aral

aral, 1 year ago to opensource

I swear anyone who explains to me what #FOSS is again gets an instant block.

I’ve freely shared nearly everything I’ve created in four decades of programming and I’ve been writing free software exclusively, at great personal expense, for over a decade. (So I haven’t been working at fucking Google or Facebook and hacking on my personal hobby project in the evenings, which seems to be a particularly common trait among #fossbros)

FOSS is just one feature of #SmallTech.

https://small-tech.org/about/#small-technology

nattiegoogie, 1 year ago to random

So ... I've been in IT for 20+ years, most of that time working directly in databases.

That whole thing about Twitter, FB, Reddit, Google, whoever ... "deleting" your data after you jump thru the right hoops.

That's all bullshit.

I mean, even apart from the whole "market, monetize, sell and spy on our userbase" thing.

DBAs, people who actually work with databases, we almost never actually delete stuff in a database.

1/

aral, 1 year ago to random

Carbon offsets are how we venerate people who piss in pools if they help pay for urinals.

#carbonOffsets #greenWashing #climateCrisis

bascule, 1 year ago to random

Dear Anderson Cooper: do you think platforming Trump is going to make him go away?

"Anderson Cooper scolds critics of CNN’s town hall with Trump: Do you think staying in your silo ... is going to make that person go away?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/12/anderson-cooper-trump-town-hall/

aral, 1 year ago to accessibility

So shitbag company #AudioEye is suing @aardrian:

https://adrianroselli.com/2023/05/audioeye-is-suing-me.html

This is after sending him spurious cease and desist letters last year:

https://adrianroselli.com/2022/04/my-cease-desist-from-audioeye.html

What is AudioEye?

It’s Magic Techbro Dust¹ you sprinkle on your website to – poof! – make it accessible.

Only it seems to keep getting folks sued for being inaccessible:

https://sheribyrnehaber.medium.com/more-lawsuits-filed-against-companies-using-accessibility-plugin-overlays-1cc539d493b2

Almost like you can’t magically make an inaccessible site accessible or something… 🤔

¹ “accessibility plugin/overlay”

#a11y #web

aral, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago) to SmallWeb

I do rather love being able to run tail¹ on my database tables² as I work on building Domain³ with Kitten⁴ ;)

(JSDB keeps tables in an append-only JavaScript log which are read fully into memory when the database is opened. And yes, if you noticed the class names, you can store custom objects.)

¹ Actually: tail -f <database path>/table.js | bat --paging=never --language=js
² https://codeberg.org/small-tech/jsdb
³ https://codeberg.org/domain/app
⁴ https://codeberg.org/kitten/app

#SmallWeb #JSDB #Domain #Kitten #databases

nattiegoogie, 1 year ago to random

Watching @aral et al rage against the machines, this has been on my mind for awhile.

Bear with me.

Corporations are not evil.

They are constructs; artificial life forms defined and designed by us, just trying to survive in an artificial ecosystem we created for them.

When we see "evil" corps rise to the top, and "good" corps go bankrupt...that is just an indication that we have designed them poorly.

A bad algorithm.

We do not need to "fight evil corps".

We need to redefine what a corp is.

joshuafoust, 1 year ago to random

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riley, 1 year ago to random

It's just so strange to me how many people are not receptive to being told

"Hey maybe we shouldn't have all of our computers based on proprietary operating systems and APIs controlled by a single corporation"

"Hey maybe we shouldn't have web traffic directed and organized through search by a single corporation"

"Hey maybe the way that we talk to each other online shouldn't be owned and controlled through algorithms and advertising managed by a single corporation"

mirjam_diala, 1 year ago to random

I'm working on a talk and I'm in this weird place where it's basically Schrödingers talk for me: Nobody has seen it yet, so it could be great or aweful - I've lost all feeling for that at the moment.

Do other know this feeling?! Like: "Hey this is really good... or absolutly rubbish, could go both ways 🤷‍♀️"

breadandcircuses, 1 year ago to politics

A group of 18 European Parliament Members have issued a statement officially calling for #Degrowth.

Here is part of what they wrote...

---

We believe that the current economic model, based on endless growth, has reached its limits.

Firstly, continuous economic growth, especially based on the consumption of fossil fuels, is leading to catastrophic global warming.

Secondly, the infinite pursuit of growth relies on the depletion of natural resources, the destruction of biodiversity, and the accumulation of waste and pollution. This also poses risks to our health, our economies, and our societies writ large.

Thirdly, the current economic model is contributing to social inequality and exclusion. The emphasis on economic growth has not translated into equal distribution of wealth or opportunities. Instead, it has resulted in a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few leaving many behind.

Fourthly, the current economic model is inherently unstable and prone to crises, as seen, for example, during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The pursuit of growth at all costs has created a global economic system that is fragile and vulnerable to shocks.

We need an economic system that prioritises human well-being and ecological sustainability over GDP growth, one that recognises that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.

We also believe we need to find new ways of organising our economies without relying on the continuous exploitation of resources and the constant increase in production and consumption.

We call for more pluralism in economic thinking within EU institutions and for its alignment with the scientific evidence of climate, ecological, and social sciences.

We call for economic models and other decision-support tools to be more diverse, more comprehensive, and more readable for citizens.

We call for decision-making processes to be aligned with our common policy objectives rather than on the basis of the variation of GDP figures.

---

FULL STATEMENT -- https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/10/moving-beyond-growth-is-not-only-desirable-it-is-essential

Names of those who signed on as co-authors: Philippe Lamberts (BE), Bas Eickhout (NL), Ville Niinisto (FI), Manuela Ripa (DE), Marie Toussaint (FR), Ernest Urtasun (ES), Kim Van Sparrentak (NL) — Greens/EFA; Manon Aubry (FR), Petros Kokkalis (EL), Marisa Matias (PT), Helmut Scholz (DE) — The Left (GUE/NGL); Pascal Durand (FR), Aurore Lalucq (FR), Pierre Larrouturou (FR) — Socialists & Democrats (S&D); Sirpa Pietikainen (FI), Maria Walsh (IE) — European People’s Party (EPP); Katalin CSEH (HU) — Renew Europe (RE); and Dino GIARRUSSO (IT) — Non-attached (NI).

#Europe #EU #Politics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Biodiversity #Pollution #Inequality

atomicpoet, 1 year ago to random

The event that made me leave mastodon.social was the decision by Mastodon gGmbh to make that the default server for new registrations.

Rather than shrug and ask, “What can we do?”—and do nothing—I realized that this is the Fediverse. I’ve got options.

I don’t have to be part of any server that gives me the “No!” feeling.

Despite being a member of mastodon.social for 5 years, and donating money to the project, I think it’s going in the wrong direction.

“But Chris, what about growth?” Some have said.

If growth comes at the expense of decentralization, I don’t want growth.

“But Chris, people don’t care about decentralization!”

Then we’ll make them care. If they don’t care now, they’ll care tomorrow.

And we’ll do this by making decentralized social media that’s so good, you’ll never go back to Big Social.

We can’t compromise on this aspect. I don’t care what certain folks say, you can’t achieve decentralization through centralization.

Some people call this idealism.

If so, this idealist took the practical step up leaving mastodon.social.

SomaFMrusty, 1 year ago to random

deleted_by_author

aral, 1 year ago to SmallWeb

Anyone here know anyone from Paddle that you can put me in touch with? (Or share your experience with them?)

I’m reconsidering whether Stripe is the right solution for the initial payments option in Domain (https://codeberg.org/domain/app) or whether it makes more sense (and would be easier for folks who want to run their own Domain instances and become Small Web hosts) if I integrated a Merchant of Record (MoR) solution instead.

#SmallWeb #commerce #Domain #merchantOfRecord #MoR #stripe #paddle #tax

aral, 1 year ago to random

Money is a legal fiction.