Recent submissions

Comment · 5 hours ago
An updated one 'cause you're running a virtual router in a container or VM which gets all the updates your server(s) get.
Comment · 2 days ago
Not to mention they'll need far fewer candles cause it'll be light at night. Nobody burns candles during the day, sun's up at night so no need for them, profit.
Comment · 6 days ago
> BUT the new time they unlock will be spent doing more of the mundane work

...which will also quickly be done by "AI", uncovering more such tasks until most of the "mundane work" is done by "AI" leaving humans free to do "non-mundane work". Of course those less mundane tasks require more insight, intelligence, knowledge and initiative from those humans which means some people will just not be able to keep up with their competitors, the humans who can do the less mundane tasks and the "AI" which can do the mundane stuff faster, more reliably and cheaper.

The big question is what those humans will do once such a scenario becomes true.

Comment · 8 days ago
Heinlein wasn't "regressive" but conservative. Your formulation indicates that it is you who might not be progressive but regressive since conservatism - same root as conservatorship - is a legitimate and, especially in good times, logical and effective strategy: keep that which works, change only that which needs changing and be careful not to change it too much or too fast lest you destroy that which worked. Heinlein wrote this in 1952 when the sky wasn't the limit anymore and people were reaching for the "stars" - well, low earth orbit anyway - so he had plenty of backing for his conservatism.
Comment · 9 days ago
There's a word for the way you think about the entity which is holding your phone hostage: Stockholm Syndrome. You seem to think that your can appease the fruit factory by defending their racket but you're mistaken, they'll just fleece you harder.
Comment · 12 days ago
You were downvoted but you're right, live by the sword and take the risk to die by it. If you don't like the odds - and let's all hope the judicial system is efficient enough to make those odds really unfavourable - it is easy to avoid them by not committing capital crimes.
Comment · 19 days ago
While it is good to have choice in commercial routers I haven't used one for a long time, instead running a virtual router on the same machine (an ex-lease DL380 G7, these have 4 ethernet ports) which hosts all services. I use a number of commercial Wifi-equipped routers as access points, these all have OpenWRT installed and all routing functionality is disabled. There's a managed 24-port switch in between the DL380 and the outside world which gets fed VLANs and separated these out into individual ports for specific hardware - printers etc. - and some of the commercial Wifi-routers also split out VLANs to their switch ports which connect to specific devices like solar inverters etc. Everything is built around OpenWRT, this includes the virtual router which is based on an X64 OpenWRT image running under ProxMox. The whole setup has been running for about 7 years now without any significant problems.
Comment · 20 days ago
It will be web 7 - no .0 needed 'cause it'll be the final episode. Why? Well, 7 is a special number, holy some would say, at least prime and - important - the day of rest. It took 6 symbolic days to build the earth and sky and all that moves in, on and over it and with all that done the 7th day is declared a day of rest. It'll take 6 webs with all that crawl and crap under, in and over them until the 7th iteration when someone says "leave well enough alone" and walks off to water his tomatoes or floss the cat. Others will wake up from the hypno-daze induced by the latest addition to Web 6.666, notice there's a world out there full of tomatoes in need off watering and cats due flossing and find they much prefer life there over being caught in that web. When the tomatoes' and cats' needs have been satisfied they let their friends and kin know through something eerily resembling Web 0.1 - their Web.6.666 kit doesn't work anymore since they missed a few upgrades during their absence - about their exploits and suddenly their eyes are opened wide. This is what it is all for, a means of communication. Web 7, the final frontier which looks strangely familiar.
Comment · 21 days ago
You can get a refund for that useless Windows licence but that is a bridge too far for most "normies" whether they buy their computers in brick-and-mortar stores or online. If that process could be streamlined somehow..
Comment · 21 days ago
> If you want a real bump in performance, I have a clever trick . Hardware isn’t cheap these days, so we demand the most of our software.

Good trick: get rid of the superfluous Windows layer which stands between that expensive hardware and your target OS. It takes up valuable memory, CPU time and storage space, introduces latency where you don't want it, exfiltrates data to unknown destinations and can decide to "upgrade" itself without warning.

Good tricks need catchy names to succeed so how about NoSL?

Comment · 22 days ago
Because we live by stories, preferably those in which we think we are the good guys. People like Putin know that and use it to their own advantage.
Comment · 22 days ago
Nah. Programming is utilitarian, not artistic. While programmers can do their best to produce elegant, well-ordered and designed code they are producing a means to an end: the program has a purpose beyond being elegant, well-ordered and designed. If the clankers can produce programs which fulfil the same purpose and can do it reliably while taking less time and resources - a big if - they are the way to go for most programs. Cameras largely replaced painters for the purpose of producing portraits, photographers control the cameras to make them produce the desired outcome. Clankers will largely replace programmers for the purpose of producing code, we may need a new term to indicate the humans who control them.
Comment · 25 days ago
You're not describing socialism but social democracy. While both "socialism" and "social democracy" have the word "social" in them the comparison largely stops there. Neither are current France and Spain socialist countries, let alone the Nordic countries since all these have a (regulated) market economy with a large private sector. Sanchez (Spain's prime minister) is a socialist but that does not make the whole country socialist. Macron is not a socialist, the Nordic countries are governed largely by centre-right to centre-left coalitions.

Socialism is the precursor to communism, the "dictature or the proletariat" where the means of production are "socialised" or, in clearer terms, nationalised and run by the state. The end goal of socialism is communism, the "class-less state" which is supposed to eventually wither away because it is no longer needed because "everyone is a communist". This last stage with the withered-away state has never and shall never be reached because it goes against human nature which means the true end stage of socialism and communism is the large and oppressive state which defends its necessity by constantly pointing at in- and outside forces which are out to topple it.

Socialism and communism can only work at a small scale, small enough so that everyone really knows everyone and there is no need for a "Party" and the related "party elite" to rule. Even at that small scale conflicts arise - "Johnny got twice as much ice cream as I did, NOT FAIR" - but those tend to be easily settled since everyone knows everyone and there is no "elite" which is treated differently from the rest. At a larger scale that elite quickly succumbs to the same human vices which doom feodalism, crony capitalism and similar systems.

I am disheartened and rather flabbergasted by the way this has to be explained time and time (and time) again. Socialism is BAD, m'kay? Social democracy is OK because it doesn't violate basic human principles which make that people put their personal and familial needs over those of the collective. Socialism and communism do violate those principles which means people ruled under them need to constantly be kept in check by the state lest they try to take care of their own needs before serving the collective. That in turn necessitates a large state which begets the "party elite" which turns the whole thing into a twisted form of feudalism where the serfs have to pretend it is all for their own good while the masters feast on the spoils of their labour. Those spoils tend to get thinner and thinner because nobody is really invested in making things work viz. the Soviet joke of "we pretend to work while they pretend to pay us" which widens the gap between the "party elite" and the rest of the population which leads to more dissatisfaction which leads to more repression until the whole thing collapses.

From the ruins of yet another failed socialist state a new state is born. Things start to go well, the economy is flourishing and people send their children to university where they are radicalised by the remaining few ideologues who holed up there. They are told that "real socialism (or communism, more or less the same thing here) has never been tried" and that the previous regime was corrupted by outside forces, Jews, whatever, just as long as the blame is shifted away from the failed ideology. The seeds for the next iteration have been sown.

Comment · 1 month ago
Comment · 1 month ago
Which of these organizations should I trust on their word? Give me 5 of them and I'll see if I feel like I can trust them. As to them "all being Hamas", well, who knows. The Swedish television special reporter from that region is so it isn't unheard of. It is not as if it is possible for anyone to just barge in there and report anything he sees, interview anyone he wants and visit any place he cares.

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