Took the bus to town, everyone's on their phones. Got to town, everyone's on their phones.
I want to see a photography exhibition of people waiting for the train, vaping on the back porch, in a queue at a concert, friends sitting opposite at a cafe - all of them looking at their hand as though holding an invisible phone.
@JulianOliver That people so badly abused have to run into the ocean for a few scraps (relatively) of food. The only people more dehumanized by all of these kinds of wars/degrading of other humans, are the perpetrators of murder, starvation, abuse.....
@JulianOliver I’m hopeful that this can be a useful resource and aggregator. One of the tough things about this space is not falling into the paranoia and militarism trap, so I’m heartened by the server CoC.
I like the idea of the wiki, but also don't need another Mastodon account. In the same way that I don't need another email address. The point of federation is thar we can all talk regardless of where the account is hosted.
Atmospheric carbon continues to rise, along with potent GHG's CH4 and N2O. Governments the world over are evidently doing whatever they can to avoid addressing it directly as an emergency. UAE, a petrostate, will host the next COP.
Many scientists place ~450ppm atmospheric CO2e to be the point of no return, whereby self-reinforcing feedbacks become so established that any imagined means of reducing carbon beyond this point becomes futile.
@JulianOliver Honestly, we've as a species decided to extinct ourselves at this point. I don't really see a path out of this one by now. Me might have the technical means to do various kinds of cleanup, and maybe activists will help us make useful strides here or there, but I firmly believe we're just fucked: the *huge* behavioral and political changes necessary to save us are scary and would require too many scary things to happen (read: almost certainly heads rolling) along the way.
"I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to.”
As was foreseen, & in a fairly major precedent, the NYPD has formally announced it is adopting the use of Spot the Digidog, a dog-like robot for use on active duty, recently seen running AWOL through a a public housing complex in Manhattan.
Alongside, it is testing the K5 Autonomous Security Robot, whose earlier version is famous for being slathered in barbecue sauce, while another iteration drowned itself in a public water fountain.
As was foreseen, & in a fairly major precedent, the NYPD has formally announced it is adopting the use of Spot the Digidog, a dog-like robot for use on active duty, recently seen running AWOL through a a public housing complex in Manhattan.
Alongside, it is testing the K5 Autonomous Security Robot, whose earlier version is famous for being slathered in barbecue sauce, while another iteration drowned itself in a public water fountain.
Received an automated txt on one of my phones that from 2024 all of Aotearoa New Zealand will have mobile coverage, thanks to a "collaboration with SpaceX" (Starlink).
I'm saddened not only because Starlink is the orbital overreach of a mad king, but bc we're about to lose our offline worlds - deep valleys where one can walk for days off grid. The centering of being involuntarily un-contactable, left solely with what you carry & know, of being defaulted to animal in an indifferent landscape
@JulianOliver Not *all* those NZ deep valleys are completely without communication - eg some farmers plant VHF relay stations on the mountaintops so that they've got communication with their family and workers up and down the farm.
@JulianOliver same deal for sailors... now ppl can go anchor in a beautiful secluded anchorage far from cities and everyone... and still watch Netflix.. .>_>. Constantly filling quiet with noise. It scares me also, because ppl need fewer distractions for self-reflection, or to solve problems.
Prayware. These technologies of fatal hope, tech we look to spare us from our own obscene destruction of our home planet, and as we continue to destroy it, technology like solar geoengineering, CCS/NETs, and offset markets
@JulianOliver total aside, but this was the trend that led me to ultimately create a water forecasting company. Hoping to broadly release accurate, public forecasts around the world this year.
For the locals: Cyclone Gabrielle is going to hit central and upper North Island here in #aotearoa#nz in a few days. Things will prob get messy. The advice as to preparedness is good, but solely relying on websites for travel & relief information during a CAT3 cyclone is not wise. Cell towers will fall, power cuts will knock out your broadband. Def grab an AM/FM radio over the weekend & learn to use it. Stash in your grab bag with a spare set of batteries in a ziplock.
For the locals: Cyclone Gabrielle is going to hit central and upper North Island here in #aotearoa#nz in a few days. Things will prob get messy. The advice as to preparedness is good, but solely relying on websites for travel & relief information during a CAT3 cyclone is not wise. Cell towers will fall, power cuts will knock out your broadband. Def grab an AM/FM radio over the weekend & learn to use it. Stash in your grab bag with a spare set of batteries in a ziplock.
Other things to pack aside those in the grab bag on the Get Ready site (just in case!)
- A good sharp knife, 12cm+ - Thermal sliver/gold blankets for each member of your family - High protein snack bars or, say, zip-lock bag of cashew nuts (not just 'snacks') - Simple carbon filter water purifying squeeze bag - 20m+ of paracord 550 - Paracetamol - Cigarette lighter (waterproofed) - Whistle - Permanent marker & little note book in ziplock - Compass
Most you can get in 1 trip to a camping store
Other things to pack aside those in the grab bag on the Get Ready site (just in case!)
- A good sharp knife, 12cm+ - Thermal sliver/gold blankets for each member of your family - High protein snack bars or, say, zip-lock bag of cashew nuts (not just 'snacks') - Simple carbon filter water purifying squeeze bag - 20m+ of paracord 550 - Paracetamol - Cigarette lighter (waterproofed) - Whistle - Permanent marker & little note book in ziplock - Compass
Disappointed to read that Chile's proposed new constitution, to replace that of the Pinochet era, was rejected by a majority of voters. A telling reminder of its socio-political heritage as a European colony and patriarchy. (source Guardian)
More sanity from my home country: Māori tribal leaders & their advisers call for data sovereignty, to take back control of what is theirs. Cited is "an intergenerational approach to data, as a taonga (treasure)"
Self-hosting is included as a strategy, servers at home & on the marae (meeting house).
This initiative can be seen as a form of infrastructural de-colonisation, reclaiming what has been lost to the digital imperialism of AWS, Microsoft & other 'cloud' giants
More sanity from my home country: Māori tribal leaders & their advisers call for data sovereignty, to take back control of what is theirs. Cited is "an intergenerational approach to data, as a taonga (treasure)"
Self-hosting is included as a strategy, servers at home & on the marae (meeting house).
This initiative can be seen as a form of infrastructural de-colonisation, reclaiming what has been lost to the digital imperialism of AWS, Microsoft & other 'cloud' giants
@JulianOliver the use of "decolonisation"/"colonisation" in this context weakens the word and what colonisation often was: a brutal regime full of violence, death and cultural genocide.
Also, using the concept of "digital colonisation" just because in this particular case, the group affected was from an non-angloeuropean indigenous background in itself shows a good amount of racist ideas, imho.
@JulianOliver There has been an artist doing exactly this some years ago. I don‘t find the pictures at the moment but there is also an exhibition showing something like that: https://www.br.de/nachrichten/kultur/the-world-in-my-hand-das-smartphone-in-der-kunst,UAkt5g5