strypey

strypey, 7 months ago to random

In #YoungSheldon s01e13, a TV news announcer says;

"... an unusually bad 'flu season is buffeting the country. Doctor say the strain, originating in China, is particularly severe. Children and the elderly are most at risk."

... and Sheldon, panicking, says;

"We're all gonna die!"

... then his mother Mary says;

"But you need to understand that sometimes the news says those things just to scare people."

Hmmm...

#COVID

strypey, 4 months ago to humanrights

I've only just got back in the studio for the new calendar year, and there's already yet another online mob forming against freedom of expression, this time targeting SubStack. I agree with #ElleGriffin;

"Substack shouldn’t decide what we read.

We should."

https://www.elysian.press/p/substack-writers-for-community-moderation

The SubStack founders agree, and that's why I have the new Disintermedia and BridgeSeat.nz newsletters hosted there.

#HumanRights #FreeSpeech

strypey, 7 months ago to random

I'm writing a blog piece about the Digital Markets Act in the EU, and legislation of the same name in the UK. As well as others laws in play or on the horizon to regulate digital services.

So what does the fediverse think of the #DigitalMarketsAct?

#AskFedi

strypey, 3 months ago to privacy

"After quizzing these companies about data practices, I learned that most are sharing what’s happening in my home with Amazon, too. Our data is the price of entry for devices that want to integrate with Alexa. Amazon’s not only eavesdropping — it’s tracking everything happening in your home."

#GeoffreyAFowler, 'Alexa has been eavesdropping on you this whole time'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/06/alexa-has-been-eavesdropping-you-this-whole-time/

#privacy #surveillance #Amazon #Alexa

strypey, 3 months ago to ai

One of the biggest problems with the phrase "artificial intelligence" is that decades of criti-hyping sci-fi has endowed it with the meaning "simulated mind". But human technology is no closer to creating that than we were in the 1950s. As AI experts like #DavidChapman tirelessly point out, humans haven't even developed a philosophy of mind accurate enough to tell us what a simulated mind would be simulating.

(1/2)

#AI

strypey, 9 months ago to random

"If you're only prepared to make popular decisions as a leader though, then what is the point of leadership? It's not really leadership is it. It's just focus-grouping. It's just polling. Instead of laying out a platform, debating its merits, and pursuing a really distinct vision, you might as well just have a smartphone app or a website, on which everyone votes for every little policy."

#JakeTame, 2023

Quoted in Midweek #MediaWatch on #RNZ:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018898749/midweek-mediawatch-too-much-information-too-soon

#NZPolitics #leadership

strypey, 8 months ago to Podcast

Holy-christ-on-a-stick. #Listening to the Northland candidates debate is like being one of the few people at the dance party who aren't tripping balls:

https://theworkinggroup.podbean.com/e/nz-taxpayers-union-and-working-group-election-debate-northland/

#Podcast #TheWorkingGroup #NZPolitics #Election2023

strypey, 10 months ago to random

Tensions are running high over the imminent entry of InstaGrope into the verse, via Meta's Threads server. Some of you may have noticed me speaking up against the Anti-Fedi Meta Pact, and I want to clarify a few things I think are important.

1. I'm not arguing against admins moderating their servers' relationships with others. That's nobody's business but theirs. If an admin makes a case-by-case decision to defederate from Threads, well, that's fediverse moderation working as intended.

(1/?)

strypey, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

$2.59 trillion sitting uninvested in bank accounts...

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/private-equity-firms-face-pressure-as-dry-powder-hits-record-2-59-trillion-79762227

... while many workers struggle to afford the basics of life, let alone "luxuries" like a night out. This hurts them, but also the businesses who sell those things. The grocery stores throwing out unsold food. The cinemas screening films to 2 people per session.

This is what happens when economies don't redistribute enough money to workers. Living standards of drop, and productive businesses suffer.

strypey, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to aotearoa

Just as I start to warm to TOP, I find they're campaigning for deregulation of gene-editing. In fact they have been at it for at least 4 years:

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2019/05/nz-embracing-gene-editing-is-a-no-brainer-geoff-simmons.html

(1/?)

#Aotearoa #NZ #TOP #BioTech #GeneEditing

strypey, 11 months ago to internet

"If you want to absolutely destroy a website that is all about building communities and meeting new people, then aim for the site and all communities to always be growing as much as possible. Make that a design goal of the site. Pump those subscriber numbers up."

#ViktorLofgren, 2023

https://www.marginalia.nu/log/82_killing_community/

#SocialMedia #community #degrowth

strypey, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago) to random

"Other nations such as Norway have lived to regret the introduction of wealth taxes, as the wealthy leave for lower tax jurisdictions and take their money with them."

#StuartSmith, National MP Kaikōura

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/300864119/we-must-not-use-taxation-as-an-instrument-to-punish-the-successful

Really Stuart? Well I've got a message for sociopaths who profit massively from businesses built on top of public resources, then leave the country rather than contribute back to them. Don't let the door hit you in the arse on your way out.

strypey, 9 months ago to random

Note to anyone who references the #ParadoxOfTolerance. What Karl Popper said was;

"If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant..."

With the exception of a few naive teenage libertarians, nobody is advocating unlimited tolerance. We're just arguing against abandoning tolerance to the point of dehumanizing people who hold intolerant views.

So the vast majority of handwaves at the PoT are slaughtering strawmen. The obvious response being to quote Nietzsche...

(1/2)

strypey, 11 months ago to random

Many well-meaning groups run websites to support people working for social change. Often change that would threaten the selfish, short-term interests of the wealthy and powerful.

Far too many of those websites serve spyware like GoogleTagManager to their visitors, which collect their personal data. This personal data is then fully available to any governments that participates in the "5 Eyes" spy alliance, using tools like #XKeyScore:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data

#activism #surveillance

strypey, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to Futurology

Read all about it. Washington Post report on a study, written by a "journalist" who has no idea how internet technology works if it isn't run by a corporation, and imposes culturally-specific judgements on internet use by people in other cultures, with different ethical frameworks. Honestly, this study could have been titled 'researchers shocked to find dodgy stuff on dodgy little websites':

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/24/twitter-rival-mastodon-rife-with-child-abuse-material-study-finds/

#research #NewsMedia

(Edit: I blamed the study authors for shoddy journalism)

strypey, 3 months ago to random

"The government is being warned that tight electricity supply situations could become more frequent, especially on cold winter mornings and evenings.

...

The briefing said the government's dumping the aspirational goal of 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030 - and the Lake Onslow 'battery' project along with it - gave the ministry more room to work on the problem."

#PhilPennington, 2024

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/508347/tight-electricity-supply-situations-may-become-more-frequent-government-briefing-warns

Avoiding the short term power shortage at the cost of long term fixes 🤦‍♂️

strypey, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to movies

I'm done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I followed it loyally since the first Iron Man, but Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was the last hurrah for me. I loved it and I want to leave the MCU with a good taste in my mouth.

You see, following the continuity any further will force me to watch Quantumania, and I'm just not going to do it. The Eternals was bad enough. Those wankers are never getting to abuse my eyeballs or intelligence again.

#movies #MCU #GOTG3

strypey, 3 months ago to FreeSpeech

"If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don’t like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of freedom of speech."

#NoamChomsky, 1992

Quoted here:
https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/what-noam-chomsky-can-teach-us-about

#FreeSpeech #FreedomOfExpression

strypey, 7 months ago to random

"Meanwhile, free-market enthusiasts—the sort of people who elsewhere in the world are referred to as “liberals”—began casting about for a new name. The one they ended up fixing on was libertarian—a term they borrowed from the Left. The result is that it is even more difficult for Americans to talk to anyone else about politics, since, in the rest of the world, libertarian still largely retains its traditional meaning as a synonym for anarchist."

#DavidGraeber, 2009

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-neoliberalism

strypey, 9 months ago to fediverse

Here's a story that illustrates why I favour federating with Chains ("Threads"), even though I'm opposed to Meta's very existence.

Alice and Bob follow each other on InstaGrope. Alice, being more of an early adopter, signs up for Chains, and convinces Bob to do the same. Then Chains turns on AP federation. Alice realises she can still follow and talk to all the same people on Chains from other fediverse servers, and moves to one.

(1/2)

#fediverse #Meta #AntiMetaFediPact

strypey, 1 year ago to internet

"But social media also exposes movements to many vulnerabilities. The solidiarities it generates are often superficial: movement use of social media can easily devolve into repetitive messaging in echo chambers without collective gains in narrative power—a change in the stories and values that hold sway in society—or a translation to real-world militancy."

#ToddWolfson, #MalavKanuga, 2022

https://logicmag.io/pivot/when-we-were-the-media/

#SocialMedia #SocialMovements #indymedia

strypey, 5 months ago to random

"To continue building, [OpenAI] would have to take money from private investors — which meant setting up a for-profit entity underneath the nonprofit, similar to the way the Mozilla Foundation owns the corporation that oversees revenue operations for the Firefox browser, or how the nonprofit Signal Foundation owns the LLC that operates the messaging app."

#CaseyNewton, 2023

https://www.platformer.news/p/openais-alignment-problem

That's an intriguing set of institutions to have essentially the same legal setup ...

strypey, 7 months ago to Israel

Most of you will have seen recent news media reports of an Hamas attack on Israel, resulting in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issuing a formal declaration of war:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=N4iOQANn518

A bit of context.

Netanyahu and his Likud party are ultranationalists, who claim a right to land Palestinian people have lived on for thousands of years;

"The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values."

https://web.archive.org/web/20070930181442/https://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/knesset15/elikud_m.htm

(1/?)

#Israel #Hamas

strypey, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

Hey @clacke @lnxw37a2 @bobjonkman
@jxself
@screwtape

I'd like you to meet @rik, another of our committed term software freedom advocates in Aotearoa, who is dipping his toes in the verse.

Rik, these are all fine folks and good first follows. The first three are fellow GNU/Linux enthusiasts who I've interacted with here since the GNU social early days. @jxself I met through the community on the Trisquel forums, and @screwtape I met more recently.

strypey, 9 months ago to chat

Those who were scandalised by @element selling encrypted @matrix communications services to cops, and suggesting XMPP as a replacement, you might be interested to know that...

"Conversations_im seems to be doing its job at the German Federal Police."

@daniel

https://gultsch.social/@daniel/109828650796048124

#chat #encryption #Matrix #XMPP #Element #Conversations