Notices by Metafrastis (dgavin@mastodon.online)

@aral @paninid @gerrymcgovern Of course, but our energy would be better used first fixing the real problems and then going after the crumbles 🙂

@paninid @aral @gerrymcgovern About a million times more water is lost by leaky water pipes. A few data centres don’t really add up, if you look at the numbers…

@aral Better? I remember that up until the early 10s I never made phone calls on the road because I didn’t want to be the only dork to do that.
Expectations change, the technology shrinks. Apple has the money and the patience to wait for it.

@aral Oh jeez, why can‘t people learn from history? iPod? iPhone? iPad? AppleWatch? Every new product category had a sales slump after a few months. And smartasses immediately and smugly explained how these devices were too expensive, hadn‘t enough features or any other criticism you can hear now about the VisionPro.
Well, didn‘t turn out too bad for Apple. Every.Single.Time.
Learn from it!

@aral since the 17th century "artists" is used for "one skilled in any art or craft" (including professors, surgeons, craftsmen, cooks).
I‘d argue that software engineers are artists too. AI models are not created by some abstract "trillion dollar companies" but by humans. Your class struggle rethoric is undercomplex and not helpful here (and I‘m saying this as a left social democrat).

@aral Good artists copy, great artists steal (Pablo Picasso) #everythingisaremix

@Gargron It‘s fun to read all the answers here from nerds who hate Apple for reasons 99% of normal users wouldn‘t care a second about. Rants from people who value customization over usability, over design, over privacy and over security. You may know how to make your Android phone secure and private, but my parents (and most everybody else I know) sure as hell don‘t and never will.

@aral I avoid it where I can too, but unfortunately when you work at an university you have to sometimes use MS shit. It feels like everytime I have to my life span is cut by a few days…

@aral Funny you mention that. I regularly get that kind of error in SharePoint or in office365 web. And I‘m old enough to have debugged HTML code in 1994. I know a bit about the matter. If something doesn’t work in only one browser it’s usually the browsers fault. If it doesn’t work in most browser engines it’s the website’s fault.

@aral Why the hell would I want to use Firefox on a Mac, when there are so many better, way faster und more intuitive and elegant alternatives (like Safari or Arc). That all work with iCloud. Which makes me wonder: perhaps it’s Firefox that is to blame?

@aral @Wolven Exactly what I propose. All knowledge must be public by law. Any great work of art must be in a publicly accessible museum.

@aral @Wolven Getting rid of copyright would mean: everything is in the public domain. If Ilya Suskever writes code for ChatGPT, he can do this because he went to schools, lives from infrastructure we all pay for, enjoys personal security we all pay for. He gets payed by his company, his company exists because the state offers the necessary economic security… no reason for a few to reap the fruits of the labor of many. All knowledge should be public because we all made it possible.

@Wolven @aral Seriously, let’s just abolish copyright laws. They are the source for the most blatant abusive lawsuits. Since the Queen Anne edict the whole field of intellectual property has just been an impediment to human progress, scientifically and culturally. Everything is a remix, AI too.

@axbom @thecontinent @aral I was always a big fan of not blaming people for what their ancestors did. I‘m not blaming Germans for WWII, I‘m rather blaming Putin for trying to start WWIII.
I‘m not blaming Charles for colonialism, there surely are things he can be blamed for that are his own responsibility, aren’t there?

@FloydyStu @aral Has GB also retired from the European human rights court when brexiting? If not, this disgrace will soon be a thing of the past.

@aral @Gargron The Greeks, not the Trojans… but yeah. Todays Trojan horses are our smartphones.