>A day of the life of a DEI program manager

>11:00 am - Wake up. Early birds are racist.

>11:30 am - Attend a sync up meeting. Standup is not inclusive. Everyone needs to come up with 5 words to remove from our dictionary.

>12:00 pm - Have lunch at a black-female-owned Chinese restaurant. Scold the owner for cultural appropriation.

>1:00 pm - Meet with one of my program sponsors. Discuss what protest we need to fund next.

>2:00 pm - Check internal Slack messages and mark those who used non inclusive language

>3:00 pm - Have s*x with a queer peer

>4:00 pm - Go back home. Work is racist

>10:00 pm - Attack random people online

Huge news for anyone working in tech in the US.

Noncompetes are now banned: not just in California (like before), but nationwide. Very, very relevant for anyone at Amazon (which is the Big Tech that has enforced noncompetes even for low-level engineering positions). pic.twitter.com/H8F4UVxhwS

— Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz) April 23, 2024

Progress update for the first soon to be mass manufactured penetration depth detecting sex robot. pic.twitter.com/c2ubplmor9

— Bry.ai (@prince_of_fakes) April 8, 2024

Maybe.... maybe Mao was right about the influence of academics...

I am probably not the first person to notice this but I don't think I've seen anyone else talk about it in these terms before.

As we all know, the internet sucks compared to 10 years ago. Specifically, search engines and easily accessible information sources are much less useful than they were in the past. As many have pointed out (and as I like to bring up whenever relevant) a lot of the blame lies with SEOshit, and another sizeable chunk of the blame lies with the groomercordification of communities.

In case you've missed all of my own and others' rants on the topic, what I mean by groomercordification is the currentyear+9 tendency of online communities to use groomercord instead of a forum or subreddit or wiki for everything from community organization (meh) to information archiving (very, very bad).

To use an example most of you incels should be able to relate to, take vidya gayme mods. A decade ago, developers of a mod would use either a legacy self-hosted forum, self-hosted wiki (usually in combination with a forum), or a dedicated subreddit to share general information with each other and with their users. Information such as installation instructions, community feature requests, compatibility details, current status of codecel efforts, details of codecel efforts (I believe the codecels call this "documentation"), et cetera.

In CY+9, it is increasingly common for vidya mods to have no web presence other than a splash page referring you to their groomercord. Want installation instructions? Refer to groomercord. Want to request a feature? Refer to groomercord. Want extremely basic FAQ-tier tech support? Refer to groomercord. Want to know some details about the code in order to diagnose compatibility problems with other mods? Refer to groomercord. Want to ask other users an extremely basic question about the mod? Refer to groomercord.

This phenomenon has taken over all kinds of communities, but modding is an example where I've personally observed it multiple times over. A lot of the types of information I listed above are going to be frequently requested by users. In the old times, we had these things called "installation instructions" and "FAQs" on static web pages. The best thing about these static web pages was that they could be retrieved on demand, at any time, with no action required by anybody but the requestor, by entering keywords into a search engine. Similarly, we had these things called "forums" where you could check whether somebody had already asked the question you're about to ask by searching for it before asking.

Finally, my novel (to me) point: why are we backsliding to a state where basic information is gated behind a login wall and mandatory interaction with other people?

One more sidestep: chatbots.

Chatbots are an innovative way for companies to outsource their tech support to a computer/not have to pay for call centers. They're pretty good for 90% of tech support problems, since 90% of tech support problems can be solved by walking the tech-illiterate customer through the process of turning their device off and back on again. Having a robot do this instead of a person saves a looooot of money. More recently chatbots have taken on a new meaning as the most common frontend for AIs, probably because they're easy to interface with even if you're tech illiterate. Can you see where I'm going with this?

The groomercordification of everything, and especially of things that should not be groomercordified (anything that would traditionally be on a wiki), is just another result of the normie takeover of the internet. A loooooot of people (apparently the vast majority) strongly prefer to consume technical information in a conversation style versus reading a document, so the state of things has drifted towards enforced conversation-style information consumption. This has had horrible consequences for the general availability of information that should logically be retrievable on demand from a static source.

Yes, this is rather galaxybrained and obvious in hindsight.

fricking christ

In a new TOS change in Section 12, they added this line: “You hereby grant to Vultr a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid-up, worldwide license (including the right to sublicense through multiple tiers) to use, reproduce, process, adapt, publicly perform, publicly display, modify, prepare derivative works, publish, transmit and distribute each of your User Content, or any portion thereof, in any form, medium or distribution method now known or hereafter existing, known or developed, and otherwise use and commercialize the User Content in any way that Vultr deems appropriate, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or to any third parties, for purposes of providing the Services to you.”

This line has sparked outrage among Hacker News & Reddit, who are not pleased and are cancelling their subscription over this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39836495

https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1bouuv7/warning_vultr_a_major_cloud_provider_is_now/?sort=controversial

!chuds my website (TBC - prob never) needs to be moved to a new host.

!nonchuds late stage capitalism

Dear @Apple @AppleSupport @tim_cook

I’ve just upgraded my software to version iOS 17.4.1, and now, when I type the capital of Israel 🇮🇱, Jerusalem, I’m offered the Palestinian flag emoji. 🇵🇸 This didn’t occur on my phone immediately before this update.

Below is a… pic.twitter.com/Cw9TDmE6VD

— Rachel Riley MBE 💙 (@RachelRileyRR) April 9, 2024

Torn because he would be like omg ai

Neither can I tbh

Edit:

https://old.reddit.com/r/AsianMasculinity/comments/1bvbk5q/metas_ai_image_generator_cant_imagine_an_asian/?sort=controversial

Some azn nerd wrote a longpost about this phenomenon in DALL-E and it's hilarious

Great thread from Kathryn Tewson about how rslurred this thing is

Based AI telling employer to take worker's tips lmao

It's a barbaric country. US support has created another blemish on US history. Was it worth it to ensure safe seas to enable global commercialism, which kept most of the world stable for decades? I do not, but I'll never be in charge either way.

Not just barbaric but also ignorant and tribalistic (I mean this literally), to an extent that most Western citizens don't get since they don't learn about the region's history. Yes, the ruling elites practice barbarism through the judicial system and legalized violence. But the population at large also shares in barbarism. For example, I was surprised (but not surprised) to see that nearly all Saudis deny the atrocities of October 7, like some kind of modern Holocaust denialism.

Hating jews never went out of fashion in the muslim world.

But degrading humans to subhuman status due to culture/ethnicity transcends the muslim world.

Anti-semitism is a European invention that had to be imported to the middle east. One could argue it never went out of fashion anywhere.

Let's not gloss over the absolutely appalling respect many of these societies have for human dignity. Public executions and flogging, discrimination and imprisonment based solely on gender, absolutely zero regard for freedom of conscience when it comes to matters of religion.

We are complicit (if not responsible). Accepted practice isn't an excuse for indifference but criticising your own country isn't a free pass to criticise the culture of others without challenging our culpability. If we sincerely want to help the citizens of these countries that we believe to be oppressed, we have options that we choose not to take. We could offer cultural asylum, give people a route to access our cultural ideals through immigration. We don't, though, because we only believe in human rights when it's convenient.

You, as an individual, may do your best to contribute to the betterment of the world, but when talking about society vs. society, you're glossing over far too many of our ills while ignoring the positives of the others.

Freedom of religion, individualism, capitalism, they aren't “good” or “right” they're just… different. The western individualism (seen most prominently in the U.S.) is not the majority culture, to many, even those who are just as “free” as any American, western cultural ideals are a step backward.

The way you perceive Islam is not the way it's perceived by Muslims in Muslim majority countries, it is not an oppression put upon them by religious zealots, it's a community that they participate in with a deep sense of pride and duty. For every Muslim in a Muslim-majority country who wants to break from their religion, there's an unsuccessful American struggling to survive, desperate to break free from the lonely American pursuit of individual success.

You can hate public executions, flogging, discrimination based on gender and sexuality, and you should, I do, but don't compare societies. We are not better, just different.

These tyrants only get away with repressing their citizens when people like Joe Biden give the first bump of approval due to fantasies about normalization against the will of the people.

The only thing the Gulf states have going for them is oil money and a good hub location on the Europe–Southeast Asia airline routes.

Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Bahrain, Qatar, they all remind me of that quote from King of the Hill—they are monuments to man's arrogance. Desert cities hitting 50+ °C air temperature at midday which means air conditioning everywhere; vapid luxury in the form of expensive garish cars, shopping malls, and weird buildings and monuments, all while local chiefs who oppose stupid and unrealistic white elephant vanity projects are executed in the back alley.

This is one reason why I would like more nuclear power: it'll take some of the money away from the Gulf.

Clearly you dislike gulf countries.

The points raised are a mixture of facts, fiction, jealousy and dislike.

You want them to boil in desert heat with some environmental appeal, while many countries pump the air full of pollution from factories or massive ICE cars

I haven't heard of back alley executions over there

I don't feel hate towards someone spending their money on 2 cars or a holiday house or whatever luxury shoes, or paint their house whatever color. Why does it annoy you so much.

Why hate on people with different taste, very strange

I get it's ok to hate on gulf countries without backlash more than hating on say Denmark

FWIW I'm not from there and don't live there

I regret not doing more to support and defend @PalmerLuckey at Facebook. We were in different states and divisions, and I was largely out of the political loop, but when I became aware of the situation I should have made a clear and open statement of opposition to the witch hunt.… https://t.co/OTXBBnkK0p

— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) April 13, 2024

See also: Part 2

Spoiler: the bans him

Orange Site discussion

Edit:

The HN comments get to the core of this:

A moderator on Vaxry's groomercord changed a transgender person's pronouns from "they/them" to "who/cares". Vaxry did nothing about it, and even supported this change, stating that the person was making too big a deal about their pronouns

lmao based

Also someone posted screenshots from his Groomercord where he pings everyone asking for hentai:

Reddit discussions:

https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1bzna16/hyprland_creator_vaxry_is_now_banned_from/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1bztfry/fdos_conduct_enforcement_actions_regarding_vaxry/?sort=controversial

Any tips on getting a job right now?

Could you hire me?

AIs are now capable of hypnotizing humans

Why this matters: soon, AGIs may be able to mind control us

This isn’t sci-fi, this already happens!

EXAMPLE #1: Did you know chicken brains have an “off button“? We hypnotize them… because we’re smarter!

And it’s not just chickens… https://t.co/YzWYEP8kbz pic.twitter.com/HEx8nls101

— AI Notkilleveryoneism Memes ⏸️ (@AISafetyMemes) April 20, 2024

Linked xeet https://twitter.com/illyism/status/1774425117117788223

Every time you share a @GIPHY, you send your data to:

checks notes

816 partners 🤯🤯🤯

https://mastodon.social/@AndresFreundTec/112180083704606941

linuxbros.. how will we recover?? i think its time to admit that windows is superior