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Daily Archives: November 27, 2018

Tech giants offer empty apologies because users can’t quit

TechCrunch – ‘Sorry’ means nothing since so does ‘We’re deleting’

A true apology consists of a sincere acknowledgement of wrongdoing, a show of empathic remorse for why you wronged and the harm it caused and a promise of restitution by improving ones actions to make things right. Without the follow-through, saying sorry isn’t an apology, it’s a hollow ploy for forgiveness. That’s the kind of “sorry” we’re getting from tech giants — an attempt to quell bad PR and placate the afflicted, often without the systemic change necessary to prevent repeated problems. Sometimes it’s delivered in a blog post. Sometimes it’s in an executive apology tour of media interviews. But rarely is it in the form of change to the underlying structures of a business that caused the issue. Unfortunately, tech company business models often conflict with the way we wish they would act. We want more privacy, but they thrive on targeting and personalization data. We want control of our attention, but they subsist on stealing as much of it as possible with distraction while showing us ads. We want safe, ethically built devices that don’t spy on us, but they make their margins by manufacturing them wherever’s cheap with questionable standards of labor and oversight. We want groundbreaking technologies to be responsibly applied, but juicy government contracts and the allure of China’s enormous population compromise their morals. And we want to stick to what we need and what’s best for us, but they monetize our craving for the latest status symbol or content through planned obsolescence and locking us into their platforms…”

How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request on DC Open Law Library

Ars Technica – Joshua Tauberer – Washington DC has made GitHub the authoritative digital source for DC laws. “Recently, I found a typo in the District of Columbia’s legal code and corrected it using GitHub. My feat highlights the groundbreaking way the District manages its legal code. As a member of the DC Mayor’s Open Government… Continue Reading

CRS Defense Primers

Via Secrecy News:  “Several short introductions to basic aspects of U.S. military policy have recently been updated by the Congressional Research Service. Intended for congressional consumers, they may also be useful to others.” Defense Primer: Organization of U.S. Ground Forces, CRS In Focus, updated November 16, 2018 Defense Primer: Special Operations Forces, CRS In Focus,… Continue Reading

Uber’s New CEO – A Major Lesson in Emotional Intelligence

Inc.  Justin Bariso – “Uber’s new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, has been on the job only a matter of weeks, but a recent email to employees is proof positive that he’s the right man for the job. Yesterday, government officials in London announced that they would not be renewing Uber’s license to operate in the city. Shortly… Continue Reading

Stanford Libraries speaker series “Information, Intelligent Machines, and New Knowledge”

“In Academic Year 2018-19, Stanford Libraries will host the speaker series, “Information, Intelligent Machines, and New Knowledge.”The series will begin in autumn with the “Discovery Sessions,” a series of presentations and discussions oriented to work going on within libraries to address the rapidly changing digital information landscape. The sessions are an exploration of artificial intelligence, digital… Continue Reading

Half of all Phishing Sites Now Have the Padlock

Krebs on Security – “Maybe you were once advised to “look for the padlock” as a means of telling legitimate e-commerce sites from phishing or malware traps. Unfortunately, this has never been more useless advice. New research indicates that half of all phishing scams are now hosted on Web sites whose Internet address includes the… Continue Reading

General Motors, Sears and Toys R Us: Layoffs across America highlight our shredding financial safety net

NBC News – Millions of Americans are in danger of entering their final decades unable to afford ballooning medical bills and cost-of-living expenses. “Today’s aging workforce faces an uncertain future. The announcement this week that General Motors will lay off 15 percent of its salaried workforce and shutter multiple plants in North America was a… Continue Reading

CO2 Emissions Rose for the First Time in 4 Years

Motherboard – “Meeting the goals set in the 2015 Paris Accord is arguably impossible, according to data from a new UN report. The Emissions Gap report, published on Tuesday, says that while carbon emissions stayed relatively level between 2014 and 2016, carbon emissions in 2017 went up by 1.2 percent. Composed by climate scientists using… Continue Reading