terrible consequences (and i'm not even talking about the trauma this caused))))))

the adhd urge to use parentheses in every sentence (you thought of something else that doesn't fit into the previous sentence structure you'd thought up)

"Looks like you're using an ad-blocker" Looks like you're trying to install 52 trackers on my computer.

All engineering is reverse engineering if you document things poorly enough.

Amazon not only didn’t make the list, they didn’t make the list of tech companies that didn’t make the list. As an employer they’re fast fading into cultural irrelevance. Great job with the post-employment non-compete by the way. https://qz.com/big-tech-falls-glassdoor-company-rankings-1851153542

if you rewrite a text by replacing every word with a synonym until none of the original words are left that's a ship of thesaurus

Attached: 1 image Donations aren't what they seem

𝓖𝓵𝓸𝓼𝓼𝓪𝓻𝔂 Blockchain: a slow database Crypto: an expensive slow database NFT: an expensive slow database to store URLs AI: a way to write slow and inefficient algorithms LLM: a database that stores text in a slow and inefficient way Chat GPT: an expensive imprecise query language for slow and inefficient text databases that often returns wrong results

the layoffs will continue until ~morale~unionization improves

Folks remembering #AaronSwartz today - remember that he was moving publicly-funded research out from behind a paywall. Then remember the only reason the case went forward is because federal prosecutors, specifically Carmen Ortiz and Stephen Heymann, wanted to make an example of him. “Theft is theft, and it doesn’t matter if you use a crowbar or a computer” were Heymann’s words at the time. Notice how federal prosecutors aren’t bullying Sam Altman for the wholesale theft of content network-wide, to build a machine that spews bullshit and further destroys our ability to determine the truth? It’s because he’s doing it for private profit, while Aaron worked for the public good. Never let yourself be tricked into believing the legal system is a justice system.

"Regulation stops innovation! Companies need to be free to do whatever the fuck they want to create innovation!" My brother in Christ, if anything stops innovation, it's patents and copyright. You're less likely to die in a car crash only because Volvo engineers gracefully decided to do humanity a favor and not patent the 3-point seatbelt technology. But for example, a technology of safely stopping table saws is patented and only one company can create them, suing similar projects from other companies out of existence 🤡

I think the Substack discourse is good and that we should really be asking "why are Nazis okay but sex isn't" for nearly everything involving our society.

There’s a video posted by a Cloudflare account executive getting laid off that she recorded as she argues with the HR team. It’s painful to watch on both sides, which explains why other big techs just send an email or provide an error when you try to login. As callous as it seems to do it via email or failed account login, getting told by strangers who just treat you as another name on the list feels worse. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRcqvbnC/

Tech workers when everyone is hiring: lol, I don’t need to unionize. Look how well I negotiated for myself! Tech workers when there are layoffs everywhere: I don’t have time to unionize! I’m desperate to get a job right now! #unionize #unionStrong

Attached: 1 image The absolute gall of this question. A required question, mind you. I will likely not be getting called in for an interview, but it was totally worth it. #jobsearch #jobhunt #capitalism

I quit my job https://ellie.wtf/posts/i-quit-my-job-to-work-full-time-on-my-open-source-project I'm now focusing full time on building Atuin, and finding more ways to improve developer productivity

The hidden burden of undiagnosed ADHD is constantly needing to invent excuses in an attempt to explain or justify behavior that you don’t even understand yourself.

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Attached: 1 image My daughters and I are feeding cows 10,000 pounds of macadamia nuts each and that's what makes us so relatable and makes it so clear we don't need to be taxed at 95+ percent of our income.

Attached: 1 image Are you passionate about empowering people in tech? Are you looking for ways to give back to the FOSS communities? Apply to join our pool of amazing mentors! Join via our past communities, or work with your community to join as a mentoring community. Mentors have until February 23, 2024, at 4 p.m. UTC to submit project descriptions for the May 2024 internship. Read more and apply here: https://www.outreachy.org/blog/2024-01-08/may-2024-call-for-mentoring-organizations/

it's impossible for me to be a multimillionaire without robbing a bank, therefore i should be allowed to rob banks (headline: "‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says") https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/08/ai-tools-chatgpt-copyrighted-material-openai

Attached: 1 image Pillaged from BlueSky: "20 years ago we were suing teenagers for millions of dollars because they were torrenting a single Metallica album and now billionaires are demanding the free right to every work in history, so that they can re-sell it. The law only ever serves capital."

Attached: 1 image Ladies and Gentlemen, the weekday.