Notices by Charles U. Farley (freakazoid@retro.social), page 2

To me, the beauty of a programming language's syntax is determined primarily by how much it doesn't look like C.

Looking at actual #Python in the wild, I am forced to conclude that the reason a lot of people dislike Python is that they've never bothered to learn it. They just copy other people's crappy code, end up with crap themselves, and conclude that the problem is Python and the solution is to rewrite everything in Go. Once they rewrite everything in Go, it's still crap, but by then they've left the team and it's someone else's problem. New person to the team asks why they're rewriting it in Go and is told "Because Python didn't work well for the project," so they think "Wow if it's this bad now Python must really suck."

The real reason we need #CollapseOS isn't because civilization is going to collapse but because all modern hardware is so full of backdoors, DRM, and surveillance. It's really computing that has collapsed.

Who knew that separating Free Software from the ideology behind it would lead to disastrous consequences for the people who have poured their heart & soul into it?

It's noon and I'm sitting in bed reading Mastodon and streaming my Band camp library and I feel kinda guilty and then I look over at the wife and she's still in her pajamas and I stop feeling guilty.

@ajroach42 People use this same kind of fatalism/binary fallacy when it comes to privacy & security as well: "I can't completely secure myself so why bother." It's motivated reasoning. They don't want to have to care, so they grasp for a reason not to. The actual excuse they pick is not that relevant, and convincing them their reason is bullshit won't change their mind. They'll just come up with a different excuse.

So I'd just ignore the excuse entirely and point out that they're doing something that directly benefits not just a transphobe but a high-profile transphobe who has done significant harm to trans people.

@alcinnz @gnuplusknoppers @yatil Apple has ruined mobile just like Google has ruined the web.

We don't and won't own our stuff as long as we're willing to pay for things we won't actually own. Companies will just find workarounds for any "right to repair" laws as long as we keep giving them money.

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2023/0206/Do-Americans-have-a-right-to-fix-their-own-stuff?icid=rss

@LovesTha @yatil @alcinnz Yep, and the universal APIs are the web APIs, so I guess we need to figure out how to live with it.

@yatil @alcinnz Yep. They made VB apps for the same reason. But those only worked on Windows. On Mac they made Hypercard apps. The web was the only thing that worked across all the platforms people used. That's still the case.

@yatil @alcinnz Perhaps you've forgotten or weren't around then, but the native app landscape was (in fact is IMO) pretty awful. So awful that people were willing to use browser-based apps even before V8 and Chrome came along to make JS speeds tolerable.

There's a lot to be said for physical media, but you can't beat the shareability of DRM-free electronic media.

@alcinnz I'm pretty nervous about trying to get the hybrid graphics on my System76 Oryx Pro 9 working on a different OS, so I'm planning to stick with Pop_OS. I have switched out Nautilus for a less bloated file manager (nemo) at least.

@alcinnz Is there a non-hacky way to install that on Pop_OS? I don't see it in apt.

When did they rewrite #GnomeShell in Electron? It takes a ton of RAM and CPU and just crashed on me. Not a great show for a glorified window manager.

"It warns that unless the US’s dependence on cars in towns and cities falls drastically, the transition to lithium battery-powered electric vehicles by 2050 will deepen global environmental and social inequalities linked to mining – and may even jeopardize the 1.5C global heating target."

This is your regularly scheduled reminder that the purpose of #ElectricCars is to save the car industry, not the planet. We have no choice but to drastically reduce the number of cars on the road.

#ClimateChange #lithium #evs

Revealed: how US transition to electric cars threatens environmental havoc
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/24/us-electric-vehicles-lithium-consequences-research

Though actually this also appears in #Neofeud, so maybe it should be SilverSpookesque?

Would the UK's switching people to pre-paid electric plans remotely via their smart meters be Doctorowian or Doctorowesque?

You think #AI-generated Quora answers are a problem? How about AI-generated comments on notices of proposed rulemaking, and AI-generated emails and letters to lawmakers?

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/01/ai-and-political-lobbying.html

Wanna know how much spam I get?

Zero.

Wanna know how many scam emails I get?

Zero.

Wanna know why?

https://simplelogin.io/