@toolbear@union.place
@toolbear@union.place avatar

toolbear

@toolbear@union.place

🧔🏻‍♂️ bearded 🐻 burly 👨🏻‍💻 geeky 👨‍❤️‍👨 gay

A @toolbear valence shell focused on #Solidarity, #CollectiveAction in myriad forms, and #TechUnions.

he / him or they / them

ALT TEXT

Avatar: see pinned post

Header: Actress Kim Cattrall as Lieutenant Valeris in STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991). A young Vulcan woman stands on the Enterprise bridge, crew & readouts in the background. Wide, colorful shot.

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

toolbear, to RSS
@toolbear@union.place avatar

Best or feed reader for someone who so far has failed to make a lasting habit of using one?

We also just signed up for Ground.News. It feels a bit like an RSS reader + curation service. We're still poking around its features. Maybe it can double as a general purpose feed reader. Will report back if we discover anything.

carkner, to indonesia
@carkner@historians.social avatar

Saw it on my watchlist & was reminded of this Wiki bio I wrote in summer 2021. One of the articles I struggled with the most in terms of tone, as Schoonheyt was for most of his life a truly horrible fascist and colonialist. I'm still not happy with some parts of it.

A little known, but surely archetypal example of how life as a "liberal" professional in the colonial civil service prepared one for being a fascist propagandist in Europe soon after.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Johan_Alexander_Schoonheyt

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@carkner
My therapist helped me process some of my white guilt by reminding me of the parable of Saul.

With complimentarity in mind, I see the value in someone who turns away from the darkness. Knowledge of how the other side operates. I have most of the benefits of my privilege despite having radicalized. I present as default unless I make an effort to be weird and whimsical.

It's nice to imagine that work is part of my path to redemption for being kind of a techbro turd at times in my past.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@carkner
A video explainer helped me level up past my personal tendency for litmus tests and try and think about folks like this along multiple axes, being beneficial in some ways and remaining harmful in others. More nuanced than the overly flattening cancel culture / consequence culture that when I tried to apply it lead me to binaries and dichotomies that were limiting.

Your OP conveys your conflicted views about sharing & amplifying him. To me at least.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@carkner
I feel like I'm veering into mansplaining territory and unsolicited advice giving. This is more me relaying what your post made me think about and how I'm connecting with it. I'm glad you shared.

molly0xfff, to Wikipedia
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

Have you ever wanted to start editing , but got overwhelmed or felt like you didn't know where to start? Every time I encourage people to start editing, I hear that, so I'm trying to help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRRHR1NEOqE

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@molly0xfff one of my favorite people just got favoriter. This is nice, Molly 🫶

toolbear, to HashtagGames
@toolbear@union.place avatar

Consensual Curses


  • Home Owners Association

  • House Plant

  • Adoptive Pet

  • Friendship Muffin / Sourdough Starter / MOTHER

… and other curses asked for or customarily accepted without resistance lest you incur STIGMA. The first to 7 STIGMA is eliminated, the game resets with the remaining players.

Based on an idea husband @rigger and I had for a book called:

THE SUBURBAN BOOK OF CONSENSUAL CURSES

toolbear, to HashtagGames
@toolbear@union.place avatar

Burn After Reading


Lynneuendo, to HashtagGames
@Lynneuendo@mstdn.social avatar


MLB Grounds Keepers

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@Lynneuendo
That sounds like a lovely way to show appreciation to some unsung workers. I quite like that idea. I bet MLB fans and collector completionists would love a series like that.

NWBison, to HashtagGames
@NWBison@mastodon.social avatar

Things that are not even.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@NWBison
A perfect category for THE ODD COUPLE

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@NWBison
I will back your Kickstarter.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@NWBison
> Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.
> — The Bard

Well if that isn't a great motto for what I hope my 2024 is like 🫶

berz, to random
@berz@jawns.club avatar

Fatal marijuana overdose victims

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@berz
So only two cards?

  1. Card with instructions on how to play the CCG game.

  2. COUCH LOCK — cannabis overconsumption impossible this turn [Environmental – effects all. Inevitable – must play immediately]

toolbear, (edited ) to random
@toolbear@union.place avatar

It's a priviledge to be on Fedi because it's really good here because of y'all. Most folks are decent. People on Fedi are trying hard to protect and grow kind communities. Baddies are here, too, but they feel weak and ineffective in comparison to the walled gardens.

No shade to folks on other networks. If your best work and best self is there, I trust your judgement. I know I didn't want folks deciding for me when I would leave Twitter, for instance 🫶

alshafei, to infosec
@alshafei@mastodon.social avatar

"For years, the antivirus software company harvested information from users’ web browsers without their consent."

Its clients have included Home Depot, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, and McKinsey.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080135/avast-security-privacy-software-ftc-fine-data-harvesting

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@alshafei
In a fairer world that fine would be at least 1 order of magnitude larger. I celebrate this as a victory nonetheless.

jalcine, to random
@jalcine@todon.eu avatar

I lost a book (my copy of Let This Radicalize You) and I can't figure out where in the world it is. And I gave away my extra copy back in July.

Oh well.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@jalcine
Maybe it's like a beneficent Ring of Power and needed to find a new ring— erm… book bearer.

toolbear, to random
@toolbear@union.place avatar

Mutual aid at scale probably looks like dues, tithes, or taxes (same thing, right?) so in healthy communities you ought pay your dues. But…TAXES aren't inevitable. You don't have to pay. Yet you probably should.

DEATH then. Only death is inevitable. Unless you're invincible, eternal, or immortal. You're always coming back, always picking up the pieces of the last turn.

So LIVING is the only thing we cannot escape. There is nothing we have to do. Except we cannot avoid living, even when we try.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@uselesssuperhero
> Hmm, mutual aid at small scale (like max 100 people or so) should look different, since when you can keep track of who was how helpful, you don't have to help at every occasion.

Agreed! It sounds nice too. I'm looking to join or help build something like that. Some things like that. Many folks who I feel are on to something keep coming back to the ~50 – ~150 range for community size. I suppose it depends on whether you're tuning for family or tribe?

I like. I want.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@uselesssuperhero
More an ethical hypothetical since I have zero intention to experiment with imperviousness ala UNBREAKABLE nor whether I can force a reset ala GROUNDHOG DAY or RUSSIAN DOLL or LIVE. DIE. REPEAT. aka EDGE OF TOMORROW nor whether I need to die to escape the deepest level of INCEPTION.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@uselesssuperhero I do find imagining these things to be plenty fun.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@uselesssuperhero I'm feeling lots of agreement on both points.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@uselesssuperhero yes, interesting. You read me correctly. I don't know what the shorthand term is for the opposite of a "ladder puller", but an individual with lots of agency ought to be giving folks that are less far along than they some assists and boosts or carving steps into the mountain or something to make it easier for the next person.

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@uselesssuperhero I feel very much like the beneficiary of folks who are ahead of me doing exactly that. I also feel like baddies are creating headwinds and obstacles. But then, I'm getting the impression some good folks are bodying a lot of that and otherwise tanking for the rest of the party.

takosix, to random
@takosix@famichiki.jp avatar

Interesting read

"I believe we're reaching the upper limits about what generative AI can do and how accurate its outputs can be, and I believe that once reality catches up with artificial intelligence's marketing, there will be a dramatic knock-on effect that savages the entire tech industry."

https://www.wheresyoured.at/sam-altman-fried/

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

Thanks @takosix and @wa7iut for bringing this article to my attention. Looks like I'm subscribing to Ed's new podcast BETTER OFFLINE, too.

LilHulkQ, to random
@LilHulkQ@mstdn.social avatar

Happy Unindicted

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@LilHulkQ
The Periodic Table of Unindicted Presidents of the United Status

toolbear, to Netflix
@toolbear@union.place avatar

If you're a Netflix employee and are comfortable connecting me with either the Trans or LGBTQ ERGs regarding a collective action thing, please reply or DM.

I would like to discuss a visit to Los Gatos campus on Leap Day (Thu, Feb 29th, 2024) to talk with anyone interested about Netflix workers forming a Tech Union. I'll give you a copy of Ethan Marcotte's book if you give me an assist getting in touch with an ERG representative ✨

https://bookshop.org/p/books/you-deserve-a-tech-union-ethan-marcotte/20400532?ean=9781952616600

toolbear,
@toolbear@union.place avatar

@beep
And as I've read more, I can make more specific plans. Now I know about organizing commitees and that maybe my picket stunt will be a good first splash to attract attention from employees, but that I should pivot to more quiet organizing and building my 1-on-1 connections from which an OC might sprout. As a Netflix outsider and no longer a worker, it wasn't clear what my role was supposed to be. Now I know next step is find their nascent OC or help them start one.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • megavids
  • tacticalgear
  • magazineikmin
  • cubers
  • everett
  • rosin
  • Youngstown
  • ngwrru68w68
  • slotface
  • osvaldo12
  • Durango
  • kavyap
  • InstantRegret
  • DreamBathrooms
  • JUstTest
  • khanakhh
  • GTA5RPClips
  • normalnudes
  • thenastyranch
  • mdbf
  • ethstaker
  • modclub
  • Leos
  • tester
  • provamag3
  • cisconetworking
  • anitta
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •