Notices by Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz), page 11

@djsumdog oh dear. That's your cred shot to hell. Trump won? Holy crap. And no, I didn't vote for Clinton either, because, yes, she's part of the entirely corrupt establishment. But thinking Trump is preferable... no, Trump is a shit stain. There's nothing good about him. Sadly, the US is a broken, corrupt nation and it's terrifying. I'm just pleased my immediate family is mostly far away from it. @strypey

@djsumdog as I said, the US is screwed. @strypey

@djsumdog interesting response. I'm not advocating that approach, however it might be necessary to achieve the needed change in behaviour. You might want to read Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future. He imagines how these things might escalate (e.g. people shooting down private jets & even long-haul passenger jets) if gov'ts continue to be actively counter-productive in the face of existential crisis. Shit has to change & some powerful people will need to accept far lower profits.

@djsumdog I've done far more maths than most. I'm disappointed in your position on climate change.

@djsumdog here's the thing: You're advocating for 'business as usual', aligned entirely with people who're making vast fortunes from fossil fuel exploitation (&, as you say, from convincing weak gov'ts that they're investing in 'green'(washed) energy transfer media like hydrogen & biofuel) . You're throwing us numbers & asking us to draw conclusions from them. 1/2 @strypey

@djsumdog None of use are climate scientists, but I am a scientist & know how science works & what motivates most scientists. I will *always* trust scientists that promote a position *despite* it being a) unpopular with funding/grant providers (gov'ts, institutions, & big corporates), and b) being contrary to societal norms and behaviours. Doing so is generally career limiting, not enabling. Those scientists trying to bring this to our attention are largely selfless heroes. 2/2 @strypey

@djsumdog maybe you're right. That said, I see the hallmarks of an anti-progressive (conservative) ideology poking through the gaps in your narrative... Yes, I guess, though we see a lot of things the same way, it seems we observe different loci of power, and we have different images of ourselves, and those affiliations make us incompatible in our positions. Too bad. @strypey

@djsumdog also, I think that likening this initiative to something daft like religion is just going to get people's backs up (i.e. not the accomplishing result you desire). But this is probably going to end up in violence because most people happy with their blissful ignorance.

@djsumdog The best way to convince me that climate change is happening is that those who are flagging the result of their research, adding to the chorus, are in direct opposition to the interests of some of the wealthiest, most entrenched, & self-protecting people (oil industry) around. You'd have to feel *very* confident in your results to take on such a powerful and prone-to-evil group. I'm afraid your position doesn't compel me, convenient though it would be.

@djsumdog I think there's more nuance to it than that. I'm very cynical about the EV industry (even so, given that I have PV on my house, I'm keen to have one when my ICE car dies) & I agree that many corporations are trying to push bullshit like hydrogen conversion. I get a lot of stuff. But the issue is that our society's economies are in lock step with fossil fuel exploitation & that needs to change.

@djsumdog Even if (& I clearly don't think it's the case) 'climate catastrophe' isn't upon us, decoupling human prosperity from fossil fuel use is good & necessary no matter what.

@djsumdog I happen to think that we, as humans in the rich part of the world, have got used to expending vastly more energy than we need to in order to 'thrive/prosper' & that we'd actually enjoy our lives more if we expended far less and invested much of our energy in using less energy. And yes, you sometimes need to invest (energy) up front to save it in the longer term.

@djsumdog And wow, that's a pretty serious leap suggesting I want people to die. On the contrary - the same claim could be levelled at folks like you who're claiming that all this is made up, as people living on low-lying islands around the world find it impossible to grow crops due to salt water incursion... Not to mention the other 20-30% of humanity who live within a metre or two of sea level.

Fascinating: https://mastodon.social/@Snoro/111009719372820276 But not sure I'd take this approach without direct provocation from drivers. That said, it might influence people's vehicle purchasing decisions... Disclosure: I've used this (non-destructive but inconvenient) approach on a couple occasions when I've come across cars whose drivers have previously put my safety (as a cyclist obeying all road rules) at risk for their own convenience or out of ignorance of their responsibilities...

Thinking about the poor woman who was locked out of her Facebook-dependent business by the system & hasn't been able to contact anyone at FB. Was reminded of all those software companies who became 'Silverlight' developers... Haven't heard of them? There's a reason for that: Microsoft owned Silverlight, and then end-of-lifed it. Those companies, like this woman, got kneecapped because they made a very naïve business decision. Never let your business depend on a 3rd party you don't control.

@dogriley the best thing humanity could do is abandon FB en mass.

Periodic reminder: proprietary SaaS like Slack, MSO 365, Harvest, Trello, etc. are a lot like sending your beloved mission-critical data to a Mafia-run reform school. Sure, you can visit lil' Bobby Tables at Christmas, but only if you pay monthly & adhere to their strict terms. Yeah, you can have Bobby back... but it won't be in form you recognise. To look after your lil' Bobby properly, send him/her to a local school run by trusted folks in your community. Or heck, home-school. 1/2

@lnxw37a2 I know a fair bit about it. MSFT got its partners in every jurisdiction to join their national ISO committees just for that one vote. In effect, MSFT showed they could corrupt the global ISO process on a whim.

@topher the problem is gov'ts giving MSFT a get-out-of-jail-free card by adopting OOXML as an 'open standard' (that MS controls unilaterally & allows for 'binary blobs' within it). As a result, it can continue to keep potential competitors at bay by tweaking/changing details that make the competing software (from the uniformly oblivious user-perspective at least) look 'less capable'. It's entirely insidious and quite deliberate. @jackivan88

Periodic reminder: just because 'everybody does it!' or 'everybody uses it!' doesn't mean that everybody isn't wrong, generally badly informed, and working against everybody's best interesting. More often than not, that is, in fact, the case when technology is involved.

In the context of software provision, it's almost always the case. And yes, it is Microsoft/Google/Apple/Amazon/Facebook/Twitter/Oracle/Adobe/Salesforce/et al.'s fault. They deserve all the blame.