@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

jrm4

@jrm4@mastodon.social

John R. Marks, IV, Technically an attorney; practically I teach IT at FSU for a living.
I run a nonprofit that teaches stem; for a while my company Vivergent managed the official website for the Black News Channel, RIP.

Huge FOSS/Linux/Free Software guy as well. Harvard undergrad, Columbia law.

Also I like the old school rappity rap.

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mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

This thread is for straight men only.

How to read the news about the head of the Spanish soccer Federation (a man) forcibly kissing a player on the Spanish women's team on the lips, after winning the world cup. You might be thinking:

  • What's the big deal? They're European! It's their culture!
  • And she smiled afterwards!
  • It was just spontaneous! He was overcome with emotion!
  • She released a statement saying that what's important to focus on is the victory!
jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@mekkaokereke

sure, but not sure why you said "straight men only"

like at all

isn't this more or less why e.g. Lizzo's in trouble right now?

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@mekkaokereke

Fair, but I can also do it here, which I am.

I personally do believe these lessons go down better when you stick with generally applicable lessons and "sins" that anyone can concievably commit -- even if they're disproportionately committed (which you should, of course, note)

(the thing you're doing sounds a bit condescending to my ears, though I suppose a lot of people are weirdly into that these days IDK)

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@mekkaokereke

If you're letting me pick it apart, I think

"A thing straight men really need to consider"

just comes off WAY WAY WAY better than

"This thread is for straight men only."

No it isn't, everyone can see it :)

BlackAzizAnansi, to random
@BlackAzizAnansi@mas.to avatar

"We dont need a twitter substitute"

Yes, we do. These institutions and fascists need to be called out, shamed, and dragged for the world to see.

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@BlackAzizAnansi

Here's a wild thing I really don't get: Also over at hacker news there was a discussion about, apparently there's some really horribly dangerous dehumidifier, and they were trying to get the word out

I respond saying "this is why we need a reliable 'twitter' substitute"

and very few people agreed

hard for me not to be like, "idiots"

edgeoforever, to random
@edgeoforever@mastodon.world avatar

Hillary Clinton’s Takedown of Donald Trump in 2016 Was So Accurate – SheKnows https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/2829295/hillary-clinton-takedown-donald-trump-2016-video/

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@edgeoforever @Pineywoozle

She was absolutely right. She did get the most popular votes. I voted for her, and I think she would have made a great President.

That being said, I'm still not a fan of all this rosy-colored backward love. She had deep flaws. I don't talk about how Jesse Jackson was so smart either. Let's move on

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@Pineywoozle @edgeoforever

There REALLY is; Hillary was mediocre and is sort of bad at acknowledging what went wrong during her campaign and everyone feeds into it. And we can't afford to lose like that again.

Again, as a Black person, I'm seeing absurd takes like "not voting for Hillary makes you a race traitor,"

and I'm like, she LITERALLY SAID "ALL LIVES MATTER." She correctly walked it back, but keep it REAL.

jrm4, to random
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

I like hillary clinton. I voted for her

but y'all need to STOP gaslighting people who weren't into a white lady who used to pal around with Trump, who literally said "all lives matter," who was so politically inept as to call people who might vote for her deplorable, who HAD NO TROUBLE IMPLYING OBAMAS assassination when it suited her

Again I would STILL absolutely take her as President. But she was deeply flawed in ways y'all can't just call "sexism"

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

This has mostly been reported as "trans women banned from women's chess" but it's much more sinister. (as if it weren't already.)

ALL trans people are targeted by this ruling. Trans men will be stripped of all chess titles won, which can only be returned to them by “changing the gender back to a woman” (from the ICF’s ruling). ALL transgender chess players will be marked as trans in their files.

If you play or know anyone who does take a stand on this. It's ugly.

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/international-chess-org-trans-women?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@MichaelPorter @futurebird

Real talk though, now that I've been doing this for years, with groups of girls, boys, and mixed...

I'm trying to figure out how to approach what I'm seeing as often confirming (not 100% of course) "gender tendencies" when it comes to tech/engineering et al...

I think it's something like, "STEM" doesn't just need more women, it needs to be more "women-oriented," (and then maybe not exist because it excludes humanities, and again I have a stem nonprofit)

GreenFire, to random
@GreenFire@mstdn.social avatar

If we want to get the GOP out of power than social media users need to do a better job highlighting Democratic achievements,

Today, Biden's U.S. Department of Energy selected 10 new projects to receive $23 million to support the decarbonization of water resource recovery facilities.

These facilities treat wastewater from public water systems and are among the country’s largest industrial electricity users. https://www.energy.gov/eere/iedo/articles/department-energy-announces-28-million-10-projects-decarbonize-nations-water

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@GreenFire

FWIW, my Threads feed is doing this -- but sadly to the point that it's boring?

simon, to random
@simon@simonwillison.net avatar

Answered a question on Hacker News about using ChatGPT for programming tasks with a bunch of my own examples... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37126182#37127206

Comments so far include "If someone on my team was doing things this unusually they’d probably be let go" and "sorry but these examples are not impressive at all and by no means a representative of any serious programmer's workload"

A lot of people out there are absolutely determined not to take the practical utility of this stuff seriously!

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@simon

Wow, working coders and engineers AREN'T?

That's madness. I'm presently using it to blaze through my personal doofy todo list idea thing that I've always had in my head, and this is just in my free time between semesters...

MostlyHarmless, to random
@MostlyHarmless@thecanadian.social avatar
jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@llewelly @futurebird @MostlyHarmless

facts

I generally hate Microsoft, but it's 100% fair to say Excel is the greatest programming language of all time

jrm4, to random
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

Shout out to the heroes here doing their damndest to make as cool and funny as .

We aint there yet, but it's getting bettter

LIFT EV'RY CHAIR AND SWING

scalzi, to random
@scalzi@mastodon.social avatar

As ever, disregard what a company says publicly and focus on what the legal documents says you are agreeing to when you use their product.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/7/23822907/zoom-train-ai-models-user-data-customer-consent

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@scalzi
A good rule of thumb: When a tech company promises (without legal backing) that they're not going to do "a thing," 75% of the time they're doing something extremely similar and weasel wording out of it, and 24% of the time they're just straight up lying because they're not getting legally called out for it

jrm4, to random
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

Gotta double down on this one too. Here at Mastodon, so much talk about "safety" and "harm" from language or whatever, and the great Montgomery boat thing just puts it in perspective for me.

Brother was just trying to do his job and nearly caught a bad one. THAT'S where you need the language of harm and safety etc.

This is just a VOLUNTARY APP/WEBSITE. Yes, don't say mean things. Etiquette and not offending people is good. But "safety" is the wrong word.

TerryHancock, to random
@TerryHancock@realsocial.life avatar

I think we need to add new terms beyond "pay wall":

"spy wall" -- you must give us your personal info before you can see this. (Or "pry wall"?).

"ad wall" -- you must turn off your ad-blocker so we can show you ads, before you can see this.

I mean. I'm not necessarily saying it's evil to share such links, but unless it's really important to me, I'm not going to go past those. And it rarely is.

jrm4,
@jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

@TerryHancock

Absolutely: Their existence isn't the problem, the lack of informed consent is.

Maybe I will willingly use your spy wall or pay wall; but if you have to HIDE that from me, you're obviously in the wrong.

Teri_Kanefield, (edited ) to random

deleted_by_author

    •
    jrm4,
    @jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

    @Teri_Kanefield

    Stop.

    stopstopstop.

    "Calls for civility" are how you cement the little (and maybe big) c conservative positions.

    Lock him up.

    jrm4,
    @jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

    @Teri_Kanefield

    I'm sorry, but you're ridiculously and absurdly conflating and flattening very different levels of resistance, and in doing so, doing the same old tired thing of "calling for peace" instead of experimenting with things that may work. It's preachy and pointless, and since we're publicising each other

    hey help me out here :)

    jrm4, to random
    @jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

    Just doing my part to spread...awareness?

    Seriously, it's simultaneously hilarious and dead serious, esp given Montgomery's history.

    but right now i'm trying to determine the important question of which is funnier:

    "blacquaman" or "fade in the water"

    jrm4,
    @jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

    "LIFT EVERY CHAIR AND SWING"

    i love/hate black twitter SO MUCH

    mekkaokereke, to random
    @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

    sigh we're still talking about this I guess...

    Jamie Foxx didn't say something anti-semitic. He said something people thought was anti-semitic.

    Because they weren't familiar with his phrase, and he wasn't familiar with the anti-semitic dog-whistle.

    He apologized for being misunderstood, not for being anti-semitic.

    Yes, it is very good that he clarified.

    jrm4,
    @jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

    @mekkaokereke

    ehhh I understand C, but C plus a little dash of B would not have been inappropriate

    Meyerweb, to random
    @Meyerweb@mastodon.social avatar

    I wish I could think of a way to monetize the incidence of crypto rugpulls and related scams, because I would be filthy rich.

    jrm4,
    @jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

    @Meyerweb Sooooo, there literally is something like this. It's weird because I'm playing many sides of many fences; 99% of crypto IS scammy, I also think crypto DOES have a strong chance of helping people. And also I have no qualms about making money from other people "playing this game."

    Anyway, a crazy but perhaps brilliant guy, Richard Heart, just forked and copied ethereum, it's called Pulsechain.

    More or less, buying the "native" coins there is investing in the casino(pulse, pulsex)

    tommorris, to random
    @tommorris@mastodon.social avatar

    Ch 1 of every IP law textbook: "Copyright is vital as it gives creators a reason to create new works"

    Hollywood: "We're just going to nuke this entire TV show we made because we can make more money NOT distributing entertainment than we can when we do."

    Academia: "Interesting problem. Here's an article an economics professor wrote about it as part of a publicly funded research initiative which you can pay $19.99 to view for 24 hours."

    Government: "we're busy making it illegal to use WhatsApp"

    jrm4,
    @jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

    @tommorris

    Real talk!

    As a lawyer, it's fun dancing around things like

    "torrents exist. you can buy a 50 dollar device and put more books than you could ever read in your lifetime on it for free, without taking anything concrete from anyone else, like a walking library. Libraries are good."*

    *here's where I have to say, "Don't do this, please" because, you know

    jrm4,
    @jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

    @Natanox @tommorris

    Ha you mentioned Adobe, and this is where I also get the opportunity to be angry at the people who make the good stuff.

    There's an extremely excellent alternative to Photoshop out there that is free and open source, and IMHO could have eaten Adobe's lunch a long time ago IF THE ABSOLUTE CHILDREN in charge of the thing weren't so insistent on preserving the ableist slur that is its name

    baldur, to random
    @baldur@toot.cafe avatar

    “The shady world of Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training” https://stackdiary.com/brave-selling-copyrighted-data-for-ai-training/

    jrm4,
    @jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

    @maddad @baldur @_L1vY_

    In my experience, chasing profits (specifically, software chasing profits where reasonable free/open source solutions exist) 100% guarantees some kind of f***ery, whether now or in the future.

    jrm4,
    @jrm4@mastodon.social avatar

    @maddad @baldur @_L1vY_

    The only exception here might be Docker, but that wasn't for lack of trying. It's just that Podman's right around the corner ready to eat that lunch the second they try something dumb

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