Notices by Sean R. Lynch ☑️ (seanl@social.literati.org)

Chrome isn't a web browser. It's a tentacle of Google that takes over your computer, spies on you, and controls everything you see.

In fact, we're actually *reducing* the value to the world of already-existing works, while providing *no* additional value to the creator of the work because copyright already extends past the creator's death.

By "ex post facto law" what I mean is that when the person created the work, they were obviously sufficiently incentivized by the copyright protection that was already being granted. Extending copyright on existing works obviously can't incentivize something that already happened.

Sometimes I wonder if people even know what anarchist means. Or if they bother to read people's profiles and previous posts before @ing them with the word "actually".

We make it so an intervening election has to pass before Congressional raises can take effect. Let's make it so any copyright extension can only apply to new works.

Besides, isn't it ex post facto law?

If it weren't for closed source software x86 would no longer exist. Backwards compatibility and the massive overcomplexity that comes with are unnecessary when you build everything from source.

@natecull Don't be silly. Thundercats outrank everything.

@cocoron My flippant answer to this is "who the fuck cares as long as they're paying for it."

Except they're not paying for it.

But then isn't the problem that people can get access to subsidized electricity to use for arbitrary purposes, not Bitcoin itself?

What if they were running cloud computing services on that electricity? (In fact they almost certainly are but nobody cares because it's not an EVIL CRYPTOCURRENCY.)

We run multi-user operating systems on computers with MMUs, then we run web apps and databases on top of them that just throw that all away and process all requests in a single memory space. Then we cache everything in a memory-based key-value store with a single keyspace. All in the name of eking as much performance as possible out of our servers.

And then we wonder why we're constantly getting pwned.

@bhaugen @bernini @mayel At first this looked like decentralized lipstick on the central planning pig, but upon further reading it doesn't seem to be that at all. The system appears to be about improving the flow of information to help individual actors make better decisions rather than about trying to build a system which can itself make decisions.

This could be huge.

Twitter. You know. It's like Mastodon but centralized.

YouTube. Like PeerTube but centralized.

Facebook. Like Friendi.ca but centralized.

WhatsApp. Like Matrix but centralized.

Yahoo's new terms of service:

"...arbitration or a small claims action will be the sole and exclusive means of resolving any dispute between us. You also understand that by agreeing to these terms, you and Oath are giving up the right to bring a claim in court or in front of a jury..., and that you and Oath are giving up the right to proceed with any class action or other representative action."

Oh goodie, Oath is giving up a right it never had.

Burn it to the ground.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/verizon-says-yahoo-users-must-waive-class-action-rights-or-stop-using-yahoo/

I'm becoming rather firmly convinced that there can be no higher purpose for computing than education. And we're doing an unbelievably shitty job of using it for that.

@tinker "The appeals court upheld a federal district judge’s ruling that the disks made by Eric Lundgren to restore Microsoft operating systems had a value of $25 apiece, even though they could be downloaded free and could be used only on computers with a valid Microsoft license."

I'm not sure using open source is enough. One needs to be actively seeking to destroy any system where such an outcome is even conceivable.

@Laurelai @upshotknothole @clacke Because when they "privatize" a utility it's by handing a preexisting (regional) monopoly over to a private company. Since it's a monopoly, they regulate rates, which means the company does other stuff like underinvesting in infrastructure and shutting off people's heat.

Taking a government monopoly and turning it into a quasi-private monopoly would be more properly called "dodging accountability" than "privatization".

@bhtooefr @kaniini @lain @ThisIsLeeloo Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons are only really useful against nation-states. They are worthless against distributed groups.

@kaniini @lain @ThisIsLeeloo For example, international law exists despite there being no single body with the power to enforce it. It's not obvious that such an approach cannot be devolved down to the individual level with the right kind of voluntary institutions.

I realized a bunch of code in a project I'm working on is in fact zombie code, so I embarked on a massive zombie hunt. As I went I became more and more nervous that my manager, who I don't know very well yet, was either going to insist on it as a matter of style or point out some use for it that I was missing. So I talked to him about it this morning. His was response was "I would like it very much if you fixed that."

Phew!

@ajroach42 I read what you wrote but have not dug through all the responses, so please forgive me if I say something that's already been mentioned.

I think a lot of the problem is that the nature of the people programming computers has changed. Back in the 60s-80s, nearly everyone writing software was a tinkerer. Nowadays "programmers" are mass produced, and by and large they are neither tinkerers nor engineers; they are laborers.

Hey, who wants an invite to lib.reviews? I have ONE.