@sarahmei's Threads
Super interesting talk from @piratefsh at the @plotterpeople meetup tonight about the history of computer art! This was my favorite - from an art professor who worked to create depth in a medium that only (at the time) offered black lines. 
Before tonight, I knew next to nothing about modern pen plotters. They are suuuuuuuper cool thoughđ
Software patents are like allowing railroad companies to patent how far apart their rails are.
In other words - they discourage interoperation in an industry where interoperation is manifestly in the public interest.
In other words - they discourage interoperation in an industry where interoperation is manifestly in the public interest.
Most large companies encourage their designers & engineers to file software patents. However many only use them "defensively" - i.e., when threatened with infringement action by another company, they find a patent they own that the threatener is infringing.
It's a useless cold war. Time to invalidate all sitting software patents and refuse to grant new ones.
I read a story over the weekend imagining a future where advertising is illegal, and I canât stop thinking about it - especially in light of our current efforts to understand how companies and countries purchase influence & outcomes.
It was written in 1973, but the author must have had a magic mirror to 45 years in the future, because their characterization of instagram influencers is just so spot on.
The story is this one. Thereâs A LOT of plot, & a lot of prescient imaginings, including:
- fast always-on internet
- realtime streams of audience sentiment used to tune content in realtime
- scripted ârealityâ tv
Iâm still sifting through the layers.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_âŚ
- fast always-on internet
- realtime streams of audience sentiment used to tune content in realtime
- scripted ârealityâ tv
Iâm still sifting through the layers.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_âŚ
2019 is the year we stop writing âpureâ functional or object-oriented code, and go back to getting shit done.
Any project of significant size, no matter what programming language itâs written in, will have places where OO techniques make sense & places where functional techniques make sense.
Itâs ok to have classes with no data of their own and a single method called ârun.â
Itâs ok to have functions that own data & mutate it.
Breathe! And get shit done.đ
Itâs ok to have functions that own data & mutate it.
Breathe! And get shit done.đ
Iâve been thinking more about the difference between âchanging the worldâ and âmaking the world better.â (thread)
I am motivated by the impact of my work - as opposed to enjoyment of programming (itâs fine, but itâs fiddly) or interest in trying new things (oh boy, ANOTHER undocumented mess).
Iâm good at the latter two things, but I only do them because I want to have impact.
Iâm good at the latter two things, but I only do them because I want to have impact.
Iâm not a learned-programming-as-a-kid type. I got into software by accident, in college, when I waited too long to look for a summer job & ended up at an on-campus research lab tasked with making something nobody quite new anything about - a âpageâ on the new âworld wide web.â
Hey Palantir, if you donât want another company to âstealâ (đ¤Ž) your âdiverse staffâ (đ¤Ž) maybe try hiring more than a single white woman executive. Maybe try hiring people of color too. Maybe try promoting them!
I dunno, just a thought.
I dunno, just a thought.
You could start, though, by shifting your thinking about those folks (and hell, while weâre at it, the rest of your staff too!).
Itâs really hard to believe this needs to be said out loud, but:
Your staff is NOT your property.
They cannot be âstolen.â
Itâs really hard to believe this needs to be said out loud, but:
Your staff is NOT your property.
They cannot be âstolen.â
Thinking about staff as âproperty that can be stolenâ places the locus of control externally - e.g. âeverything was fine until GoogBook STOLE them!â
Youâre making it GoogBookâs fault that an employee left. Oh well, nothing you could do about that, right??đ
Youâre making it GoogBookâs fault that an employee left. Oh well, nothing you could do about that, right??đ
I want to say thanks to everyone who messaged support during the depressive episode I had last month. I wasnât in a place to respond at the time, but I did read them all.
â¤ď¸
â¤ď¸
Iâm feeling a lot better now. Itâs funny how grief works. Six years on, youâd think it would be getting easier, but this December was WAY harder than the last few years. I wasnât prepared.
Anyway Iâm back at work today after what feels like a lifetime of break (but was actually just 2 weeks).
Kinda looking forward to it. Hoping I remember my passwordđŹ
Kinda looking forward to it. Hoping I remember my passwordđŹ
In honor of finishing both my gamergate threads I would like to present to you a Saturday night SPECIAL EDITION thread!
â¨TOP TEN IDIOT RESPONSE GIFSâ¨
â¨TOP TEN IDIOT RESPONSE GIFSâ¨
10.
9.
After two days of dealing with them in my replies, my overwhelming impression is that there are significantly fewer gamergaters than there were a few years ago, but the things they say have not gotten any smarter.
A typical example - unusually colorful metaphors, stronger than average spelling & grammar for this set...but equivalent in content to âur soooo dumb hurrr hurrrrâ
Never any substance.
Never any substance.
I suppose âneverâ isnât quite true. Sometimes, one of them trots out a tired argument that is just as untrue and/or irrelevant now as it was 4 years ago when it was first proffered. Here are some examples:
Hi, if youâre a snob about who can and who cannot call themselves an âengineer,â I have some bad news for you
Your compatriot snobs are kind of assholes
Soooo now in case law we have a prior decision that anyone can call themselves an engineer, regardless of their level of âprofessional trainingâ
It may be time for some more #trollreviews đ
Areas of strength: good attempt at using co-opted language. Reasonable effort at manufacturing a distraction compelling enough to take me off topic.
Areas for improvement: co-opted language used incorrectly. Distraction failed.
Overall score: C-, below average impact troll
Areas for improvement: co-opted language used incorrectly. Distraction failed.
Overall score: C-, below average impact troll
Areas of strength: good structure. Strong spelling.
Areas for growth: Relationship of fact to argument is unclear. Impact weakened by illogical conclusion. âTinfoil hat syndromeâ is not recognized in the DSM as a separate disorder.
Overall score: D+ almost below average troll
Areas for growth: Relationship of fact to argument is unclear. Impact weakened by illogical conclusion. âTinfoil hat syndromeâ is not recognized in the DSM as a separate disorder.
Overall score: D+ almost below average troll
![A screenshot of a tweet reply to me that reads, âA simple fact. To have a group of people be something, meaning have common trait [sic], you have to have ideology. So, unless you can prove âgamersâ is an ideology that is racist, misogynist and whatnot, you are mentally ill paranoid schizophrenic [sic] with tinfoil hat syndrome.â](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DwFTJTAU8AAXIGq.jpg)
One thing Iâve been ruminating on: why do so many people feel compelled to downplay & minimize the people hurt by advances in technology?
Why is the narrative of Forward Progress Foreverâ˘ď¸ so sacrosanct?
What part of their identity does questioning it threaten?
Why is the narrative of Forward Progress Foreverâ˘ď¸ so sacrosanct?
What part of their identity does questioning it threaten?
Because if you look at the replies to my tweet about all technologies having negative space, youâll see people having emotional reactions that surprise me in both their intensity, & their persistence in the face of further explanation.
This is partly introspection, because I minimize the downsides too - to the point that writing that thread felt like finally articulating something that had been bothering me for years about my _own_ behavior.
As with many of the long threads I write, a bunch of folks requested I make this one into a blog post. One person offered that they wanted to see the ideas get more airing, like maybe trending on hacker news. (contâd)
And I realized that one of the reasons I love twitter is _because_ threads never show up on hacker news.
Iâd much rather deal with obvious trolling than with the shallow intellectualism and deep misogyny of hacker newsđŹ
Iâd much rather deal with obvious trolling than with the shallow intellectualism and deep misogyny of hacker newsđŹ
Itâs a whole website full of James Damores - not that theyâre all misogynist asshats (though, sorta, & that starts with PG).
Hi, if you take brain meds or think maybe you need them, hereâs a great thread to read to levelset yourself on just how fucking normal it is.
I take adderall, selegiline, tenex, and ativan. And the occasional ambien.
They help me cope with a world that has expectations fundamentally different from my capabilities.
They help me cope with a world that has expectations fundamentally different from my capabilities.
If youâve been following me longer than a week, though, you might have figured out that they donât always do the job. đ
Itâs gonna be a lifetime of constant monitoring, assessment, & adjustment. Iâm ok with thatđŞđť
Itâs gonna be a lifetime of constant monitoring, assessment, & adjustment. Iâm ok with thatđŞđť
Kids & I are starting the new year properly: with a JURASSIC MARATHON.
We just watched the most recent Jurassic World (which has the required Jeff Goldblum appearance, so I was happy). Now going back to where it all started. Give it up for
JURASSIC
PAAAAAAAAAAAARK
We just watched the most recent Jurassic World (which has the required Jeff Goldblum appearance, so I was happy). Now going back to where it all started. Give it up for
JURASSIC
PAAAAAAAAAAAARK
âMust go faster.â
âJust gotta find the right file.â
If you feel stuck & hopeless, know you CAN get out, & you DESERVE to get out. You donât have to martyr yourself just because you agreed to something else, something better, years ago.
Took me awhile to figure that one out...but I eventually did. Six years later, my life is better than I ever imagined it could be when I was at the bottom.
You deserve that tooâ¤ď¸
You deserve that tooâ¤ď¸
That thread was my 2013. This part hit home the hardest: âJust the process of seeing the reality of your abusive relationship is in itself traumaticâ
Ooooof yes. Itâs hard to take on even more trauma in a situation like that.
Ooooof yes. Itâs hard to take on even more trauma in a situation like that.
This person is thinking âgotcha!!â...but this is actually exactly what I mean.
The upside of the polio vaccine is huge. The downside is tiny. But the downside IS. NOT. EMPTY.
No change is costless.
The upside of the polio vaccine is huge. The downside is tiny. But the downside IS. NOT. EMPTY.
No change is costless.
âDisruptionâ does what it says on the tin - it creates chaos & upends lives. Most people arenât used to change to the degree we are in tech. Itâs a highly unpleasant experience for them.
If they live in a country with a minimal social safety net like the US, âdisruptionâ could mean bankruptcy, hunger, homelessness. These are actual people weâre talking about here.
Even if you decide itâs worth it, you need to know whoâs in the negative space. Somebody always is.
Even if you decide itâs worth it, you need to know whoâs in the negative space. Somebody always is.
I really wish @twitter could deal AT ALL, even a little bit, with me writing a popular thread.
Dozens of mentions are missing from the list, so I only see them randomly when someone else likes them. Thereâs no place to see quote-retweets so all of those are simply lost.
Dozens of mentions are missing from the list, so I only see them randomly when someone else likes them. Thereâs no place to see quote-retweets so all of those are simply lost.
And god forbid a thread gets popular before Iâm done with it - then the iOS client just freezes every 15 seconds while it updates all the numbers for every tweet in the chain. Iâve left threads unfinished because the clieng was just so impossible to use at that stage.
I thought verification would come with extra features to manage that sort of thing, but it doesnât. Just another tab to see interactions with other verified people separately. đŁ
Huh. You know, thereâs this thing called science. Itâs literally the process of uncovering new facts & adjusting our understanding of old ones.
Itâs pretty useful. Without it, weâd still have facts such as âthe earth is flatâ & âall disease is caused by bad airâ
Itâs pretty useful. Without it, weâd still have facts such as âthe earth is flatâ & âall disease is caused by bad airâ
We havenât figured out all there is to know. Thatâs why we have a process (well, several, actually) for evaluating our current set of knowledge and making it more correct over time.
In fact, you could reasonably say that there are no âfactsâ - there are only bits of knowledge, each with a percentage of certainty attached to it, values varying wildly, and none at 100%.
I like that imagining of it, personally, but it can be unsettling.
I like that imagining of it, personally, but it can be unsettling.
Young man, I want to speak to your manager about this. You canât just go disrespecting your elders like that without consequences!
đ¤Łđ¤Łđ¤Ł
Wears acrylics 24/7? Like...does he think you can take them off at night? đ
There is not, never has been, & never will be ANY technology with a purely positive effect on society.
Everything that makes life better for some group ALSO makes life worse for another group.
Everything that makes life better for some group ALSO makes life worse for another group.
If youâre building technology, figuring out who will be worse off is at least as important as figuring out who will be better off.
Itâs not a zero sum game - often the positive effects of a technology outweigh the negative ones. But there ARE negative effects, and we NEED to get better at understanding and mitigating them.
when organizing the art supplies is more satisfying than using themđŹ
can now spell phthalo without looking and also wth is âindanthreneâ
Britain has succeeded in its primary goal of reducing immigration with the Brexit vote - by about 63,000 people.
They also succeeded in losing 40 billion pounds of GDP with the vote, which means theyâve paid....635,000 pounds to keep EACH immigrant out.
Xenophobes are stupid.
They also succeeded in losing 40 billion pounds of GDP with the vote, which means theyâve paid....635,000 pounds to keep EACH immigrant out.
Xenophobes are stupid.
I mean, itâs their money. So if thatâs how they want to spend it...at least itâs not on war machines, I guess?
Maybe theyâre counting on amortization over time. If immigration falls to zero, assuming they lose no further GDP, theyâll only have paid 120,000 pounds (about $150,000 right now) for EACH person they kept out.
What a bargain! Good job brexiteers!
What a bargain! Good job brexiteers!
My fundamental issue with being on call is that I care more about my personal life & health than I do about whether my employerâs website is operational.
I assume everyone does! So...why do we put up with on-call at all?đ¤
Maybe thereâs something to this labor solidarity thing
I assume everyone does! So...why do we put up with on-call at all?đ¤
Maybe thereâs something to this labor solidarity thing
I live in the Presidio, in San Francisco, which is a former military base that now has thousands of people living on it, renting about 50 different types of former military housing.
The Presidio has a whole huge maintenance department who keep it all running. They mostly operate during normal business hours, but thereâs an after hours line you can call for emergencies, which I have a few times. When itâs a real emergency, they send their on-call person over.
