Notices by Ciara (ciarani@mastodon.green), page 2

#SilentSunday

How do I hate thee, AI? Let me count the ways.
I hate thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of my mind as I try and fail to find ways that turn off Copilot and predictive text and stop you changing the right words I typed into wrong words
And oh, how I hate thee for the ways you waste the planet’s energy and my time.
I hate thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my grown-up's faith that we should never have moved on from plain text.

Am dreaming of a day when some brave soul in some IT department in some back office somewhere stands up and shouts: "No! I am not going to be a part of this any more! No, I will NOT programme that button to say 'Maybe later' instead of 'No'. No, I will NOT programme this to install generative AI anywhere unless we include a gigantic 'Do You Consent?' button and a 'Remove This' one-click button in a gigantically prominent place."

A nice attempt by our council to reduce single-use waste. A new deposit system with reusable cups for takeaway coffee. You pay a deposit of 5 kr. (less than €1) for the cup, then get your money back at one of the cup-recycling stations they’ve installed around the city.

It’s a three-year trial. If all goes well, pizza boxes will be next.

#Aarhus
#ClimateDiary

'No app. No membership. No bullshit.'

The team that developed and marketed the city's new deposit system for takeaway coffee cups understands humans. They understand that we are tired of digital coercion.

#Aarhus
#DigitalZwang

One year into the council's three-year trial of a deposit system with reusable cups for takeaway coffee:

750,000 cups returned so far.

Nine out of 10 people know the system exists.

39% of Aarhusianers have used Reusable at least once.

84% of users were 'happy' or 'very happy' with it.

I've tried it. Anecdotally, I think the ease-of-use is crucial. No apps, no registering, no signing in. It's actually user-friendly.

https://www.reuseable.dk/da#blog

#Aarhus
#ClimateDiary

I know it's rude to brag, but that's my library.

#Aarhus
#Bibliotek
#Libraries

‘There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things, including yourself. That’s what sin is.’

‘It’s a lot more complicated than that—’

‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.’

‘Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—’

‘But they STARTS with thinking about people as things ...’

#Books
#TerryPratchett

That older relative you do tech support for is probably not bamboozled by digital devices. They were guessing their way through Y/N ms-DOS and dodging Fatal Error cartoon bombs on Macs before you and the smartphone were born. Now they're older, wearier, and exasperated by digital coercion and the complication of simple things. They’re not listening to Bing Crosby while being amazed email exists. They’re listening to Queen while cursing enshittification & resenting the time it costs them and you.

#SilentSunday

Skylight

#Vejle
#WindowFriday
#FensterFreitag

Touch-typing used to be a useful, time-saving skill. I type at top speed, as quick as the words come, not looking at the keyboard, often not looking at the screen, often while chatting to someone or thinking about something else. I learnt to touch-type in the ‘80s on a manual typewriter with the letter-keys blacked out. It’s only a matter of time before some anthropology student interviews me for their thesis On The Preservation Of The Ancient Skills of Our Ancestors.

@FreakyFwoof I have tried and failed on several devices. I asked our IT department at work how to turn off CoPilot and six months' later, still no answer. No answer is, I understand, the answer - i.e. we cannot turn it off, it's a compulsory part of our work tools.

Whatever you’re reading, if it’s not about the taxonomy of bread clips and their many varieties around the globe, then you’re reading the wrong thing. And that’s even before you get to the middle-aged snowman and the neolithic squid and the radio bursts coming from unknown extragalactic sources that make the sad-trombone sound.

https://mastodon.green/@clive@saturation.social called his Linkfest-newsletter ‘The opposite of doomscrolling’ and it actually is.

https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-28-neolithic-octopuses-weeping-trees-and/

Babies left outside cafés to sleep peacefully in their prams in the fresh air while their parents are inside. Small businesses that leave their wares out on the street all night so people can use the honour system to pay digitally, then take what they want.

A visitor from abroad was surprised to see this way of living, especially mid-city, which has reminded me to be grateful to live in a country and a city where this is not surprising.

#Aarhus #Denmark
#LiveableCities

I've been randomly banging on about death and dying, so before I log off and head out to carpe this diem, here's a random picture of the Christmas tree at the library.

I know it's twee to romanticise libraries, but it will never not amaze me that we can ask for a book they don't have and a librarian in a local library on the far side of the country will walk over to pick it off a shelf and send it to a librarian in my local library who will walk over to put it on a shelf, reserved for me, just for me, for free.

#Libraries
#HappyTaxpayer

‘Whenever George Pullman ventured out, he had to be guarded by detectives armed with shotguns. When he died, his family were so afraid that former employees might desecrate his grave that his coffin was sealed into a triple reinforced block of steel and concrete.’

The death of a reviled American health insurance CEO today reminded me of the death of a reviled American industrialist 127 years ago. Such lives, lives lived ruining other people’s lives for money.

https://omny.fm/shows/cautionary-tales-with-tim-harford/steel-and-kindness-clash-of-the-skyscrapers

@Pepijn I am nominating you and your footer and your toot for the Nobel Prize in Geniusness.

@Pepijn It will be well-deserved, for this neat idea. I have yet to hear anyone in 'real life' talk about the fact that using ChatGPT or other generative AI tools has an environmental cost at all, let alone a high one. I have literally only seen it mentioned online, so anecdotally, I think there's a big need for basic awareness-raising to start with. Everyone is using AI for everything, like it's a magic wand, is my experience so far.