I literally said that Meta was firing people for protected leave, disabilities, and medical issues. What I was denying is that they were firing people on the basis of “pre-diagnoses.” All the complaints in the lawsuit are based on diagnoses that employees disclosed to Meta. I think that’s shitty and illegal, but I don’t think there is evidence that Meta is acquiring undisclosed medical information about their employees and using that for layoffs.

Alright, if you look at this story from a more reputable source (Reuters), it’s quite a bit different. Meta isn’t accused of using AI with people’s medical information to make early diagnoses and lay them off. Instead,

According to the complaint, Meta used a number of internal AI-assisted systems to score and rank employees ⁠on a ​termination list. Those included “Metamate,” a large language model assistant; an employee-trained “second ​brain” that tracked workers’ communications and documents; and a productivity score drawn from scanning keystrokes, screen content, emails and browser history, according ​to the lawsuit.

The 26 plaintiffs, who ⁠filed the lawsuit anonymously, are accusing Meta of violating federal and state laws that ban discrimination or retaliation against workers who have disabilities, take medical leave or are ​pregnant. They also claim that Meta failed to test its AI systems for ​bias in ⁠violation of recently adopted California and New York City laws.

So it’s still shitty workplace surveillance and discrimination but not the same kind of surveillance and discrimination alleged in the Twitter posts. Meta is using AI to try to rank workers’ productivity (on a bunch of shitty metrics) in a way that may discriminate against people with disabilities or who take medical leave or who are pregnant.

Speaketh for the self, for this one does not

I don’t think this is even a good example. “Self” is usually treated as a reflexive pronoun, although I’m not sure if it still counts as one if you say “the self.” And “this” is a demonstrative pronoun. And “one,” as it used in this sentence is an indefinite pronoun.

In 2019 Quebec passed a law prohibiting public workers who are in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols. The law violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, particularly rights around freedom of religion and expression. But there’s a fancy little mechanism called the “notwithstanding clause” that allows you to pass unconstitutional laws under some circumstances, which Quebec invoked and allowed the law to pass and withstand court challenges.

Stupid sexy panorama

DTG St. Louis

Down To Gawk St. Louis, amirite?

Thankfully not all of it was destroyed, including one of the most famous works of ancient Egyptian art, the Bust of Nefertiti, Akhenaten’s wife. But I also like this delightful relief (?) of Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and their three children.

Well an updated version would be difficult because David Graeber died in 2020. But maybe someone else can pick up the torch

By doing it this way, they preserve the “lifetime appointment” part in the Constitution while still leaving room for a regular infusion of new people

…Until someone brings a lawsuit, which goes to the Supreme Court and they conveniently decide for themselves that the law imposing term limits on them is unconstitutional.

Plato, Republic, Book I, Cephalus’ speech:

How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles⁠—are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many.

This comment could have been posted word-for-word in February/March 2020 and it would have had the exact same meaning. Even if Trump completely blunders this conflict it will ultimately be someone else’s mess to clean up.