politics, personal PSA
Just a personal heads-up for everyone I interact with: we've reached a point where if I see you in *any* way aligning with Trump or Musk, you are immediately going on my mental 'fascist' list with no further discussion and I will not speak to you anymore.
I don't care if you "didn't know how bad it is". The time for learning that is well past, so if you still "don't know", then I'm going to conclude that you didn't *want* to know and decide accordingly.
Time for the - I guess yearly by this point... - toot again:
No, I will not be at #38c3. I *could* have squeezed it into my schedule despite an upcoming transplantation, but they have *once again* failed to implement any COVID safety measures.
A few days of Congress is not worth the risk of brain damage or (in my case) severe illness or death.
If you want to see me at your event, push for appropriate safety precautions like sufficient ventilation/filtering and (particularly where that is not possible) mask distribution and ideally masking requirements.
PSA: personal health, surgery and risks, availability
If all goes to plan, I will be receiving a kidney transplantation on November 12 (2024), followed by an unknown recovery period. What to expect:
After the transplantation, I will not be around online for a while; this could be anywhere from a few days to a few months depending on how well (or not) the surgery goes. Even after I return, I will likely be avoiding stress for a while, which also means I may drop out of things unannounced.
In the time leading up to the transplantation, I will become less and less consistently available, and you may see me around less, as I deal with the preparations for the surgery.
I'm receiving a kidney from a living donor, under pretty much best-case circumstances (no dialysis), so the chance of success is high, and the chance of complications is low, but it is not zero. Likewise, survival chance is high but not 100%.
If the transplantation succeeds, I will be able to live a mostly normal life, but I will be on immunosuppressive medicine for the rest of my life. Among other things, this means that you're probably only going to see me at (hacker) events that take sufficient precautions against COVID and the like.
So if you want me and other immunocompromised folks around at those events, ask organizers to take those precautions! Ventilation/filtering and CO2 measurement is a good baseline.
If you have any questions about all this, feel free to ask, but I may or may not have the spoons to answer them.
Why I do not like hanging around liberals anymore
Because they're like oppression lootboxes.
The liberal viewpoint is not one of intersectionality; they might sound very progressive and recognize one or more types of oppression, but do not (wish to) recognize the way these interact, or the structure and patterns that underlie all of them.
This means that it's only a matter of time before I hear them say some extremely shitty and/or bigoted stuff about a topic that they don't recognize as a form of oppression, but I can't know upfront which topic it will be, or when it'll happen.
With my intersectional friends, I could then just point out that it's a form of oppression, and they will take it seriously, introspect, and work (over time) to understand it. Mistakes happen, but they will try to learn. All I need to do, is remind them.
With liberals, however... they do not recognize it as another occurrence of the same thing, and so I am left having to "prove" from whole cloth that yes, it really is a form of oppression, before they are even willing to put in *any* effort to understand the problem.
Every time this happens, it takes hours of my time, and energy that I do not have to spare.
I am already running on fumes most of the time, and I honestly just don't really want to hang around people who put that sort of price on not being shitty.
I've actually been here for a while already, though mostly inactive! The Birdsite Situation prompted me to pop in here again. And I'm terrible at writing introductions, so I usually just say "I do stuff on the internet".
But uh, I do all sorts of activist-y stuff, work on radical FOSS (see http://cryto.net/~joepie91/manifesto.html), write (educational) stuff, am more or less a lonely polyamorous gender blob of indeterminate sexuality who likes both cuddles and kinky things, and I always have 10 times as many projects as I have time for, as is customary with ADHD brain :) Sometimes I even finish some of them!
While I'm an introvert and need plenty of time to myself, I *am* happy to meet like-minded people and spend time with them, and as long as you're not a bigot or apologist, you should feel free to interact with me and/or follow me!
Also, I live in Rosmalen (near Den Bosch) in the Netherlands, and honestly would like to get to know more local folks, and I also have some vague intention to start a queer hackerspace around here if I can find enough interested people. Eventually!
I got threatened and had to settle with some lawyer for a few hundred bucks because a catsitter torrented a movie on my wifi network. Yet Anthropic just got away with torrenting the entire Internet and got away with it.
Copyright is a fuck. The fact that the Bavarian gov allows cooperations to bully individuals is a disgrace to the rule of law
A tip: a lot of those price increases for food and other stuff are happening at the lower end of the pricing scale.
It's worth reevaluating for yourself whether that difference between 'the cheap stuff' and 'the more sustainable/fair expensive things' is still as big as it used to be, or not. It just might have become an option.
being obsessed with programming and computers my entire life, then learning everything about them and having that as a job is really funny
because now i don't rally feel that way anymore, but still find it fun?
it's like being a jaded wizard, someone asks me about the magic of how any of this works and i sigh and say "ah, yes of course, DNS"
Whenever I mention that boycotting is a privilege, I inevitably get people trying to explain how wrong I am.
How “easy” it is to find alternatives.
How “important” it is not to support big businesses like Amazon.
How “lazy” it is not to shop local.
They talk over me, condescend and accuse me of not fighting for the cause.
Disabled people need your support and solidarity.
We’re all in this fight together.
When we tell you something is inaccessible, believe us.
Most of us already feel guilty we can’t do more, but there’s many things that aren’t “easy” for us.
Survival is resistance. It’s not “lazy” to utilize a service that will keep you alive.
Fight the fascists. Not one another.
Game tip: if you liked Tavern Master, this is also a neat game to try out: https://www.gog.com/en/game/winkeltje_the_little_shop
Doesn't seem to be well-known, but very much scratches that same itch with the satisfying gameplay loop, and seems to have a bit more meat on the bones too!
I'm looking to commission a sticker design! Details inside
Theme: anti-AI, focusing on the labour exploitation aspect.
Style: must draw attention and be colourful; otherwise it's up to you!
License/attribution: must be possible to redistribute under CC-BY or CC0 (your choice). Feel free to add your name/handle into the design if you want.
Technical: to be offset-printed (full-colour) as an 85x55mm sticker, so must have a decent 'non-critical margin' that is covered by the design but contains no essential elements, as sticker cuts will be inaccurate.
Obviously, no "AI" must be used in its creation.
If you're interested, please respond with some examples of past work that you feel are relevant, and a price estimate (can be adjusted later based on revisions etc.). Either reply or DM works.
Note that I'm often low on spoons so I will only be able to respond to the offers that look most relevant to me. I'll star every reply as an indication that I've seen it, but can't guarantee a response beyond that!
@joepie91 This is a great example of the wiki integration :)
The Seine in Paris has been declared clean enough to open swimming spots again.
Swimming in the river had been banned since 1913 due to ship traffic increases and water quality decreases.
#GoodNews (hopefully)
@cshlan it would be the more pleasant explanation, for sure. the thing is that, like, short-term incompetence is a thing that happens in large organizations, but this much of it, for this long, starts to be implausible.
it's not as if the people running the big international papers are clueless about the fact that their role comes with significant power to nudge the direction of world events. what we're seeing, is how they're choosing to wield that power. it's the simplest explanation.
the old line "the revolution will not be televised" is attempting to make the point that mass media are a tool of power and will not, under any circumstances, tell their stories in a way that truly challenges that power
the editorial boards of the world aren't asleep at the wheel, they know what they're doing by portraying the situation as less horrible than they is, and by not describing protests in ways that encourage more protests.
neat trick about age for people in the back half of their twenties & working on a quarterlife crisis or whatever
think in dozens, not decades
chapter 1: years 0-12 are developing from a neural scream potato into something that can think, plan, & act — minimally functional human.
chapter 2: years 13-24 starts with a brain as the baseline & is all about how to be simultaneously more socialized + more independent — minimally functional adult.
chapter 3: only now does the main story begin ❤️
Origin of "spoonie"
Sharing the link to the OG blog post that started off all the spoonie lingo for anybody interested:
https://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/
Israel, CAT bulldozers
Reminder that CAT is on the BDS list to boycott because they're used in domocide as part of genocide. Stop making memes about CAT. Stop white washing the genocide.
Cat people, I know you love cats, but CAT bulldozers kill people in their homes. Please stop.
still on the way and the new St John's plant (an antidepressant and transmasc ally) is already feeding insects
Technical debt collector and general hype-hater. Early 30s, non-binary, ND, poly, relationship anarchist, generally queer.
- No alt text (request) = no boost.
- Boosts OK for all boostable posts.
- DMs are open.
- Flirting welcome, but be explicit if you want something out of it!
- The devil doesn't need an advocate; no combative arguing in my mentions.
Sometimes horny on main (behind CW), very much into kink (bondage, freeuse, CNC, and other stuff), and believe it or not, very much a submissive bottom :p
My spoons are limited, so I may not always have the energy to respond to messages.
Strong views about abolishing oppression, hierarchy, agency, and self-governance - but I also trust people by default and give them room to grow, unless they give me reason not to. That all also applies to technology and how it's built.