#tech support company california

[notchainedtotrauma]

On The Subject Of Bots: A Former Bot Farm Operator Speaks On The Process (Also spread this video all over this website. I mean it. Spread it. For a whole set of reasons-one of them being antiblackness)

ID [ Close up of a woman in a car wearing a green shirt. She has a dark brown ponytail. She says: 'I'm a a former tech employee that created and sustained a bot farm between 2015 and 2018 in California USA.

Wanna give you guys some information because American bot farm operators are pretty rare. Most bot farms operate oversea. I don't know if there's anyone like me in the US that can tell you this stuff is what I'm saying.

I'm typically way secretive about this but it's gotten so bad I need to talk about it

So what is a bot farm ? Something that an individual or a company purchases. You get a set amount of bots that look like normal people, go out, and spread your message. And here's the work that goes ino that:

I as a operator have to create each individual fake person. I have to create a bio. I have to create a username, a real name, then I have to generate content that has to be supportive of the message the client is paying for.

Positive opinion of the company or the individual. If anyone has ever tried to create content (you know that) that takes time and also that takes ideas; it's not easy.

Finally you need to program these bots based on activity. Bots respond to what you do.

You think that you going around and liking things is invisible. It's not. You're leaving a footprint across the app. That footprint is tracked by people like me. So based on what other people like or comment on, I program my bot to go and search for those people, find them, and then interact with them with my content that supports the message that I created.

This programming also includes research to find the people that are the most susceptible to believing the message that you're selling, and targeting those people. This is just a scratch on the surface of what it takes to program one of these. And people are buying hundreds of them.

Now here's the interesting part. The software to run all these bots is not free. And the time that it takes to create all the things that I just told you about also not free. All of this stuff costs money.

And it represents money when you see it. If you're seeing non stop videos posted with a certain agenda, someone's paying for that. So when you see a dump/ a ton of media that's telling you all the same message, do not say wow what a thing happening right now.

Please instead say wow who's trying to buy my opinion on this topic ?

End of the video ] End of ID

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #20

May 24-31 2024

The EPA awards $900 million to school districts across the country to replace diesel fueled school buses with cleaner alternatives. The money will go to 530 school districts across nearly every state, DC, tribal community, and US territory. The funds will help replace 3,400 buses with cleaner alternatives, 92% of the new buses will be 100% green electric. This adds to the $3 billion the Biden administration has already spent to replace 8,500 school buses across 1,000 school districts in the last 2 years.

For the first time the federal government released guidelines for Voluntary Carbon Markets. Voluntary Carbon Markets are a system by which companies off set their carbon emissions by funding project to fight climate change like investing in wind or solar power. Critics have changed that companies are using them just for PR and their funding often goes to projects that would happen any ways thus not offsetting emissions. The new guidelines seek to insure integrity in the Carbon Markets and make sure they make a meaningful impact. It also pushes companies to address emissions first and use offsets only as a last resort.

The IRS announced it'll take its direct file program nationwide in 2025. In 2024 140,000 tax payers in 12 states used the direct file pilot program and the IRS now plans to bring it to all Americans next tax season. Right now the program is only for simple W-2 returns with no side income but the IRS has plans to expand it to more complex filings in the future. This is one of the many projects at the IRS being funded through President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.

The White House announced steps to boost nuclear energy in America. Nuclear power in the single largest green energy source in the country accounting for 19% of America's total energy. Boosting Nuclear energy is a key part of the Biden administration's strategy to reach a carbon free electricity sector by 2035. The administration has invested in bring the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan back on-line, and extending the life of Diablo Canyon in California. In addition the Military will be deploying new small modular nuclear reactors and microreactors to power its installations. The Administration is setting up a task force to help combat the delays and cost overruns that have often derailed new nuclear projects and the Administration is supporting two Gen III+ SMR demonstration projects to highlight the safety and efficiency of the next generation of nuclear power.

The Department of Agriculture announced $824 million in new funding to protect livestock health and combat H5N1. The funding will go toward early detection, vaccine research, and supporting farmers impacted. The USDA is also launching a nation wide Dairy Herd Status Pilot Program, hopefully this program will give us a live look at the health of America's dairy herd and help with early detection. The Biden Administration has reacted quickly and proactively to the early cases of H5N1 to make sure it doesn't spread to the human population and become another pandemic situation.

The White House announced a partnership with 21 states to help supercharge America's aging energy grid. Years of little to no investment in America's Infrastructure has left our energy grid lagging behind the 21st century tech. This partnership aims to squeeze all the energy we can out of our current system while we rush to update and modernize. Last month the administration announced a plan to lay 100,000 miles of new transmission lines over the next five years. The 21 states all with Democratic governors are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The Department of Transportation announced $343 million to update 8 of America's oldest and busiest transportation stations for disability accessibility. These include the MBTA's the Green Line's light-rail B and C branches in Boston,  Cleveland's Blue Line, New Orleans'  St. Charles Streetcar route, and projects in San Francisco and New York City and other locations

The Department of interior announced two projects for water in Western states. $179 million for drought resilience projects in California and Utah and $242 million for expanding water access in California, Colorado and Washington. The projects should help support drinking water for 6.4 million people every year.

HUD announced $150 million for affordable housing for tribal communities. This adds to the over $1 billion dollars for tribal housing announced earlier in the month. Neil Whitegull of the Ho-Chunk Nation said at the announcement "I know a lot of times as Native Americans we've been here and we've seen people that have said, ‘Oh yeah, we'd like to help Indians.’ And they take a picture and they go away. We never see it, But there's been a commitment here, with the increase in funding, grants, and this administration that is bringing their folks out. And there's a real commitment, I think, to Native American tribes that we've never seen before."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged $135 million to help Moldavia. Since the outbreak of Russia's war against neighboring Ukraine the US has given $774 million in aid to tiny Moldavia. Moldavia has long been dependent on Russian energy but thanks to US investment in the countries energy security Moldavia is breaking away from Russia and moving forward with EU membership.

The US and Guatemala launched the "Youth With Purpose” initiative. The initiative will be run through the Central America Service Corps, launched in 2022 by Vice President Harris the CASC is part of the Biden Administration's efforts to improve life in Central America. The Youth With Purpose program will train 25,000 young Guatemalans and connect with with service projects throughout the country.

Bonus: Today, May 31st 2024, is the last day of the Affordable Connectivity Program. The program helped 23 million Americans connect to the internet while saving them $30 to $75 dollars every month. Despite repeated calls from President Biden Republicans in Congress have refused to act to renew the program. The White House has worked with private companies to get them to agree to extend the savings to the end of 2024. The Biden Administration has invested $90 Billion high-speed internet investments. Such as $42.45 billion for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment, $1 billion for the The Middle Mile program laying 12,000 miles of regional fiber networks, and distributed nearly 30,000 connected devices to students and communities, including more than 3,600 through the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kickstarting “The Bezzle” audiobook, sequel to Red Team Blues

I'm heading to Berlin! On January 29, I'll be delivering Transmediale's Marshall McLuhan Lecture, and on January 30, I'll be at Otherland Books (tickets are limited! They'll have exclusive early access to the English edition of The Bezzle and the German edition of Red Team Blues!).

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to last year's Red Team Blues, featuring Marty Hench, a hard-charging, two-fisted forensic accountant who spent 40 years in Silicon Valley, busting every finance scam hatched by tech bros' feverish imaginations:

http://thebezzle.org

Marty Hench is a great character to write. His career in high-tech scambusting starts in the early 1980s with the first PCs and stretches all the way to the cryptocurrency era, the most target-rich environment for scamhunting tech has ever seen. Hench is the Zelig of tech scams, and I'm having so much fun using him to probe the seamy underbelly of the tech economy.

Enter The Bezzle, which will be published by Tor Books and Head of Zeus on Feb 20: this adventure finds Marty in the company of Scott Warms, one of the many bright technologists whose great startup was bought and destroyed by Yahoo! (yes, they really used that asinine exclamation mark). Scott is shackled to the Punctuation Factory by golden handcuffs, and he's determined to get fired without cause, so he can collect his shares and move onto the next thing.

That's how Scott and Marty find themselves on Catalina island, the redoubt of the Wrigley family, where bison roam the hills, yachts bob in the habor and fast food is banned. Scott invites Marty on a series of luxury vacations on Catalina, which end abruptly when they discover – and implode – a hamburger-related Ponzi scheme run by a real-estate millionaire who is destroying the personal finances of the Island's working-class townies out of sheer sadism.

Scott's victory is bittersweet: sure, he blew up the Ponzi scheme, but he's also made powerful enemies – the kinds of enemies who can pull strings with the notoriously corrupt LA County Sheriff's Deputies who are the only law on Catalina, and after taking a pair of felony plea deals, Scott gets the message and never visits Catalina Island again.

That could have been the end of it, but California's three-strikes law – since rescinded – means that when Scott picks up one more felony conviction for some drugs discovered during a traffic stop, he's facing life in prison.

That's where The Bezzle really gets into gear.

At its core, The Bezzle is a novel about the "shitty technology adoption curve": the idea that our worst technological schemes are sanded smooth on the bodies of prisoners, mental patients, kids and refugees before they work their way up the privilege gradient and are inflicted on all of us:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

America's prisons are vicious, brutal places, and technology has only made them worse. When Scott's prison swaps out in-person visits, the prison library, and phone calls for a "free" tablet that offers all these services as janky apps that cost ten times more than they would on the outside, the cruelty finds a business model.

Working inside and outside the prison Marty Hench and Scott Warms figure out the full nature of the scam that the captive audience of prisoners are involuntary beta-testers for, and they discover a sprawling web of real-estate fraud, tech scams, and offshore finance that is extracting fortunes from the hides of America's prisoners and their families. The criminals who run that kind of enterprise aren't shy about fighting for what they've got, and they're more than happy to cut some of LA County's notorious deputy gangs in for a cut in exchange for providing some kinetic support for the project.

The Bezzle is exactly the kind of book I was hoping I'd get to write when I kicked off the Hench series – one that decodes the scam economy, from music royalties to prison videoconferencing, real estate investment trusts to Big Four accounting firm bogus audits. It's both a fast-moving, two-fisted crime novel and a masterclass on how the rich and powerful get away with both literal and figurative murder.

It's getting a big push from both my publishers and I'll be touring western Canada and the US with it. The early reviews are spectacular. But despite all of this, I had to make my own audiobook for it, which I'm pre-selling on Kickstarter:

http://thebezzle.org

Why? Because Audible – Amazon's monopoly gatekeeper to the audiobook world, with more than 90% of the market – refuses to carry my work.

Audible uses Digital Rights Management to lock every audiobook they sell to their platform. Legally, only an Audible-authorized app can decrypt and play the audiobooks they sell you. Distributing a tool that removes Audible DRM is a felony under Section 1201 of the 1998 DMCA.

That means that if you break up with Audible – delete your Audible apps – you will lose your entire audiobook library. And the fact that you're Audible's hostage makes the writers you love into their hostages, too. Writers understand that if they leave the Audible platform, their audience will have to choose between following them, or losing all their audiobooks.

That's how Audible gets away with abusing its performers and writers, up to and including the $100m Audiblegate wage-theft scandal:

https://www.audiblegate.com/

Audible can steal $100m from its writers…and the writers still continue to sell on the platform, because leaving will cost them their audience.

This is canonical enshittification: lock in users, then screw suppliers. Lots of companies abuse DRM to do this, but none can hold a candle to Amazon, who understand that the DMCA is a copyright law that protects corporations at the expense of creators.

Under DMCA 1201 commercial distribution of a "circumvention device" carries a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine. That means that if I write a book, pay to have it recorded, and then sell it to you through Audible, I am criminally prohibited from giving you the tool to take it from Audible to another platform. Even though I hold the copyright to that work, I would face a harsher sentence than you would if you simply pirated the audiobook from some darknet site. Not only that: if you shoplifted the audiobook in CD form, you'd get a lighter sentence than I, the copyright holder, would receive for giving you a tool to unlock it from Amazon's platform! Hell, if you hijacked the truck that delivered the CD, you'd get off lighter than I would. This is a scam straight out of a Marty Hench novel.

This is batshit. I won't allow it. My books are licensed on the condition that they must not be sold with DRM. Which means that Audible won't sell my books, which means that my publishers are thoroughly disinterested in paying thousands of dollars to produce audiobooks of my titles. A book that isn't sold in the one store than accounts for 90% of all sales is unlikely to do well.

That's where you come in. Since 2020, I've used Kickstarter to pre-sell five of my audiobooks (I wrote nine books during lockdown!). All told, I've raised over $750,000 (gross! but still!) on these crowdfunders. More than 20,000 backers have pitched in! The last two of these books – The Internet Con and The Lost Cause – were national bestsellers.

This isn't just a way for me to pay off a lot of bills and put away something for retirement – it's proof that readers care about supporting writers and don't want to be locked in by a giant monopolist that depends on its drivers pissing in bottles to make quota.

It's a powerful message about the desire for something better than Amazon. It's part of the current that is driving the FTC to haul Amazon into court for being a monopolist, and also part of the inspiration for other authors to try treating Amazon as damage and routing around it, with spectacular results:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dragonsteel/surprise-four-secret-novels-by-brandon-sanderson

And I'm doing it again. Last December, I went into Skyboat Media's studios where Gabrielle De Cuir directed @wilwheaton, who reprised his role as Marty Hench for the audiobook of The Bezzle. It came out amazing:

https://archive.org/details/bezzle-sample

Now I'm pre-selling this audiobook, as well as the ebook and hardcover for The Bezzle. I'm also offering bundles with the ebook and audiobook for Red Team Blues (naturally these are all DRM-free). You can get your books signed and personalized and shipped anywhere in the world, courtesy of Book Soup, and I've partnered with Libro.fm to deliver DRM-free audiobooks with an app for people who don't want to mess around with sideloading.

I've also got some spendy options for high rollers. There's three chances to name a character in the next Hench novel (Picks and Shovels, Feb 2025). There's also five chances to commission a Hench short story about your favorite tech scam, and get credited when the story is published.

The Kickstarter runs for the next three weeks, which should give me time to get the hardcopy books signed and shipped to arrive around the on-sale date. What's more, I've finally worked out all the post-Brexit kinks with shipping my UK publisher's books to EU backers. I'm working with Otherland Books to fulfill those EU orders, and it looks like I'm going to be able to sign a giant stack of those when I'm in Berlin later this month to give the annual Marshall McLuhan lecture at the Canadian embassy:

https://transmediale.de/en/2024/event/mcluhan-2024

Red Team Blues and its sequels are some of the most fun – and informative – work I've done in my quarter-century career. I love how they blend technical explanations of the scam economy with high-intensity technothrillers. That's the the same mix as my bestselling YA series Little Brother series – but these are firmly adult novels.

The Bezzle came out great. I hope you'll give it a try – and that you'll come out to see me in late February when I hit the road with the book! Here's that Kickstarter link again:

http://thebezzle.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/10/the-bezzle/#marty-hench

[rockandroar]

Hi, my name is Abigail Muñoz, but you may call me Abby. I'm a California-born professional concept artist, and for the past ten years I've worked in TV animation, mobile games, tech companies, educational games, VR games, done some teaching, and gone to way too many rock concerts.

My art is inspired by a childhood in the 90s and an adolescence in the 2000s, by my passion for music, and by my lifelong fascination with learning everything I can about the animal kingdom. I love hiking and traveling and adventuring in the outdoors in general, and I play guitar for fun.

Thank you so much to everyone who has followed me this year, and to those of you who continue to support my comic. Keep rockin' on. 🤘🏼

[mariacallous]

In March 2007, Google’s then senior executive in charge of acquisitions, David Drummond, emailed the company’s board of directors a case for buying DoubleClick. It was an obscure software developer that helped websites sell ads. But it had about 60 percent market share and could accelerate Google’s growth while keeping rivals at bay. A “Microsoft-owned DoubleClick represents a major competitive threat,” court papers show Drummond writing.

Three weeks later, on Friday the 13th, Google announced the acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. The US Department of Justice and 17 states including California and Colorado now allege that the day marked the beginning of Google’s unchecked dominance in online ads—and all the trouble that comes with it.

The government contends that controlling DoubleClick enabled Google to corner websites into doing business with its other services. That has resulted in Google allegedly monopolizing three big links of a vital digital advertising supply chain, which funnels over $12 billion in annual revenue to websites and apps in the US alone.

It’s a big amount. But a government expert estimates in court filings that if Google were not allegedly destroying its competition illegally, those publishers would be receiving up to an additional hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Starved of that potential funding, “publishers are pushed to put more ads on their websites, to put more content behind costly paywalls, or to cease business altogether,” the government alleges. It all adds up to a subpar experience on the web for consumers, Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser says.

“Google is able to extract hiked-up costs, and those are passed on to consumers,” he alleges. “The overall outcome we want is for consumers to have more access to content supported by advertising revenue and for people who are seeking advertising not to have to pay inflated costs.”

Google disputes the accusations.

Starting today, both sides’ arguments will be put to the test in what’s expected to be a weekslong trial before US district judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia. The government wants her to find that Google has violated federal antitrust law and then issue orders that restore competition. In a best-case scenario, according to several Google critics and experts in online ads who spoke with WIRED, internet users could find themselves more pleasantly informed and entertained.

It could take years for the ad market to shake out, says Adam Heimlich, a longtime digital ad executive who’s extensively researched Google. But over time, fresh competition could lower supply chain fees and increase innovation. That would drive “better monetization of websites and better quality of websites,” says Heimlich, who now runs AI software developer Chalice Custom Algorithms.

Tim Vanderhook, CEO of ad-buying software developer Viant Technology, which both competes and partners with Google, believes that consumers would encounter a greater variety of ads, fewer creepy ads, and pages less cluttered with ads. “A substantially improved browsing experience,” he says.

Of course, all depends on the outcome of the case. Over the past year, Google lost its two other antitrust trials—concerning illegal search and mobile app store monopolies. Though the verdicts are under appeal, they’ve made the company’s critics optimistic about the ad tech trial.

Google argues that it faces fierce competition from Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and others. It further contends that customers benefited from each of the acquisitions, contracts, and features that the government is challenging. “Google has designed a set of products that work efficiently with each other and attract a valuable customer base,” the company’s attorneys wrote in a 359-page rebuttal.

For years, Google publicly has maintained that its ad tech projects wouldn’t harm clients or competition. “We will be able to help publishers and advertisers generate more revenue, which will fuel the creation of even more rich and diverse content on the internet,” Drummond testified in 2007 to US senators concerned about the DoubleClick deal’s impact on competition and privacy. US antitrust regulators at the time cleared the purchase. But at least one of them, in hindsight, has said he should have blocked it.

Deep Control

The Justice Department alleges that acquiring DoubleClick gave Google “a pool of captive publishers that now had fewer alternatives and faced substantial switching costs associated with changing to another publisher ad server.” The global market share of Google’s tool for publishers is now 91 percent, according to court papers. The company holds similar control over ad exchanges that broker deals (around 70 percent) and tools used by advertisers (85 percent), the court filings say.

Google’s dominance, the government argues, has “impaired the ability of publishers and advertisers to choose the ad tech tools they would prefer to use and diminished the number and quality of viable options available to them.”

The government alleges that Google staff spoke internally about how they have been earning an unfair portion of what advertisers spend on advertising, to the tune of over a third of every $1 spent in some cases.

Some of Google’s competitors want the tech giant to be broken up into multiple independent companies, so each of its advertising services competes on its own merits without the benefit of one pumping up another. The rivals also support rules that would bar Google from preferencing its own services. “What all in the industry are looking for is fair competition,” Viant’s Vanderhook says.

If Google ad tech alternatives win more business, not everyone is so sure that the users will notice a difference. “We’re talking about moving from the NYSE to Nasdaq,” Ari Paparo, a former DoubleClick and Google executive who now runs the media company Marketecture, tells WIRED. The technology behind the scenes may shift, but the experience for investors—or in this case, internet surfers—doesn’t.

Some advertising experts predict that if Google is broken up, users’ experiences would get even worse. Andrey Meshkov, chief technology officer of ad-block developer AdGuard, expects increasingly invasive tracking as competition intensifies. Products also may cost more because companies need to not only hire additional help to run ads but also buy more ads to achieve the same goals. “So the ad clutter is going to get worse,” Beth Egan, an ad executive turned Syracuse University associate professor, told reporters in a recent call arranged by a Google-funded advocacy group.

But Dina Srinivasan, a former ad executive who as an antitrust scholar wrote a Stanford Technology Law Review paper on Google’s dominance, says advertisers would end up paying lower fees, and the savings would be passed on to their customers. That future would mark an end to the spell Google allegedly cast with its DoubleClick deal. And it could happen even if Google wins in Virginia. A trial in a similar lawsuit filed by Texas, 15 other states, and Puerto Rico is scheduled for March.

[beardedmrbean]

California became just the third state in the nation to pass a "right to repair" consumer protection law on Tuesday, following Minnesota and New York, when Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 244. The California Right to Repair bill had originally been introduced in 2019. It passed, nearly unanimously, through the state legislature in September.

“This is a victory for consumers and the planet, and it just makes sense,” Jenn Engstrom, state director of CALPIRG, told iFixit(which was also one of SB244's co-sponsors). “Right now, we mine the planet’s precious minerals, use them to make amazing phones and other electronics, ship these products across the world, and then toss them away after just a few years’ use ... We should make stuff that lasts and be able to fix our stuff when it breaks, and now thanks to years of advocacy, Californians will finally be able to, with the Right to Repair.”

Turns out Google isn't offering seven years of replacement parts and software updates to the Pixel 8 out of the goodness of its un-beating corporate heart. The new law directly stipulates that all electronics and appliances costing $50 or more, and sold within the state after July 1, 2021 (yup, two years ago), will be covered under the legislation once it goes into effect next year, on July 1, 2024. For gear and gadgets that cost between $50 and $99, device makers will have to stock replacement parts and tools, and maintain documentation for three years. Anything over $100 in value gets covered for the full seven-year term. Companies that fail to do so will be fined $1,000 per day on the first violation, $2,000 a day for the second and $5,000 per day per violation thereafter.

There are, of course, carve outs and exceptions to the rules. No, your PS5 is not covered. Not even that new skinny one. None of the game consoles are, neither are alarm systems or heavy industrial equipment that "vitally affects the general economy of the state, the public interest, and the public welfare."

“I’m thrilled that the Governor has signed the Right to Repair Act into law," State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, one of the bill's co-sponsors, said. "As I’ve said all along, I’m so grateful to the advocates fueling this movement with us for the past six years, and the manufacturers that have come along to support Californians’ Right to Repair. This is a common sense bill that will help small repair shops, give choice to consumers, and protect the environment.”

The bill even received support from Apple, of all companies. The tech giant famous for its "walled garden" product ecosystem had railed against the idea when it was previously proposed in Nebraska, claiming the state would become "a mecca for hackers." However, the company changed its tune when SB 244 was being debated, writing a letter of support reportedly stating, "We support 'SB 244' because it includes requirements that protect individual users' safety and security as well as product manufacturers' intellectual property."

[bullet-prooflove]

Notebook, reflection, travel for Bodhi from Tulsa King

Tagging: @kmc1989 @dolphs-darling @kpopgirlbtssvt @tinyhandsnation @madisonbroxson1 

Companion piece to:

Ayahuasca - A bad trip at a wellness retreat brings you and Bodhi together.

Tantric - Bodhi and you have something truly unique.

Sunset - Bodhi reflects upon your relationship as you watch the sun set.

Sex Magic - Bodhi thinks about how far he's come since meeting you.

After his accident in California, Bodhi keeps a journal. It starts as a way to occupy himself during his recovery in the hospital in between the bouts of morphine induced nightmares. It quickly develops into a habit, something he does every single day because it helps him come to terms with the reality he’s facing in that moment.

The fact that he might never walk again because the company he works for has decided the surgery he needs on his back is ‘elective’ so they refuse to fund it and the rehab, that’s out of the window too.

He understands in that moment that they would have preferred for him to die choking on his own blood in the middle of that road because it was more cost effective for them. It doesn’t matter that he’d put the last five of his life into that company, that he worked all the hours that God sent for a bunch of tech bros who are trying to figure out a way to hack the human genome so that they can live forever, the irony of which is certainly not lost on him.

What matters is that they fuck him, so he fucks them right back from his hospital room. He steals 1.2 million and spends the money on his spinal surgery and six months of recuperation at one of the best facilities in the country, during which he buys his friend’s weed shop in Tulsa because he’s done with Silicon Valley, he needs a fresh start.

He thinks about all of this as he sits in his rock garden with his notebook on his lap reflecting on what got him to this point, how his life is indefinitely better since he travelled to Tulsa.

Back in Cali he lived in a box apartment with a couple of roommates, here he has a house, one that’s tailored to his specifications. He has a thriving business dealing in a product he can personally recommend and he has you, the woman that helped bring him back to life after the accident because truly, he wasn’t really living in those early days of coming to Tulsa, he was simply existing out of pure spite.

His thoughts are interrupted by your presence, your arms wrapping around his waist hugging him to you, the light scent of jasmine on the breeze. Your lips ghost over the curve off his throat, tender and teasing before you nip at his ear lobe sending a thrum of heat vibrating through his body.

“Bodhi baby.” You whisper and his head tips back against your shoulder as your hands begin to wander underneath his shirt, fingertips tracing over the scar on his abdomen. “Why don’t you come back inside so I can give you something to really journal about.”

Love Bodhi? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

Interested in supporting me? Join my Patreon for Bonus Content!

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[frank-olivier]

The Birth of an Industry: Fairchild’s Pivotal Role in Shaping Silicon Valley

In the late 1950s, the Santa Clara Valley of California witnessed a transformative convergence of visionary minds, daring entrepreneurship, and groundbreaking technological advancements. At the heart of this revolution was Fairchild Semiconductor, a pioneering company whose innovative spirit, entrepreneurial ethos, and technological breakthroughs not only defined the burgeoning semiconductor industry but also indelibly shaped the region’s evolution into the world-renowned Silicon Valley.

A seminal 1967 promotional film, featuring Dr. Harry Sello and Dr. Jim Angell, offers a fascinating glimpse into Fairchild’s revolutionary work on integrated circuits (ICs), a technology that would soon become the backbone of the burgeoning tech industry. By demystifying IC design, development, and applications, Fairchild exemplified its commitment to innovation and knowledge sharing, setting a precedent for the collaborative and open approach that would characterize Silicon Valley’s tech community. Specifically, Fairchild’s introduction of the planar process and the first monolithic IC in 1959 marked a significant technological leap, with the former enhancing semiconductor manufacturing efficiency by up to 90% and the latter paving the way for the miniaturization of electronic devices.

Beyond its technological feats, Fairchild’s entrepreneurial ethos, nurtured by visionary founders Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, served as a blueprint for subsequent tech ventures. The company’s talent attraction and nurturing strategies, including competitive compensation packages and intrapreneurship encouragement, helped establish the region as a magnet for innovators and risk-takers. This, in turn, laid the foundation for the dense network of startups, investors, and expertise that defines Silicon Valley’s ecosystem today. Notably, Fairchild’s presence spurred the development of supporting infrastructure, including the expansion of Stanford University’s research facilities and the establishment of specialized supply chains, further solidifying the region’s position as a global tech hub. By 1965, the area witnessed a surge in tech-related employment, with jobs increasing by over 300% compared to the previous decade, a direct testament to Fairchild’s catalyzing effect.

The trajectory of Fairchild Semiconductor, including its challenges and eventual transformation, intriguingly parallels the broader narrative of Silicon Valley’s growth. The company’s decline under later ownership and its subsequent re-emergence underscore the region’s inherent capacity for reinvention and adaptation. This resilience, initially embodied by Fairchild’s pioneering spirit, has become a hallmark of Silicon Valley, enabling the region to navigate the rapid evolution of the tech industry with unparalleled agility.

What future innovations will emerge from the valley, leveraging the foundations laid by pioneers like Fairchild, to shape the global technological horizon in the decades to come?

Dr. Harry Sello and Dr. Jim Angell: The Design and Development Process of the Integrated Circuit (Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation, October 1967)

Robert Noyce: The Development of the Integrated Circuit and Its Impact on Technology and Society (The Computer Museum, Boston, May 1984)

Tuesday, December 3, 2024

[vague-humanoid]

Tech mogul Elon Musk has called for a boycott of global law firm Latham & Watkins for providing legal support to a San Francisco nonprofit that’s suing the city over the rights of homeless people.

The lawsuit, brought by a local advocacy nonprofit called the Coalition on Homelessness, alleges the city has broken federal law by displacing and destroying the property of homeless people without providing them shelter beds.   

Latham & Watkins LLP is working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area on behalf of the coalition in the case, which resulted in a preliminary injunction in December that restricted the city from enforcing laws against lodging on the street. 

Musk, who owns X Corp (formerly Twitter) and runs Tesla and SpaceX, joined fellow Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, who demanded the law firm resign from the case following a controversial hearing that featured dueling rallies outside a federal courthouse last Wednesday. 

“Let’s ask our companies to cease all work with @lathamwatkins,” Musk tweeted in reply to Tan on Friday. 

“They want war? Let’s give it to them. We cannot let these snakes win or San Francisco will end up like Detroit,” Musk tweeted in a separate reply to Tan on Saturday. 

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The American Prospect:

The Clean Air Act (CAA) has been fiercely opposed by polluters and their allies since its passage in 1970. Industry has never quite stopped fighting to prevent the government from protecting American lives and communities at the expense of even a bit of their profits. But over the past few years, opposition to the law has reached new feverish heights. Multiple cases seeking to gut the CAA have been filed by (or with the support of) oil and gas organizations, their dark-money front groups, and their political allies since 2022.

The ringleaders of this effort are the usual trade groups driving climate apocalypse, including the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) and the American Petroleum Institute (API), as well as oil giants themselves, like ExxonMobil.

Yet the coordinated attacks on this lifesaving, popular, and historically successful regulation go beyond the singularly destructive interests of the oil industry alone. And they go beyond the federal rule too, and are working their way into litigation against state enactments of the CAA.

Of course, many of the companies driving these suits are some of the biggest names in corporate greenwashing, like Amazon, FedEx, SoCalGas, and more.

These companies have continuously insisted that they are committed to leading the clean-energy transition, even while they fight for the right to poison the general public for profit, and have endeavored—at every turn—to destroy any opportunity the public may have to pursue recourse for it.

Last year, the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) threatened a lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) over the state regulator’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule.

The rule, which would mandate a “phased-in transition toward zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” threatens the transportation sector’s historically noxious way of doing business; the sector accounts for more than 35 percent of California’s nitrogen oxide emissions and nearly a quarter of California’s on-road greenhouse gas emissions. CARB’s rule could go a long way toward actualizing rapid reductions in the state’s annually generated emissions.

However, later that year EMA and some major truck manufacturers reached an agreement with CARB not to sue over the rules, in exchange for the state’s loosening of some near-term emissions reductions standards.

EMA has by and large kept its promise to not intervene with the regulation in courts, but litigation challenging CARB’s rule would soon be picked up by the California Trucking Association (CTA). Enforcement of the rule has since been on hold, as CARB waits to be issued an ACF-related waiver from the EPA in return for CTA not filing for preliminary injunction against the law.

Even despite these agreements, some of EMA’s own members—and even some of those specifically signed on to the CARB deal—pop up on CTA’s member rolls, as per CTA’s own 2023 membership directory. Daimler Trucks North America and Navistar, Inc., are specifically listed as Allied Members of CTA for 2023.

Amazon is listed among CTA’s Carrier Members, while separately making routine promises to be a partner in the fight against climate change. While Amazon announced its “Climate Pledge” in 2019 of reaching net-zero emissions by 2040 to great fanfare, and has since branded itself a climate leader, the Center for Investigative Reporting has detailed how the e-commerce giant is overselling its green credentials by drastically undercounting its carbon emissions.

In truth, Amazon’s emissions have increased more than 40 percent in the time since it issued the pledge. Amazon also remains the largest emitter of the “Big Five” tech companies, producing no less than 16.2 million metric tons of CO2 every year. Without question, the corporation should be regarded as an industry leader in greenwashing, rather than in actual climate action.

FedEx is also a CTA Carrier-level member. Like Amazon, the company has also made promises “to achieve carbon neutral operations by 2040,” an initiative FedEx has labeled “Priority Earth.” In the years since, FedEx has funneled intensive time and resources into lobbying directly against climate action while pushing its net-zero greenwashing narrative.

UPS is another CTA Carrier-level member. UPS has historically been less effusive in its climate promises than have other corporations on this list, but the delivery giant has continuously reinforced its stance that “everyone shares responsibility to improve energy efficiency and to reduce GHG emissions in the atmosphere.”

[nickthetoony]

MG 1/100 RGM-79 GM (Clara Hart Use)

Pilot lore under the cut.

This lightly customized blue colored GM was the personal unit of Warrant Officer Clara Hart, assigned to her from before the Attack on Jaburo all the way up to the conclusion of the war during Operation Star One. Aside from its blue color scheme this GM was functionally identical to other GM units. As a commander unit, it sported two beam sabers rather than the standard one, which Officer Hart would dual wield in battle against many opponents.

21-Year-Old Clara Hart was born in California and throughout her early childhood developed a fascination with machines, a fascination she would eagerly share with her parents who supported and encouraged her interest in spite of their general ignorance to tech. At age 18 she was accepted into the Berkeley Engineering program and worked her way through an undergraduate degree, a privilege she had earned by largely eschewing social interactions for most of her high school career.

All this would be for nothing however, when Zeon declared war on the Earth Federation and made landfall on Earth with their state of the art Zaku mobile suits, eventually reaching California. 

During the war, Hart was drafted into the effort against Zeon initially as a mechanic, helping maintain the tanks and fighter craft of the Federation ground forces. Due to the strong Zeon presence in the continent, Hart’s life became one of extreme stress and pressure, not the least of which due to the death of her father earlier during the invasion. 

After the battle of Odessa and Federation Mobile Suits began to retake North America, Clara’s unit was assigned several early production GMs, though the pilot for one of them was unexpectedly killed in a Zeon ambush. Short on manpower with a new pilot not expected to arrive, Clara was forced to sortie in the GM despite her inexperience.

In spite of her lack of confidence and training, Clara proved an adequate MS pilot, particularly excelling in melee combat with a beam saber, and even participated in the defense of Jaburo. During this battle she would earn her title as the “Gouf-Slayer” after fighting four Goufs and destroying three at the cost of heavy damage to her unit. After this battle, Clara would be promoted to Warrant Officer and assigned as the leader of a mobile suit squadron.

Clara and her unit would join the attacks on Solomon and Jaburo aboard the Salamis Class Ship “Bloomington”. It was during this period that Clara’s GM would gain its blue paint scheme, inspired by the Goufs Clara had destroyed back on Jaburo. 

Despite Clara’s embarrassment at the color scheme, her squadmates insisted it was good for morale, and moreover the rest of her squad had already adopted the blue color scheme anyway. It was also during this time that Clara would reunite with the Gouf pilot that had escaped her, Sophia Fos, (now piloting a Rick Dom), and striking up a rivalry with her.

At the Battle of A Baoa Qu, Clara performed admirably even against the high performance Gelgoogs, taking advantage of both her GM’s agility and adaptability to survive the battle. It was during this battle that Clara and her squadmates would meet Sophia Fos in combat for the last time, a fight that ended rather anticlimactically after Fos quickly betrayed her squadmates and surrendered, the woman realizing that Zeon was on it’s way out and that there was no more point in fighting.

After the war, despite gaining some limited notoriety for her skills as a pilot, Clara quickly resigned from the Federation Military and completed her engineering education. In 0081, Clara and her mother moved to the Von Braun city on the moon where she gained employment as a designer for mobile construction workers under the Kalvis Heavy Machinery company. The company would eventually be bought out by Anaheim Electronics, and some of its designers (including Clara) poached for a new MS Development branch. During her time here, Clara would meet with Sophia Fos in civilian life this time, the other woman now working as a test pilot for AE. After a turbulent few months of the most dysfunctional courting their coworkers had ever seen, Clara and Sophia would officially (if not publicly) begin a relationship, with Clara cruelly subjecting her mother to the pain of knowing Sophia Fos when the latter woman moved in with them a year later. 

(To her dismay, Clara’s mother and Fos would get along quite well.)

During the Gryps War, while neither Clara nor Sophia would officially join with the AEUG, they did contribute to the construction, testing, and fielding of several of the organization's key machines.

Clara Hart was a “neurotic, panicky” woman, wracked with anxiety who nevertheless seemed to be driven by a primal urge to survive. She was often described by her squadmates as being fairly quiet and introverted, though taking her role as a leader with appropriate seriousness and care for those under her command, and becoming deeply saddened at the loss of her comrades in battle. 

Her romance with Fos was sparked by an emotional break three years in the making when the more cavalier carefree woman insisted on “loosening her up”, an effort which ended with a fist fight outside a bar where Clara quickly became a sobbing mess in spite of her position both on top off and punching Fos repeatedly in the face, a dam breaking which finally resulted in her seeking therapy and forming a genuine connection to Sophia who was not (as one would expect) now terrified of her.

Clara Hart

Sophia Fos

picrew link

[usafphantom2]

Latest F-35s Will Go Directly Into Storage Until Upgrade Woes Ironed Out

The Pentagon plans to stop deliveries of its latest F-35s until developmental glitches with its Technology Refresh 3 hardware are ironed out.

Thomas NewdickPUBLISHED Jun 13, 2023 2:42 PM EDT

Red Flag F-35

(U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Alexandre Montes)

The Pentagon’s latest plan for the F-35 stealth fighter includes putting a stop on deliveries this summer while it holds out for production jets with the required Technology Refresh 3, or TR-3 hardware to support a range of future improvements.

You can read all about TR-3 and how it is critical to the F-35's future here and here.

The much-delayed TR-3 upgrade is critical to supporting the Block 4 modernization for the Joint Strike Fighter. However, it seems that past woes with concurrency — the combined development and production process in which F-35s are manufactured before all features have been completely tested or vetted — are driving this approach. It remains to be seen what kind of impact it could have on the timeline for the stealth jet, which is the Department of Defense’s most expensive weapon system ever.

An F-35A stealth jet on a test sortie out of Fort Worth, Texas. Lockheed Martin Lockheed Martin

Next month, the Pentagon plans to stop accepting some newly built F-35s as they come off the production line at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth facility in Texas, in a development first reported by Breaking Defense. The reason given is the immaturity of the TR-3 hardware. Instead of being delivered to their units, “dozens” of the jets will be stored, temporarily, at Fort Worth. It could take until spring 2024 before issues with TR-3 are ironed out and the jets can finally be handed over.

The first production jets with TR-3 began to take shape in February and these airframes are expected to be completed before the end of July.

The F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) confirmed to Defense News that the TR-3 delays mean that newly built fighters will be stored in the meantime.

“Starting later this summer, F-35 aircraft coming off the production line with TR-3 hardware will not be accepted until relevant combat capability is validated in accordance with our users’ expectations,” JPO spokesman Russ Goemaere said. “The JPO and Lockheed Martin will ensure these aircraft are safely and securely stored until [acceptance] occurs.”

An F-35A from the test fleet at Edwards Air Force Base, California. U.S. Air Force

While TR-3-equipped F-35s will go into temporary storage, those with the previous TR-2 hardware will continue to be delivered as normal.

Unclear at this point is how many F-35s will be affected.

Defense News reports that Lockheed says it’s too early to say how many F-35s might have to be stored, and the company didn’t comment on the original plan for TR-3 production numbers this year. In total, however, including TR-2 and TR-3 configurations, Lockheed was planning to deliver around 150 F-35s in 2023.

Lockheed on Monday said that it has so far delivered more than 45 F-35s this year, with about 50 more TR-2 F-35s now under construction.

The F-35 production line at Fort Worth. Lockheed Martin

As we have discussed in the past, TR-3 is intended to significantly enhance the F-35’s core processor, memory unit, and associated avionics. With these changes, the jet will be better able to support the multiple new capabilities planned under the upcoming Block 4 modernization program, which will include a brand-new radar. The first F-35 with TR-3 upgrades installed — a specially instrumented flight test aircraft — took to the air for its maiden flight on January 6 this year, at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Glowing cockpit instrumentation of an F-35. Photo by In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images

TR-3 was already delayed, having been planned to be delivered starting in April this year. Under current plans, the U.S. military will only start to receive new F-35s with TR-3 once all development testing is completed.

Once TR-3 is proven, then the F-35 will be ready to undergo Block 4 modernization. Among others, Block 4 will allow the jets to carry a larger variety of precision weapons, will greatly enhance its electronic warfare capability, and provide better target recognition.

In the best-case scenario, TR-3 could be declared ready in December of this year, although it could take until April 2024 — 12 months later than previously expected.

Last year, the Government Accountability Office reported that challenges in the development of TR-3 increased the cost of the overall Block 4 modernization effort by $330 million in 2021 and contributed to program delays. In its announcement of the first flight test sortie with TR-3 in January, the JPO said, “The TR-3 program has overcome technical complexity challenges with hardware and software and is now on track to deliver capability.”

Earlier this year, F-35 program executive officer Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt told the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces that the development of TR-3’s hardware was lagging behind, with a knock-on effect on the production schedule. Although Lt. Gen. Schmidt said there had been improvements made, including to reliability, software integration remained a problem.

Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt addresses the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces. His comments about the F-35 program start at around 1:02:00 mark in the runtime.

While a pause on F-35 deliveries may make sense in the long run, in terms of the Pentagon receiving jets that have “relevant combat capability,” it hardly comes as good news for a program that has already seen two production stops in the space of a year.

Last September, F-35 deliveries were placed on hold after officials learned that a component contained materials produced by China, something you can read more about here. The component, a magnet used in F-35 turbomachine pumps, “does not transmit information or harm the integrity of the aircraft and there are no performance, quality, safety, or security risks associated with this issue,” the JPO said in a statement at the time. After a security review, deliveries resumed in October.

Then, last December, deliveries came to a halt after pre-delivery acceptance flights were paused. This was in response to a December 15 accident at Fort Worth involving a pre-delivery F-35B, later found to be the result of an engine vibration problem. Deliveries resumed again after a fix was introduced.

Now, as it stands, it’s unclear how many F-35s will be affected by the latest pause in deliveries. In the best-case scenario, based on Lockheed’s estimation that TR-3 testing could be complete in December this year, that will leave a portion of the jets in storage for at least around five months.

In the more pessimistic scenario, based on the JPO’s expectation that TR-3 might not be ready until next April, then some of the stealth jets will be stored for around nine months.

Either way, it’s a a major setback based on the previous plans of having TR-3-equipped jets delivered to the customer in April 2023.

There could also be further setbacks head.

In March this year, senior U.S. military officials discussed the F135 engine’s limitations while outlining a plan to pursue an Engine Core Upgrade (ECU) effort before members of a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

The U.S. military sees planned engine upgrades for all the variants of the F-35 as critical since the Pratt & Whitney F135 turbofans that power all of the aircraft have been “under spec since the beginning,” according to the JPO. This means the engines are routinely operated at higher-than-expected temperatures, leading to an increased maintenance and logistics burden, and reducing the F-35’s overall readiness rates.

F135 engines. Pratt & Whitney

The Engine Core Upgrade is of particular relevance for TR-3 and Block 4, as well. Both these efforts demand additional electrical power and have increased cooling needs, something that the ECU is intended to address via its power and thermal management system (PTMS) improvements.

In a report last month on the F-35’s cost growth and engine modernization, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) stated that “The program assessed some engine and cooling improvement options, but it has not fully defined the requirements for how much future cooling the aircraft will need.” The report added that the Pentagon “hasn’t taken some important steps, such as fully assessing the costs and technical risks of the different [engine and cooling system] options.”

The GAO recommended that “Congress should consider directing the F-35 program to manage the engine modernization as a separate program. GAO added this matter for Congress because [the Department of Defense] has not committed to a separate engine program consistent with GAO’s recommendation.”

Most recently, it emerged that the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps may all end up choosing different cooling upgrades for their F-35s after a plan emerged under which they would draft their own requirements. That would inevitably drive up costs and likely increase the potential for further delays.

So, while the status of the Engine Core Upgrade is critical for the F-35 in general, delays with it could have a very significant impact on the already delayed TR-3 program, as well as the Block 4 modernization that, in turn, relies upon it.

Ultimately, ensuring the F-35 has an engine that fulfills performance parameters, especially when demands for electronic power and cooling are growing, could even end up being a bigger issue than the latest delivery pause, due to come into effect this summer.

[nessatwene-art]

What is something that Clarissa and Robyn like about each other as people? What is something that Blake and Mark like about each other as people?

Robyn likes that Clarissa is so supportive of her and her friends. Clarissa was the first person Robyn met when she transferred to their high school and Robyn found Clarissa's friendliness and enthusiasm especially for her friends interests very charming. they like knowing what each other's like and take that to heart. Clarissa likes how driven Robyn is towards her goals especially her investigation project which was what drew Clarissa to wanting to join in the first place. Clar really enjoys her company and admires how knowledge Robyn is, so she tries to make sure Robyn is in a place where's she safe and comfortable.

Blake has huge nerd interests under his chill cool skater boy mask hehe, and Mark is a pretty blatant with his interest so Blake finds is nice that there's someone to talk to who wears his passions on his sleeves. which his something he's always wanted but never knew how to navigate that without feeling people make think of him otherwise. Especially since Blake made fun of Mark for years. Mark is pretty scare of unnaturals yet finds them and their relationship with humans and more recently technology which is why he rather be a navigator for the team than a fight, so Mark finds Blake's knowledge he gained from his grandfather of human/monster/tech relations quite interesting. Also thinks California (where Blake is originally form) is kinda cool, hehe kinda romanticizes it lol

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When the app tries to make you robo-scab

When we talk about the abusive nature of gig work, there’s some obvious targets, like algorithmic wage discrimination, where two workers are paid different rates for the same job, in order to trick occasional gig-workers to give up their other sources of income and become entirely dependent on the app:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Then there’s the opacity — imagine if your boss refused to tell you how much you’ll get paid for a job until after you’ve completed it, claimed that this was done in order to “protect privacy” — and then threatened anyone who helped you figure out the true wage on offer:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#boss-app

Opacity is wage theft’s handmaiden: every gig worker producing content for a social media algorithm is subject to having their reach — and hence their pay — cut based on the unaccountable, inscrutable decisions of a content moderation system:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Making content for an algorithm is like having a boss that docks every paycheck because you broke rules that you are not allowed to know, because if you knew the rules, you’d figure out how to cheat without your boss catching you. Content moderation is the last place where security through obscurity is considered good practice:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

When workers seize the means of computation, amazing things happen. In Indonesia, gig workers create and trade tuyul apps that let them unilaterally modify the way that their bosses’ systems see them — everything from GPS spoofing to accessibility mods:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

So the tech and labor story isn’t wholly grim: there are lots of ways that tech can enhance labor struggles, letting workers collaborate and coordinate. Without digital systems, we wouldn’t have the Hot Strike Summer:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to

As the historic writer/actor strike shows us, the resurgent labor movement and the senescent forces of crapulent capitalism are locked in a death-struggle over not just what digital tools do, but who they do it for and who they do it to:

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

When it comes to the epic fight over who technology acts for and against, we need a diversity of tactics, backstopped by tech operated by and for its users — and by laws that protect workers and the public. That dynamic is in sharp focus in UNITE Here Local 11’s strike against Orange County’s Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa.

The UNITE Here strike turns on the usual issues like a living wage (hotel staff are paid so little they have to rent rooming-house beds by the shift, paying for the right to sleep in a room for a few hours at a time, without any permanent accommodation). They’re also seeking health-care and pensions, so they can be healthy at work and retire after long service. Finally, they’re seeking their employer’s support for LA’s Responsible Hotels Ordinance, which would levy a tax on hotel rooms to help pay for hotel workers’ housing costs (a hotel worker who can’t afford a bed is the equivalent of a fast food worker who has to apply for food stamps):

https://www.unitehere11.org/responsible-hotels-ordinance/

But the Marriott — which is owned by the University of California and managed by Aimbridge Hospitality — has refused to bargain, walking out negotiations.

But the employer didn’t walk out over wages, benefits or support for a housing subsidy. They walked out when workers demanded that the scabs that the company was trying to hire to break the strike be given full time, union jobs.

These aren’t just any scabs, either. They’re predominantly Black workers who rely on the $700m Instawork app for gigs. These workers are being dispatched to cross the picket line without any warning that they’re being contracted as strikebreakers. When workers refuse the cross the picket and join the strike, Instawork cancels all their shifts and permanently blocks them from new jobs.

This is a new, technologically supercharged form of illegal strikebreaking. It’s one thing for a single boss to punish a worker who refuses to scab, but Instawork acts as a plausible-deniability filter for all the major employers in the region. Like the landlord apps that allow landlords to illegally fix rents by coordinating hikes, Instawork lets bosses illegally collude to rig wages by coordinating a blocklist of workers who refuse to scab:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-makes-rent-setting-software-for-landlords-sued-for-collusion/?comments=1

The racial dimension is really important here: the Marriott has a longstanding de facto policy of refusing to hire Black workers, and whenever they are confronted with this, they insist that there are no qualified Black workers in the labor pool. But as soon as the predominantly Latino workforce struck, Marriott discovered a vast Black workforce that it could coerce into scabbing, in collusion with Instawork.

Now, all of this isn’t just sleazy, it’s illegal, a violation of Section 7 of the NLRB Act. Historically, that wouldn’t have mattered, because a string of presidents, R and D, have appointed useless do-nothing ghouls to run the NLRB. But the Biden admin, pushed by the party’s left wing, made a string of historic, excellent appointments, including NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who has set her sights on punishing gig work companies for flouting labor law:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/10/see-you-in-the-funny-papers/#bidens-legacy

UNITE HERE 11 has brought a case to the NLRB, charging the Instawork, the UC system, Marriott, and Aimbridge with violating labor law by blackmailing gig workers into crossing the picket line. The union is also asking the NLRB to punish the companies for failing to protect workers from violent retaliation from the wealthy hotel guests who have punched them and screamed epithets at them. The hotel has refused to identify these thug guests so that the workers they assaulted can swear out complaints against them.

Writing about the strike for Jacobin, Alex N Press tells the story of Thomas Bradley, a Black worker who was struck off all Instawork shifts for refusing to cross the picket line and joining it instead:

https://jacobin.com/2023/07/southern-california-hotel-workers-strike-automated-management-unite-here

Bradley’s case is exhibit A in the UNITE HERE 11 case before the NLRB. He has a degree in culinary arts, but racial discrimination in the industry has kept him stuck in gig and temp jobs ever since he graduated, nearly a quarter century ago. Bradley lived out of his car, but that was repossessed while he slept in a hotel room that UNITE HERE 11 fundraised for him, leaving him homeless and bereft of all his worldly possessions.

With UNITE HERE 11’s help, Bradley’s secured a job at the downtown LA Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, a hotel that has bargained with the workers. Bradley is using his newfound secure position to campaign among other Instawork workers to convince them not to cross picket lines. In these group chats, Jacobin saw workers worrying “that joining the strike would jeopardize their standing on the app.”

Today (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

[Image ID: An old photo of strikers before a struck factory, with tear-gas plumes rising above them. The image has been modified to add a Marriott sign to the factory, and the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' to the sky over the factory. The workers have been colorized to a yellow-green shade and the factory has been colorized to a sepia tone.]

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[thefaeriefeatherdark]

@whalehouse1 Been a while since I've thought about the 3 Kons AU (probably needs a proper name) but I'm back on my Superboy shenanigans...

Anyway I think Kon El (90s Comics SB) is currently the character with the least clear location to me.

Obviously Maik is hanging out with Kara and Conner is living with the Kents.

In contrast the Kon-El we've set up currently has a solid continuity through to the end of the Didio run, where he would have moved to the Kent Farm. Since the guy living on the Kent farm is Conner though I'd like to propose something more similar to a continuation of the Slapstick stuff, while providing a unique location for him.

So: Silvergate City.

Located in California, Silvergate city is a city of tomorrow. Aesthetically it's got bits of sci-fi in there obviously, but it's also got a sort of identity that's a merge of multiple west coast cities, specifically Seattle, San Francisco, and maybe Portland (I do not know much about Portland).

It's got a lot of your Silicon Valley start up tech industry stuff going on. It is coastal, which allows characters like King Shark to make frequent appearances.

As for supporting cast I'd propose having Trixie and Tekka.

I think you can do a lot of the fun 'Kon El looks for a job stuff'. Tekka herself can be a tech person working for one of the companies in town. I'd propose maybe having Technician be a sort of overarcing villain, maybe he's running one of the tech companies repackaging supervillain and superhero tech for military use or something. Kon El's sister Roxy Leech occasionally swings by as a recurring character.

Also occasionally Raver's plotlines collide with Kon's other superhero antics.

I do think the idea of Kon-El working at a fastfood joint, as Superboy would be really funny though, if only for an issue.

*Customer walks in*

Kon-El: Hi welcome to Mcdonalds what can I get for you to day?

Customer *blank stare*: Hey aren't you superboy?

Kon-El: I gotta pay rent okay?

[mariacallous]

More US workers will soon be free to leave their employers to work for rivals, thanks to a new federal rule that will block the long-standing practice of locking in workers with noncompete agreements.

The US Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday issued a final rule that bans most noncompetes nationwide. The agency estimated that by allowing people more freedom, the change would lead to the creation of 8,500 new businesses annually, an average annual pay increase of $524 for workers, lower health care costs, and as many as 29,000 more patents each year for the next decade.

The FTC says about one in five US workers are bound by contract clauses that prevent them from taking new jobs from a competitor, or starting their own competing businesses, for some period of time. The agreements can trap workers and slow career advancement and wage increases—two things workers often achieve by hopping jobs.

The agreements also disproportionately affect workers in tech and certain other roles: 36 percent of engineers and architects work under noncompetes, as do 35 percent of workers in computer and math fields, according to research from the Universities of Maryland and Michigan.

Under the FTC’s new rule, “tech workers will probably experience a rise in the outside opportunities that they face,” says Evan Starr, an associate professor of business at the University of Maryland who worked on the research. “They’ll have more freedom to work where they want; they will be more likely to be paid higher wages.”

Opponents of noncompetes say they hurt workers by keeping them in lower-waged jobs and also stifle innovation, preventing people from starting their own businesses or putting innovative ideas into practice. Noncompete supporters argue that the arrangements encourage investment in staff and protect trade secrets. But recent research from Starr indicates that banning noncompetes hasn’t led to an increase in trade secret litigation.

The new FTC rule has a carve-out to keep existing noncompetes for senior executives in place. But it blocks companies from creating new noncompetes for these high-level workers. The rule is due to take effect in about four months, but it’s expected to face challenges. Two commissioners who voted against the rule saw it as overstepping the FTC’s power. The US Chamber of Commerce quickly announced after the rule passed that it will sue to try to block it.

Several states, including tech hub California, have already banned enforcement of noncompetes. But a recent tidal shift has seen the issue resonate in dozens of states. In the 2023 legislative session, 38 states introduced 81 bills that sought to ban or restrict enforcement of noncompetes. California’s long-established law is seen as part of the reason Silicon Valley became a hub for innovation, while Massachusetts’s once-similar tech corridor didn’t soar in the same way.

Tech executive Daniel Powers has battled noncompetes twice in his career. In 2010, IBM tried to delay his move from New York to Seattle to work for Amazon Web Services, the online retailer’s cloud division, by a year. The parties settled on Powers taking six months off. Fortunately for Powers, Amazon agreed to pay him even while he couldn’t work.

Two years later, the tables turned. When Powers attempted to take a job with Google Cloud, Amazon sued him, saying he had agreed not to work for one of its competitors within 18 months of leaving. The incident drew headlines as the first noncompete case Amazon had brought against someone inside fast-growing AWS, Powers recalls.

Powers had to move to California—where noncompetes aren’t legal—for the new gig, and his attorney told him to get there as soon as possible. By living in a different state, the lawsuit could be tried in federal court, where his attorney felt Amazon had less of an advantage compared to Washington state court. A federal judge ended up siding with Powers, and he lost only about three months of work at Google while the case played out.

Amazon, IBM, and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Had Powers not received discounted legal help over the years, he says, he could have easily spent over $100,000 battling noncompetes. “It’s just not fair to the employees,” says Powers, who now runs cloud advisory firm What's Next Consulting. “When I won, I got hundreds of emails and texts from Amazon employees thanking me for beating them.”

People in Washington state who want to leave one of the tech giants often must have difficult conversations with their families, advisers, and potential new employer about the risks of litigation and potentially being without a paycheck for a long stretch. Powers estimates that he has aided over 200 former Amazon and IBM colleagues in the process. California workers have no such concerns. “It’s just, ‘OK, goodbye,’” Powers says. “There’s nothing companies can do about it.”

If the new FTC rule ends up in front of the US Supreme Court, he says, his message to the justices will be simple. “Taking away a person’s ability to work in an industry they are trained in, have skills in, and have been in is a massive disservice to the employee,” Powers says. “It’s not the right thing to do to have these agreements.”