Tootfinder

@tiotasram@kolektiva.social
2026-06-11 15:00:02

Just finished "The Terraformers" by Annalee Newitz (@…). It was recommended as a "solarpunk" book, and I'm currently on a quest to find more speculative fiction as good as Le Guin or Butler, so I was eager to dig in. Having tagged the author (hi) I'll try to be polite here, but I'll admit I was disappointed.
Newitz clearly has a powerful imagination and there's lots of great stuff in the book, but it's not at all pushing boundaries in terms of imagining future societies. I think the message and intent was good in a lot of places, but off or self-contradictory in others. I absolutely adore the relatively small point made at the end about revolutions being complicated and not boiling down to heroes and battles, but despite the book's attempt to avoid that, I think it still falls into that pattern. Without too many spoilers, the way that some big problems are resolved near the end leans too much on a legal framework without questioning how it's enforced, and that resolution then means that a few heroic acts are enough to tip the balance, which undermines the point about messy histories.
The biggest contradiction of the book to my mind though is with a central theme. The book really explores a world in which "anyone of any species can be a person, as long as we just bioengineer them to be intelligent enough," and it tries to make a point about how engineering limited intelligences is cruel. At several points characters comment about how personhood shouldn't depend on intelligence. There's even a brief quote about how maybe rivers could be people... But... the point could have been "anyone can be a person, regardless of intelligence." This would have made for much more interesting philosophical territory to explore IMO (how do we then bound personhood; how do we reconcile predator/prey relations between persons, etc.). These are also questions that the indigenous traditions Newitz draws on (and consulted about, as mentioned in the acknowledgements) has interesting answers for, but we don't get to explore them through Newitz' world, and because the question of personhood regresses to the question of intelligence, it feels like the moral philosophy of the ERT folks isn't any better than the "InAss" they disparage.
It's not a bad book overall, even if it doesn't engage with the questions I'm hungry to see others engage with. Newitz' efforts to sketch out a more vibrant and diverse future are still monumental and inspiring in a lot of ways. I'm just still looking for something more. Ultimately, I think it lives up to the "solar" but not very much to the "punk."
#AmReading #ReadingNow #Bookstodon

@cdarwin@c.im
2026-08-23 19:28:07

The housing unit, attractively set around a courtyard in converted student accommodation, follows the
⭐️“Housing First” principle that has made Finland a world leader when it comes to tackling homelessness.
👉The model focuses on housing as a fundamental human right rather than a reward.
Temporary accommodation is seen not as a solution, but something to be avoided.
All support is centred on ensuring that people have permanent homes,
with everything else follow…

Finland tried to end homelessness. What can we learn from its runaway success – and recent failures?
The Housing First policy led to the number of homeless people in Finland dropping by half. Those with firsthand experience explain why it worked

@pre@boing.world
2026-06-05 10:11:25

James O'Brien is on the radio asking if the government ought to leave Twitter.
He seems to have finally understood that there is no level playing field there, that the algorithm can't be used for good. That if it started to do good, the owners would just change it.
He left when he understood that the place is overrun with trolls and moderated only to keep the woke in check.
James blocked me ages ago, and I'd not ring in, but the key thing he's missing is this:
Elon musk has his own shitposting troll site that he owns.
Trump has his own shtposting troll site that he owns.
Mark Zuckerberg has his own shitposting troll site that he owns. He's got like four.
The blockchain people have their own shitposting troll site that they own (that's the one O'Brian uses).
If the government wants to use a shitposting troll site, they should also use one that they own.
Likewise LBC radio presenters really. If they want to use a shitposting troll site, they should probably use one that they own and moderate themselves.
And then, consensually, with no obligation, if they want, each of the shitposting troll sites can federate together with the others in a mesh, so that they can talk to each other and the conversation can flow between them but ownership and control is distributed to individual organisations.
Then we could decentralize ownership of the means of communication and avoid this argument about whether the government should be on twitter so we can instead argue whether UK Social should block or federate with Musk's Nazi Troll site or not.
And this system exists of course. LBC could have their own shitposting troll site by the end of next week and moderate it as they see fit.
#fediverse #mastodon #twitter #socialMedia

@luana@wetdry.world
2026-07-03 02:40:05

Who thought it was a good idea for text boxes in apps not show any feedback for a space when you're in the end of a line

@cdarwin@c.im
2026-06-17 01:46:27

Iran’s top diplomat has said a peace deal with the US would
require Israel to withdraw from Lebanon,
as concern grows that Israel could undermine diplomatic efforts to finally end the Middle East war,
with Donald Trump even criticising his ally and war partner as irresponsible.
“Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war,
the war has not fully come to an end,”
said the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghch…

Iran’s top envoy says peace deal with US dependent on Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon
Abbas Araghchi says war ‘not fully come to an end’ without Israeli forces leaving territories occupied during present conflict

@bobmueller@mastodon.world
2026-06-16 20:00:13

Love seeing a former supporter of the #deathpenalty come around in their thinking & call for an end to capital punishment. He's right when he says it's not a deterrent. I hope he'll commute current death sentences to life before he leaves office.

Gov. Mike DeWine calls on lawmakers to end Ohio death penalty
Gov. Mike DeWine supported Ohio's death penalty as a legislator and attorney general. Now he wants the practice to end.

@tiotasram@kolektiva.social
2026-08-11 16:22:46

Content warning: Long

Random thought that goes interesting places:
There are a lot of cheap ways to spend money to drastically improve the quality of life for lots of people (UBI, mosquito nets, digging wells, etc.). Those people almost invariably become way more economically productive in aggregate when this happens, far above the costs involved, if you measure from the perspective of the affected group. So for billionaires looking for outsized returns on investments, why not simply spend on some of these programs, then invest in a broad index of socks that are going to go up as a result?
The answer could be "billionaires by their nature are too evil to think of this," which, could be true....
But I think there's a deeper answer, which is that there *is no* bundle of stocks that goes up as humans flourish. This is directly contrary to neoliberal economic doctrine/propaganda, but it also has an explanation that's obvious from the neoliberal doctrine itself: the stock market is a gambling arena for bets on corporate profits. Corporate profits are money taken in in excess of costs. But the value of a corporation is not produced abstractly by the mere existence of the organization; it's produced by the labor of humans working for the organization, with raw materials that the organization purchases. So to make a profit, an organization has to do some combination of paying its workers less than the value the create, and/or paying less for it's raw materials than they are really worth. The more it does these two things, the more profit it can generate.
Notice that these two profit-generating activities directly and indirectly immiserate humans, *and* that reducing human misery by means other than reducing these activities makes them harder. People who have other means of income won't sell their labor for less than it's worth, nor will they sell their resources below their fair value. Only desperate people will agree to terms that corporations require to be profitable.
This is not a "Marxist analysis" by the way; it's the direct application of the basic principles taught in any neoliberal introductory macroeconomics class.
In any case, once we understand that the stock market is "gambling on how much corporations can exploit their employees/suppliers/customers", it's clear why you can't make money from stock investments in companies that profit from flourishing humans: profit is by construction made of human misery.
It also explains a lot of other things, like why private US employers who pay huge amounts of payroll towards health insurance for their employees would be *against* public health insurance that would offload those costs onto all taxpayers: the amount they're able to lower wages as a result of desperation for access to health care is more than worth the direct costs.
This is the central reason why capitalism (defined as: a system where money equals power) is inimical to human happiness: it allows profits built on suffering to be converted into the power to maintain the system of suffering and even extend and intensify it, creating a feedback loop of extractive domination.
Now I'm sure some people might read this and think: what about the good companies? The ones that pay their workers and suppliers a fair wage, and sell their products at fair prices? Even putting aside the fact that such a thing seems less believable than a unicorn these days, such a company by definition does not make a profit. The fair wage for its workers is the value they add to the raw materials it buys, and the fair price for those is the selling price of the finished product minus the value the company adds. The balance sheet will read exactly zero at the end of the day if compensation is actually fair. You can still run a company like this in theory, and even grow it, but of course under capitalism it will just get bought out by an unethical company that is profitable. Could you in some kind of utopian dream world run a tightly regulated series of markets where you have most of what people think capitalism is, without the bad parts? Maybe, but it definitely wouldn't involve actual capitalism, and it wouldn't have a stock market.
#anarchy #capitalism #econimics

@cdarwin@c.im
2026-06-07 18:54:46

Things don’t always go well.
Often I toss out a whole day’s work.
Sometimes I’ll refactor, over time, from design A to design B, and then decide to refactor back to A, or something very much like A.
That’s not a problem: it’s a feature.
Things will not go well on most every project -- and my point here is that that does not mean the end of the world.
We can always move forward, adjusting the design slowly and smoothly to become what we need it to become.
--…

What I'm Doing Here
This is RonJeffries.com, the combination of new articles, XProgramming, SameElephant, and perhaps even some new items never before contemplated.
Copyright © 1998-forever Ronald E Jeffries

@pre@boing.world
2026-07-17 11:43:07

Content warning: UKPol Burnham Made Labour Leader

Burnham has been made leader of the Labour party then. No other candidates got the required number of nominations so it's a coronation.
He has a few things to say.
He's proud. The party is united, he says, and now they'll put that power of unity to give people hope back. And he is ready to build on Kier's foundation. Thanks Kier, for all the NHS work and renters rights and rebuilding the nation's reputation (??).
He does like to name-check all the various towns and unions of the country. Just listing them. They made Labour, apparently.
We must recognize that this generation of politicians, including Burnham himself, have failed. Four decades of neoliberalism have not been kind to all those places he listed.
He pledges to be better, and will do five things.
1) Work relentlessly to build a culture of one Labour team. No infighting. Wants to eradicate the split. End factional politics.
I guess end Starmer's war on the left then? 🤨
2) Work to build a new politics. This is the last chance for change, and we must take it together. Tell people what Labour will do, not just pick fights with other parties. Seek consensus with those other parties instead, to improve the political discourse.
3) Change political direction: know exactly where he stands and set a direction that is distinctively Labour. No out-greening greens or out-reforming reform or wearing tory clothes. Boldly confidently authentically Labour.
Housing, water, energy, transport, all broken due to privatization and concentration of wealth and power.
Four decades of political power draining from regions to corporations and central government ends now.
Take back the slogan "take back control" from the right, who gave away power to corps and quangos.
Life should be more affordable.
4) Be a leader for the north, south, east and west, for Scotland and Northern Ireland (aw, shame for the midlanders 🤣 ).
Gonna do to everywhere what he done for Manchester he reckons.
Kids shouldn't have to leave their home towns to prosper.
5) Take power back from westminster and give it to the place where you live.
More power for regions, to run trains for passengers not shareholders. Improve high-streets, and back shops and pubs, and education, and reindustrialization.
He's gonna be pro-business.
Add all that together and he reckons we'll bring back hope.
Thanks a few people in particular.
He says he knows what he believes and what he wants to do, he has a plan. He wants change, to be close to the people.
He wants it to be Andy 4 us. Labour 4 us. Bring back hope.
#ukpol #burnham #labourParty

@mgorny@social.treehouse.systems
2026-06-13 11:07:29

Content warning: IT being a neverending nightmare

Computers used to be fun. I used to use Windows 9x, and it was unstable as hell, and you kept having to lean over backwards to get things to work. Then I used bleeding edge Linux, and at some point I've ended up running pure framebuffer tty for months because X11 was broken. But despite all the breakage (or maybe even because of it), it was fun. It was fun because random accidental breakage was the worst you could expect.
Nowadays, accidental breakage is rare. Things are relatively stable. However, every step of the way you have to watch out for bad actors. No, not criminals, they are rare. Evil corporations who are looking at every opportunity to fuck you up. Using computer is no longer fun, it's no longer a tool that helps you, and it's no longer your choice. You are forced to use it, and if you don't want to be hurt every step of the way, you have to spend all the effort on fighting back. And you're fucked up anyway, because even if you manage, your family and all the people around you won't care and will let their devices, their computers and their smartphones fuck you up.
I've started using FLOSS so many years ago, for the trivial reason that I didn't want to pay for software. I stayed because I enjoyed doing it. And I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to contribute positively to the world. Even if in a little way, but I wanted to be able to say that as much harm I've done to the planet, there's at least something positive to balance it out.
But nowadays I hate FLOSS. It's been overrun by the worst people in the world. The people who aren't happy with just fucking you up. They want everyone to keep fucking everyone up. It's the kind of horror where whatever you do, it turns out you're causing harm.
I don't trust my #Gentoo #packaging work anymore. So much of the software I touch turns out to be #slop. When I file a pull request, I'm worried it will trigger #LLM reviews. When I file a bug, I'm worried it will trigger LLM responses. And today, I've learned that my old bug report to a #NoAI project resulted in a dozen slop pull requests already. Whatever you do, #AI folks smile and tell you "see, you fucked up the world even more after all".
Honestly, I don't know what to do. I hate all of this so much. But even if I managed to figure out something else to do for a living, I can't escape computers. And if I stop doing them, if I stop fighting them, I will only end up being fucked up more.
#NoLLM #AI #FreeSoftware

@cdarwin@c.im
2026-08-06 03:02:51

While President Trump is focused on Iran,
a propitious moment to be the peacemaker in the Russia-Ukraine war could be slipping away.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine have been clear in recent months that they want the United States to re-engage and start intensive negotiations to bring the fighting to an end.
They will not wait forever.
Putin continues to speak approvingly of Trump,
but some senior officials, as wel…

Opinion | Trump’s Chance for Peace in Ukraine Is Real. But It Won’t Last.
There’s a narrow chance for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal before things go south.

@luana@wetdry.world
2026-07-24 17:44:37

I'm conflicted about what to do

Codeberg would screaming "I'm anti-genAI" which is something I really want
git.gay looks cool and fun and gay, which is also something I really want
self hosting would give me full control over the server configuration
sereia.gay is a cool domain, but it mostly only works in portuguese (where git.da.sereia.gay is cooler). git.luana.dev.br is also an option (and cheaper, aka less likely to stop being mine), specially if I can set up more than a single domain to point to forgejo, but it isn't as cool.
even if I set up a mirror, I'm undecided about whether to point it to codeberg or git.gay. Three-way sounds kinda abusive, idk?
while I know forgejo is pretty lightweight, I'm concerned about having too much access in my NAS. Specially if I end up being ddossed by llms or if I ever do something people like. I have plenty of RAM from before the bubble, and it's modern but it's not the highest-end CPU out there. I'd also have to set up a reverse proxy, probably more reliable than my current oracle free tier one.
I could get a VPS for the forgejo tho! Ive been wanting to get one anyway! (tho it would need a static ipv4)
Tho, keeping it self hosted on my NAS would give me git push/pull even when offline!!
Even if I keep a three-way mirror, which I might, I still need to choose a canon one to send links!
Is it ok to accept PRs and stuff from either mirrors or do you need all but one of them to be read-only?

@cdarwin@c.im
2026-07-08 13:18:31

Speaking at the Nato summit,
Trump says the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Iranis “over”
because
“I do not want to deal with them any more,
they are scum”.
They are sick people, they are vicious, violent people.”
He then adds:
As far as I am concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them.
They are liars. …
There is something wrong with them. They are cuckoo. As far as I am concerned, it is over.”
Investors are spooked …

Middle East crisis live: Trump threatens US will hit Iran ‘hard again tonight’ after saying truce is over
Iranian foreign ministry said earlier US and Israeli attacks had rendered interim accord to end war ‘ineffective’

@pre@boing.world
2026-06-10 11:39:03

If they're not doing the Xmas special then I wonder if anyone will address The Bad Wolf Doctor at all?
Could be that the Billie Piper Doctor never happens. Just completely ignore those final few seconds where her face appears after the regeneration?
Would have been better not to have those few seconds of film in the final show if they'd known it'd be a total reboot next up. Just end with the regeneration energy and no clues for next season's Doctor Who?
Probably wouldn't want to open the new rebooted show with a regeneration scene. Focus on new companion till she meets new Doctor.
I think it needs a special to join the edges really. Hopefully whoever wins the tender will want to do a short Bad Wolf Doctor episode as a prequel to the new seasons.
Hopefully in October 2027? A long wait indeed without that xmas episode. Already been more than a year.
I should cancel my BBC license and give the money to Big Finish until the new show is in place maybe.

@katrinakatrinka@infosec.exchange
2026-08-14 03:23:23

RE: https://discuss.systems/@ricci/117091506536006158
Huh. I'd lose about 21-23% of my follows/followers.
Not the end of the world, but people should really spread out from mastodon.social.

@pre@boing.world
2026-06-15 09:43:04

Content warning: UKPol kids banned

OBrien on the radio thinks that its okay to ban kids from Youtube even though their exam revision videos are on youtube, because the revision videos will just end up somewhere else.
He thinks though that the suicide encouragement and terrible anorexia mutual support will not simply end up somewhere else I guess. 🤷‍♂️
"No downside to this at all" he reckons. 🤣
"Nobody sensible can be against this ban"
This is what irks me most. The absolute refusal to see any issues at all in the ban. Just refusing to understand that there's any support help or encouragement for kids on these forums. That they are only places for radicalisation and bullying.
TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, X, Threads, Facebook and Kick.
I note that Bluesky didn't make the blacklist. I expect it'll be added during debate. Can't list everything though, so the kids will surely just go to whoever isn't listed? 4-chan seems to not be included? What a strange list.
I don't use any of them besides Youtube so won't be forced into ID checks for them myself. My youtube account is itself over 18 years old so don't think they'll ask.
#ukpol #socialMedia

@pre@boing.world
2026-06-11 19:06:13

Summer Social with work, which is more than two dozen people now. So much bigger than it used to be.
Enjoyable enough. The boss picks pretty good people, all of whom I'd otherwise not meet at all really being remote. Beats working for a day.
This time a painting session. Drawing a picture. Here's how we draw this particular picture.
Everyone's painting ends up much the same, within a pretty tight variance. All end up with something that's not displeasing, even though hardly anyone paints normally, even the graphics people.
The key here I think is the subject of the image. Something easy to draw is key. Very few curves, mostly straight lines, easy vivid colors. Easily identifiable subject even if it's drawn badly.
If your lines and form are wobbly and weirdly angled then yeah, that's indeed what these trees are like. You just draw a slightly different tree.
Sky, haze, and ground in acrylic. Then chalk up the tree-trunks for some reason, before painting 'em white. Add some trunk-shade and flecks, do grass then flowers.
Easy recipe. Everyone gets a passing grade. Nobody's embarrassed coz they can't draw a nose.
Good first painting session since school. Maybe I'll do another one in another 30 years.
#art #painting #acrylic

@pre@boing.world
2026-08-25 11:23:35

Spent the weekend with a few friends at Beautiful Days festival out in Exeter, which is the one that The Levellers run and fill with mostly 90s bands.
So lots of old men on stage and in the audience. Including me. It's me.
Weather was mostly good as you'd like. Not quite as too-hot as it's been lately and only The Undertones made the weather gods angry. After the end of their wet set the double rainbow promising no more rain proved a true promise.
Mostly either old things, or things I'd never heard of, because I haven't really paid attention to music since the 1900s.
Young new folks seemed to be mostly half Welsh, and included Gwenno who was beautiful in her cat-mask and sang a song in old Cornish about cheese, Gina Larner who was playing country rock with her beautiful sparkly country boots, Trampoline who had one guitarist replaced by a cardboard cut-out for some reason I missed and are from Swansea, and Ben Brown whose rider included a lacy fancy dress and seizable stick - his merch song as he danced around and stripped off the ten tee-shirts he sells and was wearing all at once for the first half apparently was memorable.
Old folks on stage included Billy Brag, who is so right-on and woke you wonder why all the other musicians are so apolitical. Madness, who have banger after banger but lack some energy now they're so old. The Undertones, who angered god by still singing about Teenage Kicks in their sixties, Super Furries who, inexplicably drew a much smaller crowd as people watched the Proclaimers instead I guess. The Divine Comedy, who acts very sophisticated mixing cocktails on stage. Also The Wonder Stuff who still mock their own audience but got us all nostalgic and emotional, they're loved and welcome in my home too.
And of course the Levellers who fill the field because they don't put anyone else up at the same time as them and so WAY up on the hill behind the ice cream van where you can't really see but at least you can move.
The Nanaz are both old and new, in that they've only been playing for a few years and yet are already each as old as the grandad bands playing here singing songs about menopause and being told they used to be beautiful.
It's a lovely smallish festival, big enough to have choices and headliners, but small enough to walk across, with hardly any bandwidth and which is too far away really. That drive home was very tedious.
Bravo though though. Hope it outlasts the Levellers, and both keep going for decades more. Hope to be back.
#music #festival #uk #beautifulDays

@pre@boing.world
2026-07-17 11:48:13

Content warning: re: UKPol Burnham Made Labour Leader

So, maybe all you really can hope for from an acceptance speech is a bit of empty rhetoric, but that is indeed what we got here.
Unity and decentralization and a promise that he has a plan.
Unity is easy to say, but requires unity to achieve since you ain't in control of all the factions.
Decentralization tends to be fought by centralized powers, and is a tactic really not a strategy. What do you hope to achieve with it? Can end up just remote offices for centralized power.
And that plan he reckons he has? I look forward to hearing what it actually is.
#ukpol #burnham

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