cheez0r

No, they couldn't, thanks to the Constitution. They have the rights of due process and habeas corpus.

RIP, Jake. The world is lesser without you.

Congratulations Bryan and the Oxide team! Well done on your achievement.

Net-Connect in Lafayette.

Sure- I'll drop you a hello.

"MOM, DON'T PICK UP THE PHONE, I'M ON THE INTERNET!!!"

I started on BBSes, helped build one of the first local ISPs in Louisiana, was on IRC in 1994, lived through the rise and fall of Yahoo!, had a GeoCities page, was a MySpace early adopter, etc. Feel free to ask away.

Flickr. Losing to nothing except terrible leadership and ham-fisted attempts to monetize.

It felt like trying to suck the future down a too-small straw like a thick milkshake and a too-small straw.

I didn't prescribe any solution- I'm not advocating tearing down the structures in a symbolic act to try and placate people. I'm pointing out the fact that all Americans stand today on the shoulders of an ancestry which enslaved peoples, and which we bear the onus of eliminating the traces of that power imbalance from our society, not just saying "hey, we don't mean master THAT WAY, you know?"

We are eliminating gender from our colloquial terms for the same reason. Serviceperson instead of serviceman; mail carrier instead of mailman, police officer instead of policeman. This is the same thing- just eliminating a term which injuries a different minority along a different identity axis.

This.

These changes to remove subconscious bias from our language are necessary. They are microaggressions which the average user doesn't even realize exist- but which do harms to some individuals in our society. This may be a minority group within our society- even a very small fraction of a percent- but removing biases which are perceived as harmful is one way that we as an organization demonstrate that we are being actively inclusive to all, instead of falling back on habits developed to favor, or carrying the embedded biases of, one social or cultural group.

I look at it like ADA requirements for language. If you have a curb a wheelchair user can't climb, that's a harm to that individual- and so we require actions, by law, to ensure that wheelchair users are accommodated in our society. 30 years ago the similar complaints were made against ADA ramps, handicap-accessible restrooms, etc.- that they weren't really necessary because the minority who were being hurt by their absence were such a minority, and weren't really the target served population of the organization, etc. That was anti-inclusivity- and so we passed the ADA and support accessibility for all in our organizations- and nobody these days chafes at it at all, for the most part.

Removing harms from how organizations execute their business operations is part of inclusivity. It's not cargo culting, it's not engaging in a self-pleasuring but pointless behavior, it's not a meaningless act that carries no value- it's ensuring that our organization does as little harm to folks as possible as we move forward doing business in the world.

Americans at large are heavily invested in ignoring the repercussions of slavery.

Our President still lives in a house built by enslaved peoples. Our Congress still legislates in a Capitol built by enslaved peoples.

That fact remains true, and is the prima facie evidence that all Americans have profited from our legacy of slavery, and that we aren't all that concerned with tearing down that legacy and eliminating the harms to folks that those monuments contain... instead a plaque or statue explaining the role of the enslaved peoples is enough.

Meh.

Right... so the reality is, they probably feel like the myriad Napster users they sued, a little guy getting trod on by the big gorilla in the room... which is delicious in its irony.