Posts by nicol@social.coop
(DIR) Post #AnCqtW08LVrhED5Iy8 by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-20T18:10:01Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd most of his arguments for Trump so far have sounded full k-hole ‘perilous chapel’ type paranoid, ie about the end of democracy/the constitution. But I guess he’s got someone to write this one.
(DIR) Post #AnF6lcXg86nqmTx6Yq by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-21T19:49:41Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd Caleb, help me out. You’re not daft, you made CJDNS. But there’s dozens of sworn witnesses who’ve taken death threats & online attacks to state Trump tried to steal 2016. De Souza’s film has how many named and sworn witnesses to back up its claims? If it was true where are the court cases? It’s whataboutery propaganda - like this Musk-funded ‘Progress 2028’ set up to deflect from Project 2025. Do you really believe what you’re saying, or is this about your crypto investments?
(DIR) Post #AnF6lfQLPpidibXn2u by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-21T19:49:42Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
[FWIW I don’t get why crypto is bullish on Trump. The dollar is central to US global influence & strength. No President, even him, will risk weakening that, regardless what he’s promised. But more importantly, the big emerging use for crypto is cross-border payments; bedrock of the web economy. For that to work there needs to be a sound –not cowboy/libertarian– regulatory space. EMEA will be v happy to fill the gap if US goes rogue, just like China did when he retreated from the Green economy.]
(DIR) Post #AnFAmJKhR17ZJJSxWa by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-21T21:06:18Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd we're not settling Mars. I loved the Mars Trilogy, but this article pours the cold water on it it needs: https://defector.com/neither-elon-musk-nor-anybody-else-will-ever-colonize-mars. Anyone believing Musk's career mission statement, should read that.> government prints money and uses it to hire political loyalistsMusk has $bns in govt contracts, is spending less than that to get Trump elected, & is promised his own dept to funnel more contracts to his empire. If this was a 3rd world country people wd be wowed; instead it's just 'content'.
(DIR) Post #AnFAmLSvVOtFvPKYcq by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-21T21:25:06Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd as for the fraud question tbh I'd have to watch the film, rather than just respond to what I've read about it, & then I'd probably need to read a bunch more things to have that debate. But like most things that folk want to believe are conspiracy I come back to 'if the government was that competent as to be able pull such a wild thing off, why is everything else such a mess?'Take this debate back a few years & maybe we'd agree that in a neoliberal capitalist democracy neither candidate…
(DIR) Post #AnFAmNeLNvDAhOghhQ by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-21T21:25:17Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
…is likely to be much different. About the best you can hope is they hold up the law & don't do anything drastic they'd never said they would (e.g. repeal Roe/Wade via a stacked Supreme Court). But Trump has now promised to do many dictatory things (lock up his enemies and critics, round up & deport non-naturalised Americans, control the press, drill-baby-drill, hand Putin & Netanyah whatever they want, ntm Project 2025 & 'rule as a dictator day 1) where's the win? It *does* sound terrifying.
(DIR) Post #AnG8S7RRvkr7tApM5A by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-21T21:55:45Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd not sure he pulled them off, he hired/bought smart people who did. I'm ok calling him the Edison of our generation - but like Edison - he's the entrepreneur and showman, not the inventor.Anyway, read the article - don't need to explain how we get a magnetosphere, oxygen or better temperature than the South Pole, but given the cost to get to that point (the article estimates 500,000 yrs best case) – explain why, when we have an enviably nice planet, threatened mostly by 'drill-baby-drill'.
(DIR) Post #AnG8S8oAqkcy7wT18q by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-21T22:01:14Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd ps (frustrated by my shorter char count here) but I love your graph - it hits the nail on the head of the bonkers era we've lived thru where GDP grows but wages stay flat from late 70s, as the planet heats up exponentially triggering increasingly extreme weather.Am I right in thinking you're saying what triggered this decoupling of wage & GDP growth is the end of serious space investment? As opposed to Reagonomics, Thatcher the Chicago school of neoliberals who engineered *all of this* ?
(DIR) Post #AnIRNu5Jw6RMkZ6GES by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-22T22:27:03Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd Hmm… you're a technolibertarian anarchist AND a Musk v2024 admirer?He bought the world's public square, the water cooler where most of the press, politicians & academics hang. And he used that immense power for what? To reinstate neo-Nazis & block liberal journalists he disagrees with (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/15/elon-musk-hypocrite-free-speech)? And now uses it to campaign hard for Trump & attack govts who don't support his biz interests (UK, Brazil & Australia), inflaming riots in the UK's case?How does this square up?
(DIR) Post #AnIRNv3ELMMXkN86c4 by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-22T22:28:48Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Surely his genius would see The Web's Public Square shouldn't pick a President based on the feels of its owner?Wouldn't anyone distrustful of authority have to draw a line at this point? When the world's richest man has purchased significant memetic influence in countries he knows little of, then uses that to troll their leaders at 3am via deeply partisan tweets that seem inspired by the most recent fringe voices who've complimented him? This isn't shuttles re-landing, this is mid-life crisis.
(DIR) Post #AnIvjrUtEbhZijRjyC by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-23T16:44:31Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd man that’s like punching yourself in the face to cure a headache.When he wasn’t putting kids in cages at the border, he was calling police attacking protestors a “beautiful thing to watch”, while his administration executed more than any in 120 years. This time he’s said he’d use the military on ‘the enemy within’, promised to roll back Biden's limits on police use of violence – and says he'll expand the death penalty & mass-incarceration. ACAB libertarian… really?
(DIR) Post #AnJF6sSNjPJ6UBxfcG by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-23T20:18:21Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@cjd all the more reason not to punch yourself in the face.Ignoring the dissonance of responding to too much government (if that's your diagnosis) by handing it to someone with Strong Dictator Vibes: what is it you think he'll do he just couldn't do last time?In the UK during Brexit, Lexiters told folk the chaos caused by leaving the EU would unravel capitalism. It just made it stronger & inequality bigger. Same with 45 no? Income inequality grew faster than in 20 yrs https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/535239-how-trump-fueled-economic-inequality-in-america/
(DIR) Post #AnJMKMVrzf639CyCsy by nicol@social.coop
2024-10-23T21:52:22Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
@cjd so you gamble risk of fascist dictatorship on a hope he breaks everything?And on the other side? The guys with the most weapons fight it out? The world has plenty of failed states where a flawed govt is replaced by battling militias/despots ruling via fear and/or fanaticism.(Only modern exception I can think of is the Rohjava in Syria. But they're organised, united, & had a figurehead Öcalan who'd read Murray Bookchin in prison. Plus, ironically, funding from the US army to fight ISIL)
(DIR) Post #AoY07j2mTRikHt6kVc by nicol@social.coop
2024-11-29T21:28:19Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
Finally. “Canadian media companies sue #OpenAI… They want up to C$20,000 in damages for each article used by OpenAI, suggesting a victory in court could be worth billions.”https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/29/canada-media-companies-sue-openai-chatgpt
(DIR) Post #Aptygz9bFaTV15DMVU by nicol@social.coop
2025-01-09T09:46:29Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
‘“His view is that western civilisation itself is threatened,” one of the people added’ about the third-trillionaire tyrant threatening Western democracy https://www.ft.com/content/dd4b066c-30a1-4ce4-a95e-82c334a740cf
(DIR) Post #ArLYBRmp7cLiMSiCuW by nicol@social.coop
2025-02-21T14:46:17Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@kevinrothrock will this Starlink marketing campaign ever stop
(DIR) Post #ArorXTTwTfPECIWEbo by nicol@social.coop
2025-03-07T13:14:24Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
USA's #Maxar isn't just cutting off classified satellite imagery to #Ukraine, but commercial unclassified services. How long until Starlink follows?I'm not sure if the White House has thought thru the signal this is sending the world:If you use American tech, cloud or telecoms, it can be turned off on a whim *while you're being invaded & bombed* to strongarm your country to sign a deal you don't want.Imagine how many govts are currently frantically trying to migrate away from US services.
(DIR) Post #Ax23JZq2bWuvOBa4Cu by nicol@social.coop
2025-08-10T11:36:42Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
‘Among those taking part in yesterday’s protest was Claudia Cotton, 89, a Jewish refugee whose family fled Nazi Germany in 1939. “I am prepared to be arrested,” the retired social worker from London said. “In fact, I think it’s a good thing because it shows how ordinary people are willing to go to prison to oppose governments that are doing evil things.’RT @urlyman https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/115003501170223700
(DIR) Post #B3hQ2AEeaWbaOXcjOS by nicol@social.coop
2026-02-25T16:27:24Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
How many people know that #WordPress was co-founded by a black man, Mike Little?Or that he's from the north of England? A self-taught coder from #Stockport, just south of #Manchester? Or that he never received so much as a share, cent or job offer from the $7bn+ valued Automattic after spending five months working exclusively with Matt Mullenweg on the B2 fork?After @bevangelist told me about @mikelittle I interviewed him for a documentary I never got round to making. Back then I was left with two certainties: he's Wozniak to Mullenweg's Jobs. Among other things he added the one-click upgrade that's been central to WP's bonkers 45%-of-the-web-success. And he's one of the nicest people I've ever interviewed, which is also bonkers given that he not only didn't share in WP's financial success, but that he's barely known.But he should be - so, better late than never - please meet #MikeLittle, perhaps the most-influential-least-known person in #foss… https://25.netribution.co.uk/nic/mike-little-the-british-co-founder-of-wordpress-youve-probably-never-heard-of/
(DIR) Post #B3hQ2J19w49tdINa6q by nicol@social.coop
2026-02-25T19:14:34Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
If anyone's struggling with the video embeds on the WordPress site (I am on my phone), there's direct links for both the videos on #PeerTube. If that goes down (and I’ve no reason to think it should) I have got Vimeo links - but 🤞- Mike Little, Part 1: co-founding WordPress and watching it grow (from afar): https://open.movie/w/hzQjFV6xJF9agsn5ERz4Kz- Mike Little, Part 2: his life in code: https://open.movie/w/rdot9DoygXTXzLM4ZnJjTf