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Just Take the L
Basecamp boards the 14th Street–Canarsie Local
It’s the tenth Ed Balls Day but is anyone up for it? Ben Jackson points out that “if my LinkedIn feed is any indication, April will go down in history as The Month Employees Realized They Could Quit Again.” The NYT is adding “Global Days Off for the remaining three quarters of 2021.” Can’t quit a job you’re not even at. How many global days off does Gannett owe its women of color, who are being paid an average of $15,727 less than the white men? Even the post-vax party scene isn’t what we thought it might be, according to Michelle Lhooq: “Everyone wuzz holding space a-and checking in, like, ‘Are you OK? Am I OK? Is this party… OK??’” Mandy Brown says “maybe we’re not burned out but burned up… the latter asks what might rise from this heap of ash at our feet.” At least Martin Scorsese is still out here making art.
Casey Newton reported it out (tip @ Techmeme) and found that of course there was a triggering event for yesterday’s Basecampfire:
Around 2009, Basecamp customer service representatives began keeping a list of names that they found funny. More than a decade later, current employees were so mortified by the practice that none of them would give me a single example of a name on the list.
The co-founders apologized internally for the list, but found further discussion of why the list was wrong to be intolerable. Fortunately for us they are both committed to Posting Through It. Jason Fried dropped some big theatre kid Livejournal emo lyrics: “When the bone heals, when the crack fills, when the wound mends…” Ok fine, but vaguebooking is a little J.V., buddy. Basecamp’s CTO, on the other hand, yelled “Hello my name is David Heinemeier Hansson, and this is Jackass!” then body-surfed a shopping cart off a cliff, faceplanting directly into his entire L:
In fact, reviewing the original list in question, the vast majority of names on it fall into the category of the two specific examples above. It's not a list of, say, primarily Asian names. Out of the 78 names listed on the last version we were able to recover, just 6 names appear to be Asian.
Only SIX minor racisms, out of more than 78 names! And they’re the fun kind of racisms that used to be ok, not the bad genocide kind of racisms! Instead of being like “ok, yeah. I hear you,” he closes by offering six months severance to anyone who doesn’t want to “forgive ✌️❤️.” The company’s Rework podcast went dark with a 90-second announcement that drips with embarrassment. Policy and data lead Jane Yang posted from “medical leave… a condition that was necessary in large part because of the extreme emotional duress I have experienced as an employee at the company,” to describe her experiences trying to craft a Use Restrictions Policy and make the company more inclusive. Her account directly contradicts Fried’s Inc. Magazine claim that “everyone came down on the same side” of the policy on hate speech. Matt Haughey has been around for a while, and I think he summed this up the best:
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Intern Pernell is originally from the Rio Grande Valley, near Brownsville, TX, and he wanted to take a look at how our wealthiest shitposter is treating his home. Is it… respectfully and well? I bet it’s that.
Spaced Out
Elon Musk has no problem destroying Earth to get to Mars. The SpaceX spokes-model and would-be comedian is pregaming his colonization of the red planet with his occupation of Boca Chica Beach and Brownsville, Texas, even though there’s already an established community there. The meme-jacking space huckster is hellbent on creating his own city of “Starbase” and inviting his weird, needy fans to take the homes and jobs that were once promised to the local population.
Despite local concerns, Brownsville residents are coming to terms with the colonization of their own city because, well, the Cameron County Commissioners are forcing them to. Crash debris continues to rain over South Texas, bribes keep getting paid, home prices keep going up, nature is not healing, and it’s all being celebrated with pop-up murals. Apparently the cost of space exploration is Earth gentrification.
Ah, well, nevertheless. Only two more Yahoo!’s until Yahoo! Answers is truly gone forever.
Today’s Song: is actually a whole playlist of U.K. hip-hop, from Mark Slutsky and Cadence Weapon, via Something Good.
~ Mechanical and super-tabby ~
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