Shacknews LoL

A utility

There used to be something called the First Post at Shacknews back when the Chatty would refresh itself everyday. When Steve was the first poster, he called his post werd. I am bringing it back today. Every Monday I will be posting an update for Shackers. This weekly thread will be my chance to communicate what is going on at the company and other stuff that I find interesting in the world outside of gaming news.

Update on Shacknews Ad Code Issues:

We are working with our ad provider to root out the malware infiltration.

Our ad partner is also working on removing the full-screen ad that keeps breaking our mobile site.

http://chattypics.com/files/image_a3oftaniar.png

Any Shackers who encounter this either of these problems please click this link: http://mb.zam.com/mb/History

You can shack message or email the text to me @ asif.khan@shacknews.com with the subject MALWARE IS LAME.

Shacknews.com Traffic Update:

We have lapped our easy year over year numbers for page views and unique visitors and we are still growing! I am proud of the performance of our entire team and I look forward to June being our best month since I bought the site in late 2013. Our turnaround strategy is working and I hope that I will be able to report that Shacknews has returned to profitability sometime within the next year.

Shacknews E3 Booth:

We are going to be on the show floor this year at E3 and the team has lined up some amazing guests for our live streams. Be sure to watch for us on Twitch next week! This is the beginning of our celebration of 20 years of Shacknews!

Shackcon 2016:

Today is the last day to register for Shackcon! I will be attending with some other members of the Shack Staff!

http://shackcon.com/registration/

http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=35037182#item_35037182

Other Stuff:

Ramadan Mubarak, Shacknews!

Yesterday was the first day of Ramadan. Ms. Marvel tweeted at me about it :)

https://twitter.com/MsMarvelNow/status/739866632361644033

John Oliver buys and forgives $15 million of medical debt!

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/06/john-oliver-medical-debt-forgiveness-last-week-tonight?CMP=share_btn_tw

House of the Dying Sun, a game developed by our very own Rampancy, will become available for Early Access tomorrow!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/283160/

That is all for now, Shackers. Hope you all have a great week!

[deleted]

Tommy Cancer Update

Tommy's halfway through his chemo, so he had a PET scan last week to see how the treatment is progressing, and we got some super good news - there was no detectable cancer visible in the scan.

He still has five more treatments to go through (he just got back from chemo an hour ago), and will have a final PET scan, but so far it's looking well. His last treatment is the day before Thanksgiving.

Thanks to everyone who's reached out. :)

Merry Christmas! We made this goofy video today for our far flung kids and grands. Of course, Shackers have always been our favorite kids at heart too. I wish you we could be sharing a Happy Shack toast with you. 🤗

https://youtu.be/PMpLFkYkrLY

Man, fuck guns and gun culture.

Just brought my wife home from the hospital. She was there a week with covid pneumonia. This shit is no joke. Me and the kids had it pretty mild, but you just don't know. Please treat this seriously. Mask up, stay apart, etc.

I have joined the http://alphabetworkersunion.org/ . Given the size of the thread on it yesterday, I thought some Shackers might be interested in my thought process.

I didn't do this because I want higher pay or better working conditions. My compensation and treatment is fine. I also didn't do this for higher pay or better conditions for others, though in some cases (e.g. many contractors and underprivileged folks) those are reasonable or desirable outcomes.

I did this because I believe Google leadership has fundamentally shifted from being user-focused, long-term-oriented, and willing to put principle before profit, to the opposites of those things. I think this started years back around the acquisition of YouTube and the beginning of development on G+, and has grown over time as the executives have changed. I accept that Google is a secular, for-profit company, and as such will never completely match my personal morals and ethics; however, I don't believe the current actions of the company are justifiable even from a long-run business perspective.

As a single example, when I joined, leadership spoke frankly about why they didn't give quarterly guidance, because they had the ability to hit almost any per-quarter number simply by dialing up the number of ads shown -- which would goose short-term revenue at a long-term user blindness/trust cost. They didn't want to be tempted to place short-term outcomes ahead of long-term ones. By contrast, a few years back, YouTube leadership explicitly told Googlers that they planned to so irritate users with ads that it would force people to subscribe "because it makes us more money". This is a clear, user-hostile shift (and was the moment when I wrote off YouTube's leadership as morally bankrupt, and vowed never to give them money regardless of how annoying their behavior became).

While the AWU will not be spending all its time on such issues, I found the closing of the union founders' opinion piece ( https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/opinion/google-union.html ) compelling:

When Google went public in 2004, it said it would be a company that “does good things for the world even if we forgo some short-term gains.” Its motto used to be “Don’t be evil.”

We will live by that motto. Alphabet is a powerful company, responsible for vast swaths of the internet. It is used by billions of people across the world. It has a responsibility to prioritize the public good. It has a responsibility to its thousands of workers and billions of users to make the world a better place. As Alphabet workers, we can help build that world.

Union dues are a significant financial burden to me right now (I am in danger of losing my house), but I think some sacrifice is necessary for the sake of one's principles, and let's be honest: my "financial burden" is still most people's paradise. I am blessed (one might say "privileged") to not have to worry about homelessness if things don't go well. I can put food on the table for my son. I get care for my mental health conditions. So I can afford to pony up in the hopes of creating a company, and possibly a society, that is better at providing for others.

I will be watching the actions of the union closely. If it is all talk and no effect, I will not stay in it forever. But I'm willing to give it a shot.

LoL, exactly what I said would become the clarion call: Don’t go after him because it’ll be too divisive.

What is not being understood here is that if you DON’T go after him, the US is effectively dead but just doesn’t know it yet. And that’s because it enshrines a precedent and template for criminality that will gut America from the inside in two ways: one, by allowing malign presidential actors to cause whatever harm they want, knowing they WILL get away with it: and two, completely destroying public faith in the rule of law, which will almost certainly cause the public to increasingly act out since “nothing matters” and it will be demonstrably true that there’s one rule for the rich and powerful and another rule for everyone else. That’s a death sentence for the state, IMO.

First Post! Welcome to Cortex, Shackers! Do it for Shacknews!<br /> <br />Read more: <a href="/cortex/article/1/first-post">First Post!</a>