Notices by Simon McGarr (tupp_ed@mastodon.ie)

“But ESB Networks is currently (from beginning of October 2022) rejiggling smart meters so that all the granular half hour data from its customers smart meters is being brought into a centralised database, whether customers consent or not and whether their billing tariff needs it or not (and this is suggested to increase to every fifteen minutes after 2025).

This is new.”

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-how-smart-is-your-meter/

“These smart meters were originally set up to store detailed half-hour usage data but only transfer that stuff from the meter to ESB Networks if there was a request from the customer, or some other compelling reason why the data was required. Otherwise, the plan, as set out on the CRU's website, was for ESB Networks to default to getting a report once a day on how much power had been used in that 24 hours.”

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-how-smart-is-your-meter/

The Gist: How Smart is Your Meter?

"By and large, people in Ireland like having heating, cooking facilities and hot water in their homes. And, ever since hanging large pots over open hearths burning dried cowpats fell from fashion, they have turned to electricity to meet those needs.

Now ESB gets activity in every home in Ireland, broken down into half-hour increments . The'll know whether the home is occupied and when we enter our homes, and the level of activity"

https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-how-smart-is-your-meter/

I'm quoted here by TechCrunch on Zoom's EU law problems in justifying their claim that they can use personal data gathered from users of their service to train AI models.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/08/zoom-data-mining-for-ai-terms-gdpr-eprivacy/

All books belong in every library.

Pay no attention to any bad faith argument by loo lahs presenting themselves as concerned parents etc that any book - *any book*- is inappropriate in a library.

Ireland was world famous for its avid censorship of books throughout the 20th C, the same time when it is now famous for abusing children.

The core, obscured, objection is the granting to offspring (adult or minor) personal agency.

Informing people, allowing them to find things out in the literal sanctuary of a library or a supportive school, is anathema to impulses or ideologies of control or ownership over offspring (again, either adult or minors).

All education, all literature, all information, empowers people.

That’s the power being objected to. That’s the agency they would like to claw back.

We saw exactly this argument made explicit in the campaign against the Constitutional amendment to recognise children’s rights.

The driving stated motivation of the splinter which opposed it on principle was to continue to exert control, ownership and power over children.

It was, rightly, rejected almost universally at the ballot box and children’s rights and dignity as human beings confirmed.

These people, of course, don’t accept other people’s decisions on granting their children or adult children the dignity of personal agency.

They even tried to over turn the referendum in the Supreme Court.

We’ve seen recently enough the sort of blinkered, barracking rejection of any alternative point of view this worldview creates.

https://www.thejournal.ie/childrens-referendum-result-2066605-Apr2015/

I exist as the person that I am because of my local library.

I would go there whenever I wanted to read books.

Books don’t just go away when you’re finished them, their words sit on your mind, to sink deeper and deeper into you, until they are a part of who you are.

Sometimes a very important part.

The possibility for change is anathema to people who insist they have had the whole truth already revealed to them.