onfocus

"Either we must submit to this pervasive surveillance machinery – where our data is easily weaponized to manipulate and influence us – or forego the benefits of the digital world. This can never be a legitimate choice."

Amnesty International the organization is wrestling with their use of Facebook in the wake of this report: We called out Facebook and Google but still need them. That's exactly the problem. They go on to say:

“We are trying to pull off the difficult balancing act of carrying out our duty to spread our human rights message while spending money with companies profiting from problematic surveillance. The reputational risk grows with every scandal. ”

I hope we see some progressive organizations start to distance themselves from Facebook. If they won’t, who will?

Take 25 minutes to watch this. He makes a fantastic, succinct argument for regulating social media to stop the reach of hate speech.

People are greedy. That's why we can't have nice things. Here’s more about why this is horrible from the EFF: Nonprofit Community Stands Together to Protect .ORG.

Rod Stewart is waaaay into model trains. Thought you should know.

If you're Mastodon-curious (and who isn't these days?) this is a great place to start. I especially enjoyed the answer to How do I establish my brand's presence on Mastodon? It would be so easy to veer into cynicism and absolutes with this question and the tone is weary but hopeful. I'm also social media weary but still hopeful about Mastodon. I really enjoy it and I think the folks who steer it are making good decisions.

I love the Paris summer olympics logo and type design. I’m a pushover for deco inspired type. Even though I know it’s the Mini Cooper move of forming fonts it always strikes me as hopeful future. And compared with some of the goofy Olympic logos of the past, this one is playful and clever.

Speaking of podcasts, PJ Vogt just dived into 30-50 feral hogs and it was pretty great. I would subscribe to his feral hogs newsletter. Also, can we talk about the reply-all cover which is a space rave cube in a gradient mountain for some reason? I blame Spotify.

The Our Fake History podcast tells the true stories behind untrue things we believe about history. I really enjoyed this episode about the absurdist secret society The Clampers and a hoax they accidentally (?) perpetrated involving an artifact Sir Francis Drake left in California in 1579.

Henbane will be the name of my next metal band.

DARN, prior art.

I am guilty of using this word as filler or an intensifier all the time. This is a public note to myself to cut it out.

"Am I allowed to strike? If you work in the private sector, definitely. It doesn’t matter if you are part of a labor union or not. For government workers, though, it depends."

This explainer from Vox sure is timely for me. The union I’m in is about to strike.

I recently wanted to set up some "internet free" time for certain devices on my wifi (sorry kids) and this python library did the trick. I used it to set up a script that blocks or unblocks devices by mac address and I run it on a regular schedule with cron. Netgear should offer a consistent, well-documented API for its routers. Until then, pyNetgear can help automate a few tasks. Which is nice.