Laura Kalbag @laura@mastodon.laurakalbag.com

“Often it’s people of colour who are having their data extracted from them. This valuable commodity is literally the body of black individuals…”

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/mar/04/they-track-every-move-how-us-parole-apps-created-digital-prisoners

✨checked the app store admin and @better has two new generous and kind reviews (and no new negative reviews!)✨

I need to bottle this feeling. If those reviewers read this, please know you’ve made my day!

Thanks to Sophie and 1Password on Twitter, I’m going to go with 1Password. I already use their apps on my phone and laptop (and they’re really great) so it makes perfect sense. Thank you for all the recommendations!

I should add… don’t mind paying for it (I’d rather it had a sustainable funding model) and if it’s free + open, that’s a plus.

Can anyone recommend a good (privacy-respecting!) 2 factor authentication app?

So far the top recommendations I’ve found are Google and Microsoft’s apps which seems to me to be leaping out of the security frying pan into the privacy fire…

“it’s not clear whether such audits are actually making algorithms less biased—or if they’re simply good PR.”

https://themarkup.org/ask-the-markup/2021/02/23/can-auditing-eliminate-bias-from-algorithms

Getting a blocking rule update together for @better. Got the feeling that today is going to be a big day for blocking blocker blockers… 😎

An oddly specific lie for a site that sets a cookie as soon as you land on the page.

Last night’s Small is Beautiful live stream video is now up along with captions, or a transcript if that’s more your kind of thing. Thanks to Paul Frazee (and Kit) for being a fabulous guest and such an in-depth discussion of decentralised social networks.

https://small-tech.org/videos/small-is-beautiful-06/

I’ve no idea why I referred to @aral as “that man” multiple times… 😂

The new Mogwai album is exactly what I needed this morning.

New on my blog: 📌 A little site update

https://laurakalbag.com/a-little-site-update/

"We can’t afford to spend money on inclusivity". Yet you can afford other aspects of design, development, promotion. Even if you’re working for free on an open source project, your time still costs money. You’re just prioritising based on your existing skills and knowledge.

I responded to this issue on GitHub in good faith, but I can’t stop emphasising YOU NEED TO PAY PEOPLE TO DO THE WORK RIGHT. If you want to do better at covering disability and accessibility, pay a disabled consultant to help you.

https://github.com/StateOfJS/StateOfJS-2020/issues/39

Relying on "the community" might get you some nice advice from well-meaning people, but be aware that "the community" is limited to those who can afford to/have free time to participate (and I’ll bet those are mostly non-disabled people.)

Video with captions and transcripts for last night’s live stream now up on our site.

A brilliant discussion with our lovely guests about how to fund work that’s for the commons.

https://small-tech.org/videos/small-is-beautiful-05/