That’s easy: you don’t go to high-school anymore.

How would you describe the level of trust you have for IT systems, and IT security in general?

Basically, I’m the guy from the meme that keeps a loaded gun next to his printer. I also keep my media backed up in a fire-safe, offsite.

Was recently ejected from a job along with a whole lot of other ship subsystems. Something about “downsizing operations in engineering”? Starfleet meatbags can never make up their minds.

Anyway, “has seen some shit” could easily sum up huge swaths of my CV.

Nazi punks dealerships fuck off.

Could you help me understand something? Is this person also… dumb? I don’t mean to be disparaging or judgemental, but I’m trying to navigate all this and I’m having a hard time understanding how someone can lack this much self-awareness and still function in society. Unless, they can’t do that either? Thanks.

I… I did not have “Idiot politicians backed by bigoted LLMs” on my 2025 bingo card. This way too plausible to be ignored. So… thanks?

What’s embarrassing here is that I’ve been saying “co-bots not robots” for a while now. But no, not like that.

On the one hand, the shock and horror that people experience when their government goes hard on bigotry, demands some kind of retreat to psychological safety. On the other, the above is not the kind of copium one should reach for. What’s sad is that, as a group, they probably had the resources to actually do something useful to help themselves, rather than offer mutual support to ignore all the warning signs.

I agree and disagree.

The premise is solid: unify config so it’s standardized and machine parse-able for better integrations like an easier-to-build UI/UX. It could even have ramifications for cloud-init and older IaC tech like Puppet.

The problem is Linux itself. Or rather, the subsystems that are cobbled together to make Linux a viable OS. You’re not going to get all the different projects to pivot to a common config scheme, so this YAML standard would need a backend to convert to/from whatever each little deamon and driver requires. This creates a few secondary problems like community backlash (see systemd), and having multiple places where config data must be actively synchronized.

I think the current crop of GUI config systems are aleady well down the most pragmatic path: each config panel touches one or more standard config files, wherever they are, and however they are structured. It’s not pretty under the hood, and it’s complicated, but it works. These tools just need a lot more polish on the frontend.

For a while now I’ve been paying attention to the way customers are treated, and noticed a kind of symmetry with how the employees of a given business/institution are treated. If you’re seeing one kind of abuse/neglect, the other is very likely to also be the case, because it all comes from the same place.

In the case of Walmart: employees under a rather heavy yoke of part-time-no-benefits-never-unions labor, and customers are given a dis-compassionate choice between poorly made and barely viable goods from dubious origins. It’s not that management/ownership doesn’t care about this or that, it’s that they generally don’t care about people and are grotesque about it. It’s all here.

Now I’m wondering if there such a thing as a decentralized private company?

I’ve been thinking about this all week. I have no idea if that exists or not. A few things sprang to mind though:

• It might be possible to have lightweight companies that all adopt the same incorporation boilerplate, not unlike a computer operating system. That, in turn, would be developed by a distinct entity and would publish updates to improve said OS over time. So, open-source but for legal docs that matter. This would make companies unified in principle, but ultimately, distinct.

• It’s possible for companies to operate “at arm’s length” but still share useful information or coordinate towards similar goals. One must be well-versed in anti-trust law to do this though.

• A franchise is the only existing model I can think of that comes even close. But that’s still centralized. I suppose a non-profit parent company and for/non-profit franchise operations might come closer.

The part that bothers me the most about this is how the re-institution of child labor points to the damnable confusion of moral, ethical, and legal, activity. Clearly this isn’t moral or ethical, but it is legal. So, undoubtedly some will point at the law and reassure themselves and others that this alone makes it okay to do. While there’s no stopping people that lack moral fiber to do the right thing, it’s everyone else that decides on the wrong side of moral and ethical conflict that make this so much worse.

On another note: how does one effectively boycott this behavior? No doubt, a lot of this labor will happen sight-unseen.

I don’t, but I’ve worn long underwear due to sitting still in a cool office for hours on end… at a Linux terminal. The thigh-high socks are starting to make a lot more sense now.

Even he can’t believe it happened.

i did not know what all those bins of tiny electronic hobby parts were for, but I desperately wanted to learn.

From what I understand, prior to the personal computer boom of the 1980’s, HAM radio was kind of a big deal with nerds. The parts were there for all manner of electronics tinkering, but a big mainstay was building and modifying radios. Yeah, you had people tinkering with computers in the 1970’s too, but it was more niche (until it wasn’t).

There are two problems with scaling back to the old way of doing things: 1) enshitification and 2) endless seeking of upward growth and profit.

This case is especially egregious since it’s not an extra thing that made this TV look like a good deal at Target/BestBuy/whatever. Instead, it’s a secondary way for LG to directly monetize your use of the appliance (ads and data). So, they’ve all but given up trying to make a better or more cost-effective TV and are just figuring out how to charge you rent for it instead.

Possibly the grossest thing about all this, is how the RNC wasted no time trying to turn this into something it’s not.

Those who resort to violence to undermine our state and nation must be held accountable

While in principle I agree, nobody was hurt. That’s because this was arson, not assault.

Today, we see the same dangerous tendencies play out in new forms—attempts to suppress free speech, silence dissent, and use fear to control the political narrative.

Ironic, no? Nevermind the whataboutism regarding the old DNC and GOP roles back in the early 20th.

Do a campaign about prescription opiates or meth or something useful.

Poking at the opioid crisis would be worthwhile subversion of things.

This is exactly what had me scared straight for the longest time. It’s not the drug, it’s the system that punishes use of the drug that’s the real threat.

The fact that ex-convicts (people that have paid their debt to society) aren’t a protected class in the hiring process is beyond me. At least insofar as non-violent offenses go, there’s no cause to throw someone away like this. This goes especially considering the current state of political affairs around here.

Maybe, but as I recall, it was a Civil Rights protest. I had to look it up. Back in 1963:

https://sandersinstitute.org/event/bernie-sanders-arrest-at-chicago-civil-rights-protest

Edit: maybe the most based human being alive at this point.

How… how do they not have a smooth on-ramp for what is basically a straight upgrade to the same service?!