This is so correct. Men know what consent look like, they just don't care. Same in tech. Men know what harassment looks like, they just don't care enough to stop it.
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Irene Zhang
@irene@discuss.systems
mastodon 4.7.3Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. OS hacker. Cat wrangler. Shoe lover.
3869 Followers
205 Following
50 Posts
Joined November 08, 2022
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Pronouns:
She/her
After about a decade of working on kernel-bypass operating systems, I have a new research direction! I have been thinking for the last year about AI programming models, and some of my thoughts are here: https://www.irenezhang.net/blog/2026/10/06/am-model.html
In #goodnews, I’ve started jumping in my new skates! It took about a year to break them in and get the fit just right but I did my first comfortable feeling waltz jumps today and it’s so much easier with skates that fit! I’m starting on salchows later this week! #figureskating
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@catsalad@infosec.exchange @dan@discuss.systems obviously, Pixel would also generously contribute
Ever seen a #cat chase his own tail? And fall over because he was chasing so hard? Now you have. #catsofmastodon
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@neurovagrant@masto.deoan.org this assumes that they care about killing people, especially women. The tech industry has demonstrated repeatedly that they do not care.
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@neurovagrant@masto.deoan.org I just finished reading Careless people which is a totally unsurprising but trashy book about the choices made by Facebook when their product clearly has the potential to and then did kill people. Per the title, they just did not care. Although it would be more correct to say that they cared about other things, like stock price and growth rates more. It took me most of my 20s/30s to wrap my head around the fact that these people were not just dumb or racist or lazy or anything other than actively malicious. Because they don’t think of most people as people.
ETA: actually it was more like my 30s since it probably started with the first Trump presidency.
Well, a surplus of fruit has made me go on an ice cream making spree. So far I’ve made a rainier cherry and lemon sorbet with rosé and blueberry, roasted cherry, matcha and butter pecan ice cream.
So I went to an allergy specialist at UW medicine recently and in the most Asian twist of all time, HER parents don’t believe that allergies are real either.
New blog post on how to think about systems development in the age of AI. https://www.irenezhang.net/blog/2026/07/06/ai.html #slowsoftware
RE: https://mastodon.scot/@ferryoons/116872107250631458
Has America crossed the asshole threshold and will it inevitably lead to collapse?
America was in the same situation in the 1890s and turned it around. “Millions of people who had every reason to conclude that honesty was for suckers instead went out and found the other cooperators.” Mastodon is how we find each other.
Quoting
Sometimes you come across something that fascinates, and you wish you’d written yourself . Here’s one such.
https://thegrimhistorian.substack.com/p/has-america-crossed-the-asshole-threshold?r=pt3y9&utm_id=97758_v0_s00_e0_tv4_a1dennhb6uf2c4&triedRedirect=true
Open quoted post US politics, Supreme Court
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@joewo@mastodon.social I enjoyed this story about WW2. Sometimes it’s the little things. https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/citroens-genius-act-of-sabotage-against-the-nazis-in-world-war-ii/
RE: https://mastodon.social/@404mediaco/116909664008218378
This is what it’s like being a woman in America (or any authoritarian state)
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A Florida police officer met a woman on a TV set, surveilled her for weeks, stalked her, and nearly caused a head-on collision while chasing her to pull her over.
https://www.404media.co/footage-shows-cop-stalking-woman-he-met-on-a-tv-set-after-surveilling-her-with-a-license-plate-reader/
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@purplepadma@beige.party @fesshole@mastodon.social I mean at this point my cats are probably licking my lips while I sleep so I’ve just accepted it ..
Do you read books by women and from the perspective of women? I’ve always thought that himpathy (a disproportionate level of empathy for men) was due to men simply not being able to imagine themselves as women, while women have been trained their entire lives to put themselves in men’s shoes. Highly recommend this article if you want to learn more. https://sorayachemaly.substack.com/p/26-its-not-only-the-violence-women
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You can read more about it here https://spectrum.ieee.org/untold-history-of-ai-invisible-woman-programmed-americas-first-electronic-computer
Great long article from the author of Rage Becomes Her about the consequences of decentering men. Even if you think of yourself as a feminist, this is a view into how men justify violence against women. https://sorayachemaly.substack.com/p/26-decentering-men-is-not-misandry
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@GeePawHill@mastodon.social everyone in this thread might want to read this. https://irenezhang.net/blog/2024/07/24/misogyny.html
RE: https://mastodon.social/@verge/116840280971002207
What dystopian hellscape is this??
This is exactly the issue in academia and tech. It’s never going to change.
Pixel’s vet today was telling me how happy she is that they have solensia now. Before solensia, cats were just in chronic pain and being prescribed gabapentin but it isn’t too effective for arthritis pain so they’d still be achy. Me with my #fibromyalgia being treated with gabapentin thinking … yes I know exactly what that feels like .. and would I get better medical care if I was a very large cat??
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She gets into this position by first circling around on my chest a few times and then turning her butt towards me, scooting back until only her front paws are on my chest and then sitting down. #cats #catsofmastodon #caturday
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@Ashedryden@xoxo.zone @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io lmao, I broke both bones in my lower leg and required a rod and 12 screws in my ankle and they kept telling me that I probably just sprained my ankle.
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@device@infosec.exchange @GeePawHill@mastodon.social whoops, meant to post this here. I can guarantee that no one who gets a job through the “old boys club” feels guilty about it so just don’t say anything. And when you say unsuitable, you actually mean unsafe. So make it safe or don’t hire women. I see you got some good ideas. I can also bet there are some men who are going to be grateful because the unsafe environment was “unsuitable” for them too but they just masked it. https://discuss.systems/@irene/116816966366927833
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@device@infosec.exchange @feff@comicscamp.club honestly, I would just hire the woman. I know that even if she’s less qualified, she’s going to have better “soft” skills from a lifetime of being expected to do stuff for other people, she’s going to try twice as hard and if it doesn’t work out, it’s not so different from random dude giving a job to his buddy from the golf club.
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@ombialik@mastodon.world and how many years has it been since they’ve done any analysis of their own …?
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@tsturm@famichiki.jp @dan@discuss.systems yeah especially because our Siamese ones are so dog like
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@ireneista@adhd.irenes.space @dan@discuss.systems I suppose democratic women are more prepared to fight him if he tries to sexually assault them …
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@lerxst@az.social @quinn@social.circl.lu one of my friends moved to an HOA subdivision where all the mailboxes are identical. Not the same color, literally identical.
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@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io I’m not sure what phone plan you have now but I’ve been super happy with T-mobile’s international roaming on my pretty basic plan. My phone just works everywhere and it includes 5GB of high speed data basically anywhere that I’d want to go.
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@femme_mal@mstdn.social lol I live in Seattle so my vitamin D is bad. My bone density is quite good due to the skating
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@paulk@writing.exchange is that his own child? (Not any less creepy given his comments about Ivanka when she was a child and speculation about whether he was abusing her)
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@nddev@infosec.space @feff@comicscamp.club @device@infosec.exchange nope, my response was not directly to you. Sorry it came off that way. I should have said, agreed!
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@nddev@infosec.space @feff@comicscamp.club @device@infosec.exchange yeah I’m sympathetic but a lot of things are hard and we do them anyway. For example, almost every woman that I know gets menstrual pain, for some of them it’s debilitating. So they can’t work or have to work through it for a few days every month. Imagine trying to do your job with a smile on your face while you are being stabbed in the stomach and bleeding onto your clothes and that’s probably happening for a non-zero number of the women that you are interacting with at any given time.
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@JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchange I hate it so much too because I did a lot of my growing up in Boston which has a toxic Puritan attitude plus all the Lutherans that @dan@discuss.systems and I are surrounded by.
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@dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz my PCP says he feels gabapentin is generally safer and better for long term use and it’s cheaper so he usually tries it first. If I feel like the gabby doesn’t work well we can try Lyrica later.
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@feff@comicscamp.club @device@infosec.exchange yeah that would be ideal. I think just aggressively trying to find and make sure all the women have been fairly considered is important. But there are probably an equal number of workplaces that refuse to consider soft skills. I’m not saying to hire someone totally unqualified but I’m saying that nepotism and shit like that flies way too often for white men.
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@koushiniku@hachyderm.io @dan@discuss.systems yeah ours stopped taking the pill and I didn’t want to pill him so now it’s back to powdered. He seems to really like this flavor of this Calming Care probiotic the vet recommended for anxiety and it seems to hide some of the taste so we’re using it for now.
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@somebody@circumstances.run in most of Asian they kind of have bad cheese (and are mostly lactose intolerant) but they do compensate with excellent tofu. I’m glad I have access to both.