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edwad · 9 months

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a few weeks ago i saw a video on twitter thats of some guy talking about how amazing it is that all these people make a pencil and then you can buy it etc. is this the type of stuff you/cordelia mean when youre talking about how some people actually take domination to be a great thing (not only consciously but as an actual articulated value, i mean)

i assume the video was friedman's "i, pencil" riff, which does get at some of those points (and which other socialists have responded to on similar terrain, doing the thing i talk about of merely describing the same processes but with different moralizations), but also at a more general level in the sense that the impersonal mechanisms of capitalism are seen as nondiscriminatory, which for liberal theorists is a major advance over the more direct forms of coercion found in pre-capitalist societies. the benefit here is that markets don't really care about your background, your money is as good as anyone else's, and there's a certain universalizing tendency which comes out of the formal equality which is baked into this logic.

this is echoed in the writings of plenty of classical liberal thinkers like walter e williams that argued segregation would've dissolved on its own if free market forces had been left to run their course, unhindered by racist laws upholding the forced separation of people. eventually, certain business owners would've put their profits before their potential racism, and other firms would've been forced to similarly accommodate in order to stay competitive. williams (who was black) actually criticized some of his friends at the time for spending their money in white businesses that they'd been previously barred from, because in their attempt to stick it to the shop owners that the day before had refused to service them, they were unintentionally enriching racists instead of giving their business to firms that would've taken their money all along, had it been legal and easy to do so. this particular problem (and its market solution) are sometimes dealt with in the context of things like the sears catalog during the jim crow era, which was a big talking point a few years ago as an instance of this market anonymity/impersonality delivering a certain form of economic fairness.

for a lot of marxists, this nondiscriminatory element isn't acknowledged for the merits of not caring about your background, but in some sense for not caring about you at all. everything is reduced to the merely economic. marx pretty famously says as much in the manifesto when he writes:

"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."

this is also what's at stake in the formal equality of the worker in marx's capital, who, as a newly emerged legal subject with all the rights that entails, discovers their double freedom -- free to work or free to starve. and as he says there in v1, "between equal rights force decides".

what i think is significant here is that these aren't really two different accounts of how the system works. for people like smith and hayek, this impersonal mechanism (the invisible hand, etc) is understood as a kind of coercive force which pushes firms toward particular ends which are independent of the wills of any singular capitalist (and in fact express the whole of human economic activity in the aggregate) and which result in the universal generalization of particular principles throughout society, increasingly undermining lingering prejudices (eg smiths capitalist arguments against slavery). marx's analysis is pretty much identical (and this is the point), except in its normative angling. the totalizing character of capitalist production which recreates the world in its own bourgeois image and strives to constantly overcome its own self-imposed limits is similarly impersonal and indiscriminate, but this is presented as a problem to be overcome. hayek, even moreso than smith, recognizes this aspect of the price system which gets at the exact issue which marx is trying to highlight with his analysis of value.

both are aware of the historical uniqueness of the social formation and have no illusions about it via cliche appeals to "human nature" etc, and as i've mentioned above, its not really a difference in analysis, or even really in results (as cordelia has said, the strong form of the marxian complaint isn't that capitalism is doing something poorly, but that these are the effects when it is working well/asserting itself fully). so the point im making and have made repeatedly is that what's at stake here is a set of underlying normative commitments which marx and marxists have basically left unjustified. the usual claim is that marx was too scientific for that sort of thing, but i don't think that's really a possible reading (and if it is, it's not a good/internally defensible one).

if anything, the immanence of his analysis to the liberal theory which constitutes his object sets the limit on his ability to express himself fully, but it also provides the only adequate place to ground his normative account. his notion of contradiction is supposed to do a lot of the heavy lifting here, but to the extent that these contradictions are located in liberal theory itself, they *necessarily* don't go unaccounted for by liberals. he's not saying or demonstrating anything which hasn't also been posed as a liberal political problem. if you don't like crises, then very well, you can be a keynesian (maybe even a radical one). you don't think that works? well, your argument probably sounds a lot like hayek's. what is marx able to contribute here that isn't already understood as a careful balancing act -- if not a definite limit -- in liberal theory? the potential salvation of communism, which is supposed to overcome the problems (whatever they are taken to be) of capitalism, necessarily stems from some set of normative commitments that can't be written off. if his critique is tightly immanent, as it arguably was, then what marxists need to justify isn't really the account of the system (you don't even have to be a marxist for that!) but the case for its abolition.

if your problem with it is "domination", you need to be able to demonstrate what's wrong with the mechanisms that word is intended to describe, and it can't just be that they're impersonal or coercive. liberals feel the same way about these things and all of us experience gravity that way. you have to be able to say something more than that, but contemporary marxist accounts tend to only go as far as calling it "domination" and getting away with it because the marxists nod along, knowing that domination is naughty, otherwise why would we call it domination?

so, although cordelia can surely speak for herself, this is part of the project that i think she and i have sorta been picking away at in different ways for a while, with me catching on a bit later (maybe too late tbh). when i expressed my frustrations on this point, directed at chambers, i was in some sense admitting that she'd won me over on this style (if not the specific line) of questioning.

all of this aside, this is of course not a defense of liberalism in the liberal sense, but it is a kind of "defense" of liberalism as a project which has to be taken seriously and can't be written off or dreamed away. in this sense, i am merely following in marx's footsteps, who i think felt very strongly about the need to grapple with liberalism on exactly this kind of terrain, but i am turning the ruthless criticism on the ruthless critic, because i don't think he or his contemporary disciples in the value-as-domination literature have done a good job of navigating this problem. probably though, like nearly everyone else, i'm simply left waiting for cordelia's book.

#communism

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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The long bezzle

Going to Defcon this weekend? I’m giving a keynote, “An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse,” on Saturday at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

When it comes to the modern world of enshittified, terrible businesses, no addition to your vocabulary is more essential than "bezzle," JK Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/09/accounting-gimmicks/#unter

The bezzle is contained by two forces.

First, Stein's Law: "Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop."

Second, Keynes's: "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

On the one hand, extremely badly run businesses that strip all the value out of the firm, making things progressively worse for its suppliers, workers and customers will eventually fail (Stein's Law).

On the other hand, as the private equity sector has repeatedly demonstrated, there are all kinds of accounting tricks, subsidies and frauds that can animate a decaying, zombie firm long after its best-before date (Keynes's irrational markets):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

One company that has done an admirable job of balancing on a knife edge between Stein and Keynes is Verizon, a monopoly telecoms firm that has proven that a business can remain large, its products relied upon by millions, its stock actively traded and its market cap buoyant, despite manifest, repeated incompetence and waste on an unimaginable scale.

This week, Verizon shut down Bluejeans, an also-ran videoconferencing service the company bought for $400 million in 2020 as a panic-buy to keep up with Zoom. As they lit that $400 mil on fire, Verizon praised its own vision, calling Bluejeans "an award-winning product that connects our customers around the world, but we have made this decision due to the changing market landscape":

https://9to5google.com/2023/08/08/verizon-bluejeans-shutting-down/

Writing for Techdirt, Karl Bode runs down a partial list of all the unbelievably terrible business decisions Verizon has made without losing investor confidence or going under, in a kind of tribute to Keynes's maxim:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/10/verizon-fails-again-shutters-attempted-zoom-alternative-bluejeans-after-paying-400-million-for-it/

Remember Go90, the "dud" streaming service launched in 2015 and shuttered in 2018? You probably don't, and neither (apparently) do Verizon's shareholders, who lost $1.2 billion on this folly:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/07/02/verizons-sad-attempt-to-woo-millennials-falls-flat-face/

Then there was Verizon's bid to rescue Redbox with a new joint-venture streaming service, Redbox Instant, launched 2012, killed in 2014, $450,000,000 later:

https://variety.com/2014/digital/news/verizon-redbox-to-pull-plug-on-video-streaming-service-1201321484/

Then there was Sugarstring, a tech "news" website where journalists were prohibited from saying nice things about Net Neutrality or surveillance – born 2014, died 2014:

https://www.theverge.com/2014/12/2/7324063/verizon-kills-off-sugarstring

An app store, started in 2010, killed in 2012:

https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/5/3605618/verizon-apps-store-closing-january-2013

Vcast, 2005-2012, yet another failed streaming service (pray that someday you find someone who loves you as much as Verizon's C-suite loves doomed streaming services):

https://venturebeat.com/media/verizon-vcast-shutting-down/

And the granddaddy of them all, Oath, Verizon's 2017, $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo/AOL, whose name refers to the fact that the company's mismanagement provoked involuntary, protracted swearing from all who witnessed the $4.6 billion write-down the company took a year later:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/12/12/if-youre-surprised-verizons-aol-yahoo-face-plant-you-dont-know-verizon/

Verizon isn't just bad at being a phone company that does non-phone-company things – it's incredibly bad at being a phone company, too. As Bode points out, Verizon's only real competency is in capturing its regulators at the FCC:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/05/02/new-verizon-video-blatantly-lies-about-whats-happening-to-net-neutrality/

And sucking up massive public subsidies from rubes in the state houses of New York:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/03/14/new-york-city-sues-verizon-fiber-optic-bait-switch/

New Jersey:

https://www.techdirt.com/2014/04/25/verizon-knows-youre-sucker-takes-taxpayer-subsidies-broadband-doesnt-deliver-lobbies-to-drop-requirements/

and Pennsylvania:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/06/15/verizon-gets-wrist-slap-years-neglecting-broadband-networks-new-jersey-pennsylvania/

Despite all this, and vast unfunded liabilities – like remediating the population-destroying lead in their cables – they remain solvent:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/verizon-sued-by-investors-over-lead-cables-environmental-statements-2023-08-02/

Verizon has remained irrational longer than any short seller could remain solvent.

Short-sellers – who bet against companies and get paid when their stock prices go down – get a bad rap: billionaire shorts were the villains of the Gamestop squeeze, accused of running negative PR campaigns against beloved businesses to drive them under and pay their bets off:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/30/meme-stocks/#stockstonks

But shorts can do the lord's work. Writing for Bloomberg, Kathy Burton tells the story of Nate Anderson, whose Hindenburg Research has cost some of the world's wealthiest people over $99 billion by publishing investigative reports on their balance-sheet shell-games just this year:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-06/how-much-did-hindenburg-make-from-shorting-adani-dorsey-icahn

Anderson started off trying to earn a living as a SEC whistleblower, identifying financial shenanigans and collecting the bounties on offer, but that didn't pan out. So he turned his forensic research skills to preparing mediagenic, viral reports on the scams underpinning the financial boasts of giant companies…after taking a short position in them.

This year, Anderson's targets have included Carl Icahn, whose company lost $17b in market cap after Anderson accused it of overvaluing its assets. He went after the world's fourth-richest man, Gautam Adani, accusing him of "accounting fraud and stock manipulation," wiping out 34% of his net worth. He took on Jack Dorsey, whose payment processor Square renamed itself Block and went all in on the cryptocurrency bezzle, lopping 16% off its share price.

Burton points out that Anderson's upside for these massive bloodletting was comparatively modest. A perfectly timed exit from the $17b Icahn report would have netted $56m. What's more, Anderson faces legal threats and worse – one short seller was attacked by a man wearing brass-knuckles, an attack attributed to her short activism.

Shorts are lauded as one of capitalism's self-correcting mechanisms, and Hindenberg certainly has taken some big, successful swings at some of the great bezzles of our time. But as Verizon shows, shorts alone can't discipline a market where profits and investor confidence are totally decoupled from competence or providing a decent product or service.

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.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/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now

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kp777 · 3 months

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By Brett Wilkins

Common Dreams

June 26, 2024

Anti-monopoly campaigners on Tuesday blasted House Republicans over a bill that would dramatically reduce funding for the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division and impose caps on how much the crucial agency gets from merger filing fees.

The House Appropriations Committee proposal contains sweeping spending cuts, including a $40 million reduction in the DOJ Antitrust Division's budget. The $192.7 million allocated for the division is $95 million less than requested by U.S. President Joe Biden.

"House Republicans are not fully funding the Antitrust Division—this is a pro-Ticketmaster, pro-Google, pro-Apple, and pro-UnitedHealth agenda," Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP), said in a statement.

"This is a pro-Ticketmaster, pro-Google, pro-Apple, and pro-UnitedHealth agenda."

In addition to the budget cut, the bill contains one rider that would cap the amount of fees the Antitrust Division gets from the bipartisan Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act and another that would effectively ban the agency from hiring more staff.

The proposed bill "would openly and deliberately disregard the will of Congress by limiting the DOJ's access to these funds," AELP said, arguing that House Republicans "want monopolists to win."

"With cases against some of the biggest monopolies in the economy already in progress or looming, the additional funds would allow the division to hire more attorneys and staff to effectively enforce the law," the group added.

According to Harper:

Despite having even fewer attorneys than it did in the 1970s, [Assistant Attorney General] Jonathan Kanter's Antitrust Division is securing unprecedented wins to turn the tide on market concentration across the economy. Appropriators should be bolstering the Antitrust Division in this moment, not kneecapping it by limiting hiring and reducing funds Congress authorized through the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act.

"House Democrats must take a firm stand against this problematic proposal and offer an amendment in markup to give the Antitrust Division the resources necessary to enforce the law," Harper added.

The GOP proposal comes amid a flurry of antitrust action by the Biden administration, whose DOJ has investigated UnitedHealth Group, the world's largest health insurance company, and sued Apple, Google, and Ticketmaster. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Lina Khan has taken on Amazon and other corporations.

"The DOJ Antitrust Division has won victories in court against employers that sought to suppress workers' pay and blocked harmful mergers in the airline industry," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said while addressing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland during a hearing earlier this month.

"You're working to lower food prices by targeting anti-competitive practices and mergers in the grocery industry and the meat processing industry, and the Antitrust Division successfully ended a price fixing scheme in DVD and Blu-ray sales and prevented video game companies from suppressing wages in e-sports," she continued.

"These are incredible accomplishments, and you're also working to promote competition in the live music industry," Jayapal added, referring to the lawsuit filed last month by the DOJ and 30 state attorneys general against Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary.

#american economic liberties project #federal trade commission #antitrust division #u.s. house of representatives #jonathan kanter #merrick garland #lina khan #pramila jayapal #president joe biden

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mariacallous · 7 months

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Jalon Hall thought she was being scammed when a recruiter reached out on LinkedIn about a job moderating YouTube videos in 2020. Months after earning a master’s degree in criminal justice, her only job had been at a law firm investigating discrimination cases. But the offer was real, and Hall, who is Black and Deaf, sailed through the interviews.

She would be part of a new in-house moderation team of about 100 people called Wolverine, trudging daily through freezing weather to offices in suburban Detroit during the early pandemic. When she accepted the job, the recruiter said via email that a sign language interpreter would be provided “and can be fully accommodated :)” That assurance unraveled within days of joining Google—and her experience at the company has proven difficult in the years since.

Hall now works on responsible use of AI at Google and by all available accounts is the company’s first and only Black, Deaf employee. The company has feted her at events and online as representative of a workplace welcoming to all. Google’s LinkedIn account praised her last year for “helping expand opportunities for Black Deaf professionals!” while on Instagram the company thanked her “for making #LifeAtGoogle more inclusive!” Yet behind the rosy marketing, Hall accuses Google of subjecting her to both racism and audism, prejudice against the deaf or hard of hearing. She says the company denied her access to a sign language interpreter and slow-walked upgrades to essential tools.

After filing three HR complaints that she says yielded little change, Hall sued Google in December, alleging discrimination based on her race and disability. The company responded this week, arguing that the case should be thrown out on procedural grounds, including bringing the claims too late, but didn’t deny Hall’s accusations. “Google is using me to make them look inclusive for the Deaf community and the overall Disability community,” she says. “In reality, they need to do better.”

Hall, who is in her thirties, has stayed at Google in hopes of spurring improvements for others. She chose to talk with WIRED despite fearing for her safety and job prospects because she feels the company has ignored her. “I was born to push through hard times,” she says. “It would be selfish to quit Google. I’m standing in the gap for those often pushed aside.” Hall’s experiences, which have not been previously reported, are corroborated by over two dozen internal documents seen by WIRED as well as interviews with four colleagues she confided in and worked alongside.

Employees who are Black or disabled are in tiny minorities at Google, a company of nearly 183,000 people that has long been criticized for an internal culture that heavily favors people who fit tech industry norms. Google’s Deaf and hard-of-hearing employee group has 40 members. And Black women, who make up only about 2.4 percent of Google’s US workforce, leave the company at a disproportionately higher rate than women of other races, company data showed last year.

Several former Black women employees, including AI researcher Timnit Gebru and recruiter April Christina Curley, have publicly alleged they were sidelined by an internal culture that disrespected them. Curley is leading a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Google of systemic bias but has lost initial court battles.

Google spokesperson Emily Hawkins didn’t directly address Hall’s allegations when asked about them by WIRED. “We are committed to building an inclusive workplace and offer a range of accommodations to support the success of our employees, including sign language interpreters and captioning,” Hawkins says.

Figuring out how to accommodate people like Hall could be good business for Google. One in every 10 people by 2050 will have disabling hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization.

Mark Takano, who represents a slice of Southern California in the US House and cochairs the Congressional Deaf Caucus, says that Google has an obligation to lead the way in demonstrating that its technology and employment practices are accommodating. “When Deaf and hard-of-hearing employees are excluded because of the inability to provide an accessible workplace, there is a great pool of talent that is left untapped—and we all lose out,” he says.

Unaccommodated

Hall was born with profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, meaning that even with hearing aids her brain cannot process sounds well. Two separate audiologists in memos to Google said Hall needs an American Sign Language interpreter full-time. She also signs pre- and post-segregation Black ASL, which uses more two-handed signs and incorporates some African American vernacular.

During her childhood in Louisiana, Hall's parents pushed her into speech therapy and conventional schools, where she found that some people doubted she was Deaf because she can speak. She later attended a high school for Deaf students where she became homecoming and prom queen, and realized how much more she could achieve when provided appropriate support.

Hall expected to find a similar environment at Google when she moved to Farmington Hills, Michigan, to become a content moderator. The company contracts ASL interpreters from a vendor called Deaf Services of Palo Alto, or DSPA. But though Hall had been assigned to enforce YouTube’s child safety rules, managers wouldn’t let her interpreters help her review that content. Google worried about exposing contractors to graphic imagery and cited confidentiality concerns, despite the fact interpreters in the US follow a code of conduct that includes confidentiality standards.

Managers transferred Hall into training to screen for videos spreading misinformation about Covid and elections. She developed a workflow that saw her default to using lipreading and automated transcriptions to review videos and turn to her interpreter if she needed further help. The transcriptions on videos used in training were high quality, so she had little trouble.

Her system fell apart late in January 2021, about 20 minutes into one of her first days screening new content. The latest video in her queue was difficult to make sense of using lipreading, and the AI transcriptions in the software YouTube built for moderators were poor quality or even absent for recently uploaded content. She turned to her interpreter’s desk a few feet away—but to her surprise it was empty. “I was going to say, ‘Do you mind coming listening to this?’” she recalls.

Hall rose to ask a manager about the interpreter’s whereabouts. He told her that he and fellow managers had decided that she could no longer have an interpreter in the room because it threatened the confidentiality of the team’s work. She could now talk with her interpreter only during breaks or briefly bring them in to clarify policies with managers. She was told to skip any videos she couldn’t judge through sight alone.

Feeling wronged and confused by the new restrictions, Hall slumped back into her chair. US law requires companies to provide reasonable accommodations to a disabled worker unless it would cause the employer significant difficulty or expense. “This was not a reasonable accommodation,” she says. “I was thinking, What did I get myself into? Do they not believe I’m Deaf? I need my interpreter all day. Why are you robbing me of the chance of doing my job?”

‘Pushed Aside’

Without her interpreter, Hall struggled. She rarely met the quota of 75 videos each moderator was expected to review over an eight-hour day. She often had to watch through a video in its entirety, sometimes more than an hour, before concluding she could not assess it. “I felt humiliated, realizing that I would not grow in my career,” she says.

Throughout that February, Hall spoke to managers across YouTube about the need for better transcriptions in the moderation software. They told her it would take weeks or more to improve them, possibly even years. She asked for a transfer to child safety, since she had heard from a colleague that visuals alone could be used to decide many of those videos. An HR complaint filed that spring led nowhere.

Black and disabled colleagues eventually helped secure Hall a transfer into Google’s Responsible AI and Human-Centered Technology division in July 2021. It is run by vice president Marian Croak, Google’s most distinguished Black female technical leader. Hall says Croak supported her and described what she’d been through as unacceptable. But even in the new role, Hall’s interpreter was restricted to non-confidential conversations.

Hall says the discrimination against her has continued under her new manager, who is also Black, leading to her exclusion from projects and meetings. Even when she’s present some coworkers don’t make much effort to include her. “My point of view is often not heard,” Hall says. In 2021, she joined two gatherings of Google’s Equitable AI Research Roundtable, an advisory body, but then wasn’t invited again. “I feel hidden and pushed aside,” she says.

Hall filed an internal complaint against her manager in March 2022, and an HR staffer has joined their one-on-one meetings since October of that year. One of the interpreters who has assisted Hall says the friction Deaf workers encounter is sadly unsurprising. “People truly don’t take the time to learn about their peers,” the interpreter says.

The allegations are notable in part because a civil rights audit Google commissioned found last March that it needs to do more to train managers. “One of the largest areas of opportunity is improving managers’ ability to lead a diverse workforce,” attorneys for WilmerHale wrote. Hawkins, the Google spokesperson, says all employees have access to inclusion training.

Hall says when she has access to an interpreter, they are rotated throughout the week, forcing her to repeatedly explain some technical concepts. “Google is going the cheap route,” Hall claims, saying her interpreters in university were more literate in tech jargon.

Kathy Kaufman, director of coordinating services at DSPA, says it pays above market rates, dedicates a small pool to each company so the vocabulary becomes familiar, hires tech specialists, and trains those who are not. Kaufman also declined to confirm that Google is a client or comment on its policies.

Google’s Hawkins says that the company is trying to make improvements. Google’s accommodations team is currently seeking employees to join a new working group to smooth over policies and procedures related to disabilities.

Beside Hall’s concerns, Deaf workers over the past two years have complained about Google’s plans—shelved, for now—to switch away from DSPA without providing assurances that a new interpreter provider would be better, according to a former Google employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their job prospects. Blind employees have had the human guides they rely on excluded from internal systems due to confidentiality concerns in recent years, and they have long complained that key internal tools, like a widely used assignment tracker, are incompatible with screen readers, according to a second former employee.

Advocates for disabled workers try to hold out hope but are discouraged. “The premise that everyone deserves a shot at every role rests on the company doing whatever it takes to provide accommodations,” says Stephanie Parker, a former senior strategist at YouTube who helped Hall navigate the Google bureaucracy. “From my experience with Google, there is a pretty glaring lack of commitment to accessibility.”

Not Recorded

Hall has been left to watch as colleagues hired alongside her as content moderators got promoted. More than three years after joining Google, she remains a level 2 employee on its internal ranking, defined as someone who receives significant oversight from a manager, making her ineligible for Google peer support and retention programs. Internal data shows that most L2 employees reach L3 within three years.

Last August, Hall started her own community, the Black Googler Network Deaf Alliance, teaching its members sign language and sharing videos and articles about the Black Deaf community. “This is still a hearing world, and the Deaf and hearing have to come together,” she says.

On the responsible AI team, Hall has been compiling research that would help people at Google working on AI services such as virtual assistants understand how to make them accessible to the Black Deaf community. She personally recruited 20 Black Deaf users to discuss their views on the future of technology for about 90 minutes in exchange for up to $100 each; Google, which reported nearly $74 billion in profit last year, would only pay for 13. The project was further derailed by an unexpected flaw in Google Meet, the company’s video chat service.

Hall’s first interview was with someone who is Deaf and Blind. The 90-minute call, which included two interpreters to help her and the subject converse, went well. But when Hall pulled up the recording to begin putting together her report, it was almost entirely blank. Only when Hall’s interpreter spoke did the video include any visuals. The signing between everyone on the call was missing, preventing her from fully transcribing the interview. It turned out that Google Meet doesn’t record video of people who aren’t vocalizing, even when their microphones are unmuted.

“My heart dropped,” Hall told WIRED using the video chat app Sivo, which allows all participants to see each other while a hearing person and sign language interpreter speak by phone. Hall spent the evening trying to soothe her devastation, meditating, praying, and playing with her dog, which she has trained in ASL commands.

Hall filed a support ticket and spoke to a top engineer for Google Meet who said fixing the issue wasn’t a priority. WIRED later found evidence that users had publicly reported similar issues for years. Microsoft Teams generally will record signing, but Hall wasn’t permitted to use it. She ended up hacking together a workflow for documenting her interviews by laboriously editing together Meet recordings and screen-captured video using tools that she paid $46 a month for out of her own pocket.

Company spokesperson Hawkins did not dispute Meet’s limitations but claims support for the Deaf community is a priority at Google, where work underway includes developing computer vision software to translate sign language.

Google leaders have often paid lip service to the importance of including people with diverse experiences in research and development, but Hall has found the reality lacking. Despite her understanding of the Black Deaf community and research into its needs, she says she is yet to be invited to support the sign translation work. In her experience, Google’s conception of diversity can be narrow. “In the AI department, a lot of conversations are around race and gender,” Hall says. “No one emphasizes disability.”

Her research showed Black, Deaf users are concerned about the potential for AI systems to misinterpret signs, generate poor captions, take jobs from interpreters, and disadvantage individuals who opt for manual interpretation. It underscored that companies need to consider whether new tools would make someone who is unable to hear feel closer or further from the people with whom they are communicating.

Hall presented her findings internally last December over a Google Meet call. Twenty-four colleagues joined, including a research director. Hall had been encouraged, including by Croak, to invite a much larger audience from across the company but ultimately stuck with the short list insisted upon by her manager. She didn’t even bother trying to record it.

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darkmaga-retard · 5 days

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Should you take an arch-technocrat at his word? I think so. Larry Ellison is the founder and former chairman of Oracle, the third-largest software company in the world. According to SFGATE, “The CIA was not just Oracle’s first customer. Founded in May 1977, the firm’s name came from a CIA project code-named “Oracle.” Small world, indeed. Listen to the video and be prepared to be shocked.

When I was in the software business in the 1990s, the VP of Sales at Oracle approached me about integrating my sales and marketing software into the growing stable of Oracle products. I thought I had struck it rich! That is, until I got a whiff of their internal culture. The sales manager for Oracle was a woman who affectionally called her sales team her “yuppie guppies.” How cute, I thought, until I asked one of her “guppies” what that meant. He explained that guppies eat their own offspring and if they didn’t make their sales quotas by hook or by crook, they would be escorted off the campus within the hour. Needless to say, I ran as fast as I could to get away from them.

Larry Ellison has never changed his spots over the years. He should have been branded as a menace to society long ago. ⁃ Patrick Wood, TN Editor.

On Thursday, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison shared his vision for an AI-powered surveillance future during a company financial meeting, reports Business Insider. During an investor Q&A, Ellison described a world where artificial intelligence systems would constantly monitor citizens through an extensive network of cameras and drones, stating this would ensure both police and citizens don’t break the law.

Ellison, who briefly became the world’s second-wealthiest person last week when his net worth surpassed Jeff Bezos’ for a short time, outlined a scenario where AI models would analyze footage from security cameras, police body cams, doorbell cameras, and vehicle dash cams.

“Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on,” Ellison said, describing what he sees as the benefits from automated oversight from AI and automated alerts for when crime takes place. “We’re going to have supervision,” he continued. “Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report the problem and report it to the appropriate person.”

he 80-year-old billionaire also predicted that AI-controlled drones would replace police vehicles in high-speed pursuits. “You just have a drone follow the car,” he explained. “It’s very simple in the age of autonomous drones.”

Ellison co-founded Oracle in 1977 and served as CEO until he stepped down in 2014. He currently serves as the company’s executive chairman and CTO.

Sounds familiar

While Ellison attempted to paint his prediction of universal public surveillance in a positive light, his remarks raise significant questions about privacy, civil liberties, and the potential for abuse in a world of ubiquitous AI monitoring.

Ellison’s vision bears more than a passing resemblance to the cautionary world portrayed in George Orwell’s prescient novel 1984. In Orwell’s fiction, the totalitarian government of Oceania uses ubiquitous “telescreens” to monitor citizens constantly, creating a society where privacy no longer exists and independent thought becomes nearly impossible.

But Orwell’s famous phrase “Big Brother is watching you” would take on new meaning in Ellison’s tech-driven scenario, where AI systems, rather than human watchers, would serve as the ever-vigilant eyes of authority. Once considered a sci-fi trope, automated systems are already becoming a reality: Similar automated CCTV surveillance systems have already been trialed in London Underground and at the 2024 Olympics.

China has been using automated systems (including AI) to surveil its citizens for years. In 2022, Reuters reported that Chinese firms had developed AI software to sort data collected on residents using a network of surveillance cameras deployed across cities and rural areas as part of China’s “sharp eyes” campaign from 2015 to 2020. This “one person, one file” technology reportedly organizes collected data on individual Chinese citizens, leading to what The Economic Times called a “road to digital totalitarianism.”

Begging for GPUs

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mattersuite · 4 months

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YouTube Marketing: How to Grow Your Law Firm Business

Struggling to reach new clients? YouTube marketing can be your secret weapon. Discover how to create engaging legal video content that attracts, educates, and converts viewers into clients. Learn proven strategies for building brand awareness, establishing expertise, and boosting your law firm's success. Watch your practice flourish in the digital age.

#youtube marketing #youtube #marketing #youtube for law firm #law firm #youtube marketing for law firm #youtube marketing for lawyer #lawyer #legal youtube channels #video marketing for lawyers #video marketing #video marketing for law firm #law firms

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warningsine · 23 days

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Elon Musk’s Starlink backtracks to comply with Brazil’s ban on X

After judge freezes assets of billionaire’s internet service provider, company flip-flops to block social media platform

Associated PressWed 4 Sep 2024 20.21 CESTShare

Elon Musk’s satellite-based internet service provider Starlink backtracked late on Tuesday and said it would accept and enforce a Brazilian supreme court justice’s order to block the billionaire’s social media platform, X, formerly Twitter.

Previously, Starlink informally told the telecommunications regulator Anatel that it would not comply until Justice Alexandre de Moraes reversed course. Now, Starlink has said in a statement posted on X that it will heed de Moraes’s order despite him having frozen the company’s assets.

“Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” the company statement said. “We continue to pursue all legal avenues, as are others who agree that @alexandre’s recent order violate the Brazilian constitution.”

Musk has been relentlessly posting in recent days, lambasting de Moraes as a criminal.

“This evil tyrant is a disgrace to judges’ robes,” Musk wrote on X alongside a photo of de Moraes some 17 hours before Starlink announced its decision to comply with the order. He has not posted about the company’s operations in Brazil since its announcement.

De Moraes froze Starlink’s accounts last week as a means to compel it to cover X’s fines that already exceeded $3m, reasoning that the two companies are part of the same economic group. Starlink filed an appeal, its law firm Veirano told the Associated Press on 30 August, but has declined to comment further in the days since.

Days later, the justice ordered the suspension of X over the social media company’s refusal to name a local legal representative, as required in order to receive notifications of court decisions and swiftly take any requisite action – particularly, in X’s case, the takedown of accounts. A supreme court panel unanimously upheld the block on Monday, undermining efforts by Musk and his supporters to cast the justice as an authoritarian renegade intent on censoring political speech in Brazil.

Had Starlink continued to disobey de Moraes by providing access, Anatel could eventually have seized equipment from Starlink’s 23 ground stations that ensure the quality of its internet service, Artur Coimbra, an Anatel board member, said on a video call from his office in Brasília.

Already, some legal experts have questioned de Moraes’s basis for freezing Starlink’s accounts, given that its parent company, SpaceX, has no integration with X. Musk noted on X that the two companies have different shareholder structures.

X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to block users – mostly far-right activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy and allies of the former president Jair Bolsonaro – and has alleged that de Moraes wants an in-country legal representative so that Brazilian authorities can exert leverage over the company by having someone to arrest.

The reversal comes as a relief to those in Brazil who have come to depend on Starlink, though. The company has said it has more than 250,000 customers in the country, many of whom are in remote areas that would not have fast internet access otherwise.

Before Starlink, internet access in many of these areas came from slow, unstable fixed antennae. Its easy-to-install kits and high-quality connections have transformed communication in some communities, surpassing even major Amazonian cities in speed.

While Brazil’s massive territory with vast rural and forested areas makes it a key growth market for Starlink, its presence isn’t yet as large as Musk has led some to believe. Since January 2022, when Starlink began operations in Brazil, it has captured a 0.5% share of the internet market, trailing significantly behind leading providers, according to Anatel.

Although Starlink has retreated and says it will now block X, Musk’s bravado in recent days has boosted his hero status in the eyes of his fans, said Marietje Schaake, the international policy director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center.

“The battle of the titans, between de Moraes and Musk, reminds us of how powerful, political and provocative tech leaders have become,” said Schaake. “Brazil won’t be that last country to seek accountability or to put up guardrails.”

#elon musk #brazil #x #news tag

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bjrcrecruiting · 2 months

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Expert Tips for Conducting a General Counsel Search in Toronto

Finding the right General Counsel (GC) is a critical decision for any organization. This key executive role not only shapes a company's legal strategy but also contributes to overall business decisions and risk management. Conducting a successful General Counsel search in Toronto requires a strategic and thorough approach.

As a leading firm in legal executive search in Toronto, BJRC Recruiting offers expert insights into the process. Here are our top tips to ensure you hire the best legal executive for your organization.

Understanding the Role of General Counsel

Before diving into the search process, it’s crucial to understand the multifaceted role of a General Counsel. The GC serves as the chief legal advisor to the organization, managing both the in-house legal team and external counsel. Their responsibilities often include ensuring compliance with laws and regulations, overseeing litigation, advising on mergers and acquisitions, and contributing to corporate governance.

Defining the Job Requirements

The first step in successful General Counsel hiring in Toronto is clearly defining the job requirements. This involves:

Legal Expertise: Identify the specific areas of legal expertise required, such as corporate law, intellectual property, or regulatory compliance.

Experience: Determine the necessary expertise level, including years of practice and previous roles in similar industries.

Soft Skills: Emphasize essential soft skills such as leadership, communication, and strategic thinking.

Cultural Fit: Consider the candidate’s ability to fit into your organization’s culture and work effectively with senior management.

Partnering with a Legal Executive Search Firm

Engaging in a specialized legal executive search in Toronto can significantly enhance your chances of finding the right candidate. BJRC Recruiting has extensive experience in legal placements and a deep understanding of the Toronto market. Here’s how partnering with a search firm can benefit your organization:

Access to a Wider Talent Pool: Executive search firms have extensive networks and can reach candidates not actively looking for new opportunities.

Expert Screening: Experienced recruiters can efficiently screen and evaluate candidates, ensuring that only the most qualified individuals are presented.

Confidentiality: Maintaining confidentiality during a GC search is crucial. A search firm can handle sensitive aspects discreetly.

Crafting a Compelling Job Description

A well-crafted job description is essential to attract top-tier candidates. It should be concise, highlighting your organization's unique aspects. Include:

Company Overview: Provide a brief introduction to your company, including its mission, values, and culture.

Role Summary: Summarize the key responsibilities and expectations for the General Counsel role.

Qualifications: List the required qualifications, including educational background, legal expertise, and relevant experience.

Benefits and Opportunities: Highlight the benefits of working with your organization, such as growth opportunities, work-life balance, and competitive compensation.

Leveraging Multiple Sourcing Channels

To reach the best candidates, leverage a variety of sourcing channels. This includes:

Professional Networks: Utilize your network and encourage referrals from trusted contacts within the legal industry.

Online Job Boards: Post the job on reputable legal job boards and professional association websites.

Social Media: Use platforms like LinkedIn to promote job openings and connect with potential candidates.

Recruitment Firms: Partner with specialized recruitment firms like BJRC Recruiting to tap into their extensive candidate databases and networks.

Conducting Thorough Interviews

Interviewing candidates for a General Counsel position requires a well-structured and thorough approach. Consider the following steps:

Initial Screening: Conduct initial phone or video interviews to assess the candidate’s qualifications and interest in the role.

In-depth Interviews: Arrange in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including senior management and board members. Focus on assessing both technical expertise and cultural fit.

Case Studies and Assessments: Provide candidates with case studies or hypothetical scenarios to evaluate their problem-solving skills and legal acumen.

Behavioural Interviews: Use behavioural interview techniques to gain insights into candidates' past experiences and how they’ve handled challenging situations.

Evaluating Cultural Fit

Cultural fit is a critical factor in the success of a General Counsel. Assessing cultural fit involves understanding the candidate’s values, work style, and how they interact with others. During the interview process, consider:

Team Dynamics: Evaluate how the candidate interacts with existing team members and other executives.

Company Values: Discuss the candidate’s alignment with your company’s values and mission.

Leadership Style: Consider whether the candidate’s leadership style complements your organization’s management approach.

Checking References and Backgrounds

Conducting thorough reference checks and background investigations is essential to validate the candidate’s credentials and suitability for the role. This includes:

Professional References: Speak with former colleagues, supervisors, and direct reports to gather insights into the candidate’s performance and character.

Educational Verification: Verify the candidate’s educational background and legal qualifications.

Background Check: Conduct a comprehensive background check to ensure there are no red flags that could impact their ability to perform the role effectively.

Making a Competitive Offer

Once you’ve identified the ideal candidate, making a competitive offer that reflects their value to your organization is crucial. Consider:

Competitive Compensation: Offer a compensation package that is in line with industry standards and reflects the candidate’s experience and expertise.

Benefits Package: Include attractive benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, and professional development opportunities.

Onboarding Plan: Develop a comprehensive onboarding plan to ensure a smooth transition and set the new General Counsel up for success.

Conducting a General Counsel search in Toronto requires a strategic and thorough approach. By clearly defining job requirements, leveraging multiple sourcing channels, and conducting comprehensive interviews, you can identify and hire the best legal executive for your organization.

Partnering with a specialized legal executive search in Toronto, like BJRC Recruiting, can further enhance your search process, ensuring you find a General Counsel who meets your legal needs and aligns with your company’s values and culture. With these expert tips, you’ll be well on your way to making a successful and impactful hire.

Know more https://bjrcrecruiting.com/2024/07/17/expert-tips-general-counsel-search-toronto/

#toronto #canada #recruiting #General Counsel Search #legal executive search

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legalmarketing1 · 1 year

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legal marketing

Introduction Legal marketing advertises legal services to potential clients. It uses a variety of methods to attract, engage and retain clients and to build a law firm's reputation and brand.

Effective marketing is critical to gaining new clients and staying ahead in a competitive legal field. This includes content marketing, online advertising, social media marketing, SEO, event and networking, traditional advertising. email marketing.

It demands an in-depth understanding of the target audience, their needs and target locations, and the unique value proposition of the firm. It's also important to keep up with marketing trends and plans. It also helps in monitoring and analyzing marketing results to optimize and improve performance

A Guide to Building Your Law Firm

Know your target audience

Marketing requires knowing your audience. This includes learning about the people and businesses most likely to seek your legal services. Steps to identify your target audience: Identify the age, gender, occupation, income and location of your ideal customer. Understand your target audience through market research. Surveys, focus groups and demographic analysis can be used. See Common symptoms and patterns. This can improve your marketing and target audience. Consider your legal services and who may need them. Analyze your competition to understand your target audience and find market gaps or opportunities. Develop a strong brand identity

A strong brand identity can set your law firm apart and build client trust.

How to Build a Powerful Brand Identity:

What is the mission of your law firm? What is your legacy? Brand values should reflect your unique personality and purpose. Create a brand persona that represents your ideals. This personality should be reflected in all marketing messages. Create a brand-specific visual identity. logo, color scheme, typography, and other aesthetic elements. Create a brand voice that expresses your brand values and personality. All marketing mediums should use this voice. Brand all marketing channels and communications. This includes website, social media, email and other marketing materials. Deliver a consistent customer experience that matches your brand values and personality. This includes customer contact, legal services and communications. create a business website

Legal marketing requires a good website. Your law practice's website attracts and retains clients.

Steps to Build a Professional Legal Practice Website:

Are you looking to promote your legal services, showcase your knowledge, attract prospects, or provide legal services online? Website design and content should reflect its goal. Choose a website platform that meets your demands and budget. Legitimate websites use WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix. Build a brand-appropriate website. Colors, typefaces, and other graphic components are selected. Create useful, entertaining and relevant content. Examples are blogs, legal resources, case studies, and customer testimonials. Use relevant keywords, quality backlinks, and a mobile-friendly website to optimize for search engines. Use clear calls-to-action to encourage website visitors to contact you, book a consultation, or sign up for your newsletter. Regularly test your website's performance and refine its design and content based on user input and analysis. Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Marketing relies on SEO to boost your website's search engine rankings, organic traffic, and leads.

Here are some SEO tips:

Determine search terms for your target audience. Use these keywords in website text and metadata. Use relevant keywords, high-quality photos and videos, and engaging useful content. Get your website crawled and indexed with easy navigation and good structure for search engines. Build excellent backlinks from relevant websites. This can increase the authority and SEO of your website. Use social media to market your website and share relevant content with your audience. This increases brand awareness and website traffic. Use analytics to track SEO performance of websites. Use this data to boost SEO and website ranking. You can increase organic traffic and potential clients to your law practice by using an effective SEO strategy. use social media

Social media can help legal marketers interact with potential customers, build brand awareness, and promote themselves as thought leaders.

How to use social media effectively:

Find the most active social media networks of your target audience. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or others.

#legal marketing

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advancetotraining · 1 year

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The Very Useful Watermark Feature

Whenever I bring up subject matter that involves procedures whereby the location of the feature has moved from one version of the software to another, you should know where it is situated from Version to Version of the software.

The Watermark is a very important feature that should be used to protect against wholesale copying.

Let's take a quick look at the Watermark.

If we choose to implement a watermark in MS Word, we make a decision whether we use a generic watermark such as "Confidential" "Client Copy" etc. or we can use a picture or logo type picture and finally we can use a "Custom Watermark" whereby we type in our own text such as our company name, website etc.

Note: Your Watermark will not print if you do not have the selection “Print Drawings Created In MS Word” checked. You can find this setting under File, Options, Display, Printing Options.

If we print out the file, the watermark will be visible on your hard copy. If we send the file in MS Word to someone and the file is not password protected, then someone can simply remove it. Finally, if we save the file as a PDF, then the watermark will be present in the PDF on its own layer. Again, it can be accessed and removed if you don't password protect the PDF file from editing. In Adobe Professional, this can be done under Tools, Advanced Editing Functions and choose -Touch-Up Object Tool. And one should remember the many programs that break the passwords set on both MS Word and Adobe PDF.

Keep in mind that the watermark can be implemented from the Adobe file since Adobe Professional and Nuance allow one to create a watermark in the newly created PDF.

In MS Word 2010, we find the watermark under the Page Layout Tab.

In MS Word 2013 and above, here is how to get to the watermark feature:

Click the Design tab.

In the Page Background group, click the Watermark button. A menu plops down with a host of predefined watermarks that you can safely place behind the text on your document's pages.

Choose a watermark from the long, long list or customize your own.

Note: To "flatten" the watermark so that it can not be removed! Using Adobe Professional or Nuance, In Nuance, look for the Advanced Processing Tab and select "Flatten".

In Adobe Pro, Click the Layers button, and select "Flatten Layers" from the options menu.

Highly Recommended:

Top-Tier Style Legal and Corporate Training for MS Office. We train Corporate Professionals, Secretaries, WP Operators, Paralegals, Law Students, Attorneys, Business People, Marketing as well as Legal Outsource Personnel

www.AdvanceTo.com

www.Awalkinthecenter.com for Word Processing Center Related Workshops

https://advancetoffice.com/

888-422-0692 Ext. 1 and 2

Teacher Connected Books and Video

Hey Students: AdvanceTo Offers a unique PDF Editing and Procedures Class!

The following topics with will thoroughly be explored:

Dedicated Document Conversion Cleanup Class (Separate Class For WP Operators).

Bookmarks

Cleanup

Fillable Forms

Signatures

Redactions

Security

And Much More!

This class meets for 4.5 hours. This is a thorough live hands on Zoom class not short mini videos as you might see on YouTube. The cost of this class is $175.00. This is the very material that you would need to step in a law firm or Corporate Firm and be able to perform.

If you are a Secretary, Word Processing Operator, Paralegal or a freelance worker, you NEED to know these functions which will go hand in hand with your MS Word knowledge. Take advantage of this great class! When finished, you will have gained a comfort level and knowledge that you can now add to your existing resume. Those who purchase two or more classes (and those additional classes can be from any of our offerings) will receive a discount. All groups receive a discount!

https://advancetoffice.com/

888-422-0692 Ext. 1 or 2

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vynegar · 2 years

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luke 3rd birthday card, part five

same disclaimer and notes from part one.

youtube link to Axr’s video of the card story

links to other parts: one two three four

more tot translations here

do not repost

[PART FIVE]

[31:45] Luke’s House

The room was toasty, as if the cold winter had suddenly turned into warm spring. Luke was worried that I had been cold at the law office and made me a cup of ginger tea. The cup of tea warmed me continuously from where the outside of the cup was in contact with my palms. Just as I was thinking about how I had warmed up, Darius returned my call.

MC: Captain Morgan, are you still working?

Darius: Yeah, we’re still questioning him. I asked about the photo you sent.

MC: What’d he say?

Darius: He sure knows his stuff. He immediately recognized that the MP3 player was limited edition and sold it on the black market the same day he stole it.

MC: Are you able to find it?

I heard Darius’s quiet sigh from the other end of the call.

Darius: It was an anonymous transaction online. It may be difficult to trace.

Luke and I glanced at each other, our hearts sinking.

Luke: Did he say where he sold it?

Luke asked Darius for further information.

Darius: It’s a site on the dark web that’s already shut down. The technology department is still investigating it.

Luke: Okay, understood. Thank you for help, Captain Morgan.

Darius: Alright. We’ll be in contact if there’s any new information.

After hanging up the call, Luke frowned in thought for a moment, then looked up at me.

Luke: Wait for me at home. I’ll go ask around about it at Bar L.

Bar L was the nexus of all kinds of information at Stellis City. Luke had been there many times in search of intel for his cases.

MC: Nope. If you’re going, then I’m going with you.

I didn’t want to miss out on any information related to the MP3 player. It was a surprise for Luke, I couldn’t let the surprise get ruined so soon.

Luke: It’s too late. And it’s so cold outside, you can just stay at home…

I was shaking my head before Luke even finished speaking.

MC: This MP3 player is very important to me. Take me with you, okay?

He looked at me and knew that it was no use disagreeing with me. In the end, he had no choice but to sigh helplessly.

Luke: Okay, but you can’t leave my sight.

I immediately nodded, and Luke grabbed my coat and scarf for me, making sure that I was bundled up before we left the house together.

[33:37] Bar L

Even though it was late at night, Bar L was still packed. Luke shielded me as he walked to the counter and smoothly ordered two drinks. The bartender recognized us immediately and swapped with the previous waiter so he could personally come over.

Bartender: Mr. Pearce, Miss Lawyer, it’s been a while.

We didn’t bother with pleasantries, immediately handing over the photo of the MP3 player to him.

Luke: This was probably sold off last week. Are you able to track it down?

The bartender scanned the photo and gently lifted his brow.

Bartender: A 2004 limited edition MP3 player. There aren’t that many on the Stellis marketplace. It shouldn’t be difficult to find it, but it’ll take time.

MC: How long will it take?

Bartender: At least several days, possibly up to two weeks. It depends.

MC: Can it be done quicker? Before December 5th, if possible.

Luke glanced at me with an unreadable expression at my mention of his birthday. The bartender was clearly surprised too. He glanced at the calendar and stayed firm with his previous answer.

Bartender: That’s not much time. I can’t guarantee it.

MC: Can you figure out a way to do it?

Bartender: I’ll do my best.

I wanted to say something to express how important the MP3 player was, but Luke was already speaking.

Luke: Okay. I’ll send the web address to you. If you find the MP3 player, please send it to us immediately using the intra-city mail.

The bartender took the paper with the address, folded it, and placed it in his shirt pocket.

Bartender: No problem.

Seeing that we were done speaking, the bartender turned and left the bar counter. Luke looked at me, putting my hand in the front pocket of his shirt.

MC: Do you think we can find it?

Luke: Don’t worry too much about it. Just let things take their course.

For some reason, my anxieties settled down once I heard Luke’s words.

Luke: Let’s go home.

MC: Okay.

[35:17] Luke’s House

Time slipped away amidst the busyness of every day, and in the blink of an eye it was Luke's birthday. We decorated the house together for his birthday, and watching Luke bustle around suddenly made me want to laugh.

Luke: What? Why are you laughing all of a sudden?

MC: I'm not. I'm just wondering if the man of the hour thinks it's unfair that he has to put up his own birthday decorations.

Luke: Unfair? Of course not, I think it's pretty original.

As he spoke, Luke looked at the decorations that were mostly done.

Luke: And through every balloon and streamer, it's like I can feel what my parents felt when they were celebrating my birthday that year.

MC: So it feels more realistic than watching the video?

Hearing Luke say that, I immediately became interested. He looked at me, casually brushing his fingers through some stray strands of my hair, and answered cheerfully.

Luke: Yeah. I feel completely immersed.

[…]

When we finally finished decorating the scene, it was an almost exact replica of Luke's second birthday. Bright balloons, colorful streamers, and a cartoon cake...

MC: It really does feel like a birthday party meant for a child.

Luke: That's because we're recreating my second birthday. It's just about time now. When do we start?

I checked the time. It was almost eight, but the MP3 player still hadn't arrived. My earlier message to the bartender didn't get a response either.

MC: Can we wait a little longer?

Luke: Of course we can, but...

Luke looked at me and sighed helplessly.

Luke: Are you still waiting for that MP3 player?

MC: How did you know?

Luke: Because you've been acting weird. I'm right next to you, but every five minutes you're checking your phone... You're obviously waiting for a notification, and if I think about what happened before, I can pretty much guess what it is.

I didn't think that Luke had noticed my anxiousness.

Luke: Does that MP3 player... have something in it that’s about me?

His question was simple. I just needed to answer yes or no, but I was worried that I would disappoint him. The answer should have been simple, but I couldn't say anything at all. At that, Luke smiled gently.

Luke: Even if you don’t say it, I already know the answer. You’ve been hiding its origins, but the MP3 player in the photo has my parents' initials engraved onto it.

MC: Huh? I didn't even notice! So you knew all along?

Luke nodded gently. It turned out he had known all along what I was looking for, but kept himself from asking.

Luke: Now can you tell me what's saved in the MP3 player?

MC: I didn't hear what was in it either. I only know that your and my mom’s friend, Ms. Yu, mentioned it. Basically it was before you were born, what your parents wanted to tell your future self.

Luke: !!!

It wasn’t toward two-year-old Luke in the video, nor was it relayed by others. Saved in the MP3 player was what they purposefully wanted to say to the current Luke. Complex expressions interplayed on Luke’s face – disbelief, feeling moved, and understanding.

Luke: Did you care so much about the MP3 player because you couldn’t stop thinking about what I said earlier, about being an “onlooker”?

I nodded.

MC: I know there are some regrets in the world that no one can change. But I still want to decrease the regrets of the person I love, even just a little bit.

Luke: You…

Luke stared at me in shock, then gently embraced me.

Luke: Thank you, for caring so much about me.

MC: It’s just what I’m supposed to do.

Luke: I accepted my parents’ passing a long time ago, but just like I’ve always said… You and your parents have satisfied my every fantasy about family. When it comes to the warmth of a family, I’ve never felt lacking. I just… kind of regret how fickle fate can be.

MC: Luke…

I held the corner of his shirt in comfort.

Luke: Those recordings might be able to make up for those regrets, but if you’re always worried about that…

Luke let go of me and reached out to softly stroke my cheek. We were still pressed close against each other, and could distinctly see each of our reflections in each other’s eyes.

Luke: Then as my most important family member right now celebrating my birthday, today would leave behind some regrets, wouldn’t it?

MC: I…

Sensing that I was flustered, Luke’s mouth tugged upwards, and he leaned close to my ear.

Luke: Therefore, can you promise me to forget that for now, and properly celebrate this birthday with me?

Under the lights, Luke’s expression was gentle, and somehow I was able to set down what had been troubling my heart and go along with him.

MC: Okay, I promise.

[END PART FIVE]

[PART SIX]

#tears of themis #luke pearce #tot luke #xia yan #tot translation

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patrochillesvibes · 2 years

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Hi. Are you in for a modern AU where Achilles is a spoiled bratty trophy husband for real? He could be like 19 or 20 years old(early 20s at best) and there is a 20+ age gap here between him and Patroclus. If u r okay with it, care to share more of your thoughts or HCs?

This is gonna be tough bcs to me that’s a sugar daddy scenario, but I’ll try. Let’s see…

Plot scenarios…

Perhaps Achilles is an athlete. Maybe he’s training for the Olympics (gymnastics, track) or is a professional soccer player. There’s a competition. Something goes wrong (perhaps he’s distracted by a fight with his coach), and he has an accident (broken ankle). Pat is his physical therapist. They slowly fall in love through his appointments. Soon after, he retires from his sport and lives with his philtatos.

Or maybe Pat is a high-profile lawyer. Rich and successful. He’s not corrupt per say, but he cares a great deal about money and winning. So corporate law? Or you could continue TSOA Pat’s SJW attitude and have him as family law/divorce attorney. In any case, he does some trust administering for an important client (or if you want it spicier, one of the firm’s partners). This includes dishing out a monthly annuity to the mysterious son, Achilles. If you want it dark, Achilles would have a drug problem or is a sex worker. For lighter fare, he’s a nepo baby. Pat can see that he’s hurting inside, and he starts to help him heal over the course of their monthly meetings. Pat eventually “rescues” him from his situation and they fall in love.

Hm. Pat is an executive for some company. Achilles is interning in the marketing department. He hates it. He’s a gen z in a room full of gen x. They just don’t get the nuances of ig and tiktok. Maybe Pat oversees marketing? Achilles would be a shameless flirt, trying to seduce him. For extra spice, instead of a typical college student Achilles is the son of a member of the board! How forbidden. I see a runaway lovers angle here. They uncover a scandal with the company. Achilles anonymously calls the Feds. Achilles and Pat run off to one of those islands billionaires hide in. Achilles’ took his dad’s secret stash of money for them to live off of. For an extra twist, there actually was no corruption. It was a setup. By Pat and Achilles for the purposes of getting Peluses’ money (think of the movie Wild Things)!

General HCs…

Achilles is extremely high maintenance. He requires attention 24/7. He’s a princess.

Lot’s of texting. It varies between bratty pouting for something (new designer shoes, a vacation), telling Pat he misses him and just being generally clingy, and sexts. There is always some level of sexting daily. If he’s out and about, it’s pictures of his feet. When he’s getting ready, he always includes a pic of the underwear he’s wearing. If Pat is working late, then it’s sexy pics of what he’ll be finding in the bedroom when he gets home. Innocent suggestive pics (e.g. drinking a cocktail through a straw) are also common. If Pat is away at a conference, then there’s video with toys. And they absolutely have nasty phone sex. Oh, and Achilles likes to film them fucking without Pat’s knowledge or consent. In Achilles’ mind this is okay bcs the vids are for use during conferences.

Pat has a foot kink, so Achilles frequents exclusive spas for regular pedicures. There’s lots of “live tweeting” of this. The first chance he gets, Pat will head to the men’s room at work and jerk off. Achilles has an entire closet devoted to shoes. There are quite a lot of high heels (for play).

Work functions are quite intense. Achilles’ doesn’t play well with other girls, so-to-speak. He’s catty and all the other wives hate him. Pat is his and he will cut a bitch if she even thinks about trying. Pat’s colleagues have mixed feelings. His boss (who’s very old) doesn’t understand that they’re gay and finds Achilles BPD personality extremely entertaining. This works somewhat in Pat’s favor bcs he’s somewhat of his boss’ favorite now. There are a few colleagues that Achilles considers an enemy coughBriseiscoughOdysseuscough. These are the ones who keep telling Pat to divorce Achilles. Anyways, at these functions Achilles tends to hang off Pat’s arm and grope his butt. Achilles likes (expensive) alcohol and has a high tolerance. Pat has to keep an eye on his consumption so that he doesn’t go too far beyond tipsy. Hungover Achilles is no fun.

Achilles regularly wears a bit of makeup (eyeliner and mascara). He also has a variety of lipsticks and lip-glosses. All of this is for blow job aesthetics. Does choaking on cock really count if your mascara isn’t running? Speaking of blow jobs, Achilles has Pat trained. Achilles always pulls his hair back into a ponytail for bjs. So whenever Pat sees hair elastics or Achilles putting up his hair, he gets hard. It’s an involuntary reaction at this point.

Pat is a pretty brutal dom in the bedroom. This Pat fucks. He likes to call Achilles dirty, naughty, slut, cock whore, hole, cocksleave. There’s a lot of possessiveness over property (this is my hole, your orgasms are mine). There’s a lot of bondage, blindfolds, breath play, and impact play. There’s some sissy play too (Pat likes to refer to Achilles’ anus as a pussy). Achilles is regularly turned into a senseless drooling mess. When it comes to punishment, cock cage. Pat will do this especially when he’s away for a long time. They both enjoy public sex. Members of the mile high club. In restaurants there’s a lot of touching under the table and restroom sex. In traffic, there’s a lot of bjs. And when they’re shopping or running errands, Achilles wears a vibe that Pat controls with an app.

Achilles is active. He’s in the gym daily.

Achilles has a small core group of friends, all trophy wives.

(This is actually a topic I’m passionate about. Achilles really doesn’t have any friends. He just has Pat. Sure he’s fighting alongside others, but let’s face it he’s a prima donna. When they get back to camp he goes directly to their tent. Now when he was young before he met Pat there were admirers, but once Pat came along that was it. The only time in TSOA where he interacts with others in a “casual” setting is Skyros. So in AU settings I don’t see Achilles as having male friends. He has a few female friends, but the dynamic is perhaps more of Mean Girls (or maybe there was comradery and they bonded over forbidden love). If he has any male friends it would be with his cousin Ajax.)

Back to the friends… Monday is brunch, Tuesday is Yoga class, Wednesday is spa day. They also watch the Bachelor and get into heated debates over it. Most of them are low-key alcoholics.

Date night is Friday night. Every. Week. It’s a whole event for Achilles. He spends the whole day getting ready (special bath soak, special skin creams, hair mask and salon visit, douching, etc.). Pat always gives him flowers (roses, peonies). His ig is full of all his beautiful bouquets and arrangements. They go to an expensive restaurant. Then it’s back home for some play.

Gifts are important. Achilles is expensive. Lingerie is probably the most common gift. Then maybe jewelry (anklets, earrings, necklaces, some bangles, watches)… Pat is a health-conscious Dom, so there aren’t too many sweets being gifted. No drugs. No smoking (which is a crime bcs a cigar belongs in Pat’s hand). But Pat will splurge on very expensive wine and champagne. Pat enjoys bourbon and brandy.

Achilles is particular about clothes and has excellent taste. Pat gives him a big clothing budget. Except suits, Achilles selects most of Pat’s clothes (lots of coordinated outfits). Pat’s suits are bespoke, but Achilles usually goes with him for fittings. He will give input on colors and styles.

Achilles does not drive. Pat will drive him, or his friends will pick him up. In a scenario where Pat is extremely wealthy, then they have a driver. Feel bad for the driver because there is a lot of nasty things happening behind the partition. Pat drives expensive cars, but he has class so none of that sports car bs with flashy shit like Lotus or Ferrari or Bugatti. Pat is more of a Maserati and BMW guy. Maybe a Porche. Extremely wealthy Pat might go for an Aston Martin but it will depend.

And obviously Achilles does not cook and clean. There’s a lot of uber eats. Achilles does know how to make drinks. On stressful days Achilles will have Pat’s favorite drink ready for him. Maids come in to clean. They go through a lot of maid companies. They’re the weird gay guys with weird stuff going on in their house and no one wants to work for them. For this reason, laundry is a pickup/delivery dry cleaning service. It is used frequently.

They do a lot of traveling. There’s always a winter ski trip and trip to the islands. Summer is for trips to Europe. They have visited the big cities in Asia as well. And Dubai. But they have to be careful with their destinations as not everywhere is queer friendly. They do a lot of shopping and touristy stuff when they travel. Achilles isn’t afraid to get dirty, but physical activities (hiking, kayaking, paddleboarding, cycling, sky diving etc.) is not the main event of their travels. Remember, as a trophy husband his main purpose is to be pretty.

#ask #patrochilles hcs #my hcs

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coochiequeens · 2 years

Text

“Did the doulas go too far when warning each other about Gallagher?” No. Doulas are there to support the mother and that means helping them avoid being taken advantage off when they are vulnerable.

Danny Gallagher’s lawyer acknowledges he advised women on how to sell nude photos and videos on line but says he never coerced or groomed anyone, as defendants say.By Stewart Yerton

/ About 1 hour ago

Reading time: 8 minutes.

As a birth attendant and maternity photographer trying to establish himself in Hawaii, Danny Gallagher would often share a heart-wrenching story: his former partner had committed suicide in front of him, taking her life and the lives of the couple’s unborn twins — a trauma that Gallagher told people led him to seek solace helping other women deliver babies.

There’s just one problem with Gallagher’s story: It’s a lie. Gallagher has admitted under oath that he used the tale in a failed attempt to ingratiate himself into the community of Hawaii’s mostly female birth attendants, known as doulas.

Gallagher’s sob story didn’t work so well in the end. Instead of welcoming Gallagher into their fold, many of the doulas viewed him with suspicion. Eventually, based on what they believed was evidence that Gallagher had advised pregnant women on how to make money selling erotic photos, many of the doulas ostracized him as a sexual predator seeking to infiltrate their community.

Gallagher has sued several of these doulas for defamation. A trial is set to begin on Monday with jury selection in Hawaii federal court before U.S. District Court Judge Leslie Kobayashi.

Gallagher’s attorney, Megan Kau, acknowledged in an interview that her client advised women about selling nude photos on Patreon. And she said the suicide story was something “he created in order to market himself.”

But Kau said Gallagher never coerced anyone. And it was wrong to accuse Gallagher of being a “pimp” and a “predator” who groomed vulnerable women to produce and distribute pornography.

“They can say he was creepy. They can say he lies. But they crossed a line,” Kau told Civil Beat.

Eric Seitz, the attorney representing the majority of the doulas, declined to comment.

While the case hinges on a basic question – did the doulas go too far when warning each other about Gallagher? – it also involves details unique to the age of social media.

Much of the communication took place on Facebook, on professional pages and in Facebook groups. There are discussions on how to use the creative artist platform Patreon to sell erotic photos and videos. In one case, Gallagher created a false profile to catfish a doula and elicit negative comments from her about himself.

Were Doulas Negligent When Repeating Stories?

The general rule regarding defamation is that it’s unlawful to knowingly or recklessly make false and damaging statements about someone to a third party. An essential question is whether the statement is an objective one that can be proven true or false, rather than merely an opinion. A defamatory statement made in writing is known as libel.

As Kobayashi explained in an order denying summary judgment for the defendants, “With respect to the statements based on first-hand knowledge, ‘the question presented is whether the defendants here acted reasonably with regard to the grounds they had for

believing�� Gallagher did the things they accused him of in their Facebook posts and direct messages.”

For those without direct knowledge, the judge said, the question was whether the doulas were negligent or unreasonable in repeating things they had heard from others.

“If people are simply repeating what someone else said, you can’t do it blindly,” said Jeff Portnoy, a partner who practices media law with the Cades Schutte law firm.

But simply because a statement was not true does not mean the person committed libel when making the statement, he said.

“It’s a question of fact for the jury whether you were negligent in that,” Portnoy said.

Normally, publishers of libelous statements also might be liable for publishing them, but platforms like Facebook are generally shielded by the federal Communications Decency Act, he said. Individuals making such statements, however, can still be held accountable.

One thing that’s not in dispute is that Gallagher advised women on how to make and post erotic photos for money – and to avoid letting the pictures get out to friends and relatives. One series of massages posted on a Facebook group shows Gallagher boasting about how he “helped two of my doula friends do this (five mamas total) and it’s pretty much under wraps.”

“There are kinks and fetishes for everything under the sun,” he says in another post. “If you play your cards right, Patreon is the way to live the life of your dreams.”

Also part of the record is a conversation Gallagher had with a defendant named Kate Pavlovsky. In a series of Facebook messages, Gallagher tells Pavlovsky: “One mama I helped makes $6,000 a month by doing photo and video (sic) of herself lactating. … Another mama I’ve helped, just takes erotic photos of herself in public places, and has a membership portal.”

While the thread shows Pavlovsky went along with the conversation and appeared interested in doing erotic pictures, she says she later changed her mind.

“I never let on to Danny that I was uncomfortable that is true,” Pavlovsky says in documents now part of the court record.

But she says she eventually quit talking to Gallagher when he sent her a link to a pornography site.

Later, posting on Facebook under a profile bearing the pseudonym Opal Essence, Pavlovsky wrote of Gallagher, “This man is a sexual predator. He should never be allowed in a birth room as it has been made clear he is very aroused by birth, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. We are not trying to tear him down. He is not a victim. We are trying to protect the true victims in this situation – the women who he will prey upon.”

This became the story about Gallagher shared on Facebook: that he was a predator who would groom vulnerable, pregnant women into taking and publishing nude photos. The defendants in the suit shared variations on this theme in messages and posts. The named defendants are Pavlovsky, Anne Croudace, Emille Saldaya, Jenna Chidester, Bathany Kirillov, Jane Hopaki, Stephanie Byers and Vivian Chau Best.

Kau acknowledges that Gallagher helped pregnant women publish nude photographs. But she said he did so at their request. She points to Samantha Baldwin, also known as Sam Ross, who has submitted testimony supporting Gallagher.

According to a statement Baldwin submitted to the court, she got in touch with Gallagher and asked him how to help her market sexy photos and videos of herself. Baldwin says she sent some to him as samples to share with people contemplating doing the same thing.

“Danny never once said anything to me that appeared to be, or made me feel like, I was being coerced into sending him photos or videos of myself or that he was manipulating me,” Baldwin says in her declaration.

According to Baldwin, she learned Pavlovsky and Saldaya “were sharing boudoir photos of me in Facebook groups without my consent in order to prove that Danny was a sexual predator and was sharing the photos without my consent.”

Baldwin says she asked both women to stop sharing the photos and defended Gallagher.

“Danny has been nothing but a gentleman to me and never asked me to do something or give him something that was anything close to being considered in the world of ‘sexual predator,’ ‘creepy,’ ‘a porn broker’ and ‘a pimp,’” she said in her declaration.

While these conflicting portraits of Gallagher will be presented to the jury starting Monday, there’s one story the jury will likely never hear: his lie about being present when his partner killed herself and their unborn twins, which he used to help gain entrée into the doula community.

In an order issued Oct. 17, Kobayashi said the jury could not hear how Gallagher has used a tall tale to market himself. The risk that evidence would prejudice the jury against Gallagher outweighed any value it might have proving that the doulas had not defamed Gallagher, the judge explained.

Asked whether the doula’s attorneys might somehow get the story out anyway, Kau was adamant.

“Judge Kobayashi excluded it,” she said. “Judge Kobayashi was very clear in her order.”

#Hawaii #Danny Gallagher a.k.a. Danny the Doula #Predatory men #He lied about why he wanted to be a doula #An abusive man suing women for calling out his creepy behavior

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