Laura Kalbag @laura@mastodon.laurakalbag.com

It’s unbelievable (and yet so believable) that my Irish car insurance provider is giving me more useful and decisive advice around Brexit than the UK government.

Good morning, did you read this yet?

https://alistapart.com/article/canary-in-a-coal-mine-how-tech-provides-platforms-for-hate

Can’t wait to read Everyday Information Architecture and learn more from Lisa Maria Martin. If you work in anything that touches the web, this book will be indispensable. Pre-order it now!

https://abookapart.com/products/everyday-information-architecture

“We, by way of our platforms, give agency and credence to these acts of violence, then pilfer profits from them. Tech is a money-making accomplice to these hate crimes.”

@Tatianamac writes so clearly and powerfully, also giving us real guidance for action. Stop what you’re doing and read this:

https://alistapart.com/article/canary-in-a-coal-mine-how-tech-provides-platforms-for-hate

Always one of the best things about coming home…

I’m sick of playing weekly whack-a-mole with nasty trackers on popular sites. If a site is trying this hard to invade our privacy & extract our personal information, we should stop visiting them, regulate them as malware, shut them down, and fire everyone responsible into the sun.

What’s the state of email newsletter services nowadays? Is there any service differentiating itself on being privacy-respecting? (No tracking/analytics/short URLs.) I’ve been looking, but all the services I find seem to be all about maximum-tracking. *sigh*

THIS is the rallying cry I needed on a Monday morning…

“But if we are going to talk about smashing patriarchy and dismantling systems of oppression (as we should!), we need to understand the role of surveillance and data exploitation in perpetuating and enhancing those systems”

https://privacyinternational.org/blog/2458/reclaiming-privacy-feminist-manifesto

On Zuckerberg’s “privacy” announcement yesterday, I’ve only found one article in my RSS feed this morning worth reading… 🔥

https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/06/mark-zuckerberg-discovers-privacy/

Facebook’s lobbying against pro-privacy regulation is awful. Using Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In as an attempt to bond with commissioners who are women is a-whole-nother-level icky.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252458229/Facebook-asked-George-Osborne-to-influence-EU-data-protection-law

Thissssss 🔥 (via @aral )

https://www.dearbigtech.org

I wish tech journalism would find more diversity in the experts whose opinions they quote. I want to hear from experts who understand and represent the needs and concerns of people from marginalised groups. (And I couldn’t care less about what yet another startup CEO farts out.)

They’re making a Discovery spinoff about Section 31 starring the Philippa Georgiou character? YES PLEASE.

MICS, I meant mics

After I had a couple of bad experiences recently, I wrote a blog post about fitting mic to people without making them uncomfortable:

https://laurakalbag.com/mic-issues/

“The white Other still benefits from white supremacy. We face discrimination, trauma, pain, violence, exclusion, but it is not the goal of our societal structures. It is more often a product of it.”

https://progressive.org/magazine/to-my-fellow-white-others-strangio/

‪I’ve always known seating, tables, phones and lecterns weren’t built for me, but didn’t realise my car isn’t designed for me to drive and, because of that, could easily kill me.‬

‪https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/truth-world-built-for-men-car-crashes‬

‪(via @aral)

‪So far my 30s have been about embracing stuff I missed out on in my teens and early 20s because I thought it was “too girly” and “cliché.” Turns out wearing pink, listening to pop and doing facemasks is just fun.‬

Face to match my phone case.

‪Irish folks: what accounting software do you use? is it any good?‬