Notices by Dave Rahardja (drahardja@sfba.social)

@liztai Great idea!

@liztai As an ASEAN-born person who naturalized into the US, one thing I painfully notice is that there are a *ton* of “thought killer phrases” that people use to prevent US citizens from criticizing their own country.

Things like “we are the greatest country in the world” and “we love freedom” and “I earned what I own” and any number of other trite appeals to just leave things alone is SO embedded into our national psyche, that it’s almost impossible to have a discussion that doesn’t get zapped by one of these trip wires. It’s more comfortable for people to withdraw into self-delusional circles where no one challenges the system, because you’ll find a great number of friends who do nothing but agree with you.

Because we are unable to talk about our problems, we aren’t able to appreciate that we *have* problems. It’s refreshing to see foreigners criticize the US on the Internet in a way that those short-circuit phrases cannot stop.

“Stairway to Heaven” played as a Classical Guitar piece.

#music #musicVideo #guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wqQqv-euRU

Incredible that the xenophobic banning of #TikTok has caused a massive migration to #Lemon8, which lets you browse TikTok content with a different UX, and #LittleRedBook, which is yet another Chinese-owned company (TikTok is owned by ByteDance in China, although the company is nominally based in the Cayman Islands).

Maybe write laws that prohibit specific behaviors instead of banning specific companies. Or will that impinge too much on the profit margins of US companies?

@jrballesteros05 @lxo This is actually a very desirable state, IF the benefits of automation accrue to everyone. Imagine everyone having plenty, because automation has taken away all drudgery. It would be fantastic.

@tokyo_0 @rysiek They are road legal. The city makes up rules to make them illegal to park.

On some local streets, there are signs that say “no parking for vehicles taller than 6 ft”, which is an arbitrary and bullshit rule meant to target lived-in RVs. Pretty sure no one will call for a tow if someone parks their personal lifted truck under the sign.

Another form of inhumane #homeless #unhoused sweep in #SanJose.

The city is towing away (to where?) 960 lived-in vehicles, but are only “planning” to open a safe-parking lot for 85 vehicles. Where do the rest go, Mayor Mahan? Do they just disappear?

The unhoused crisis in the #sfba is not caused by encampments or lived-in vehicles; they are merely the symptoms of the problem. Show me action that deals with the housing affordability crisis that’s at the heart of this problem.

There are more than a few lived-in RVs around my neighborhood. Do I want them removed? Hell no, unless you’re also giving them a place to live. Those people are my neighbors.

“San Jose is towing oversized vehicles from these 30 locations”

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/san-jose-is-towing-oversized-vehicles-from-these-30-locations/

Can Zuck actually pull this off in 2025? Probably not. But that’s not going to stop him from laying off engineers again this year, and forcing the remainder to rely on #AI to get work done that their ex-colleagues would have helped with. AI is still going to suck, but Zuck is going to force it to “work”.

#Zuckerberg on #JoeRogan’s show (no link because #FuckZuck, find the clip yourself):

“Probably in 2025, Meta, as well as other companies, will have an AI that can effectively be a mid-level engineer that you have at your company that can write code. In the beginning that will be very expensive to run, then at some point a lot of the code we have in our apps will be built by AI engineers instead of people engineers. In my opinion that will augment the people working on it. My view is that in the future people will be so much more creative and freed up to do crazy things.”

I state again: to most capitalists pouring money into #AI, THE CORE VALUE PROPOSITION FOR AI IS DISPLACEMENT OF HUMAN LABOR. What capitalists want are slaves that replace workers.

Robots have replaced a lot of *repetitive* human work, and capitalists have hoarded all the profits from their increased productivity. Now they want AI to replace *intelligent* human work, and capitalists want to hoard those profits too.

Software engineers: CAPITAL IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. You are not a billionaire; you are a worker. Rich investors are trying to take your livelihood away any way they can to keep more money in their pockets. Don’t be smug because you make more money than the median; your worth is smaller than a rounding error on any given billionaire’s spreadsheet.

I repeat: YOU ARE A WORKER. Stand with your fellow workers AGAINST capital. Capitalists and billionaires make life worse for others. They’ve been coming after other workers; and now they’re coming after YOU.

#workers #softwareEngineering #solidarity #unionize

“Over 60 German-speaking universities and research institutions have decided to take a stand and collectively announce their decision to cease activities in the social network X (formerly Twitter). This withdrawal comes in response to the platform's current direction, which is incompatible with the core values of the participating institutions: openness to the world, scientific integrity, transparency, and democratic discourse.”

This is how you do it.

#fuckElon #Xitter #Germany

https://press.uni-mainz.de/universities-and-research-institutions-leave-social-network-x/

Ya memang kalau kita lupakan jajahan warga Belanda dari tahun 1500-an, diteruskan oleh pendirian perusahaan yang paling berharga di dunia yaitu #VOC pada tahun 1800an, sampai dengan kemerdekaan #Indonesia pada tahun 1945, memang negara Belanda dikepalai oleh orang-orang kaya yang bekerjasama dengan rukun dan makmur.

Artikel ini berbohong tentang sejarah kemakmuran bangsa Belanda. Kedamaian di negara itu berdasarkan penjajahan dan pencurian skala besar kekayaan dari jutaan orang di sisi balik dunia. Cerita sejarah Belanda itu tidak lengkap tanpa fakta ini.

Bangsa manakah yang akan dijajah oleh orang kaya di Amerika Serikat untuk meniru kesuksesan #Belanda jaman dulu?

#amrik #usa #conservatism #oligarchy https://sfba.social/@kyozou/113806889653249726

I love this. Having the *option* of expressing gender makes English *more* precise. https://dice.camp/@GamerMomLuna/113787180508777026

@dalias @Finitum I dunno, I feel it should be a civic event.

@Finitum IMO attendance to the inauguration should be via lottery. Joe from a few doors down should be as likely to attend as Jeff Bezos.

Otherwise, limit the attendance to members of Congress and the Supreme Court, and make it an event only for the representatives.

Selling seats to the highest bidder is corrupt by default.

Why are people even allowed to donate to presidential inaugurations? Shouldn’t the whole thing be paid for by the public? Make it come out of some Park Services fund!

I ran across this photo I took of the fully functional Babbage Difference Engine No. 2 while it was on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

I count myself lucky to have seen this marvel in person, and to see a demonstration of the device being operated.

The machine was commissioned by Nathan Mhyrvold of Microsoft fame, and is now housed in the lobby of Intellectual Ventures in Bellevue, Washington.

#computers #vintageComputing #computerHistory

When Mark Zuckerberg walks into a restaurant, the average diner there is a billionaire. https://universeodon.com/@athomeinmyhead/113750311956328992

@susankayequinn Updated for 2024:

AI CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

　　　　　　THEREFORE

　　THEIR OPERATORS MUST BE
　　　HELD ACCOUNTABLE
　　　 FOR THEIR ACTIONS

Some really #GoodNews on the #tech worker front: #union membership among tech workers appears to be increasing. Constant layoffs and hardline #returnToOffice mandates have seemed to remind even highly-paid tech workers that they are indeed *workers* after all, subject to the whims of capital.

“Tech worker movements grow as threats of RTO, AI loom”

#unions

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/12/from-ai-to-rto-unpopular-policies-may-fuel-tech-worker-movements-in-2025/