@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

phil_stevens

@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz

he/him
vi/vim
Vintage 319 ppm CO2

Musician since the beginning, oddball, techie-but-luddite, biochar entrepreneur/evangelist, MMT proponent, deep green, outspoken, cantankerous and slightly twisted.

Life goal: to see billionaires go extinct.

Tolerance is a social contract.

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

bananabob, to NewZealand
@bananabob@mastodon.nz avatar

#NZPol According to the media I see ram raids are down in numbers. Those boot camps are working already. 🫢

phil_stevens,
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@bananabob I thought it was the tax cuts.

billbennett, to random
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"A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back"

You ain't kidding.

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/microsoft-has-lost-trust-with-its-users-windows-recall-is-the-last-straw

phil_stevens,
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

@billbennett That disclosure about the Saudi deal was a little bit too on point. The whole concept of a surveillance OS fits with repressive authoritarian regimes.

Some of us got ridiculed many years ago (last century, even) when we warned about monopolist presence in institutional computing ecosystems. Who's laughing now, chumps?

mez, to random
@mez@mastodon.nz avatar

Saw that Microsoft saying it’s a website’s fault if your password gets swept up by Recall if the site doesn’t cloak the password entry field following “standard internet protocols” which completely ignores the accessibility case for showing someone what they’ve typed in to their password field. Pretty sure every password manager lets you do this, and a ton of sites as well.

What a head-in-the-sand take.

phil_stevens,
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@mez Also ignores copy-paste of 2FA tokens, which is completely legit and commonplace.

bananabob, to nz
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I just read a startling statistic.

New Zealand produce enough food to feed 40 million people yet 7% of New Zealanders go hungry.

#NZ #Wrong

phil_stevens,
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@bananabob That statistic is just about useless unless you imagine 40 million people eating little more than milk solids, beef, lamb, and fruit.

phil_stevens,
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@bananabob Picture a big bowl of milk powder, with a sprinkling of mince and apple fragments. Not my idea of culinary nirvana.

GrapheneOS, to random
@GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social avatar

Latest release of GrapheneOS finally shipped the long awaited duress PIN/password implementation. If you have a spare device, we recommend trying it out.

We've added initial documentation to the features page:

https://grapheneos.org/features#duress

It near instantly wipes and shuts down.

phil_stevens,
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@GrapheneOS Once upon a time, I imagined a wipe-under-duress workflow that reimaged the disk with a dummy OS, full of bland and unremarkable files. It seems to me that in a situation where someone needs this feature, handing over a blank device is even more dangerous.

phil_stevens,
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

@GrapheneOS Maybe it would be better if the user runs their "real" OS in a container that could be disappeared in a hurry. There are drawbacks and holes in plausible deniability no matter which way you turn. The best scenario might be a physical (electrical) deadman switch.

billbennett, to random
@billbennett@mastodon.nz avatar

When right-wing politicians talk about “the good old days” or some similar concept, most of the warm-glow memories they are invoking are from eras when everyone’s lives had been improved by left-wing governments.

phil_stevens,
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@billbennett Under Eisenhower, the top tax bracket in the US was 90%. Corporations actually paid, too.

phil_stevens, to random
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Asking for a friend (literally): What happens to existing Windows 11 machines now? Do the get the spyware enhancement force-fed to them on the next Patch Tuesday? Is there an opt-out?

I may need to play the risk mitigation card with the business I do contract work for, since I occasionally touch a Win 11 laptop that's used in manufacturing and QA workflows.

phil_stevens, to NewZealand
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

When cutting costs and eugenics come in one tidy little package.

#nzpol

https://theconversation.com/flu-vaccines-are-no-longer-free-for-all-under-12s-in-nz-children-living-in-poverty-and-at-higher-risk-will-bear-the-brunt-228095

phil_stevens,
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@jeremy_pm But who will they extract rent from if those kids don't grow up?

I guess they aren't good at thinking ahead.

phil_stevens, to random
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Your semi-regular reminder that the fossil fuel industry wants the fascists to win. So I guess that means they are fascists.

https://heated.world/p/the-chopped-steak-eaters

SamCrawley, to climate
@SamCrawley@sciences.social avatar

New article! I compared climate opinion in NZ and Australia and found:

  • Climate opinion is more polarised in Aus than NZ but
  • More people see climate as high importance in Aus than NZ
  • For most people, climate change is a cultural (not economic) issue
  • Being culturally conservative is associated not just with being a "hard" climate denier, but also with being "lukewarm" on climate action

Open Access article: https://academic.oup.com/ijpor/article/36/2/edae027/7673544

@politicalscience

phil_stevens,
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@SamCrawley @politicalscience Not a critique of the work per se, but I really wish that the discourse would move away from the term "belief" when applied to climate science.

Either someone accepts the evidence, or they don't.

iangriffin, to NewZealand
@iangriffin@mastodon.nz avatar

Just because I am taking a day off today, and am waiting to watch the Space Station cross the sun, here's a comparison between radiation levels you get when flying on an ATR 72 and an A320 Airbus. #radiation #NewZealand

phil_stevens,
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@iangriffin I'm hearing J Frank Parnell as I look at this.

br00t4c, to random
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Biden Takes Action To Protect American Workers And Businesses From China

https://www.politicususa.com/2024/05/14/biden-takes-action-to-protect-american-workers-and-businesses-from-china.html

phil_stevens,
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@br00t4c And in doing so deprives American consumers of the ability to get inexpensive and reasonably sized EVs. It's a good news/bad news situation and blatant protectionism for US automakers, who have abandoned the idea of providing useful, appropriate transportation choices in favour of making stupid bloated Wankpanzers.

jpm, to random
@jpm@aus.social avatar

Ok computer-touches of the fediverse, I’ve had enough of the Windows fucks and will be installing Debian <soon>. Maybe 20 years has been enough for a viable Linux on the desktop, who knows…

So what window manager are the cool kids using these days? Is Enlightenment still a thing? I want to not have fuck with things

phil_stevens,
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

@jpm I'd highly recommend Mint as a distro for the It Just Works aspect. You can install a Debian edition and choose from Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce desktops.

Tengrain, to HashtagGames
@Tengrain@mastodon.social avatar

I was a manager at a cemetery, but I didn’t like having that many people under me.


phil_stevens,
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@Tengrain I'd think the sexton gig would make you more grounded.

Tengrain, to HashtagGames
@Tengrain@mastodon.social avatar

I’m shocked to admit I’m a bad electrician.


phil_stevens,
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

@Tengrain It's really a matter of how you're wired.

phil_stevens,
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@Tengrain Are you considering a career switch?

phil_stevens, to random
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

An example of how any time you rely on outsourced cloud services you're putting your stuff at risk. Now it's the self-appointed content police:

https://www.wired.com/story/what-happens-when-a-romance-author-gets-locked-out-of-google-docs/

Local backup, at minimum, for any cloud storage that you rely on. And don't expect big tech giants to ever do the right thing, because they won't.

billbennett, to random
@billbennett@mastodon.nz avatar

I had to put one of my stories into Google Docs (don't ask) and notice the spell checker wants to change Tbps (terabits per second) to Tbsp (tablespoons)

phil_stevens,
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@billbennett @essjax This is why I stick to the standard units like Olympic swimming pools and Libraries of Congress.

mbonsma, to random
@mbonsma@mastodon.social avatar

Cars parking in the bike lane radicalized me 13 years ago, and these days my willingness to "just go around" has hit rock bottom. It feels more important than ever to make it safe for ALL of us to walk and bike.

phil_stevens,
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

@mbonsma Can you use an online form to send a photo with the time and location of the incident to the local cops? At least the driver might get a warning out of the bargain.

phil_stevens, to random
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/the-only-thing-university-administrators

dgar, to random
@dgar@aus.social avatar

Drilling holes can be boring.

phil_stevens,
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

@dgar Well, if you go bit by bit, you find it's a deep field of study.

ryanhoulihan, to random
@ryanhoulihan@mastodon.social avatar

It’s not that I don’t feel the social pressure to join Spotify. I just get Apple Music for free! 😭

phil_stevens,
@phil_stevens@mastodon.nz avatar

@ryanhoulihan I don't have any desire to support the likes of joe Rogan.

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