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@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

aral

@[email protected]

I make small things.

My posts are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)

🍉🌻 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️

#SmallWeb #SmallTech #web #tech #privacy #humanRights #personhood #democracy #aral #fedi22 #searchable

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kde , to KDE
@kde@floss.social avatar

If you don't use Bing with Edge, Microsoft will tell you your computer needs repairing.

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/windows-operating-systems/microsoft-now-says-your-pc-is-in-need-of-repair-if-youre-not-using-bing-with-edge

They are not wrong.

To mend your machine:

  1. Ditch Windows
  2. Install Plasma
  3. Your computer is ready.

https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/

@kde

A laptop running the laters version of Plasma, Plasma 6.

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@kde @kde Guess what, Firefox does the same thing (a refresh will reset your privacy settings and your default browser, all of which affect Mozilla’s revenue streams) but they’re a tad sneakier/cleverer(?) about it.

(Firefox is not private by default so getting you to reset your settings is how they try to influence you to return to their preferred configuration.)

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@dajix @kde @kde It’s deceptive. They know exactly what they’re doing. That’s why they also ask if you haven’t used your browser for a while.

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@Aaron @kde @kde Yes, to non-private defaults. Let’s put it this way: if Firefox’s defaults respected your privacy, Mozilla would go bankrupt tomorrow.

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@Bro666 @kde @kde Which would make perfect sense if I had said “Plasma forces you to use Firefox.” Would you like any other straw men to rile against?

w7voa , to random
@w7voa@journa.host avatar

As President Biden speaks to the Morehouse College commencement ceremony in Atlanta someone is holding aloft behind him a flag of the DRCongo while one graduating student has turned his back and draped himself in the Palestinian flag.

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@w7voa Oh, the arms dealer thinks the genocide is heartbreaking. That’s sweet.

aral , to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

To those Americans getting offended that their president and country are being criticised for arming a genocide may I just remind you that there is something a tad more offensive than being criticised for arming a genocide which is arming a goddamn genocide. Get some fucking perspective.

aral , to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

Joe Biden could still turn this around and not lose to Trump by defunding Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. If he doesn’t, there will be only person to blame for Joe Biden losing to Trump in six months and that’s Joe “I am a Zionist” Biden.

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@StillIRise1963 Yes, Trump winning will fuck everyone over. And if Trump wins, the only person to blame is the one who knows exactly what to do to win and steadfastly refuses to do it because he will not stop enabling a genocide.

If someone is torturing a puppy on live television and you tell to him to stop if he wants to be elected and he doesn’t and he loses, he’s the only one to blame for losing whether or not the other guy will shoot the puppy dead when he wins.

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@StillIRise1963 I’m not white. I’m from the part of the world that Americans of all skin colours have historically shown no reticence in bombing. The part of the world where a genocide is being carried out right now using American bombs.

And yes, if it comes down to whether an American should vote for Biden or Trump in six months then, yes, vote for Biden.

But the third way is to make Biden see he will lose unless he stops funding this genocide and, y’know, stop a damn genocide.

arstechnica , to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

GM adds the ability to power your house from one of its new EVs

GM's Ultium-based EVs can power your house during an outage.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/05/gm-adds-the-ability-to-power-your-house-from-one-of-its-new-evs/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@arstechnica Makes sense, it’s about the size of a one-bedroom flat in a European country.

aral , to Technology
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

If you design a system such that you cannot differentiate people from corporations and bots and that’s your defense for calling all of them “users”, you’ve designed a system that conflates people – who are mortal, have feelings, can feel pain and be hurt and who have human rights that must be protected – with the very entities that oftentimes exist to exploit them.

Design for people. Call them people. All else is secondary.

paninid , to random
@paninid@mastodon.world avatar

The precede the .
https://mastodon.green/@gerrymcgovern/112399989793545485

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@dgavin @paninid @gerrymcgovern How about we fix leaky pipes AND stop wasting water on AI? We can do two things at once. One doesn’t stop the other also being a problem.

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@dgavin @paninid @gerrymcgovern That’s the thing, though, it’s not crumbs, it’s significant: https://theconversation.com/ais-excessive-water-consumption-threatens-to-drown-out-its-environmental-contributions-225854

aral , to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

Israel has warned the fish to leave the barrel before it begins shooting.

junesim63 , to random
@junesim63@mstdn.social avatar

"The Israeli military on Monday called on Palestinians to move out of the eastern parts of Rafah ahead of what it calls a ‘limited scope operation’ in Gaza’s south. The order came after a night of intense Israeli bombardment on Rafah killed 22 people, including eight children"

And so Israel’s ground operation in Rafah begins. Let's see how Biden and the US react to this blatant provocation.


https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/6/israels-war-on-gaza-live-israel-pounds-rafah-as-truce-talks-stall

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@junesim63 Biden is a self-professed Zionist and the US sells arms to Israel. I don’t think it’s a mystery how they will react.

aral , to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

I am not pro-Palestine or anti-Israel. This isn’t a football game between two equally-matched teams where you support your favourite. I am anti-genocide and Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

streetartutopia , to random
@streetartutopia@mastodon.online avatar

"14‘000 DOTS FOR 14‘000 CHILDREN 💔🕊️" by Yael Jamina. Words by Jessica Milburn. Painting in February 2024.

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@streetartutopia @tadbithuman Alt text illustration on wall of crying bird with the following text written on it: You will never convince me that the solution to a problem is to kill children.

molly0xfff , to random
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

Many yearn for the "good old days" of the web. We could have those good old days back — or something even better — and if anything, it would be easier now than it ever was.

https://www.citationneeded.news/we-can-have-a-different-web/

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@molly0xfff Excellent article, thank you for writing it, Molly.

Although I do wish I didn’t feel like we didn’t exist while reading it.

This is the Small Web—what Laura & I have been specifically working to realise for the past six years at least (if not closer to a decade if you count our work on the problem before settling on one possible solution):

https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/

We do this as a self-funded (read; struggling) tiny not-for-profit (https://small-tech.org).

MrLovenstein , to random
@MrLovenstein@mastodon.social avatar

Remember

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@MrLovenstein @securingdev 😢

w7voa , to random
@w7voa@journa.host avatar

The FCC announces it has fined wireless carriers for illegally sharing access to customers’ location information without consent and failing to protect that information against unauthorized disclosure. Sprint and T-Mobile – which have merged since the investigation began – face fines of $12+ million and $91 million, respectively. AT&T being fined $57+ million and Verizon told to pay nearly $47 million.

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@w7voa Cost of doing business.

dentangle , to random
@dentangle@chaos.social avatar

Is God on GitHub? I have some bugs to report.

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@dentangle He would be, the clout-seeking sonofabitch. Can’t see him having a demure presence on Codeberg, that’s for sure.

aral , to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

Mastodon becoming a US entity with a neoliberal board of directors and the goal of growth über alles is the issue here folks, not whether Eugen and company are compensated for their work. Of course they should be and well too. Or is that a privilege reserved only for the mediocre yes-people at the Googles and the Facebooks of the world?

Here’s a longer thread I wrote elsewhere. (1/7)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

And, if the EU didn’t have its head stuck up its own arse, it would have already made sure that Mastodon could be kept in the EU and those working on it well compensated while also ensuring that the correct success criteria (hint: NOT growth at all costs but decentralisation) were set. But not with this EU Commission and its fixation with the Single Market above all else. (4/7)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

To be fair, it’s at least half of what he’d be getting if he had a job at a well-funded tech company in the mainstream. And, more so at a Google or a Facebook.

This isn’t about Eugen’s compensation. Eugen should be compensated and be able to live a comfortable life given what he does. Heck, asshats who work at Google and Facebook do. Why should people have to sacrifice to do good?

No, this is about Silicon Valley influence, the wrong success criteria, and loss of control. (3/7)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

TLDR; this is a monumental fuck-up by the EU, proving it is incapable of retaining alternatives to Silicon Valley even when it’s lucky enough to have them sprout up under its own nose. (We already know it’s incapable of producing them. Although it could, if it wanted to: https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/)

(Replying to a post about Eugen’s salary.) (2/7)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

All that said, the one thing this isn’t about is how much Eugen makes. If we’re saying any old asshat engineer at Google has a right to a comfortable life but folks working on free and open source don’t, let’s not expect too many people to do the latter as a full-time occupation. (6/7)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

They probably see Mastodon becoming a US entity and having Silicon Valley folks on the board as a sign of success when it is an abject failure of the EU, and all its costly PR initiatives (Next Generation Internet, etc.) It’s the Web story with Tim Berners-Lee and CERN all over again. And we know where that neoliberal and corporate capture left us. (5/7)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

If, on the other hand, maybe we’d like more folks to contribute to the commons and maybe not even be captured by Silicon Valley how about this radical idea: Fund them so they can live (at least as well) as any mediocre yes-person at a mainstream tech company.

(7/7)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@blackcoffeerider I don’t have any more info than you do. I don’t know what they did. I know what they didn’t do.

aral , to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

Realised last night that JavaScript Database (JSDB) doesn’t run the constructor on persisted custom objects (https://codeberg.org/small-tech/jsdb#custom-data-types) when deserialising them because I didn’t know that you apparently have to define your constructor manually when using Object.create().

Will fix it today but it’s something to watch out for if you’re using Object.create() directly.

For more info, see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Object/create

aral , to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

Ooh, @Codeberg just updated to @forgejo version 7 and… ta daa, the spurious warnings in the code listings for proper curly quotes and other correct – but sadly underutilised – typographical elements in comments and strings are gone!

e.g., see https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/src/branch/main/examples/fetchiverse/index.page.js#L9

Yay! Thank you – I’m no longer going to feel embarrassed about linking to my source code on Codeberg :)


💕 🎉

alanferrier , to random
@alanferrier@mastodon.scot avatar

As the UK Home Office prepares to set the police on scared, vulnerable people in a desperate attempt to solicit votes from its racist base, we should all remember the words of historian and journalist Neal Ascherson, from 2017:
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/15384883.neal-ascherson-scotland-must-act-independence-nation/

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

So the way to behave is "As If". If some project is outwith the terms of the Scotland Act, it should go quietly but determinedly ahead as if Scotland were a sovereign country until Westminster physically stops it. If the Home Office prepares to deport another harmless foreign family, the Scottish Government should simply tell Police Scotland not to carry out the order, tolerating a "sanctuary" network which discreetly hid such families. (2/3)

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

Helplessness, not independence, is the false dream, the "sleep, wonderful sleep" now tempting Scotland again. But the alarm is going off. Time to wake and get back to the real day job, which is (apologies to Alasdair Gray's famous line) to work as if you lived in the early days of an independent nation. Because if you do, that is exactly where you will be living. (3/3)

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@alanferrier Alt text: Screenshot of text:

There's a different way of looking at Scotland. Formally, a subordinated nation - yes. But throw open the mental shutters, and the light of reality shows a Scotland which is pretty much independent already. We can do more or less what we wish - even if it's not allowed. We can become a separate sovereign state tomorrow, if most of us say that we want it. (1/3)

skinnylatte , to random
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

Slow ambles with Cookie, who is recovering but still taking it slow. I’m very glad she seems to be responding well to the medication. That gives her a bit more time with us.

I’m so thankful!

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@skinnylatte @trending_bot So happy to hear it, Adrianna :) Please give Cookie lots of cuddles from me (and maybe even a treat or two) 🐶💕

clashmtl , to random
@clashmtl@kolektiva.social avatar

submitted anonymously:

Anarchists put on a fireworks show to inaugurate the opening of the McGill encampment. There are lots of us here, and we hope to see the sparks of militant joy spread. We believe in fighting on our own terms, in complete freedom. Fuck the peace police! Freedom from all authority! Globalize the intifada!

video/mp4

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@ayakael @whatzaname @clashmtl Good. Terrorising pets and other animals and people with PTSD isn’t the way.

aral , to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@LaQuadrature Hey folks, quick question: any idea why the embed of my video at the European Parliament from your PeerTube instance is showing a password field and lock. (I’m on my phone and haven’t had a chance to view source.) Would appreciate it if you could take a look. Thank you :)

https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/

CC @peertube

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@vincib @errhead @LaQuadrature @peertube @Chocobozzz Thanks again; happy to hear it :)

aral , (edited ) to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

Folks think the “embrace” part of embrace, extend, extinguish applies only to the technology itself. It doesn’t. It also applies to the people prominent within it. Their legitimacy is essential for it to work. They’re told “come, sit at the big boys’ table with us” and “don’t listen to the naysayers, they’re just jealous of how popular we can make you.”

Last time I experienced this, the person in question who sold out got an OBE out of it. Which is rather fitting, when you think about it.

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@PuddleOfKittens @ohmrun Sadly, they don’t have to be. There’s no shortage of younger bootlickers.

aral , to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

‘Like a war zone’: Emory University grapples with fallout from police response to protest

https://www.inkl.com/a/GWbLWRCokGo

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@donray I’m not sure you can call it a war zone when on one side there’s an army and on the other students. I think you call that something else entirely. Even the use of the term “war” by the media to imply a clash of armies is disingenuous at best.

aral , to random
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

Co-founder of Twitter joins new Mastodon board of directors. Right, so federating with Threads wasn’t a mistake. This is just the direction Mastodon is going. Oh, well. Another Mozilla emerges.

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/04/mastodon-forms-new-u.s.-non-profit/

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@Nitrousoxide sigh

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@ninavizz Yep, Biz can attract Silicon Valley money. And Silicon Valley money comes with Silicon Valley expectations and goes to entities compatible with Silicon Valley goals.

How else? Many ways. Sadly – and all too predictably – the EU dropped the ball by not funding it properly and stipulating its own demands to forestall corporate capture.

But are there other ways? Yes. Are there other ways if you’re chasing growth über alles? Probably not.

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@lucretia @ninavizz To be fair, it’s at least half of what he’d be getting if he had a job at a well-funded tech company in the mainstream. And, more so at a Google or a Facebook.

This isn’t about Eugen’s compensation. Eugen should be compensated and be able to live a comfortable life given what he does. Heck, asshats who work at Google and Facebook do. Why should people have to sacrifice to do good? (1/5)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

No, this is about Silicon Valley influence, the wrong success criteria, and loss of control.

And, if the EU didn’t have its head stuck up its own arse, it would have already made sure that Mastodon could be kept in the EU and those working on it well compensated while also ensuring that the correct success criteria (hint: NOT growth at all costs but decentralisation) were set. But not with this EU Commission and its fixation with the Single Market above all else. (2/5)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

They probably see Mastodon becoming a US entity and having Silicon Valley folks on the board as a sign of success when it is an abject failure of the EU, and all its costly PR initiatives (Next Generation Internet, etc.) It’s the Web story with Tim Berners-Lee and CERN all over again. And we know where that neoliberal and corporate capture left us. (3/5)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

All that said, the one thing this isn’t about is how much Eugen makes. If we’re saying any old asshat engineer at Google has a right to a comfortable life but folks working on free and open source don’t, let’s not expect too many people to do the former as a full-time occupation. (4/5)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

If, on the other hand, maybe we’d like more folks to contribute to the commons and maybe not even be captured by Silicon Valley how about this radical idea: Fund them so they can live (at least as well) as any mediocre yes-person at a mainstream tech company. (5/5)

aral OP ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@lucretia @ninavizz (And, of course, you should be making more too. In a sane world, we shouldn’t even have to worry about it but here we are, struggling to get by because we refuse to fuck people over with our skills and knowledge.)

chfkch , to random
@chfkch@ruhr.social avatar

Hello bubble.
I am searching for a tablet which preferrably runs mainline so or are supported.
Must have:

  • a sort of display via cable (USB-C, DP, HDMI)
  • bluetooth for mouse and keyboard
  • WiFi

Do any of you know of such a device? I guess is not it?

aral ,
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

@chfkch Would this work? (I haven’t received mine yet. They had a huge delay since last year but apparently the next batch should be faster.) https://ie.starlabs.systems/pages/starlite

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