Mark Mercer @mcmxs@qoto.org

Many of us will do lots of #shopping this #holiday season, which inevitably means we'll have to contact customer service.

But please remember that those #CustomerService reps not only have to deal with irate callers who tell them "I hope you die," but also conditions that keep them from bathroom breaks, or sick workers who keep trashcans by their desk in case they need to...ya know.

“We’re Not Allowed to Hang Up”: The Harsh Reality of Working in Customer Service:

https://www.propublica.org/article/not-allowed-to-hang-up-the-harsh-reality-of-working-in-customer-service?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

@Robotbeat It certainly feels that way. Jenniffer Gonzales and others in Congress have written to the NSF asking them to reconsider, but who knows if the NSF will listen.

@Robminchin I feel like Puerto Rico is being shafted. Such a disproportionately huge part of their culture and science. I’ve had students from PR and they’ve always mentioned it with great pride. And there is no full substitute for it anywhere, most certainly not in the US. Statehood (if they want it) for PR is essential to stop this neglect.

#Astronomers are unhappy at the NSF’s decision to only fund outreach activities at #Arecibo in the future.
#Astronomy #Astrodon #PuertoRico

NSF plans another collapse for Arecibo Observatory (op-ed) | Space

https://www.space.com/arecibo-observatory-national-science-foundation-collapse

There's A LOT of discussion about content moderation right now and very little of it touches on the fact that we've all lived on the big social sites for the last decade-plus thanks to the massively exploitated labor of mostly-invisible moderation workers. The social web at scale wouldn't have happened without these laborers, who in addition to shit wages, have been exposed to literally every imaginable horror.

If we're remaking this world, let's do better on that front.

Lesser known transreal cyberpunk masterpiece by me and Bruce Sterling. "Fibonacci's Humours." Set in a "post-jackpot" Texas. Written 2020. Online here for free reading. #sterling #transreal #cyberpunk #free #story #texas #fibonacci #crypto #AI #jackpot
https://www.rudyrucker.com/transrealbooks/completestories/#toc_marker-89

Some of the cool #SF #Writers that have come onto #Mastodon -- @GreatDismal @scalzi @gregeganSF @neilhimself @cstross @ann_leckie @rudytheelder @annaleen @charliejane

Time turns back on its shell.
In the mirror is Sunday.

It is time.
——
we love one another like poppy and memory,
we slumber like wine in the seashells,
like the sea in the moon’s blood-beam
(trans. Susan Gillespie)

—“Corona,” from Paul Celan, Romanian Austro-Hungarian German Jew (identities not quite defined as such in his youth). Celan was the sole survivor from his family; his parents died in Nazi labor camps. 1/
#everynightapoem #november #translation

Must read on #Mastodon culture for everyone (considering) migrating there from #Twitter: https://uxdesign.cc/mastodon-is-antiviral-design-42f090ab8d51

Sunset on the Rusanovsky Canal. Kyiv.

#photography #nature #architecture #travel #mastodoncontent #citylife #Ukraine

@adamdavidson I just read this from Der Spiegel and it convinced me to leave. It's not a social network anymore it's a social experiment and we are the test subjects. I think they nailed it. Here is the link: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/elon-musk-entsperrt-donald-trump-twitter-hat-keine-nutzer-mehr-sondern-nur-noch-benutzte-a-ddc72793-1c1b-47b2-89e7-fa179760a3f5

@adamdavidson Maybe one thing that will help boost a migration of journalists and others here is to have a "share to mastodon" button at the end of news articles such as this nieman lab article interview with you etc. do you think this is something we can advocate with news outlets? https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/11/can-mastodon-be-a-reasonable-twitter-substitute-for-journalists/

That said, I'm keeping my account active, but locked right now.

I think the only real hope for the return of Twitter that's somewhat close to what we remember (contrary to what conservative have argued, it was never some super lefty haven, it just wasn't), it's for EM's decisions to fail and for him to sell the company off.

This is one of those things that... when people talk about whether or not Twitter will "survive" or not, I think some are missing that EM isn't trying to make Twitter "survive," he's trying to create a tool that's aligned with his own personal politics. Those are the accounts that will get amplified.

When asked about the value of ethical knowledge in job searching, no participants believed this would help them secure a job.

Some thought that expressing their knowledge of or care for ethical issues would actively result in them NOT getting a job.

We think these findings are reflective of both trends in techlash and and in students’ perception of their ability to effect change. We also suspect these negative trade-offs disproportionately impact students from historically excluded groups.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and recognize what a hard problem it is, but "ethics" education in computer science absolutely needs to include discussion of how to raise ethical concerns and speak to power, and how to engage in resistance.

You can read the entire short paper "Entering the Techlash: Student Perspectives on Ethics in Tech Job Searches" here! https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3500868.3559446#BibPLXBIB0016

And more to come. :)