Notices by bignose (bignose@sw-development-is.social)

Squidly luck to @evan

🦑

As so often, @evan, this historical quote taken out of its historical context does not completely encapsulate the meaning.

A more complete quotation of Audre Lorde's words:

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”

@majorlinux

The quote is taken from the title of an essay, so that's not a great surprise it's the only text people repeat.

“Lorde’s message is clear: in order to create real change, we must reject the systems and structures that uphold power imbalances and instead create our own tools and methods for dismantling them. This requires a deep understanding of the ways in which power operates and a commitment to challenging and transforming it.”

https://literarysum.com/deconstructing-power-analyzing-audre-lordes-the-masters-tools-will-never-dismantle-the-masters-house/

@evan @majorlinux

@evan
> most of the energy for data centres comes from fossil fuels.

Yes. And until that ceases, those data centres should be shut down or never funded in the first place.

> Most of the fossil fuels do not go to data centres.

I don't know of anyone who denies that. Whether that's true or not, we still need to stop the obscene allocation of fossil fuel burning represented by #GenAI data centres, today and in the near future.

@evan
> It is obscene to be a grown human being on planet Earth in 2026 and not have any idea what actually causes climate change.

Yeah. What causes climate change is, in large part, the burning of fossil fuels.

“In both [the USA and Canada], most of the electricity consumed by data centres is produced from fossil fuels, which also meet most of the increase to 2030.”

https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-supply-for-ai

*Any* fossil fuel burned to power a #GenAI data centre, is causing climate change.

⦿ Joe Biden

@evan

Asking many people, I've never had a description of what they mean by “spiritual experience” that puts it outside the bounds of a physiological + mental experience.

This might be because people sadly underestimate what range of experiences our minds and bodies are capable of generating, and insist there must be some “spirit” separate from the mind and body.

I have much greater respect for minds and bodies than that, to ever need to invent a distinct spiritual realm.

@evan

Yes, I wish @evan a happy birthday

and I wish that he receives the gift of a CoSocial with more than 4 poll options

Every one the correct anwser to a different question.

@evan

@evan
> a great opportunity to measure how valuable copilot is.

I have detected no interest from management in finding an answer to that question; largely because the prevailing attitude is they *already know* it's valuable, just want the workers to fall in line and be hyper productive like Microsoft promised

My employer has purchased a Copilot license for everyone across all our application development teams.

And then gets weekly reports from Microsoft on *how much each person uses* Copilot.

From the beginning I've been “if you want to stop paying for my license, that's fine with me”. Thus far, they keep paying, and low-key shaming people into using it more.

@evan

Commercial entities can operate on the #Fediverse, provided everyone is free to completely mute them and defederate from them.

But: it's highly unlikely I'll be interested enough to follow any account operating transactionally with its audience, or in a marketing capacity, or fake engagement, etc. So, if there's a significant number like me, commercial activity will have a much more difficult time on the Fediverse than on centralised platforms; and IMO that's as it should be.

@evan

It seems clear to me that the embarrassment lands squarely on the tech media, who should be far better at communicating "#OpenOffice is not what you're looking for, use #LibreOffice @libreoffice instead". That's firmly within the tech media's job.

The job of @TheASF lies primarily in maintaining software. Let them maintain whatever software, for as long as people want it maintained.

@msbellows
> But you can't play chess without knowing what the pieces are, ie, knowledge.

I categorically disagree; this has been disproven by the 1980s chess-playing computers.

I think you would not find that computer has any knowledge of what the pieces in chess are. And yet, they can demonstrably play chess. Is that intelligence?

@evan

@evan
> intelligence and knowledge are intimately intertwined

Well that's a different proposition.

Two things can be distinct and also intertwined. Two distinct pieces of twine, for example.

As another example: The mind is distinct from the brain. Also, they are intimately intertwined.

Another: The atmosphere is distinct from the tree. Also, they are intimately intertwined.

If you're reading "yes" as "intelligence and knowledge are not intertwined", you asked the wrong question?

Thank you @corbet and all at @LWN for continuing the work of providing the excellent #LWN.

The "active defenses" against torrents of antisocial web scraping bots, has bad effects on users. They tend to be "if you don't allow JavaScript and cookies, you can't visit the site" even if the site itself works fine without.

I don't have a better defense to offer, but it's really closing off huge portions of the web that would otherwise be fine for secure browsers.

It sucks. Sorry, and thank you.

I'm sure there are "too short" and "too long" durations.

I think, though, that the maximum would depend a lot on what the political leader can do. What powers do they have? What checks are there on use of that power? What balancing institutions will effectively counteract abuse of power?

Different answers there, will lead to different maximum duration IMO.

@evan

A good French term is "saboteur" @evan

Qualified no. Because, even if I am in a secret society, I wouldn't be able to tell @evan anyway

The what?

@evan maybe edit the post, link to the logo so we can see it for the poll?