51–60 of 255 posts
Unfortunately the way he describes the "Ulysses Pact" is fantasy. He makes it sound like it would be just like today, except a savvy user could sideload Signal for example if Apple was compelled to remove it. What would _actually_ happen is a long list of companies would say "brilliant, we don't have to conform to the app store guidelines any more" and go sideload-exclusive. Within a matter of months it would be comm…
We need to abolish IP Laws (aka "Imaginary Property" aka "Illogical Property" aka "Incongruent Property" aka "Invalidates Property Laws"—the other term is a big lie, don't repeat it). Not "reform". Not "compromise". Abolish. If 2020 taught me anything, it's that society can come close to the brink pretty quickly. I thought there was an inevitable trend toward freedom, but recently think it's perilous. We need ideas t…
15 years is plenty of time, then everything needs to be released into the public domain.
We need to abolish IP Laws (aka "Imaginary Property" aka "Illogical Property" aka "Incongruent Property" aka "Invalidates Property Laws"—the other term is a big lie, don't repeat it). Not "reform". Not "compromise". Abolish. If 2020 taught me anything, it's that society can come close to the brink pretty quickly. I thought there was an inevitable trend toward freedom, but recently think it's perilous. We need ideas t…
What really puzzles me about Apple fans and it's userbase is that they do not care . They simply do not care at all what's being done to them. It's the strongest example of consumer cultism. Absolute in their exceptionalism and ignorance. Similar problems discussed in the article are found in Tesla. The lowest common denominator of consumer cultism is surveillance and it's no surprise that both Apple and Tesla do exc…
I'm not really an Apple fan, per se, but I do own a macbook and the reason is this: It's not worth my time to switch to Linux. I have a core i7 Thinkpad that I also run Debian+KDE on, and the user experience is much worse, to say nothing of track pad quality and battery life.
I'm a parent and I'm not a software developer in my professional life, which means every minute spent figuring out why Linux won't do $thing properly is a minute not spent on more important things.
The opportunity cost of using free software is just too high for my use case.
The chaos and banditry is caused by software churn. Nothing is ever finished, so nothing is ever secure, so you must ally yourself with a powerful warlord. This is why I am in the process of migrating my website from HTML to PDF/A.
>...migrating my website from HTML to PDF/A. I'm genuinely curious as to how having an online presence (like a website) implemented as PDF is advantageous? Do PDFs offer some security or authenticity of content that html lacks? Not bashing, really just want to learn.
Edit: following the link on the parent's profile, there's a few explanations (in https://www.lab6.com/0):
"""
PDF makes a stand against the churn.
I’m publishing this document in PDF because:
- PDFs are self-contained and offlineable
- PDFs are files.
- PDFs are decentralised.
- PDFs are discoverable.
- PDFs are independent of browsers
- PDFs and a PDF tool ecosystem exist today
- PDF is an open standard
- PDFs are part of the web
- PDFs are page-oriented
"""
(abridged for readability, each of the bullet points are expanded in the document)
We need to abolish IP Laws (aka "Imaginary Property" aka "Illogical Property" aka "Incongruent Property" aka "Invalidates Property Laws"—the other term is a big lie, don't repeat it). Not "reform". Not "compromise". Abolish. If 2020 taught me anything, it's that society can come close to the brink pretty quickly. I thought there was an inevitable trend toward freedom, but recently think it's perilous. We need ideas t…
IP laws are bad because they have been taken past any sane limit. However the original terms would are not too onerous, with provisions and updates there is no reason not to give the people who invent things short and clear monopolies on their ideas. 15 years is plenty of time, then everything needs to be released into the public domain.
The lack of a monopoly creates competition which accelerates innovation and leads to cheaper, higher quality products for the consumer. The person who invents a product should simply be one competitor in the market, they can have the first mover advantage, but shouldn't be allowed to control the market entirely.
If we believe in the FOSS ethos that no one has the right to own software, even if they write it, then why would this only apply to software? Why not to all forms of intellectual property? Why do I have a moral right to fork, rewrite and redistribute Firefox but not Star Wars or Pfizer Pharmaceuticals?
"There is no way for us to defend ourselves: even skilled technologists who administer their own networked services are no match for the bandits. To keep bandits out, you have to be perfect and perfectly vigilant, and never make a single mistake. For the bandits to get you, they need merely find a single mistake that you’ve made." Ooof. What a boot-to-the-face reminder. Despite my use of a Tor Router, three ubikeys a…
You could run your system completely in RAM, to at least limit the duration of exposure. Persistence is overrated! :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“you're still just trusting them to protect you and hoping they don't take advantage of it” That is exactly what Apple’s customers are doing. It actually a pretty normal feature of modern society to trust institutions or businesses not to take advantage of particular powers they have. It’s really bizarre to call a business a ‘warlord’. The converse, where we can’t trust any institution or business and we must all be…
Cory Doctorow is a sci-fi author and has written cyberpunk fiction, calling corporate empires "warlords" seems par for the genre. Scott Galloway has called GAFA "the four horseman" and Bruce Sterling calls them "the Stacks."
It’s a dark world fantasy extrapolation parallel to ‘the handmaids tale’ or even ‘qanon’.
There are hints at the realities being described, but we really aren’t anywhere near them being accurate.
The only path that makes me hopeful involves a combination of 1. FOSS software (ie forkabke when the warlord misbehaves) 2. user owned / governed networks, so the warlord can't easily get extractive against their users.