Bonum Certa Men Certa

Living Humbly (With Older Technology or None) is More Compatible With Privacy- and Freedom-Respecting Technological Lifestyle

Tungsten T, introduced in November 2002 and still works in 2020
I still rely on unconnected Palm PDAs for note-taking (or voice memos) and it serves as well as it did 2 decades ago. That becomes problematic when they stop working and cannot be repaired/replaced.



Summary: Simplicity sometimes trumps so-called 'novelty', especially when it comes to human rights and users' freedom

THERE is an important correlation infrequently spoken about. It is a correlation between adoption of expensive or "latest" technology... with abuse of oneself. Whether it's "digital" (a.k.a. "smart") payments or something seemingly innocent and harmless like group chats, there's a hidden cost often completely unaccounted for. The reason group chats -- especially real-time video -- are difficult in a non-centralised (or decentralised fashion) is limit on bandwidth/throughput in any given network, not to mention computational barriers of home computers. It's different from peer-to-peer or end-to-end chats. It does not scale linearly. Similarly, digital payments may seem possible in theory but as scale grows (big growth), so do storage requirements (sometimes quadratically, not O(n)). The constraints imposed make so-called 'clown computing' alluring (a fluid allocation of resources, which can scale to meet growing needs).



"The "War on Cash" -- as we've repeatedly noted -- relies a great deal on demonisation and mischaracterisation."But where are we heading with all that?

Putting aside truly ridiculous metaphors such as "serverless", let's consider the topological ends. At the top we have rich 'suppliers' of computing resources, who increasingly refer to us "mere peons" as just "edges". They want us to broadcast data upwards (to their 'clowns') and pay the electric bill for surveillance, or (pre)processing of data to be transmitted upsteam.

Where are we now?

Well, many homes do not yet have lots of wiring (or even wireless) for spying. They're supposedly 'dumb' for not "getting on with the programme..."

Simple text editors are still better than word processors in many casesPutting aside the presence of several so-called 'phones' in many homes (even supposedly 'smart' ones with back doors), there's an effort underway to put permanent, always-on devices that are mostly immovable. Those are already being used to disseminate data not just to states but also to marketers. They make money that way, at the expense of tenants, but of course they keep jacking up the prices/rates again and again, regardless. Germany is apparently 'leading' in that regard; the push to install a bug in every home is in full swing. Here in the UK it can certainly not be imposed on anybody, certainly no sooner than 2024. Our energy supplier keeps robocalling people, repeatedly, to push them to abuse fellow tenants with mass surveillance (by misinforming and threatening them). They're also wasting company budgets on letters with fake "appointments" in them (to get installed those so-called 'smart' meters). The media likes to portray as "paranoid" those who resist it and sometimes it distorts, deliberately perhaps, the nature of the criticism (similar to the way 5G antagonists are branded as "COVIDiots"... as if the real argument against 5G is something about radio waves passing a virus around).

The "War on Cash" -- as we've repeatedly noted -- relies a great deal on demonisation and mischaracterisation. They paint so-called 'cashless' people as "Smart", whereas everyone else is a criminal (looking to hide crimes), dumb/backwards, dirty (sanitary aspects of demonisation have a dark, dark history), and uncaring about society (think of the children! Install contract-tracing!).

The narrative wars are potentially very effective. The antiwar movement being conflated with Hippies probably did not help, as if to oppose wars is to oppose capitalism itself. Some go as far as to compare people who pursue nationalised healthcare to socialists and bloodthirsty Marxists, as if to save poor people's lives (even when the financial incentive isn't there) is "bloodthirsty".

A lot of the videos I've watched lately portray activists for software freedom as relics and Luddites. The general premise it, people who reject the latest of something are borderline insane. In the GNU/Linux world we're often told that systemd antagonists are just "neckbeards" and people who prefer the command line (not choosing GUI over CLI) don't do so for expressive interfaces, which they can master and leverage for greater efficiency, but for anti-Establishment 'spite' or rebel-like mindset.

Recent Techrights' Posts

What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
 
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025