robtherobber

I was indeed referring to the mole. I find that behaviour reprehensible.

There is always that one person who ruins the game for everyone, metaphorically speaking. Despicable behaviour.

Google kept increasing its profits since then, and it was one of the most successful businesses out there way before they changed the business model to become enshittified. The argument that their business model changed because people wouldn't pay for its services doesn't really stand.

I've always been of two minds about this. I get the pushback against anglicisation - many in the world don't speak or wish to speak English. But, surely, we can all agree that adopting a lingua franca is beneficial for most; this way, people from China, South America, Korea, Sri Lanka, and Germany have a common method to implement interfunctional systems.

Sad state of affairs.

I think we may have different interpretations for makes an individual interesting, or I'm misreading your comment.

This is at the opposite spectrum of interesting to me (on David Heinemeier Hansson):

> He wrote a blog post, “As I remember London”, in which he uses numerous racist, fascist, and ethno-nationalist dog-whistles while calling for the ethnic cleansing via forced removal of non-white people from the UK and other countries. Another of David’s posts, “Wolves, sheep, and gypsies” compares Roma people to wolves and again calls for an ethnic cleansing.

I never paid too much attention to what happens behind the screens, in the OS software realpolitik realm, but for some reason I kept assuming - incorrectly, it seems - that most people who show a deep appreciation to the open source philosophy are leaning more to the left philosophically (i.e. "let's help people", "let's empower them to make their own society and here are some tools", "let's share stuff", "let's open the industries, ideas, and solutions to everyone" etc.) rather than right. But I guess there's no shortage of nuance, variety and surprise in this realm, just like in any other complex one.

It would certainly make me think twice about using some of these solutions.

> CERN engineers had considered moving to CentOS Stream as a more natural pathway but ultimately they say "the straw that broke the camel's back" to abandon Red Hat Enterprise Linux was the "-march=x86-64-v2" compiler flag default as "forced obsolescence" for old hardware.

I think I read recently about another large company or institution that cited the same reason for moving away from a major Linux-based OS.

I suppose you're correct, and it's my frustration speaking there. That said, the internet is absolutely immense in terms of articles to read, an arguably poor source is simply not worth the effort.

Every now and then I'd come across articles from this source and thought that they were decent. Perhaps not the best, but reasonably well researched and argued. But coming across this statement kind of sealed the deal for me in the wrong way:

> Instead of paying more to recycle, we could spend that money far more effectively on other environmental mitigation measures like carbon capture.

Pure unadulterated bollocks, I'm sorry to say. I shall flag this source whenever emerges in my feed.

> Sufficiently well-worn cotton tote bags can beat plastic for environmental cost, but only for the most consistent among us.

We simply don't need to rely on the "most consistent among us", because these things -- and so, so many others -- can be legislated, enforced, stopped, controlled etc. Businesses make and sell plastic bags because no one stops them and they're convenient (as well as a serious environmental problem). Should governments do the job they are supposed to do (or simply step aside and let the society organise in that particular respect), plastic bags would cease to be a problem.

I am somewhat disappointed, I guess.

I initially liked using Monica, even though it was a huge pain to self host it - the installation process in particular. It felt like I was putting together a spatial ship - error after error, warning after warning. A rather frustrating experience. And after I finally managed to install it, I've used it for half a year and it felt like a lot of work to keep it updated, get used to the processes / logic behind the system etc. Furthermore, I realised that it's basically an immense liability - all my contacts and private details about myself and them in one single place.

As such, my rules for a personal CRM are as follows:

1. No server to maintain; it should be an old school piece of software that I can install on my PC/phone etc.

2. I like the idea of being able to update it from different locations and using different devices; the only service acceptable here is for the makers to either offer a paid-for sync service or a method for users to sync the data between devices themselves. Not an essential service to me though.

3. No unencrypted data should be allowed, regardless of whether it stays local or it's synced across devices, or whether it's live or a backup file.

4. Backup, import, and any data handling should be easy as a breeze. Should I open my backup / db export done with version 1.0 with a fresh installation v9999 it should work flawlessly, no errors, no hiccups, no file corruption, no issues whatsoever. That data is the one reason for the software to exist and the only valuable entity in the whole scheme; if it becomes unusable, it's beyond frustrating and not a good solution to even consider.

5. No updates should be forced, ever. If my OS supports version 0.5 until year 3500, the CRM should continue work as expected. Security updates should be entirely separate than feature / bugs etc. I accept security updates within reason, in many cases I would much rather risk my PC to be hacked and data to fall in the wrong hands, than corrupt it or lose it due to some feature update I never requested or needed.

> Trade will muddle through somehow. Where there is a buck to be made people can be innovative and bold.

That's what I believe as well. Once the opportunity arises, another power or group of interest will seize it, as it's always been the case throughout history. It may take a while, that's true, but just like we can't turn back to a world without countries anytime soon, we can't turn back to a world without commerce anytime soon.

In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that we should not want a state like the US to be the guarantor of such a system, if only because it will do everything in its power to keep this planet burning just so it can maintain various leverages of power.

Regardless of what the US does in this particular respect, the current economic philosophy is nothing short of disastrous on some key aspects and it needs changing fast, something that the US is determined to prevent from happening. As such, I suspect that there will be tremendous suffering globally regardless of this particular situation, having a so-called guarantor won't make much of a difference - it may very well be the opposite.

Oh, grow up.

Sorry, but that's AI slop

> That debate is noise. The real questions are technical, not political.

> The core problem isn't that Omarchy is wrong. It's that it limits too much.

> Perhaps I can be blamed for using windows

That would be unreasonable, I argue. No one should have to worry about the security of their devices and data privacy based on which OS they use. Whilst it can be argued that different OSs serve different needs, privacy and security should not be debatable. In fact, most countries have dedicated legislation for this; whether it's just, applied correctly, or serves the public before any other party are indeed discussions to be had.

Concerning situation, I think. And I suspect (perhaps wrongly) that there are even more reasons for concern with technology that can track, capture, leak etc. information that's more sensitive or valuable, depending on how one wishes to look at it. Mobile phones, computers, routers etc. -- all have the potential to siphon out valuable information to a bad actor, especially when it comes to espionage, military, commercial etc. This has already happened at a significant scael, so it's not a remote scenario.

At the very least, governments and institutions should develop a framework to investigate all acquired technology. The community / civil society could also create something similar, a script that would analyse at a deep level everything that can be analysed with a piece of software even by a complete novice.

A community-sourced website to track these would be amazing.

Original title: "CEO who fired 900 employees on Zoom and allegedly called employees ’monkeys’ is sued by own company"

Original title: "Pilots and Flight Attendants Are Bombarded by Cosmic Radiation—And Getting Deadly Cancers From It"

Original title: "The Power of the Bittersweet: Susan Cain on Longing as the Fulcrum of Creativity"

The article itself reads like a PR piece against democratic oversight and pro-police. For example:

> The new system has its detractors who worry about an “acoustic assault.”

Detractors? Let's go ahead and call them "criminals who wish to avoid the righteous laws".

> They’re on their way to an emergency with the siren blaring, but a driver fails to clear the path for the police cruiser.

An "emergency", you see.

Full title: Salem Brought a Guillotine To Oppose New Data Center. Company Reps Left, Feeling “Unsafe”.

Full title: "Analysis: UK newspaper editorial opposition to climate action overtakes support for first time"

Original title: Sam Altman says AI won't shorten the workweek because humans secretly enjoy being busy

Not disputing this possibility. But we should also keep in mind that the company itself has admitted in the past it has censored certain speech (for right or wrong reasons) on its platforms [0] and that it wasn't the first or the only time when it has done that. [1][2]

It has censored content for a variety of reasons, including to comply with government requests (which may very well be the case here, I don't see why it's not possible) [3]. In fact, the company has backtracked a number of it previous promises, when it positioned itself as a bastion for accurate information. [4]

I'm not trying to portray it as some kind of Big Tobacco monster, but it would be naive to believe that it's here for the benefit of anyone other than the shareholders.

[0] https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/google-admi...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google

[2] https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/2010-...

[3] https://www.manchesterdigital.com/post/manchester-digital/go...

[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/26/how-google-abandoned-facts-f...

It's hard not to answer to such titles with versions of "Eating food is a mistake; here's how to cut down on food so you can die with more money in your pocket".

While Hayek - the article mentions his elucubrations - wasn't altogether a hack, he wasn't exactly a well-meaning economist when he recast economic inequality and private power as secondary problems, while portraying state planning as the primary threat to liberty; not only that it's not actually supported by evidence (unlike the opposite comclusion), but liberty is very much a wishy-washy concept that can be shaped into multiple meanings without saying or doing anything tangible (basically he managed to convince lawmakers that universal freedom is really perfectly aligned with business interests - we knew back then that it was a ridiculous claim and it is painfully obvious now why).

He's also put quite a bit of effort into blurring the distinction between authoritarian central planning and ordinary democratic intervention such as public ownership, redistribution and economic regulation. So, no thank you. We've had so, so much of this nonsense already.

Was there a link to the project on Github? I think that you've mistakenly shared Github's search tool/path

Whilst I understand that reasoning, I disagree with it. Private insurance should not be necessary to begin with, and if it must exist for whatever rational reason, the insurance should be public as well. Anything that has to do with healthcare (not talking about optional cosmetic surgery, of course) should be handled by / via public healthcare services.

Furthermore, I would say that it's wrong to look at the situation in terms of "reducing the burden on the NHS Dental", since that is literally what's there for. If people don't opt for cosmetic surgery, then it's a healthcare issue and we created this institution/branch for this very purpose. Otherwise we can easily end up speaking in terms of how much of a burden being alive is, and how eating (regular) food and drinking water are poor economic decisions, a topsy-turvy way of looking at the very reason to have an 'economy'.

Are we going to pretend that this is what's in the article, or are we going to engage with the substance of the article?

AI development is not purely a private-sector achievement, it never was. Governments fund research, infrastructure, education, energy systems, procurement and industrial policy that make large-scale AI possible. So taxpayers already absorb part of the cost and risk, while private companies seek to keep the resulting assets and profits for themselves.

If we look at how (or on what) AI is built, it becomes obvious that it's not even a public funding matter only, since these tools effectively extract humanity's accumulated language, writing, research, culture and knowledge. Not private info, not private resources, not some person's secret invention, but our shared knowledge. The companies have enclosed a collectively produced resource and converted it into private property.

Furthermore, we either accept that IP is legitimate / a strong argument, in which case humanity should have a easy claim over the knowledge used to build AI, or that IP is weak / a bit of a joke, in which case AI companies' claims to exclusive proprietary control are automatically weak and we have even more reason to nationalise these services.

No, thank you. As long as better options exist - and they do - I shan't.