Notices by lolcat (lolcat@digipres.club)

What's the best Linux distro to install and use on an old PowerBook G4?

@botvolution @MLE_online

Intrigued by the Amy Adams reference. The actor Amy Adams? From June Bug?

@MLE_online @botvolution

Thanks!

For at least a decade, US higher ed has been all-in on outsourcing as much IT to Google and MS as possible. It's been years since the last major US university replaced internally-operated email with one of those two.

One of the few computer-related services not yet completely surrendered to "the cloud" is HPC, but that's not for lack of trying. Years of literally screaming lies into the faces of researchers and IT people has taken its toll - a generation quit/retired/laid off.

To me, this all amounts to en-masse institutional self lobotomization. The talent that created the collection of technologies we call the Internet were replaced by service contracts with monopolists - contracts negotiated by incompetent poseurs. The result is the complete loss of self-determination - you get what they let you have.

The old team isn't getting back together, but efforts like Othernets might help us field the team we need now.

If you build a backdoor, eventually everyone's going to use it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/02/china-spying-telecom-trump-harris-fbi-cell-phone/

Related:

ALL critical infrastructure EVERYWHERE in the world is compromised. Our spooks are in their stuff. Their spooks are in our stuff.

Nation states sit on it bc when shit blows up, no one cares if the cause was a bomb or a hack. The response will be your shit being blown up too. IOW, war.

But what about non-state actors? For $100M, you can buy a lot of access. And their calculus does't necessarily align with any govts, or even make any rational sense.

@thomasfuchs @NanoRaptor

The TiBook was the last computer I genuinely *liked*. Since then, they've just been tools.

Thinking about it for a bit, it was also the last computer I owned that impressed me by being noticeably more useful than anything I'd used before. Everything since then feels like it's just been filling around the edges.

@loriemerson @rose_alibi @mediaarchaeologylab

Your post also made me remember Minitel - thanks for that!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel

@dalias @tokyo_0 @jalefkowit
In my experience, this gets closer to the truth. Same explanation for "Why cloud?" - namely, that the OPEX-aligned management won in their fight against the CAPEX peeps. Most big tech currents are really buisiness currents, when you peek under the hood.

@thomasfuchs
First half of 1997. Major US wireless carrier. Found and fixed thousands of Y2K bugs. Also learned that the world of difital commerce is held together mostly by luck. Good grief, was that code bad. So, so bad.

@petergleick

Godwin hadn't really considered the case where actual Nazis have invaded so many spaces, nor one where the actual Nazis are so vocal. Neither, apparently, has the New York Times.