Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

A follow up to this thread: https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@lightweight/117554943841527164 - we need to break people idea that 'someone being paid to say something' is inherently credible.. or that it's more credible than, say, the view of an unpaid volunteer from within the community.

The latter often have far more knowledge and far better incentives.

If we could unseat that widespread misconception, the world would be a much much better place.

In other news, I'm increasingly compelled by lived experience groups.

I used to support cap-and-trade/carbon credits as a means of controlling carbon emissions, but I now see it as the libertarian-fantasy accountability-laundering mechanism that it has become. It has allowed companies like Tesla to earn tens of billions of dollars by…uh…*not* making gas cars, and it’s allowed companies to dump concentrated pollution into poorer communities by “buying credits” elsewhere.

Basically, it’s the carbon equivalent of paying parking tickets but continuing to park illegally, or gladly paying you Tuesday for a hamburger today: it’s permission at a price; it’s legalized kicking of the can down the line and making it somebody else’s problem.

Treating the globe as a fungible carbon sink doesn’t seem to be working. Local decisions matter, and local destruction cannot be offset by diffuse improvement. I think harsh regulation is the only real way to do this: “You shall not pollute,” not “You shall not pollute without paying someone else to stop.”

I wrote about that yesterday: https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@lightweight/117551373432104733

Note that what I say about 'Big Tech' incentives apply to all proprietary software, because, once purchased, the vendor has effective monopoly for that software over the purchaser. The power balance is the same.

The EU has finally, in 2020, produced this report: https://euipo.europa.eu/tunnel-web/secure/webdav/guest/document_library/observatory/documents/reports/2020_Open_Source_software/2020_OSS_Full_EN.pdf in which they belatedly recognise the value of libre software to the EU. Let's see if they manage to push back the Big Tech/Four lobbyists now. 🤞🏻

10/n

The reason all of this continues to be interesting to me is that solar power fundamentally changes the power dynamics of the state.

The classic definition of The State is an organization with a monopoly on the use of violence within its borders. A societal dependency on supply chains - the power grid, the oil industry - that can be cut off at will is one of and maybe the foremost levers of that violence, more so than police or the military.

Solar+batteries changes that entire relationship.

"Carbon capture" is clearly nonsense. Solar is clearly not.

Where do public service decision makers gain the knowledge and insight they use to make procurement decisions? Few of them are actual IT practitioners. I'm sure most are quite dedicated to their roles & responsibilities though. So they read what they think is relevant. They go to conferences, *all* sponsored by Big Tech. They ask the Big Four. They ask Big Tech affiliate Gartner what's important. In short they develop an entirely seamless, rosy view of the world, with great swag & muffins.

5/n

Nope. The Big Four are looking at global revenue streams. Their biggest customers are probably gov'ts... but their biggest sources of business are, in the IT space, Big Tech. So it's in their interest to always 'put their finger on the scale' to ensure Big Tech wins any procurement process... because it brings them the most new business. It's a mutual back slapping exercise. It's pretty much out in the open, but relies on 'low level' lack of ethics across lots of corporations. 🤔 Plausible?
3/n

Tell Senate Commerce to reject Danielle Thumann Severs as FCC commissioner.

As staffer for Trump censorship czar Brendan Carr, she’s done nothing to rein in his abuses.

https://freedom.press/action/write-a-letter-opposing-danielle-thumann-severs-confirmation-as-fcc-commissioner/

We're hosting a Mainline Linux on Mobile devroom at FOSDEM 2027! If you have anything interesting to talk about (hardware enablement, Linux distributions, apps, UI's, firmware, etc) feel free to submit a talk!

More details at https://lists.fosdem.org/hyperkitty/list/fosdem@lists.fosdem.org/thread/JQKHIWO4JF5GCQVXCV26YODSILVIDSWN/

#fosdem #fosdem2027 #linuxmobile #mainline #linux

This is a self-own, isn’t it

#google #ai #beEvil

“Google is entirely disabling Search in schools that don’t want AI”

https://www.theverge.com/tech/1025411/google-turn-off-search-ai-features

RE: https://federate.social/@mattblaze/117485422099789189

🗣 LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK ⚟

i campaigned in the aughts for the system we have in place in #NewYork:

- hand-marked paper ballots
- optical scanning devices

i miss the sound of the old hand-cranked voting machines, but am proud to have been part of the group of #tech activists who educated #NYS citizens and politicians into choosing the best of both analog and digital technologies for our current voting infrastructure.

there is no #blackboxvoting in #NYS thanks to our efforts

After the reporting on Proton CEO Andy Yen pushing AI on workers and broader issues at the company last week, Proton employees are pushing for their colleagues to unionize and make sure Yen is held to account.

More info here: https://molecule.build

RE: https://masto.ai/@transworld/117549325566668608

To nobody's surprise, the racist pile of linear algebra is also transphobic.

#AI #noAI #LLM #LLMs #technofascism #racism #transphobia

I'm urgently looking for work and would appreciate boosts!

• Start: Immediate
• Location: Australia (UTC+8)
• Type: Remote
• Field: Back-end, front-end, full-stack, embedded
• Experience: 6 years professional, 15 years hobbyist
• Programming: Rust, C, C++, Go, Java, C#, Python, Typescript, Javascript, HTML, CSS, and more
• Tools: AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, Docker, Postgres, Nix, GraphQL, gRPC, Linux, OpenTelemetry, and more
• Interests: High-performance computing, low-level programming, distributed systems, embedded devices
• Email: shy.goose1613@fastmail.com
• Website: https://stikić.com

#fedihire #fedihire_au #Fedihired #GetFediHired #hireme #rust #c #cpp #golang

Someone is having a very bad day 😁

#AI #SysAdmin #Linux

"But it's still better than the alternative!"

If they behave like mere human placeholders between GOP right wing/fascist regimes, as they have done for most of my adult life, the next GOP regime will be even more destructive.

And it *will* come. It will.

I have no confidence in these people. None.

Become a Friend of PM, and support independent radical publishing. We’ll send you books monthly, and you'll get 50% off of everything on our website year-round. You’ll also receive this scarf free! Offer ends 12/1. https://www.pmpress.org/product/friends-of-pm-press-monthly-membership-print-plus

As a citizen of the Fascist States of America, I already did my electoral duty earlier. I'm not going to pretend voting doesn't matter, because it does, it's just not the end of politics that too many seem to think it is.

I had choices with differences. One choice was between a fascist claiming to stand up to fascism when it's convenient, and an authoritarian bully. Another was between a pretty basic liberal and a fascist. About twenty options were folks running unopposed for local positions. Taking into account only my possible choices, best case is status quo. I really, really hate that this is the system we're stuck with, the greatest democracy on the planet, if you're to believe this country's patriotic morons.

Fuck that. I vote because it's literally the least I can do. And without massive changes, and waking Americans the fuck up, that's all it will ever be, and we'll continue this cycle until we've cooked the planet, kicked off a final world war, or whatever manages to end humanity.

I'm not optimistic.

#uspol

Author: In my book, I described the Feature Factory as a cautionary tale

Tech CEO: At long last we have created the Feature Factory from classic product management guidebook Don't Create The Feature Factory

#tech #software #programming

The Peter Principle posits that people are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. What happens *after* that point? https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/petered