linc

rooster, 4 days ago to random

They remark about the rising number of LGBTQ+ folks like it's a new phenomenon because they just choose to forget that they used to kill us

sarah, 4 days ago to php

I have used #php for over twenty years. I know it’s power and I’ve seen it mature as a first class language.

Haters will hate. But PHP is one of the most powerful and versatile languages in the world.

From CLI to web and everything in between, PHP can do it. You can and should feel good about choosing PHP for your project.

Lana, 6 days ago to queer

In 1945, a woman named Lucy Hicks Anderson was arrested for the crime of marrying her husband, Reuben Anderson, a soldier in the US Army.

Lucy Lawson seemingly always knew exactly who she was. In 1886, a beautiful black baby was born to Bill and Nancy Lawson of Waddy, KY. While this child was identified as male, she insisted that she was a girl. She chose the name Lucy and informed her parents that she would be wearing dresses to school.

At this point in history, the term 'transgender' had not yet been coined, and public knowledge about trans people was sadly lacking. Confounded, her mother and father took her to see the local doctor who advised them to raise her as they would any other little girl. Bill and Nancy did just that. And by all accounts, Lucy's childhood and school years were uneventful and happy.

At age 15, Lucy left home, taking domestic work to support herself, then moved west, first to Texas then to New Mexico where she married her first husband, a man named Clarence Hicks, in Silver City, NM. The couple settled in Oxnard, CA, a wealthy community about an hour up the coast from Los Angeles. There, Lucy's culinary skills opened doors for her, and she began to cater elaborate parties for Oxnard's rich and elite. Her rolls and fruitcakes reportedly won many local contests and awards. Lucy worked diligently and tirelessly, and saved nearly every penny she earned from her employment as a domestic worker, a nanny, and a cook. And in 1920, at the age of 34, Lucy managed to save enough to purchase business property — a local brothel.

Lucy's brothel operated between 1920 and 1933, a period in American history known as Prohibition. During this time, selling alcohol was illegal. But as a brothel madam, Lucy had already skipped merrily over the lines of propriety, so she served her customers alcohol anyway.

In 1929, Lucy divorced Clarence Hicks. Not much is known about her marriage or divorce to Clarence, so we can infer that the separation was mutual and uncontested by either party. Lucy kept her business, and kept bootlegging alcohol.

She was busted a few times, but her numerous social connections with wealthy socialites allowed her to avoid any aggressive prosecution. Rumor has it that one wealthy banker even posted her bail so that she could cater his party that evening.

In 1944, Lucy fell in love a second time. At 58 years old, she met and married the love of her life, Reuben Anderson. Reuben was a soldier stationed in Long Island, NY. But their happiness was not to last.

Just one year after their marriage, a sailor claimed he had caught a venereal disease from one of the women at Lucy's brothel. At that time, the law required all sex workers to undergo a medical examination, and the Ventura County examiner insisted on including Lucy. It was at this time that her trans identity was revealed, and subsequently made public. He chose to put her on trial for perjury, arguing that she lied on her marriage licence, impersonated a woman, and stole VA benefits to which military spouses were entitled. After the story ran in a small Pacific coast newspaper, Time Magazine ran an article on Lucy, exposing her as a trans woman to the entire nation.

During her trial, Lucy stated in her defense, "I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman. I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman". However, the court convicted both her and Reuben of perjury, and they were both sentenced to incarceration in a male prison. Lucy in particular was court ordered not to wear women's clothes.

Reuben and Lucy's relationship survived these indignities, somehow. After serving ten long years in a male penitentiary, Lucy and her beloved Reuben retired to Los Angeles, where they quietly lived out the remainder of their lives together. At age 68, Lucy Hicks Anderson died and was mourned by all who knew her.

Lucy Hicks Anderson was not an activist. She was not even known as a trans woman for the vast majority of her life. She simply wanted to live her life, love her loves, and pursue the projects and interests that made her happy. Lucy wanted only one thing out of life, and that was to be the woman she knew herself to be. And it turns out she was willing to fight for that.

Tell our stories.
#PRIDE #TransHistory

tante, 6 days ago (edited 5 days ago) to random

We really live in the dumbest world. Yes, many meetings are run (and documented) badly. And you shouldn't go to them. No agenda, no attendance has been my baseline policy for a while.

But what is that guy trying to do? Get people to run better meetings? No. He just wants to build a machine that allows you to pretend you were there. Because even a "AI bot writes a summary" thing (which doesn't really work but well) does not include the faked presence. But he thinks he needs that. Why? What's the problem that guy is trying to solve? Who is he solving it for? And has he understood the actual problem?

Like many people hate meetings for (as I said above) often very good reasons. But meetings also serve other less tangible functions of building trust, understanding of one another, a feeling of belonging and shared values. All things that he's not even addressing.

This is the prototypical "let's just slap AI on" and it's painful to watch the amount of money and people's time we throw on those pointless activities.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/3/24168733/zoom-ceo-ai-clones-digital-twins-videoconferencing-decoder-interview

pilky, 6 days ago to random

screams https://youtu.be/LN1TQm942_U

elilla, 7 days ago to random

> Google lays off hundreds of ‘Core’ employees, moves some positions to India and Mexico

capitalists are like "sorry, home office isn't compatible with our company culture, you have to be at the office for productivity reasons. whoops your job is now done via Zoom by someone with a 12h-difference timezone and a tenth of your salary"

FantasticalEconomics, 7 days ago to USpolitics

Just a reminder that while one party spends on protecting voting rights the other marshals its legal assault to challenge election results - for an election that is months away - and disenfranchise voters.

Imperfect democracy vs authoritarianism is on the ballot this November. #VoteBlue if that matters to you.

https://www.axios.com/2024/06/02/legal-battle-2024-election-begun-biden-trump

#USPol #USPolitics

tanoshimi, 8 days ago to random

Remember and pass the message along.

waldoj, 10 days ago to random

I always keep champagne in the fridge. You never know when you’ll have something to celebrate.

literalgrill, 11 days ago to ai

Anything from Vox Media and The Atlantic is now untrustworthy in any capacity from now on. Remember this when reading or linking to any articles in the future.

#AI #FuckAI #Journalism

cstross, 12 days ago to random

If you live in the UK or USA, you need to understand one thing about the coming election:

You need to vote defensively.

Neither of the main parties are appealing. But if you don't vote for the lesser evil you may end up helping a totalitarian horror get elected.

Hold your nose and goddamn vote, dammit. THEN go on protests. Because if you don't vote for the lesser evil, the victor will welcome your protests with bullets.

The prize for political purity this time round is a shallow grave.

raganwald, 13 days ago to random

Situation:

I can watch some DRM content on my device, but the operating system puts up road blocks if I try to take a screen shot or recording, because “piracy” and because “IP Rights.”

But if the OS itself wants to record everything I do and see because “recall” and because “AI,” it will do so whether what I am doing is private or not.

This is a very boring dystopia.

baldur, 13 days ago to random

“Cloudflare took down our website after trying to force us to pay 120k$ within 24h”

https://robindev.substack.com/p/cloudflare-took-down-our-website

> but when they start "urgently" needing to talk to you you're probably not going to get out until you have a juicy custom contract with them

On the one hand, the company in question is a casino and, honestly, fuck casinos

But OTOH, Cloudflare is clearly running a protection racket so fuck them too

baldur, 13 days ago to random

“How does AI impact my job as a programmer? – Chelsea Troy”

https://chelseatroy.com/2024/05/26/how-does-ai-impact-my-job-as-a-programmer/

> my conclusion on the matter is: much like perusing answers on StackOverflow, this approach saves you time relative to whether you’re already skilled enough to know when to be suspicious, because a large proportion of the answers you get are garbage.

cstross, 14 days ago to random

Not enough people realize that the "Turing Test" as originally presented was "can a gay English man in 1945 tell the difference between a chatbot and a femme-coded woman" over a teletype connection.

(Turing was very gay and had a sex-segregated education and then work life: he basically didn't know women and his alienation is palpable. But today's techbros don't have any such excuse, and the emphasis on femme-coded AI is ... telling.)
https://mastodon.xyz/@pmorinerie/112506480363973206

genehack, 14 days ago to random

The Venn diagram of "people who refuse to recognize the ethical problems with GenAI" and "people who still post to Xitter" is a single circle.

mortenbock, 15 days ago to random

Hot take: If you change jobs every 3 years, you've never learned from dealing with your own legacy applications, and you will keep making the same mistakes.

erictopol, 16 days ago to random

A systematic review of airplane flights and Covid infections: duration of flight correlated with infection risk, long flights> 6 hours markedly increased risk (25X) and mask use blocked them
https://mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/6/654

monkeyborg, 16 days ago to random

This is just to say

I have eaten
the glue
that Google
suggested

and which
you were probably
saving
for pizza

Forgive me
it was nontoxic
so sticky
and so cold

danielpunkass, 16 days ago to random

If you’re blind and have a Mac, try MarsEdit, my highly accessible native editor for Wordpress and other blogging systems. It defies the whole “block based” Gutenberg approach and just lets you write. Like the ‘90s.
https://mastodon.uno/@talksina/112494473098177798

trainsnotlanes, 17 days ago to random

Incredible news today. Not only is MDOT dismissing the expansion alternatives for US-23, they're also refocusing the project in a way that will facilitate better non-motorized and public transit connections in our community and our region!

https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2024/05/highway-expansion-options-cut-from-big-us-23-project-in-ann-arbor.html

mhoye, 18 days ago to random

As always, domestic abuse is the flagship infosec threat model, the one where the victim has the least resources, the least recourse, where they're closest to immediate physical harm.

That this industry has failed at and mostly abandoned the idea of even pretending to try dealing with a threat model that's difficult and unprofitable and mostly hurts women is not news, but this new Windows Recall feature is next-level professional negligence.

kottke, 18 days ago to random

A Massachusetts “millionaire’s tax” (extra 4% tax on $1M+ incomes) has earned the state more than $1.8 billion in income for fiscal 2023. That’s about double the estimates and the funds will be spent on education and transportation. https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2024-05-21/millionaires-tax-revenue-reaches-1-8-billion-on-pace-to-double-estimates

aworkinglibrary, 18 days ago to random

We really haven’t learned a goddamn thing about female-gendered bots have we. (I wrote this eight fucking years ago.) https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/bots

thomas, 20 days ago to random

If you're ever doubting yourself, just look at any B2B software. The amount of horribly broken applications with designs from 1997 that generate millions is amazing. If Salesforce can do it, so can you.