463 karma · joined December 10, 2012
Some suggestions: * Mozilla. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/ , https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN/Getting_started Shoot them a mail and they can probably connect her with a project to work on. MDN in particular can always use someone to browse through the contributions and correct/improve them. They'll even connect you with a mentor to get you started if you ask!
* Open Hatch. http://openhatch.org/search/?q=&contribution_type=documentat... I've tried to use this site in the past, it's a little rough around the edges but if you're looking for single bite-sized tasks you may find them here.
Other than that, try browsing Github issue lists and seeing if there's anything that strikes your fancy?
tl;dr Original content is the new aggregation growth-hack but can't replace a lack of ethics.
It isn't so much of a leap of reasoning to think that a company willing to sell some information about you isn't willing to go further than you'd like them to. Again, it's not that we're worried about them 'leaking' it - we're worried about how they're going to sell and make money off of it.
I think it's just a side-effect of being in an insulated position and knowing a ton more about the subject than most people you work with.
Speaking to your point though, I have a friend who - no joke - hates bowling. Like, he gets violently angry when we suggested going bowling and said he'd rather sit in the car by himself if we went. Some people...
'Progress' and residential gentrification are not necessarily evil things, but they become destructive when the people moving in have no interest in maintaining social services for people other than themselves. If the tech sector wishes to maintain the image that it is an industry with a 'heart', it would behoove those of us working in it to inform ourselves as to the consequences of our economic decisions.
Also, that PayPal 'it' thing seems pretty scummy. Do the engineers get some financial incentive for generating sales leads for the home office?