FoxQuirk 🦊 @quirk@computerfairi.es

man goes to windows error logs. says he can't delete file. lacks permission. life seems harsh and cruel.

windows says, "treatment is simple. windows administrator account is in town tonight. go and ask him to delete the file."

man bursts into tears. says "but doctor... i am the administrator"

Bless you, MapQuest.

https://gulfof.mapquest.com/

Skype is shutting down in May. I've been using it to speak with my grandmother, and I am looking for an alternative, with the following features:
* can do live subtitles (in French)
* works without a phone number/sim card
* can call your contacts and be dialed (i.e. not only invite by email/calendar/url…)
* simple UI/UX (with big buttons) is far more important than feature rich.

I know various things that do some of the above, but I'm not sure what (other than Skype) does all of it.

Any help?

awww so good from @commonroomph

https://www.instagram.com/p/DFr96h9zKrv/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

When asked about the benefits to society of Universal Basic Income, David Graeber mentioned this.

The #fediverse!

you wouldn't pirate a toot

the human body's internal sense of its own shape, weight, momentum, and ability to predict forces that will be acting on it is amazing. i had a dream just now where i was running around in some kind of strange spy thriller inspired thing. that was so cool

In 2019, Iceland became one of the first countries to approve a four-day workweek. Here's how things have been going for them.

2021: "Trials of a four-day week in Iceland were an "overwhelming success""

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57724779

2024: "Iceland’s economy is outperforming most European peers after the nationwide introduction of a shorter working week with no loss in pay."

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/25/business/iceland-shorter-working-week-economy/index.html

2025: "The effects of the shorter workweek in Iceland have extended far beyond the office."

https://www.wecb.fm/in-2019-iceland-approved-the-4-day-workweek-nearly-6-years-later-all-predictions-by-generation-z-have-come-true/

#news #labor #WorkersRights #FourDayWorkWeek #work #iceland

I want to go to here; this is the future they stole from us.

Called it. Wrote this back in Sept. 2024, about a clever Windows Powershell phishing scam that was targeting developers at the time. It uses a fake CAPTCHA that asks visitors to distinguish themselves from bots by pressing a combination of keyboard keys that causes Microsoft Windows to download password-stealing malware. Everyone said, bah, devs will never fall for this. Maybe, I said, but your average user would for sure.

Judging from the number of recent media reports, it appears this one is pretty widespread at the moment.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/09/this-windows-powershell-phish-has-scary-potential/

On my quasi-blog: "Git without a forge"

https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/quasiblog/git-no-forge/

Most of my projects are hosted in bare git repositories on the web, and not on a forge site. I talk a bit about this: ways to send patches to a project like that (and which I personally prefer), and reasons why I haven't (yet?) changed my arrangements.

the national grid is a synthesiser

Program goes to Operating System, tears in eyes, says "my state, it is very bad"

Operating System says "is no problem, have good error reporting facility, detailed but concise report, contextual information included. you will submit bug there"

Program sobs loudly "but Operating System, I *am* error reporting facility"

"AI", aka GenAI, aka ChatGPT, aka:

LLM, not "artificial intelligence"
Dunning-Kruger machine
Mediocrity machine
Lazy machine
"I can't be arsed to do my homework"-machine
"I want to skip the real work"-machine
"I hate having to hire a human for this"-machine
Generative bullshit machine
Mansplaining as a service machine
Autocomplete it machine

Add yours!

Collecting them all here: https://www.maaikebrinkhof.nl/an-ai-by-any-other-name/

do you ever think about the malmberg abba star guitar

generally, it is not beneficial or desirable for either the owning company or the project’s contributors if there are outside contributors that have significant amounts of responsibility or influence.

Thus, in general, the proper situation for a corporate open source project is to only accept occasional outside work on a “scratch an itch” basis, only insofar as it benefits the project overall. Anything else is either too exploitative or weakens corporate interests too much.

This, of course, primarily applies to single-owner open source projects. Corporations understand the above pretty well for themselves, which is why things like foundations are desirable: if a project is expected to largely go in a beneficial direction for multiple corporate sponsors, then they place actual ownership in the hands of a third party that ends up acting as a bit of a trusted “escrow” for shared work. Influence in a project is then dictated by individual investment, pretty much.

When things get to this point, it’s much more reasonable to start bringing in individual community contributors, because there’s going to be a better shared understanding of project goals and direction, and it’s very difficult for a corporation to go rogue and tear everything down/“Business Source™️” all its community’s work just because their CEO had one too many conversations with ChatGPT about how to do their damn job and now they’re completely unhinged.

From: @DoctorBLLK
https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@DoctorBLLK/114147175269360944

there's this weird notion, which we've seen several op-eds attempting to explain, that supporting hatred, genocide, etc represents a change for silicon valley executives