I never paid too much attention to what happens behind the screens, in the OS software realpolitik realm, but for some reason I kept assuming - incorrectly, it seems - that most people who show a deep appreciation to the open source philosophy are leaning more to the left philosophically (i.e. "let's help people", "let's empower them to make their own society and here are some tools", "let's share stuff", "let's open the industries, ideas, and solutions to everyone" etc.) rather than right. But I guess there's no shortage of nuance, variety and surprise in this realm, just like in any other complex one.
It would certainly make me think twice about using some of these solutions.
I think we may have different interpretations for makes an individual interesting, or I'm misreading your comment.
This is at the opposite spectrum of interesting to me (on David Heinemeier Hansson):
> He wrote a blog post, “As I remember London”, in which he uses numerous racist, fascist, and ethno-nationalist dog-whistles while calling for the ethnic cleansing via forced removal of non-white people from the UK and other countries. Another of David’s posts, “Wolves, sheep, and gypsies” compares Roma people to wolves and again calls for an ethnic cleansing.
> CERN engineers had considered moving to CentOS Stream as a more natural pathway but ultimately they say "the straw that broke the camel's back" to abandon Red Hat Enterprise Linux was the "-march=x86-64-v2" compiler flag default as "forced obsolescence" for old hardware.
I think I read recently about another large company or institution that cited the same reason for moving away from a major Linux-based OS.
Every now and then I'd come across articles from this source and thought that they were decent. Perhaps not the best, but reasonably well researched and argued. But coming across this statement kind of sealed the deal for me in the wrong way:
> Instead of paying more to recycle, we could spend that money far more effectively on other environmental mitigation measures like carbon capture.
Pure unadulterated bollocks, I'm sorry to say. I shall flag this source whenever emerges in my feed.
> Sufficiently well-worn cotton tote bags can beat plastic for environmental cost, but only for the most consistent among us.
We simply don't need to rely on the "most consistent among us", because these things -- and so, so many others -- can be legislated, enforced, stopped, controlled etc. Businesses make and sell plastic bags because no one stops them and they're convenient (as well as a serious environmental problem). Should governments do the job they are supposed to do (or simply step aside and let the society organise in that particular respect), plastic bags would cease to be a problem.
I didn't flag the article, but I have similar feelings to you. The weird part: This media source is usually high-quality with well-researched and well-written (balanced) and articles. They really fell flat on this one. And yes, the carbon capture comment made me clench my fist. I have been listening to that hogwash for at least twenty years with very little progress made. I'm not saying that it cannot work, but I doubt with current technology it can be done in an economical manner.
I suppose you're correct, and it's my frustration speaking there. That said, the internet is absolutely immense in terms of articles to read, an arguably poor source is simply not worth the effort.
I initially liked using Monica, even though it was a huge pain to self host it - the installation process in particular. It felt like I was putting together a spatial ship - error after error, warning after warning. A rather frustrating experience. And after I finally managed to install it, I've used it for half a year and it felt like a lot of work to keep it updated, get used to the processes / logic behind the system etc. Furthermore, I realised that it's basically an immense liability - all my contacts and private details about myself and them in one single place.
As such, my rules for a personal CRM are as follows:
1. No server to maintain; it should be an old school piece of software that I can install on my PC/phone etc.
2. I like the idea of being able to update it from different locations and using different devices; the only service acceptable here is for the makers to either offer a paid-for sync service or a method for users to sync the data between devices themselves. Not an essential service to me though.
3. No unencrypted data should be allowed, regardless of whether it stays local or it's synced across devices, or whether it's live or a backup file.
4. Backup, import, and any data handling should be easy as a breeze. Should I open my backup / db export done with version 1.0 with a fresh installation v9999 it should work flawlessly, no errors, no hiccups, no file corruption, no issues whatsoever. That data is the one reason for the software to exist and the only valuable entity in the whole scheme; if it becomes unusable, it's beyond frustrating and not a good solution to even consider.
5. No updates should be forced, ever. If my OS supports version 0.5 until year 3500, the CRM should continue work as expected. Security updates should be entirely separate than feature / bugs etc. I accept security updates within reason, in many cases I would much rather risk my PC to be hacked and data to fall in the wrong hands, than corrupt it or lose it due to some feature update I never requested or needed.
> Trade will muddle through somehow. Where there is a buck to be made people can be innovative and bold.
That's what I believe as well. Once the opportunity arises, another power or group of interest will seize it, as it's always been the case throughout history. It may take a while, that's true, but just like we can't turn back to a world without countries anytime soon, we can't turn back to a world without commerce anytime soon.
In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that we should not want a state like the US to be the guarantor of such a system, if only because it will do everything in its power to keep this planet burning just so it can maintain various leverages of power.
Regardless of what the US does in this particular respect, the current economic philosophy is nothing short of disastrous on some key aspects and it needs changing fast, something that the US is determined to prevent from happening. As such, I suspect that there will be tremendous suffering globally regardless of this particular situation, having a so-called guarantor won't make much of a difference - it may very well be the opposite.
Concerning situation, I think. And I suspect (perhaps wrongly) that there are even more reasons for concern with technology that can track, capture, leak etc. information that's more sensitive or valuable, depending on how one wishes to look at it. Mobile phones, computers, routers etc. -- all have the potential to siphon out valuable information to a bad actor, especially when it comes to espionage, military, commercial etc. This has already happened at a significant scael, so it's not a remote scenario.
At the very least, governments and institutions should develop a framework to investigate all acquired technology. The community / civil society could also create something similar, a script that would analyse at a deep level everything that can be analysed with a piece of software even by a complete novice.
Yes, I find it concerning too. I particularly dislike that windows was not aware, nor could it stop the audio stream from effecting the hardware. What other side channels like that exist? Perhaps I can be blamed for using windows
That would be unreasonable, I argue. No one should have to worry about the security of their devices and data privacy based on which OS they use. Whilst it can be argued that different OSs serve different needs, privacy and security should not be debatable. In fact, most countries have dedicated legislation for this; whether it's just, applied correctly, or serves the public before any other party are indeed discussions to be had.
I am pretty sure my phone is listening. The ads I see this week are about topics I discussed last week. Week for week. Stupid thing is that I need the phone to have near by as self-employed electrician. Clients want to communicate after regular office hours. Since the phone is rigged why computer shouldn’t?
We take everything we have, freedom, privacy, free speech, for granted. The reality seems to be that these concepts are fungible and that we have to be ready to fight for them. Instead we trade these for convenience, and it's very very sad.
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