Pithi @pithi@mastodon.sdf.org

"Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming: feedback is the treatment."

-- Kent Beck

Having trouble with pronouns? Try this one weird trick:

When you misgender someone, and anyone takes the time to correct you, say "Thank you." This will help you take the correction gracefully, and remind you to appreciate that someone believes you want to get others' pronouns right.

Plus, when you develop positive associations with those corrections (instead of shame), it makes it so much easier for your brain to accept the information!

I have a joke about the technology book I spent five years #writing, but it's obsolete.

on the streets of britain you often see these Toilet Detector Vans which can find people who haven't paid their Toilet License and are therefore using the Toilet illegally

Pubs should fucking die.

Nightclubs too.

Replace them both with social gatherings that don't entail getting piss-drunk in public, like board game nights or something. Or arcade machines set to free play.

Obviously, not in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, of course. What do I look like, a fucking Tory?

remember its your last day for a piss before #NoPissJune

"My problem with contact tracing apps is that they have absolutely no value," Bruce Schneier, a privacy expert and fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, told BuzzFeed News. "I'm not even talking about the privacy concerns, I mean the efficacy. Does anybody think this will do something useful? ... This is just something governments want to do for the hell of it. To me, it's just techies doing techie things because they don't know what else to do."

Find a cool product on #Amazon?

That company exists OFF Amazon, too.

1) #DDG company name.

2) Order from their site.

2a) Can usually find a 10% code!

3) Still get product in 2-8 days.

4) Company avoids losing 25% margin share to Amazon.

5) You avoid giving money to #Bezos.

The Library of Congress has announced Citizen DJ, a huge online repository of 100 years' worth of public domain and open access music clips intended to be remixed in new hiphop music.

http://citizendj.labs.loc.gov.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/?l11_uid=66143

You can search the repository by sound/metadata, mix new tracks over hiphop beats, and pull curated "sample packs" to use for more ambitious projects.

https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/04/ibrary-of-congress-open-source-hip-hop-dj-citizen/

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My composition students' final projects: 10-minute podcasts on research topics they chose. So far, they're quite enjoyable to listen to, far more enjoyable than reading academic essays they would have written on their subjects. The podcast format really helped students grasp critical rhetorical principles. Also, maybe in the COVID19 I just miss human voices...