@njoseph@social.masto.host
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njoseph

@njoseph@social.masto.host

A software developer going through a mini-retirement phase. Developing some small tech solutions to recover and rediscover the joy of programming.

Might consider doing paid remote work for free software or cooperatives.

Admin of https://social.masto.host

#Privacy #FreeSoftware #FreedomBox #SelfHosting #SmallTech #nobot

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

njoseph, to showerthoughts
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

Democracies should have an option to sue elected leaders out of office when they act against the interests of the people.

njoseph, to random
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2023 was the year of layoffs, where tech companies gave you half a year's salary while laying you off.

2024 is the year of "creative layoffs", where they find ways of not firing or laying you off, but creating a situation you would quit by yourself. No cost to the company. (Well, technically, this practice was started by Amazon in 2023).

This is quite profitable in the short-term. Wall Street approves!

alex, to random
@alex@social.alexschroeder.ch avatar

I remember being very disappointed in the Sennheiser noise cancellation headphones for in-office work because they cancelled the droning of ventilation and computers and air conditioning and the like, so when you put them on it's like being under water, but they didn't cancel human voices all that much. In fact, project managers on the phone, people mentioning my name, questions related to the project I was working on – it all stood out, now. My interpretation was that this sort of noise cancellation was optimized for noisy workplaces where you still needed to hear your colleagues. Like (military) airplanes, for example. Which is exactly what I hate the most.

njoseph,
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@alex Sometimes I use a 3M headset made for shooting ranges when I have to work from the office.

njoseph, to climate
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2023 was hottest year on record, close to 1.5°C | Climate & Capitalism

https://climateandcapitalism.com/2024/01/09/2023-was-hottest-year-on-record-close-to-1-5c/

> The European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) says 2023 was the first year on with all days over 1°C warmer than the pre-industrial period.

njoseph, to debian
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

DebConf 23 attendees were gifted a USB disk with several Debian installers on it. They were manufactured by Mostly Harmless @abhas https://mostlyharmless.io/

I got to use it for the first time now to install Debian. Nice that they included both Gnome and KDE options. I got used to Gnome because it has shortcuts similar to macOS, which I use at work. I also like KDE, but installing Gnome this time.

njoseph, to random
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In the previous decade, a lot of applications for which a simple relational database would've worked well were built on the blockchain instead to leverage the hype surrounding it and obtaining VC money.

I am starting to notice a similar pattern now. Generative AI will be used unnecessarily and indiscriminately at a high carbon cost that will be externalized to the future generations.

njoseph, to climate
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

We need a moratorium on the construction of new data centers, not on AI development or its regulation.

AI in its current form will increase human suffering, no doubt, in the hands of its capitalist overlords and austerity governments. But it is not an existential threat.

The real existential threat that's immediate is the emission of even more carbon dioxide on a planet that is going through a catastrophic climate crisis.

#climateCrisis #AI #dataCenters

njoseph, to random
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

GPT models can give wrong and absurd answers with more confidence than most tech bros and VCs. I can see some potential for automation here. Just have to make a white-cis-male-looking robot and connect it to a GPT-4 API. The money will come pouring in. And it can't be jailed like Sam Bankman-Fried. Just need some lobbying to get it personhood status, just like corporations already have. :blobthinkingsmirk:

Please don't boost this.

njoseph, to random
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The best EVs are electric trains.

njoseph, to random
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The CPU (Intel i7 from 2015) on my primary development laptop used for Debian and FreedomBox is too slow at loading web pages. It's taking too long to interpret JavaScript. :blobsob:

Pages that are mostly content, like those in Wikipedia load nearly instantly.

It can run Doom Emacs, do OS image builds and run FreedomBox in a container all at the same time, but can't load one modern website or web app like GitLab in under a minute.

It even has 16 GB memory. 🤷‍♂️

njoseph,
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

@Ted It could also be that modern websites are more content heavy.

Main page of Wikipedia took 10 sec and YouTube took 30 sec to load. A project web page on GitLab took 22 sec.

A laptop running an Apple M1 chip with 16 GB memory can load all of them at least 10x faster.

njoseph,
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@FreePietje @Ted

Update: I shifted to a desktop (also from 2015) as my development machine. Purchased a 1 TB SSD and installed Debian on it. SSDs have gotten a lot cheaper these days.

I'm concerned about the increased power consumption though. I'm shutting it down when not in use.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a working driver for my 5 GHz USB Wi-Fi adapter. Stuck with an old 2.5 GHz one for now.

It's not as fast a new computer, but an improvement overall over the laptop.

njoseph, to random
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

I am writing the FreedomBox manual page for Kiwix and going through some references in the process.

TIL that @kiwix is used in prisons. Given the existence of prisons, or at least in their current form, using Kiwix in prisons is no cause for celebration.

The second sentence on the Kiwix wiki home page.

> On a boat, in the middle of nowhere or in Jail, Kiwix gives you access to the whole human knowledge.
https://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Main_Page

Not something I would put up so prominently.

#AbolishPrisons

njoseph, to random
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

Flow and deep work are important for happiness at work. Work that is frequently interrupted by "instant" messages and meetings spread out during the day keeps knowledge workers unhappy and unmotivated. It also leads to poor quality output.

njoseph, to random
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

Calling something that has less intelligence than a parrot a "pair programmer" or a "copilot" is peak absurdity in marketing.

You're just querying a database with extremely lossy compression, in natural language and getting unreliable, unpredictable results.

Blockchain (from the previous hype cycle) was reliable, predictable and did what it was expected to do. I mean, at least from the perspective of cryptography, not considering all the cryptocurrency pyramid schemes.

njoseph, to GraphicDesign
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

A quote about wearing brands:

"from our Nike trainers to our Loreal haircare we, like the longhorns of Wyoming, wear their brands. The only difference is that the cows had to be lassoed and wrestled to the ground before they would submit to this indignity; we pay for the privilege."

from the book "Hyperconsumption" by Gerard Hastings, Professor of Social Marketing at University of Sterling.

#quote #consumption #branding

njoseph, to random
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

We have arbitrary software delivery deadlines and middle managers to enforce them because the billionaires aren't getting richer fast enough. We need to work harder so that they can get richer faster. After the deadline is met, your reward will be a layoff to increase the company's stock price.

Le Corporation: Why are you complaining? You're a stockholder, aren't you? We're just following the doctrine of our lord and savior Milton Friedman. <confused pikachu face>

njoseph, to random
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

The author of Capitalist Realism committed suicide. Maybe this is what a real information hazard looks like, not silly thought experiments like Roko's Basilisk.

The worst AIs we invented by mankind so far are corporations. The existential threat caused by their legal person status and unregulated power is the climate crisis. AIs are already ending the world (1.5C warming by 2030). We don't need some superintelligence to do it.

njoseph, to metaverse
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

It's the 2010s & 2020s. Humans keep finding new ways of wastefully burning more carbon than ever on over-hyped scams, while the climate crisis worsens. As one scam loses ground, another takes its place. :blobcat_thisisfine:

alcinnz, to random
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

Ecosystem rot - Go Make Things: https://gomakethings.com/ecosystem-rot/

njoseph,
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@alcinnz
"Augment, don’t replace" is also the recommended approach in the Clojure community.

njoseph, to random
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After the layoffs comes the under-staffing and squeezing of existing workers. After the squeeze comes the unionization.

njoseph, to debian
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We have a FreedomBox app for @kiwix now. Coming to a FreedomBox near you! (in a few days)

Thanks to @legoktm for maintaining the kiwix-tools package in @debian

Big thanks to the community deployment teams in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for motivating me to add this app to FreedomBox. You are the real heroes distributing our work to the masses and spreading the word about , and . 👏

And, thanks to our friends from Kerala for organizing ❤️

njoseph, to random
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

This audiobook was read quite well. I didn't get distracted midway. Was able to listen through the whole 2 hours.

> Podcast – Cory Doctorow's craphound.com: The Lost Cause (excerpt)

Episode webpage: https://craphound.com/news/2023/10/12/the-lost-cause-excerpt/

Media file: https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_451/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_451_-_The_Lost_Cause.mp3

njoseph, to opensource
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

The Economics of Programming Languages, by the creator of Elm language
https://youtu.be/XZ3w_jec1v8

#openSource #programmingLanguages

njoseph, to random
@njoseph@social.masto.host avatar

Daniel Higginbotham, the author of Brave Clojure, wrote a book on #babashka

https://www.braveclojure.com/quests/babooka/

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