@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

raganwald

@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us

I am an author of bespoke works of prose. Every word—every single one—is literally written by hand, letter by letter.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

“The Big Web has users – a term Silicon Valley has borrowed from drug dealers to describe the people they addict to their services and exploit.”— @aral, “What is the Small Web?”

https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@jmeowmeow @aral

Looking at Kitten, the stuff @davew has been doing forever, and so much more going on, it feels like there’s a real culture here devoted to empowering the end points.

Different definitions of what success looks like and how to get there, but fellow travellers with mutual respect and support.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@davew @jmeowmeow @aral

> small pieces loosely joined, a term coined by david weinberger, the best explanation of the web in four freaking words! ;-)

💡

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

The criminalization of “Disturbing the Peace” is unjust.

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” MLK drew a distinction between a negative peace—where there is no protest—and a positive peace—where there is nothing to protest.

“Disturbing the peace” does not distinguish disturbing a negative peace from a positive peace, and thus it is weaponized to maintain negative peace.

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

“Like ChatGPT, he’s a know-nothing that, through deterministic measures completely detached from the meaning of the underlying ideas, picks the right words to say at the right time.”—Ed Zitron, “Managing Up”

—

The business press has always loved to hagiograph-fy charlatans who seem like prophetic geniuses unless you happen to now something—or anything—about the subject being bloviated. At which point you have an “Oakland Stroke” and realize “there’s no there, there.”

👇🏽

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

What has changed lately is that we’ve recognized their superpower: They’re an LLM running on wetware that has been carefully trained to match the expectations and biases uninformed people may have for “geniuses.”

That doesn’t bother me in the least. What bothers me is the question that Rachel asks Deckard: “Did you ever take that test yourself?”

😳

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWK6oSbSKKc

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

“This is the management consultant mindset that dominates tech—trapping users in terrible experiences by monopolizing industries, then making their products worse once they know that their users can’t go anywhere else.”—“Managing Up” by Ed Zitron

A detailed, receipts-heavy walk through the enshittification (®️ @pluralistic) at Meta.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/managing-up/

tantramar, (edited ) to random
@tantramar@nojack.easydns.ca avatar

a friend — whom I’ve known 30 years — recently pulled me (back) into WhatsApp. She has a Mac & an iPad, but video chat with her granddaughter happens on WhatsApp; there are no Meta-is-evil arguments more powerful than that.

It immediately requested full access to my contacts, which I denied, explicitly to be uploaded to Meta’s servers.

Apple should disallow this. People have the right to share their own info with Meta (et al) — they do NOT have the right to share other people’s.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@tantramar

Uber does the same 💩 If I want to order a ride to pick someone up, I can’t just give Uber the passenger’s contact info, Uber demands access to my entire list of contacts.

Young woman saying “That’s a no for me.”

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@tantramar

Apple has a system for photos where you can choose which photos an app has access to.

I would like ”Private Access to Contacts:” It should provide the app with access to a curated list of contacts you choose, from “none” to as many as you want to share. Or don’t.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@tantramar

Yes, this is a deep problem that goes beyond Apple and everything else: The idea that when I share my contact information with you, I'm sharing it with everyone else you share your contact "book" with.

Are you imagining a new kind of tool that focuses on your permissions as a contact rather than mine as the owner of a contact book? That kind of thing would be even more helpful.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@Starfia @tantramar

This "deterrence" is non-existent. If I'm in a jam and I need to send an uber to pick my daughter up from school or something, there's a lot of pressure to agree with their draconian demands.

The problem as @tantramar points out is that when I give in, your contact info and @tantramar's contact info are given away.

The incentives/disincentives favour destroying privacy.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@tantramar @Starfia

I don;t know what could be done about "all" contacts, but within the iCloud ecosystem, Apple could provide a "do not share" checkbox which says that if you share your contact information with another iCloud user, that contact information will NOT be shared with any third party via access to all contacts.

There's really nothing that can be done if a user is intentional about sharing your information, but that checkbox or something like it would cut down on bulk-sharing.

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

Old 419 Joke:

“Thank you for reporting this terrible situation. Which part do you want us to investigate first? The part where you knowingly entered into an international criminal conspiracy to launder the proceeds of fraud? Or the part where your partners cheated you out of the funds you advanced to facilitate that money laundering?”

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

Business magazines love articles about CEOs shaking up their leadership teams. It’s exciting! It’s aggressive!! It’s shifting into transformation mode!!!

Almost never do they ask if a shakeup serves to weaken those the board may tap as an interim CEO, should things not work out.

gulovsen, to mastodon
@gulovsen@mastodon.social avatar

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@gulovsen

“Eternal August.”

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Eternal vigilance is the price of travel

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@pluralistic

Item on the list of things George Carlin tried to tell us: Airport Security.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQdC-e82gmk

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

I like to edit the tracking parameters off of URLs in emails and on web pages.

Or if the URL looks like this, I delete the whole thing. The world doesn’t need me to share whatever it was after all.

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

“It's not just that these weirdos can't tell the difference between imaginative parables about the future and predictions about the future – it's also that they keep mistaking dystopias for business plans.”

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/17/fake-it-until-you-dont-make-it/

—@cstross (🎓 @pluralistic)

andrewfeeney, to random
@andrewfeeney@phpc.social avatar

This email could have been a private thought.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@andrewfeeney

Nobody toots a casual musing while thinking, "I wonder what @raganwald has to say about this."

grmpyprogrammer, to random
@grmpyprogrammer@phpc.social avatar

What stage of capitalism is this?

It’s pretty bold to try and replace employees with volunteers…

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@grmpyprogrammer

<< retracted, the incident has been attributed to a franchisee >>

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

“A.I. and the Silicon Valley Hype Machine”

"Given these constraints, it seems just as likely to me that generative A.I. could end up like the Roomba, the mediocre vacuum robot that does a passable job when you are home alone but not if you are expecting guests." https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/opinion/artificial-intelligence-ai-openai-chatgpt-overrated-hype.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sE0.SV0g.r4iVMq0NT6z7&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@baldur

I’ll read TFA on your recommendation. May I also point out that the daily mediocre job a Roomba does is a good fit for one market?

People with furry pets.

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

This is a concept I learned from @pluralistic

"The moat around a company isn't really to keep competitors out, it's actually to keep customers in. And the harder it is for them to escape, the more a company can and will abuse them for short-term gain."

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

Pardon me, that way was too cynical. What I meant to say was,

“Switching costs provide pricing power.”

xan, to random
@xan@xantronix.social avatar

@raganwald Either you have made a massive mistake in following me back or I am somehow cooler than I thought? Either way, good day sir!

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@xan Thank you (I think), but what if...

What if we can find each other's words interesting and stimulating without even thinking about who the cool kids are or aren't in this place?

———

"hashtag life dash goals."

Nobody cool says that, boomer.

"exactly."

aral, (edited ) to design
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

If you design a system such that you cannot differentiate people from corporations and bots and that’s your defense for calling all of them “users”, you’ve designed a system that conflates people – who are mortal, have feelings, can feel pain and be hurt and who have human rights that must be protected – with the very entities that oftentimes exist to exploit them.

Design for people. Call them people. All else is secondary.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@rdela @aral @AngelaPreston @fasterandworse @mileposter @xinmyname @fmhueffer @blogdiva

I used to belong to the HCI SIG. "Human Computer Interface" is rather dry, but it "Remembers to human."

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