Hi geeks! Music, with new King Gizzard and Yôkaï.

On the news,

• [fr] Tu mourras moins bête - Mercredi, babyboomerie.
• Correlating Covid-19 cases and negative reviews of unscented candles (people who lost their sense of smell and haven't realized it yet). Via waxy and HN.
• Good comics! xkcd #2390: Linguists and SMBC: Fisher of men.
• Tech:
  • Vice: Exposing Amazon’s surveillance of labor and environmental groups. Fucking Pinkerton, seriously?! Via DF and HN and r/privacy. Related: Amazon workers to stage coordinated black Friday protests in 15 countries (HN). Also, NPR: Amazon has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions (HN).

    "It’s not enough for Amazon to abuse its dominant market power and face antitrust charges by the EU; now they are exporting 19th century American union-busting tactics to Europe", Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union, a global federation of trade unions that represents more than 20 million workers, told Motherboard. "This is a company that is ignoring the law, spying on workers, and using every page of the U.S. union-busting playbook to silence workers' voices".

    "For years people have been comparing Big Tech bosses to 19th century robber barons", she continued. "And now by using the Pinkertons to do his dirty work, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is making that connection even clearer".

  • Wolfie Christl: Esoteric metrics based on analyzing extensive data about employee activities has been mostly the domain of fringe software vendors. Now it's built into MS 365, and Gizmodo: Microsoft's creepy new 'Productivity Score' gamifies workplace surveillance, and DHH's take on it. HN1, HN2, merci Heinz.
  • NYT: Amazon hires 427,000 people in 10 months, bringing its global work force to more than 1.2 million 🤯. HN.
  • DF: Apple is not backing down on postponed "App Tracking Transparency" feature in iOS 14, good job on this front, Apple.
  • jblow (via Blow Fan): The problem with online communities.
  • NYT: Facebook struggles to balance civility and growth.