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  • 88 Comments
Joined 6 months ago
Cake day: July 8th, 2024
  • khalid_salad@awful.systemstoTechTakes@awful.systems•Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 19th January 2025 - awful.systemsEnglish
    4·
    1 day ago

    Well, this Andy dipshit gave an absolute dogshit apology on reddit.

    Snippets below:

    sophistry and bullshitting

    First, while the X post was not intended to be a political statement, I can understand how it can be interpreted as such, and it therefore should not have been made. While we will not prohibit all employees from expressing personal political opinions publicly, it is something I will personally avoid in the future. I lean left on some issues, and right on other issues, but it doesn’t serve our mission to publicly debate this. It should be obvious, but I will say that it is a false equivalence to say that agreeing with Republicans on one specific issue (antitrust enforcement to protect small companies) is equal to endorsing the entire Republican party platform.

    andy doesn't know his head from the DNC mascot

    Second, officially Proton must always be politically neutral, and while we may share facts and analysis, our policy going forward will be to share no opinions of a political nature. The line between facts, analysis, and opinions can be blurry at times, but we will seek to better clarify this over time through your feedback and input.

    The exception to these rules is on the topics of privacy, security, and freedom. These are necessarily political topics, where influencing public policy to defend these values, often requires engaging politically.

    The operations of Proton have always reflected our neutrality. For example, recently we refused pressure to deplatform both Palestinian student groups and Zionist student groups, not because we necessarily agreed with their views, but because we believe more strongly in their right to have their own views.

  • khalid_salad@awful.systemstoTechTakes@awful.systems•Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 19th January 2025 - awful.systemsEnglish
    8·
    2 days ago

    Here is their response:

    @mav Yes, this was bad. I did not take a screenshot back then (the post was deleted after 30 minutes), but I scrolled all my way through Mastodon to find our apology:

    https://mastodon.social/@Tutanota/108910936764865962

    https://mastodon.social/@Tutanota/108910937813834878

    This was a mistake, we apologized & we made sure that we would never post something similar again.

    At Tuta, we foster honesty, respect & diversity.

    We are here to fight for privacy & against Big Tech surveillance. We want everyone to get the respect they deserve.

    and this:

    @shalf We set up guidelines that all team members on social media duty need to adhere to. We also created a social media review group where we post & discuss every proposal before actually publishing. And it has worked fine ever since. :)

    Content of Apology

    Dear Privacy Fans,

    Last week, on Friday, a post was made on our social media profiles which goes against our core values as team members and as a company. This post was made in poor judgement, without stopping and examining the underlying racist and sexist problems posed by this meme template, and it does not represent the culture and environment of the Tutanota Team. After a period of approximately 30 minutes the offensive post was removed from all platforms and a “brief” apology was posted.

    This brief apology does not go far enough to address this mistake and we would like to update everyone on how we are working to address this issue internally and how we will make sure that this does not happen again. As a company we are working with all of our team members to foster a culture that respects diversity in all forms. This is both on a personal level between colleagues, but also at an institutional level by working to create structures which allow diversity to flourish.

  • khalid_salad@awful.systemstoTechTakes@awful.systems•Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 19th January 2025 - awful.systemsEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    Last time this came up, I considered Posteo but decided to hold off (I think it was actually you who suggested it ❤). There was a concern I had about deleting an account due to inactivity, but I think I just misunderstood or misremembered something on PrivacyGuides. This might be a good choice.

    As far as Filen for photos, I am reasonably confident that Ente will stick around (they seem to take sustainability seriously). Stuff like this worries me about Filen (emphasis mine):

    What else is planned for Black Friday this year?
    As every year, we’ve planned a special surprise to give back to our loyal users this Black Friday. Just like in previous years, we won’t be revealing any details just yet. All I can suggest is to check in with us around November 18th—you won’t want to miss it!

    Are lifetime plans stackable?
    Yes, we’d like to emphasize once again that all types of our plans can be easily combined. Subscription plans only expire based on their individual purchase dates.

  • khalid_salad@awful.systemstoTechTakes@awful.systems•Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 12th January 2025English
    4·
    2 days ago

    After reading some of the counterpoints here, I began thinking about how I considered Excel a hyperkludge if you qualify it enough. I realized the qualifications apply to every programming language (good ol’ Turing Completeness). I think, in my case, the common scenario of

    1. this tool[1] is just a proof of concept/prototype
    2. it costs less to maintain our tool than to write a more appropriate solution from scratch
    3. our infrastructure is now the tool

    had me erroneously criticizing the tool instead of its application[2]. In the case of Excel, I worked a few jobs where the spreadsheets used when the company was small led to an absolute nightmare after the company grew.

    I appreciate the thoughtful responses from everyone. <3

    1: Usually a spreadsheet, in my experience.
    2: Noting that, while “it’s not the tool, it’s the application” is a common refrain from people using tools in shitty ways, there is a distinction between “this is the wrong tool for the job” and “this tool will hurt people”.

  • khalid_salad@awful.systemstoTechTakes@awful.systems•Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 12th January 2025English
    5·
    9 days ago

    At the end of the day you shouldn’t have to maintain anything in order to use a program, in my opinion (at least ideally). I think a “everything must be present in the file” type of config would require less no extra maintenance (assuming devs don’t do anything too silly). Additionally, while noting that my primary programming language is TeX and also that I am a dipshit, this just strikes me as an API-design problem. Alternative solutions could be:

    1. multiple config files (I think mpv already supports this)
    2. semver style config (idk if this would be practical)
    3. a config-editing tool (i.e., what the overwhelming majority of applications do, by hiding the implementation details from the user)

    I have thought about doing #3 for Sway (a sort of Sway-config editor). This does give me an idea, though: define a meta-format for specifying the variables, default values, allowed values, etc., for an arbitrary[0] program’s config file, and create a program that reads a meta-format file and presents a GUI for editing the config.

    tbh i just lost my config file, forgot what i changed, and now i have to read documentation (and figure out which file the mpv flatpak uses for config)

    [0]: maybe not too arbitrary