“I don’t understand why everything is so fucked up and we seem incapable of fixing any of it!”
I started reading thinking you were referring to technology. But in that case one would need to realize that it is fucked up in the first place let alone understand that it gets worse with every update and product release. Won't turn out good for civilization.
I imagine that someplace there are always coders using phrases like "it's good enough for government work".
...actually, the system cannot be fixed because the entire world system of govt, including legal, etc. ['control'] is the adversary's design, as this deficient, temporal, material cosmos is his, he created it, and his 'chosen', the professed satanist religious group members and their ilk, with the assistance of demon goat so-called 'leaders' run his show using all kinds of satanic, demonic created plots, e.g.-'money' for one - the system of printing from nothing, current[energy/power]-sea[over the masses] clown paper they all chase after, generating all kinds of personality traits of satan [greed, hate, murder, lying, selfishness, arrogance, false sense of power, etc.] - they own and control all of them, east, west, north, south, middle, but no worries, temporal, coming to a close...
The Secret Book of John
(The Apocryphon of John)
Translated by Stevan Davies
Three Plots against Humanity
They brought into being Gold and silver, Money and coins, Iron and other metals and all things of this sort.
And the people who were attracted were led astray into troubles And were greatly misled. And grew old Experiencing no pleasure, And died Finding no truth,
** the masses will never 'vote'/'vow' [etymology] their way out, no matter how hard they 'vote'/'vow' - Mr. T is also not who many think he is, beware to the Many:
...actually, the system cannot be fixed because the entire world system of govt, including legal, etc. ['control'] is the adversary's design, as this deficient, temporal, material cosmos is his, he created it, and his 'chosen', the professed satanist religious group members and their ilk, with the assistance of demon goat so-called 'leaders' run his show using all kinds of satanic, demonic created plots, e.g.-'money' for one - the system of printing from nothing, current[energy/power]-sea[over the...
@aral I know I keep dropping into threads to say this, and I have it in my profile, but it's important to think of "Capitalism" not as "free markets and stuff". It's actually a political system of rule-by-investor: those with the capital make the laws and pressure the executive arms that enforce them.
@aral There’s nothing to suggest that Varoufakis said anything other than was told to him. So, either the police lied, the Ministry of the Interior lied, or they both did.
@aral Having a burger delivered is commerce, which is a good thing. Not being able to afford health care is a multi-tier problem involving government policies but also the inability of people to prioritize health over superfluous spending.
I know people who complain about health care costs but gladly buy every new version of an iPhone.
Capitalism is a result of unchecked consumerism, not commerce.
If you’re on mastodon.social, I would highly recommend that you switch to a different server that protects its people instead of exposing them to a well-known bad actor like Facebook/Meta via Threads.
And remember that Mastodon is not the fediverse. The fediverse is much more than just Mastodon and definitely more so than mastodon.social and Mastodon gGmbH.
Can’t believe it’s been 16 years since I organised the world’s first virtual web conference (it was called <head>, it took place over 3 days, had 4 simultaneous tracks, over 70 speakers, and local in-world conference hubs in London, Manchester, Brigthon, Fribourg, and San Francisco, as well as as pre-conference party and a separate virtual hub in Second Life).
Can’t believe it’s been 16 years since I organised the world’s first virtual web conference (it was called <head>, it took place over 3 days, had 4 simultaneous tracks, over 70 speakers, and local in-world conference hubs in London, Manchester, Brigthon, Fribourg, and San Francisco, as well as as pre-conference party and a separate virtual hub in Second Life).
You're such an inspiration to many, I know I've said it before, but your work on small web and related tools is iconic!
The fediverse is so lucky to have such dedicated and wise developers like you, who have no problem using your following to question other devs and I think that's an amazing quality.
You give a voice to the voiceless, and build for the people.
@aral@Gargron Interesting that nobody puts on the table the third server rule:
"3. No incitement of violence or promotion of violent ideologies... Support for violent groups or events is prohibited."
While some usual suspects, like masto.nobigtech.es blatantly support Ukrainian genocide by Ruzzia and call nazis to Ukrainian people, and nobody asks for defederation. I wonder why :thonking:
@aral@Gargron Not only that! Allowing instances driven by Meta to federate with entire Fediverse put us all content creators and authors in very big danger of being robbed from our work efforts and our money as well. As we saw on many examples in the past, Zuckerberg's company doesn't respect any laws, rules, rights and so on, secretly stealing and then selling lots of data/content from the unaware people behind their backs. This is absolutely unacceptable and also illegal, criminal behavior!
@aral@Gargron This is why there is federation. If this server is still federated to Threads in, let's say 6 months, I'll browse below list and pick another server. On the other hand, I hope all the larger servers reconsider and block #Threads outright. Because if they don't, it will play right in the hands of #Meta and all the #TechBros' social media platforms to destroy smaller independent alternatives. Just like e.g. #Amazon and #Uber are doing it in their markets.
@aral@Gargron This is why there is federation. If this server is still federated to Threads in, let's say 6 months, I'll browse below list and pick another server. On the other hand, I hope all the larger servers reconsider and block #Threads outright. Because if they don't, it will play right in the hands of #Meta and all the #TechBros' social media platforms to destroy smaller independent alternatives. Just like e.g. #Amazon and #Uber are doing it in their markets.
> But I’m confused… Mastodon gGmbH and Meta Platforms, Inc. are besties according to Mastodon gGmbH CEO.¹
Mastodon isn't Pixelfed? It seems Meta are able to compartmentalise between Masto and other Fediverse softwares in ways some of us apparently still can't.
Shitty what Meta are doing but their actions have nothing to do with the specific Meta-Masto relationship other than providing a warning to Masto about how Meta operate?
@aral I have just published 2 posts on threads citing #pixelfed. Let's see if someone sees them or they get silenced by the platform. If they get to be silenced, it would be shameful. Not surprising, but shameful.
I understand, but humbly suggest indeed we do still have commons. your neighbor who brings you food when you're under the weather, or that person online who's organizing a project or rally.
I don't think we're "under" capitalism. we're exposing it, or straddling it and beating it with many little sticks.
@aral did you know that the real tragedy of the commons is that the tragedy of the commons is a harmfully constructed myth to advance a host hateful ideologies that has been disproven? Elinor Ostrom won a Nobel Prize on economics back in 2009 for her work on disproving the idea.
I just love that we live in a system where all the free work you do for the common good has absolutely zero value and you’re only deemed successful if what you do makes money.
And then you wonder why you’ve ended up with the Elon Musks of the world.
Those with money get to leverage the work of others without giving them any of the money. If I were working on a big open source project I wouldn't want the Elongz and other grifters using my work.
@aral That'd explain why Art/artists/social work... is (at least politically) seen as "worthless because it cannot be quantified". #pandemie was showing that to all of us. It has to be privatised/monetized no matter the social costs or the damage for the society to be "recognized". 😡
@aral I was just listening to the latest Factually podcast from @adamconover where this was touched on - journalism is never profitable on its own, there’s always something to the side of it that’s made the money. That has now broken down and that’s why local news all over the world is disappearing and the money they used to make is funneled into Google and Meta.
I call it “end-stage capitalism” because, one way or another, it’s going to end. The more pertinent question is whether or not it will take us along with it. And that very much depends on how it ends.
@aral Oh, it'll take us with it. Faced with an existential threat of climate destruction what do we do? Vote for people who only promise tax-cuts and hate against minorities.
@aral Have you seen Amy Webb's latest talk at SXSW 2024 about which technological developments we can expect, that will (possibly) shape our societies? Horrible!
@aral in France, access to your "personal training account" (the money you contribute while employed to a training fund) requires authentication with a Google account. No alternatives . in theory there is a paper form, but the system can't process it anymore.
@laura is looking for a new gig after three years at Stately. She’s a designer and front-end developer who writes, gives talks, makes videos, and has been doing a fair bit of dev/design advocacy recently.
@laura is looking for a new gig after three years at Stately. She’s a designer and front-end developer who writes, gives talks, makes videos, and has been doing a fair bit of dev/design advocacy recently.
We're hiring heaps at Octopus Energy/Kraken Tech (part of https://octopusenergy.group/ ) and I think you'd fit in well (our head of FE also wrote a book on web accessibility 🎉).
Happy to answer any questions about the company via PM or email.
@aral The law locks up the man or woman, That steals the goose from off the common, But lets the greater felon loose, That steals the common from the goose.
Q. “I am blind, and I have been since 2021. I have grown very accustomed to using NVDA on Windows, which is a free open source screen reader. It's great… my question is, does Linux have good support for screen reading software?”
A. “As someone that deals with this on a daily basis: The short answer is 'no' … The best advice I can give you is to not bother investing too much in Linux and keep with Windows, or move to macOS.”
Q. “I am blind, and I have been since 2021. I have grown very accustomed to using NVDA on Windows, which is a free open source screen reader. It's great… my question is, does Linux have good support for screen reading software?”
A. “As someone that deals with this on a daily basis: The short answer is 'no' … The best advice I can give you is to not bother investing too much in Linux and keep with Windows, or move to macOS.”
Folks promoting Bluesky on the fediverse is like the three little pigs doing public relations for the big bad wolf.
But, hey, clearly some folks still haven’t gotten the message that VC and billionaires are bad and that non-corporate spaces have to be protected from corporate ones.
I guess something has to keep the folks who write “what went wrong/if only we’d known” articles in business.
@aral Absolutely some people haven't got the message but that's cos they don't care. They want an easy to use platform that all their mates/companies/celebs use and they don't care who runs it. Until it blows up. Then they care.
@aral It both amuses me and gives me a headache that people have forgotten that people were calling Twitter "the hellsite" *before* Musk took over - back when Dorsey was running it… Dorsey, of course, being the guy responsible for BlueSky. But yeah, I'm sure it will work out fine this time.
@aral I signed up there today to hold my username, and added to my profile there to 'let me know if you want an invite code to the rest of the fediverse' :-D
Hmm, here’s an idea: what if tools like Glaze and Nightshade were integrated into fediverse servers and/or clients and automatically applied whenever any images are posted… 🤔
@aral I wouldn't count on it being intergrated into official releases of Fedi servers, as it doesn't seem to be an open source project. Maybe clients could if they choose to but then you won't find them for download in F-Droid. Individual instances could maybe integrate as well. I think it makes more sense for the user to process images themselves before upload if they wish. @dansup
Gregory's Server
@aral
“I don’t understand why everything is so fucked up and we seem incapable of fixing any of it!”
I started reading thinking you were referring to technology. But in that case one would need to realize that it is fucked up in the first place let alone understand that it gets worse with every update and product release. Won't turn out good for civilization.
I imagine that someplace there are always coders using phrases like "it's good enough for government work".
The Secret Book of John
(The Apocryphon of John)
Translated by Stevan Davies
Three Plots against Humanity
They brought into being
Gold and silver,
Money and coins,
Iron and other metals and all things of this sort.
And the people who were attracted were led astray into troubles
And were greatly misled.
And grew old
Experiencing no pleasure,
And died
Finding no truth,
** the masses will never 'vote'/'vow' [etymology] their way out, no matter how hard they 'vote'/'vow' - Mr. T is also not who many think he is, beware to the Many:
https://www.yahwehyahuwshua.org/whoisdjt
@aral I know I keep dropping into threads to say this, and I have it in my profile, but it's important to think of "Capitalism" not as "free markets and stuff". It's actually a political system of rule-by-investor: those with the capital make the laws and pressure the executive arms that enforce them.