strypey

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

"What I discovered is that... [pharmaceutical corporations] don't, by and large, invent medicines. They behave like hedge funds. They buy the rights to produce medicines that have been made by others - with public money, or at small biotech companies - and then they squeeze the most they possibly can out of those drugs Whatever the consequences are to society... [or] how unaffordable they are."

#NickDearden, 2024

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/11/how-big-pharma-makes-a-killing-from-letting-people-die

#podcasts #CurrentAffairs #BigPharma #DrugPatents

strypey, 1 month ago to random

Can someone with graphic skills please remove the E from "Ex-parrot" in this image, and turn the dead parrot into an upside down blue bird?

strypey, 1 month ago to random

"X issued a statement accusing the watchdog of pursuing global censorship and vowing the company will 'robustly challenge this unlawful and dangerous approach in court'."

#NinoBucci, 2024

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/20/elon-musk-and-x-to-fight-australian-esafety-order-remove-content-sydney-stabbing-ntwnfb

Can anyone find a link to this statement on the web? It's not linked in the Guardian piece, and all web searches are giving me is news media articles, many of which don't even mention it.

strypey, 1 month ago to meta

"Since end-to-end encrypting communications on the platform as a measure to protect user privacy, Meta no longer has access to the content of messages so cannot monitor what is spreading. But the company now says it has technology to spot accounts engaging in abnormal behaviour, with 8m accounts banned a month – 75% of which are banned before those accounts are reported by users."

#JoshTaylor, #MostafaRachwani, 2024

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/18/sydney-church-stabbing-social-media-posts-facebook-taken-down-nsw-premier-chris-minns-ntwnfb

#Meta #WhatSapp

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

#TechShowerThoughts: is there any local-first, Free Code software way of doing privacy-respecting data analysis, to show a person how often they're using different apps, for example?

There are many rich possibilities. I'm imagining being able to drill down into each app, or types of use. For example, which podcasts do I listen to the most, across any and all podcast players? Or, have I spent more time reading posts on FediLab, or more time typing them?

(1/2)

strypey, 1 month ago to Podcasts

More political gaslighting from Winston First and co;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/mata-with-mihingarangi-forbes/story/2018928770/mata-season-2-episode-5-scott-hamilton-on-segregation-and-commentators-tina-wickliffe-and-shane-te-pou

Those decrying cultural spaces on campus for Māori and Pacifica know very well that "segregation" is not what they are. Some of them were alive in the 1960s when real segregation policies still excluded Māori from many public spaces. Despite being staunchly anti-racist since high school, even I didn't know about these until the recent documentary about them.

#podcasts #RNZ #Mata #MihingarangiForbes #segregation

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

"If you just imagine teleporting yourself back to 1970, and somone who was looking forward to the PC revolution - which was going to happen in just a few years - was like 'alright, we're not going to have entire rooms full of computer stuff anymore, and you're not going to have a mainframe that you connect to to do everything. Everything's going to work on these little boxes people have in their home'."

#CaseyMuratori, 2024

https://odysee.com/@FUTO:e/casey-muratori-(-mollyrocket-)-digital:b

#decentralization #NetworkFreedom

strypey, 1 month ago to random

Ok, this is intriguing. A famous person has been publicly accused of sexual assault. He hasn't been convicted of any such crime, indeed no charges have been laid. So he's innocent until proven guilty, right?

Yet in a trial by media, this person has already been declared guilty by YouTube, who have demonetised their channel. Also by a bunch of companies who are withdrawing ads from another platform where the person can still make money, to pressure the platform to demonetise them too.

(1/3)

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

#Listening to Money, a single from the 2016 Balkan Beat Box album Shout it Out;

"Money leads to more money
Power to more power
Fear leads to paranoia
Was very nice to know you"

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=aMiKg4ZMVDE

#music #BalkanBeatBox

strypey, 1 month ago to random

#FreudianTypoOfTheWeek

Fireigner (n.): An immigrant firefighter.

strypey, 1 month ago to politics

‘‘‘Left’ and ‘right’ mean the same thing today that they’ve meant since the French Revolution. Ask someone, ‘What’s more important: property rights, or human rights?’ If they answer: ‘Property rights are human rights,’ they are on the right.’’

#StevenBrust, quoted by Cory Doctorow

https://locusmag.com/2024/03/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-capitalism/

#politics #PoliticalPhilosophy

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

"When I engage in a critique of liberalism, it often seems that by extension I'm engaged in a certain critique of protestantism as well. In other words, the tendency towards fragmentation, of individualism, of self-assertion, of a concept of tje human being that begins at the level of the individual, and the individual exercising choice as the primary self-understanding."

Patrick J. Deneen, Professor of Political Science, 2024

https://albertmohler.com/2024/03/20/patrick-deneen-2/

#podcasts #ThinkingInPublic #conservatism

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

"In a modern democracy... You have to have responsiveness and you have to have public involvement in the decisions all the time, not just the time of elections.

What happens in NZ is we tend to go to sleep between the elections and there isn't enough public involvement in the decision-making system. We need in this country much more deliberative democracy if we are not to go the way they've gone in the US or Britain ..."

#JimBolger, 2017

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-9th-floor/story/201861258/the-book-launch-the-9th-floor

#podcasts #RNZ #The9thFloor

strypey, 1 month ago to random

I just noticed that The Critical Drinker is now publishing videos on PeerTube as well as Goggle's ThemTube;

https://review.peertube.biz/c/criticaldrinker/

Sign of the times?

FYI I like watching the drinker's videos for the same reason I like watching stand up by Jimmy Carr or Ricky Gervais; I want to be used to hearing opinions I disagree with, especially when its ok to laugh at them. Also, I might occasionally learn something (even a stopped clock is right twice a day, as they say).

#TheCriticalDrinker

strypey, 1 month ago to random

Micro-posting (a la Mastodon) apps offer an interface optimalised for short text and image posts, which seem to work better for chatty exchanges than for fruitful long form argumentation. Yet most of us have fallen for the temptation to let casual chats become friendship-ending arguments.

What if we could tag a reply as "debate" - or the author could - and it greyed out the reply button on that post. Obviously this would be a setting that can be toggled on and off.

#FediverseIdeas

strypey, 1 month ago to random

The NatACT government's Fast Track legislation takes final decisions over resource management consents away from regional councils, and hands them to government ministers. Think Big 2.0?

I look forward to strong non-partisan resistance from all the people who supposedly objected to Three Waters not because it was Labour policy, but because they thought it gave central government too much control over what were rightly local decisions.

#NZPolitics #FastTrack #ThreeWaters #ThinkBig

strypey, 1 month ago to Podcasts

I recently stumbled on the work of David Runciman, whose political analysis I find both unusual and insightful. Just listened to the audio version of his 2024 Guardian piece, looking at the effects of the pandemic on both geopolitics, and domestic politics in a range of countries;

Text:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/07/how-covid-changed-politics

Audio: https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-audio-long-read

#podcasts #TheGuardian #TheAudioLongRead #DavidRunciman

strypey, 1 month ago to til

#TIL about the Pi chatbot;

https://pi.ai/talk

I'm grudgingly impressed. Here's the quick test I did.

Me: Are machine learning algorithms a robust way to create AI?

Pi: Machine learning algorithms are definitely a powerful tool for creating AI. They allow computers to learn from data, rather than being explicitly programmed, which can lead to more flexible and adaptable AI systems. However, like any technology, machine learning is not a silver bullet.

(1/?)

strypey, 1 month ago to random

To the degree that people get trapped on welfare benefits, it's mainly because of the punitive mechanisms put into place - allegedly - to prevent "welfare dependence".

(1/?)

#SocialWelfare #beneficiaries #WINZ

strypey, 1 month ago to random

"...a process called certification allows the U.S. to strong-arm signatory countries into enacting the most severe interpretation of the agreement's digital policy terms by withholding any benefits under the agreement until they do so. That's why these new agreements pose a bigger threat than all the previous trade deals combined."

https://www.eff.org/issues/trade-agreements

#TradeAgreements #EFF

strypey, 1 month ago to Podcasts

"Meta, the global behemoth that owns Facebook and Instagram, is putting a stranglehold on recommendations in user feeds that contain political content.

The move, signalled in February, applies to Instagram and Threads, and will eventually extend to Facebook."

https://omny.fm/shows/the-front-page-1/8-april-political-content-mix-1

#podcasts #TheFrontPage #NZHerald #SocialMedia #DataFarms #Meta

strypey, 1 month ago to aotearoa

I'd like to see a publictransport.nz website that included every bus, train, ferry etc operating in the country. Sortable by mode; seasons of operation; ownership (public/ NFP/ co-op/ corporate/ independent); price etc.

#Aotearoa #NZ #PublicTransport

strypey, 1 month ago to tv

(1/?)

I don't know how to feel about the gradual heat death of live television, particularly news and current affairs shows.

A couple of decades ago, I joined a global network of Independent Media Centres, one of whose stated goals was to 'break the corporate media blockade'. Back then, I might have celebrated what's happening to NewsHub and the TVNZ newsroom as a victory.

But even then I would have mourned the loss of Fair Go.

#TV #NewsMedia

strypey, 1 month ago to random

"I get sick every time I go to the doctor that I still get subsidised and I can't opt out of the system. Now that's wrong. I was trying to take the welfare state off the middle class."

#JennyShipley, 2017

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-9th-floor/story/201841731/the-challenger-jenny-shipley

What this atomised mindset misses is that it's not her being subsidised, it's the doctor's surgery. If you want to contribute more according to your means, you do that by raising taxes, in ways that target those on higher incomes.

#neoliberalism #PublicHealth

strypey, 1 month ago to random

(1/3)

"That's just not good enough. Because what we're saying is, 'We're going to leave the internet alone and all you parents are going to have to keep watching out for your kids all the time, from every angle, even in the dark when they're in their rooms on their phones.'

I mean, come on guys, you can't leave it all to parents."

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/kiwi-mum-and-dads-crusade-against-porn-rob-cope-and-zareen-sheikh-cope-make-documentary-on-what-our-kids-watch-online/UME226DNVCBNDTYRMH2GDE3ZIA/

People need to understand there is no technical fix that will make the internet safely babysit our kids for us. There just isn't.