The Readout: 001
Parking app hell, schools that scan faces, the Kelvin battlefront. Links and recommendations from the team
Where have we all been? I took some time off to bubble wrap my life; I’m moving to Montreal tomorrow (!). Posts may be a little irregular as I start school in the coming weeks.
To bookend the week I asked a few people on the team what they’ve been reading and thinking about. It’s tabstravaganza!
Ken Mickles, Chief Technology Officer
A slice-of-life tale from App World. I've had similar experiences, and sometimes just take cash from a stranger in exchange for doing the App thing.
A man riding a bike with a sign that said "Make a Stranger Smile" stopped to deliver food to my neighbor the other day. He was listening to this song on a speaker. I did what the sign said.
Ken’s based in Philadelphia. Here’s his website.
Caitlin Seeley-George, Campaigns and Managing Director
📃 State report identifies risks in schools' use of facial recognition technology
This is about a big report out of New York State, where they’ve had a moratorium on schools using facial recognition tech. As a part of that moratorium bill, the state had to do a report on the impact of facial recognition in schools, and the results of the research state that the harms of using facial recognition in schools outweigh the benefits. This is great back-to-school news!
🧀 Something new to pepper your speech with
This has provided regular chuckles since I saw it two weeks ago.
Caitlin’s in Denver. She was recently featured on PBS.
Sarah Phillips, Campaigner
📱 Report: LGBTQ Young People of Color in Online Spaces
The Trevor Project just released a report detailing something I’ve always understood anecdotally, as a queer person of color who grew up on the 2010’s internet: LGBTQ young people of color view social media as a safe space to congregate and express themselves. This is important research as we fight for LGBTQ youth and their right to their online communities, even as conservatives manipulate narratives about “kids safety” to rob marginalized kids of these spaces.
Young queer people are also facing another battle daily: the fight against the harsh overhead lighting that plagues our lives. I recently found out that incandescent light bulbs were banned in the United States, which is good for the climate and whatnot, but not good for my eyeballs, which have been known to immediately reject the bright LED light that seems to be everywhere. I recently found this helpful video that details how to choose the warmest light bulbs possible, so your home feels like the old-timey Victorian library it was meant to be, and not a hospital waiting room.
Sarah lives and works in Houston. Here’s her TikTok.
Take a tab, share a tab: drop your reading recs down below. My thing this week is Flickr’s Public Domain tag, where I learned about Klaatu, a band that might have been the Beatles, secretly.
simply tabstravagant
down with the big light!