Earlier this year, while running through my usual patrol duties of online harassment discussions, I began to notice a conversational pattern. Usually there are several similar branches of conversation within this topic, particularly visually apparent in actual indented threads. (ex: reddit) I noticed that one branch of the discussion often seemed to be trimmed in the same place. Right around here:Thus, taking a cue from Godwin's Law:As a discussion about online harassment and bullying grows longer, the probability of a commenter linking to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory approaches 1.Of course, this version doesn't preclude Godwin's Law within the discussion itself. But one other similarity between linking the GIFT comic law and Godwin's Law is part of one of the latter's established corollaries: once Godwin's Law has been fulfilled, the discussion is finished. Or at least, that branch of it.The GIFT is used as a convenient explanation for why...

One of the best Computing Science courses I took in university was actually more of a writing course. It focused on some of the well-known disastrous case studies of our field. It warned us against both technological utopianism and the idea that technology is somehow neutral in our society. It served us well by reminding us who our products work for: the users. People. Society. Humanity.I was indirectly reminded of this years later while working for a company in the hotel industry. Our dev team was being led and assisted by a few outside consultants. Along with architecture, processes, and best practices, part of their job was to change the dev team's culture. One teaching that has stuck with me is to actively fight the urge to develop an Us vs. Them mentality across teams. Dev vs. QA. Dev vs. Sales. Dev vs. Marketing. Dev vs. Management. The fact is,...