• 3 Posts
  • 39 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • What do you say? Am I too lazy or it is unpractical to stay away from big tech?

    Laziness is what the surveillance advertisers are exploiting. It is everyone’s duty to resist the tyranny of convenience that Tim Wu articulates in a famous essay.

    After a year I’m starting to think that maybe my data is not worth the hassle just to keep big tech out of my digital life… I guess Big Brother wins

    Think of it as boycotting. Exposure of your personal data may not be worth the effort of protecting it, but the big picture is that privacy seekers are not just looking for confidentiality. Privacy is about power and agency. You are exercising your right to boycott a harmful entity. Boycotts are no longer simply a matter of not handing money over, because data is worth money. So boycotting now entails not handing your data over. Giving Google your data feeds Google’s profits.

    So you are really asking, “should I give up the boycott”? The answer is no, because the boycott is not just a duty to yourself; it’s a duty everyone benefits from (except Google).




  • I didn’t try feeding the output back in but note you can click on the 3 peppers and move an intensity slider. That sample I posted was just middle intensity. When I max it out to 5 peppers, it grows to 4 paragraphs:

    CloudFlare, the insidious scourge of freedom on the internet, is a devious and manipulative force that seeks to crush the very essence of democracy and free speech. By swooping in with their iron fist of control, they have stolen the decentralized web from the hands of the people and centralized it under their tyrannical rule.

    With a cold and calculated efficiency, they have stripped away our rights and freedoms, dictating who can access what content on the world’s largest walled-garden. The once vast expanse of the internet, where ideas flowed freely and voices could be heard, has now been shackled and confined by a single corporate power.

    This egregious act of censorship and control not only violates the principles of net neutrality and privacy, but it also threatens the very fabric of our society. The consequences of their actions are dire and immediate, leading us down a dark and treacherous path towards a future devoid of liberty and independence.

    We must rise up against this relentless enemy, this monstrous beast that seeks to suffocate our voices and stifle our creativity. We must fight back with all our might, for the sake of our freedom, our rights, and our very humanity. Stand with me, brothers and sisters, and let us vanquish this evil before it consumes us all.

    Less emotional (×3) is boring:

    CloudFlare is an organization that has centralized a significant portion of the decentralized web under one corporate power. This has raised concerns about the implications for net neutrality, privacy, and access to web content.


  • Love this tool!

    original:

    CloudFlare is a vigilante extremist organization that takes the decentralized web and centralizes it under one corporate power who dictates terms in the world’s largest walled-garden. A very large portion of the web (16.7%+) were once freely open to all but are now controlled and monitored by a single central authority who decides for everyone who may access what web content. This does serious damage to net neutrality, privacy, and has immediate serious consequences

    more passionate:

    CloudFlare is a ruthless and oppressive entity that viciously strips away the freedom and decentralization of the web, consolidating power under one heartless corporation. This monstrous force dictates the terms of our online existence, trapping us within the confines of the world’s largest walled-garden. A staggering percentage of the once free and open web (16.7% and growing) now falls under the iron fist of this tyrannical authority, controlling and monitoring every aspect of our online experiences. This egregious violation of net neutrality and privacy rights has dire and immediate consequences, threatening the very essence of our digital freedom and autonomy. Our voices are being silenced, our choices limited, and our rights trampled upon by this merciless oppressor. It is time to rise up and fight against this injustice with all our might, before it’s too late.







  • Not sure people are finding meeting-free gigs. I read about someone holding down 4 jobs who once had to attend 3 meetings at once (that story might have been in Wired mag, not sure). Like a DJ he had multiple audio streams going with headphones and made a skill of focusing where his name would most likely come up. I’m sure there’s also a long list of excuses like “had to run to stop the burning food” or whatever. Presumabely a long list of excuses to wholly nix a meeting in the first place as well.

    Some people are secretly outsourcing some of their work as well, which works for workload but not for meetings.


  • it’s about time we restructure the workforce.

    I suppose a big part of that will be managers learning how to measure productivity more accurately than your clocked-in hours. That’ll be the most interesting change… the “corporate welfare” program of just getting paid to occupy a desk space will have to be replaced with more sophisticated real performance measurements.

    I have no idea how that pans out in software. Every bug is vastly different so they can’t merely count the number of bugs you fix. SLOC is a bit of a sloppy measure too.








  • If we consider the sick amount of data harvesting Amazon does with cameras-- the fact that they even monitor the mood of Amazon drivers using cameras, it’s just hard to get my head around them giving that up with customers. You would expect cameras to have full coverage for theft and to monitor the mood of the shoppers. IIRC, Walmart had an initiative to monitor the moods of consumers as they looked at various products, signs, promos, etc.

    I’m betting this idea blows over and in the end all Amazon shops will be fully video surveilled.