Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

“Anything At All | blarg”

https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2026/10/08/anything-at-all/

> A trillion dollars into this exercise – end-world-hunger money, end-disease money, save-the-climate-and-end-suffering-and-end-scarcity-forever money with billions of dollars left over, and what the fuck do we have to show for it except complicity and greed?

I'm very proud of my colleagues from our Research Data & Software group. One of the young female software engineers gave a seminar yesterday about the modernisation of our 30 year old in-house library for telescope & instrumentation control, and afterwards someone asked about using LLMs for this sort of thing. She did *not* hold back in her response, saying things like they might fix one thing but create three other problems in the process, that cleaning up the mess they make of your codebase takes far longer than doing the thing yourself in the first place, and accurately labelling them as technical debt generators.

It's so nice to know that at least the professional computer touchers at my workplace are united in continuing to value expertise, quality and maintainability, even as a depressing number of my other colleagues have drunk the Kool-Aid.

I have recently had a glimpse of the other side of this. One of my other colleagues is highly dependant on Claude for everything, and has been working with a couple of contract programmers on creating some new telescope automation software for a couple of their projects. I got asked to help a bit on the hardware side and came away low key horrified.

While the systems they had created mostly worked most of the time it was apparent that none of them had any idea how it worked and could not do anything new with it without getting Claude to do it for them. At one point I asked what I thought was a trivial question, "how do I see the serial numbers of the currently connected hardware?" and the answer was "I'll ask Claude." What followed was 10 minutes of the chatbot trying random stupid things with a running commentary of fake post-hoc justifications masquerading as a thought process until it by chance stumbled upon something that seemed to work and some numbers came out. I pointed out that a quicker check was needed, so Claude was prompted again and eventually spat out a shell script that appeared to do the same thing.

This brute force automated trial and error approach to producing software had produced some superficially impressive results in a short period of time, but the whole thing seemed incredible fragile, utterly dependant on continued unfettered access to Claude in perpetuity and completely unmaintainable otherwise.

I remain convinced that If you generate code by throwing-shit-at-the-wall-and-seeing-what-sticks at scale then the end result will inevitably be a big mess.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@iris_meredith/117369764386434515

It's time, I think, for our regular post that if you enjoy my work and want to support the development of Arca or simply support the writing work that I do, signing up for an early-access subscription is an excellent way to do it and keep me fed and housed in the process. You can do that below:

https://deadsimpletech.com/arca

Alternatively, if you simply want to support the writing work, you can do that through my donation link:

https://donate.stripe.com/6oE2a30hh3my2reeUY

RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/117406795857681781

Those people, often students, approach people at parties, events, and start talking about "AI safety". The best defense is letting them know that you are well aware of "effective altruists", and what a cult they are.

Read here what a dangerous cult they are, from a former member: https://www.realtimetechpocalypse.com/p/effective-altruism-is-a-dangerous

Here are the faces and names of "effective altruists" high up the hierarchy in Germany: https://effektiveraltruismus.de/en/team-en/

One of them tried to sell me their story 10 days ago. He is completely fried: https://ea.greaterwrong.com/users/birk-kaellberg?sort=old (this is not SF to them, they truly believe those things)

He organizes "AI safety" talks in his garden in Heidelberg and the listeners get a free dinner. He says their money comes from "philanthropists". I was rude, made fun of their prophet Yudkowsky, and he ended up giggling nervously and self-soothing by caressing his fingers. Then he switched to chatting up students.

Honestly, I haven't been so creeped out by a cult since Opus Dei! They have money and can pull in uninformed people. Spread the word! Make it embarrassing to engage with EA!

#AI #noAI #technofascism #technoOptimism

Microsoft can't afford to proofread the slide decks for their HIGH PROFILE PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS by the CEO any more.

It's true, relying on AI *really does* rot the brain.

This Ronan Farrow interview has some important information with anyone struggling with getting their medicare/medicaid, private insurance, etc. due to "poor" customer service (tl;dw it's a bug not a feature).

https://youtu.be/9SAgLMahZm4?si=XKjYJj4CvTsjN6z2&t=1190

Linux Magazine talked to us about how and why we build Bonfire.

What we want next is "not a bigger Bonfire, but a network of cooperatives covering the whole supply chain of a community's digital space", who "do it together" rather than leave you to "do it yourself".

Because "federation, we don't see it as just a technical thing. We see it as a social, economic, and political tool as well."

Link: Supporting the Social Web: How the Fediverse Found Parts for Its Platforms

Also happy to spread the love for @coopcloud@social.coop, @coquest@social.coop, @SocialCoop@social.coop and more, check out the links at the end of the article! Thanks to @horncologne@fosstodon.org for a lovely conversation, and @linuxmagazine@fosstodon.org for publishing it, in a piece that also features the great @cwebber@social.coop and @tsyesika@mastodon.nu from @spritely@social.coop.

#fediverse #ActivityPub #opensource #freesoftware #OpenCooperativeEcosystem #OpenScienceNetwork

"What is gender?", from our "A is for Anarchy" series, is now available in Farsi!

Thanks and solidarity to the comrades from @anarchistfront and @kompektiva

«جنسیت چیست؟»، از مجموعهٔ «الف برای آنارشی» ما، اکنون به زبان فارسی در دسترس است!

https://kolektiva.media/w/hCoz8AiEnk1sZMb5U2uJyc

“They used terms like ‘They’re hunting our workforce.’ They’re describing disappearing workers,” LaJeunesse said. “Most of these firms are pretty conservative, so this is a real phenomenon we’re picking up on, that level of concern over immigration enforcement.”

Face-eating leopards eating faces...

https://newjerseymonitor.com/2026/10/08/repub/immigration-skilled-workers/

#NewJersey

🔵 This week's Tom the Dancing Bug
-
MARK ZUCKERBERG PRESENTS "A.I. AND U!"
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Brought to you by the heroic Inner Hive, including long-time member Casey 2 and new member Steven Titmus! (https://tomthedancingbug.com/the-inner-hive/)
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READ IT RIGHT HERE👇

i just got informed that i will have my orchiectomy in a month!

because health insurance sucks, i will need to pay for it out of pocket, and i will also need to rent a car to get to the clinic on the day of the surgery.

i will probably need around 800 euros.

i would really appreciate any amount of help towards being able to pay for it!! also please boost!!! ​

https://paypal.me/visneKedi
(DM for SEPA stuff if you prefer that)

#mutualAid #transMutualAid

"If AI had existed in the early aughts, we could not have accelerated Zotero's conception, because we did not know exactly what we wanted, and so could not have written coherent prompts for an LLM. Instead, it took a great deal of time and collaboration to develop a clear vision for what Zotero should be. But that slow formation led to software that was durable rather than ephemeral, with a strong foundation that could be built upon." https://newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-slow-formation-of-durable-software/

The first #NoAiRheinNeckar meetup is taking place in Heidelberg on the 21st of October, starting at 18:00 (6PM). It is a safe space for people who refuse to engage with genAI. If you would like to join us, direct message @jlink and/or me, and we are going to tell you the location and invite you to the meetup's Signal group.

#Heidelberg #Mannheim #Ludwigshafen #Weinheim #MetropolregionRheinNeckar #noAI

Just remember, the vast majority of people had shitty lives *before* AI.

“Dark Patterns In A Dark Forest | blarg”

https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2026/10/07/dark-patterns-in-a-dark-forest/

> The common thread underneath all of this is the greed and moral cowardice of technology leadership and their regression-to-the-mean of management-by-metrics.

“Mythos: not the magical AI hacking tool after all – Pivot to AI”

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/10/07/mythos-not-the-magical-ai-hacking-tool-after-all/

scottish parliament's short survey on hyperscale data centres opened today & closes on 15 november, so get on it!
#scotland #dataCentres #AI #scotgov
https://yourviews.parliament.scot/329/hyper-scale-data-centres-short-survey/

Abolish AI! comes to KU

<p>🗓️ Start: October 26, 2026 17:30<br />⏳ End: October 26, 2026 19:30<br />📍 Location: University of Copenhagen, CSS room 15.3.01, University of Copenhagen, CSS room 15.3.01</p><p>Due to popular demand, Abolish AI! comes to KU!</p><p>featuring: AI-free zone &amp; the Theater of the Oppressed</p><p>We’ll practice interactive scenarios to help you:<br />* Navigate situations where a teacher or a manager might be pushing you to use “AI”<br />* Learn to resist and dismantle “AI” narratives<br />* Network with other peers who reject the logic of the machine<br />* Build a space free of “AI”, and full of strong social bonds, deep knowledge, and convivial tools</p><p>To get in touch with the organizers: <a href="mailto:ai-abolition@proton.me">ai-abolition@proton.me</a></p><p>Location: KU CSS, bygning 15, room 15.3.01</p><figure><img width="1024" height="497" src="https://abolish-ai.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Screenshot-from-2026-10-08-09-10-37-1024x497.png" alt="" /></figure> https://abolish-ai.net/event/abolish-ai-comes-to-ku/

https://youtu.be/M7kB0lis3xg
First half very on point. 2nd half a bit less so. Obvious points but good to see them aired:
The heavier the vehicle that crashes into your vehicle the greater the likelihood you die.
The higher the bonnet* of the vehicle that runs into a pedestrian the greater the likelihood they die.

Heavy, high bonneted vehicles are more dangerous. I feel we should have much much higher taxes on them and possibly ban certain of them outright.

#PedestrianSafety #DriverSafety #CyclistSafety #VehicleRegulation

*hood in American.