Also, it’s arbitrary and capricious - this is hitting everyone in the prison, regardless of their sentence, just because they happen to be incarcerated at the wrong place and time

If they spend weeks convincing you that you should do it, give you money or other resources to do it, or so on, then it can be entrapment.

Things like that should theoretically help you make an argument for entrapment, but it’s no sure thing

El P and Open Mike Eagle are like the better written versions of my own internal monologue

Good question I don’t have the answer to. I could speculate that this is all likely being sourced from some sort of marketing material that ShadowDragon put out where they just flatly say they’re gathering this information from Tesseract, and in reality they’re actually gathering any information they can on users who search for this software and download this software, but like I said I’m speculating.

If you’re really interested, I would say you should email the author of this article, reach out to Tesseract’s development team, or find a way to get a subpoena against ShadowDragon and/or ICE

Sorry to hear that, try this one

https://web.archive.org/web/20250312132300/https://www.404media.co/the-200-sites-an-ice-surveillance-contractor-is-monitoring/

“Using my own time for work stuff is unacceptable to me, and I am prepared to quit this job and get a different one that doesn’t ask me to work off the clock if you press this matter.”

Don’t try to reason them into accepting your way of thinking, just state your position and what you’re willing to do to pursue it

Incidentally, if “I am prepared to quit this job” does not currently apply to you, you should not be having this conversation.

e; partial_acumen had a way better answer

“Using my own time for work stuff is unacceptable to me. It was not enumerated in the job listing when I was hired that off-clock unpaid work was required to keep this job and I am prepared to quit this job and get a different one that doesn’t ask me to work off the clock if you press this matter if the company terminates me for refusing to work unpaid off the clock I’d be happy to raise that with the Department of Labor for a case of wage theft.”

e2; this is all assuming you’re ok with losing this job and waiting through a lawsuit and several years to get what you’re owed by this employer

We have had and currently have some incredible authors artists and musicians who make beautiful and brilliant things that reflect the spirit of the average American far better than the handful monsters who have power over us

That’s not to say other countries don’t also have fascinating and ingenious creators and cultures too, just saying that ours are the thing I like most about my country

Let’s not ignore all the efforts Republican governments have put into making it much more difficult for certain communities to vote

the Fediverse really seems like it could be our response to these fuckers controlling the narrative on social media. It could be more than just an interesting decentralized social media platform. I really think this could be a key step in reclaiming our democracy.

Agreed, and I would add that finding ways to get nonprofit news organizations (e.g. ProPublica) and public media (e.g. NPR, PBS, etc.) to host and administer their own instances and to start directing their readers/listeners to those services would be a great way to advance this goal

It gets even worse, the federal government now only accepts applications for asylum through a mobile app

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/05/cbp-one-mobile-application-violates-the-rights-of-people-seeking-asylum-in-the-united-states/

I don’t think we’re the only land of hypocrisy out there (like, listen to Russia talk about how they’re the real protectors of human rights, or China say other countries are threatening their national security, or Mexico complain about cartel violence while letting their police do whatever they want, or Israel do so much shit I don’t know where to start), but, yeah, a lot of us are brainwashed as hell, and our government is completely full of shit whenever it’s scolding anyone else about human rights, international law, the climate, etc.

i find it beyond funny that we support israel because ‘they were there first’, but if you mention that maybe the american indians should rise up and take their country back you get very different responses.

Yep, and also the fact that there’s such a vocal anti-migrant movement here after almost all of our ancestors in immigrated here is completely absurd

Yeah, actually that’s a really important point, plus between the insane amounts of essentially anonymous propaganda that’s been unleashed on us through Citizens United and all the state government voter suppression laws that were allowed by Shelby County we’ve really only been a quasi-democratic society at best for most of this. Americans aren’t uniquely terrible people compared to the citizens of any other country, we’ve just got some incredibly shitty rich people who ran the table on political power.

e; forgot to rest of my thought

Hard disagree, Republicans wouldn’t do so much voter suppression bullshit if it didn’t have any effect. People who don’t vote are almost always being oppressed in a variety of different ways.

And this isn’t even the first clown shitshow of a government we’ve voted in this century

Pretty sure you can listen to most radio stations online from anywhere

100%, I found Silver Jews American Water years ago and listened to it a million times but then kind forgot about them, and only found out about this project after seeing a news article along the lines of “former lead singer of Silver Jews kills himself, he’d recently released a solo album that in hindsight looks like an incredibly obvious cry for help, he was friends with the guys in Pavement and other more famous and well adjusted people, etc.”

Incredibly so, sometimes I almost feel weird for sharing it because it is such a black pill of an album, but it’s just such a perfect encapsulation of long term depression and beautiful and fucking funny, I can’t help but adore it

Nights That Won’t Happen by Purple Mountains

If it needs to be instrumental, the Disco Elysium soundtrack by British Sea Power is pretty excellent (though it goes through a bit of an emotional spectrum beyond malaise imo)

Do you think the department of education writes the textbooks, standardized tests (SAT, ACT, etc.), grading and student management software, learning management systems (Google Classroom, Canvas), or manufactures its own classroom tech (Chromebooks, tablets)?

Each one of those has a bunch of particular nuances, but in general - yeah, I think they could and should in a lot of those cases

The education system is full of for-profit businesses that can jack up the prices, and they do.

Yeah, it’s a big problem with a lot of little parts to be tackled

The DOE simply doesn’t have the resources to create these things themselves

Then government should give them the resources (actually, I think a whole separate agency that develops open source software for any government agency or anyone else who wants to use them should be established, but that’s kind of besides the point).

and would cost them far more if they tried

I don’t think that’s true, and even if it were I think we should be willing to pay premium to make sure essential systems that support the public good are being administered in democratic ways (e.g. by public agencies that are required to give public reports to elected lawmakers and be subject to citizens’ FOIA requests).

the business model has existed forever

A lot of stupid ideas hang on for a really long time. Like, we still have monarchies in the 21st century world.

Personally, I’m more concerned with the use of Google products in schools. A company that’s sole business is harvesting user data and selling it to advertisers should have no place in schools or children’s products. But they’ve embedded themselves into everything so people just accept it at the cost of privacy

I 100% agree this is a significant problem too, I just haven’t come across any good articles about it recently

Exactly, they’re a captive audience, and moreover they are legally incompetent to consent to a contracted business relationship like this

If this was a department of education AI or even some kind of transparently administered non-profit organization I’d be fine with this, but the fact that this is being developed for some for profit company that can just jack their rates and cut off public schools whenever they want to is bullshit. Like, I’m not opposed to the technology of LLMs at all, I think they’re actually pretty neat, but our social and economic systems have a lot of exploitative trash in them that cool technologies can inadvertently exacerbate.