Jack Allnutt @jack@allnutt.net

@aral @cubicgarden @kranzkrone this.

The point of BlueSky is not to build a decentralized network.

The point of BlueSky is to suck air out of decentralized networks, by pretending to build one, in a way such that it looks like a decentralized network but is still in all the really meaningful ways controlled by a single entity.

It's an attempt to keep the monopoly / roach-motel model going even though people start demanding decentralization.

continuing my duty to liberate the best things out of r/startrekmemes #trekposting

🌸 the difference between "free speech" and "an imminent threat to human life" is the exact moment it affects me personally

-cloudflare

Here's a thought: self-hosting all technology, a common end goal of many software freedom enthusiasts, has nothing to do with freedom. Rather, it's the logical end of hyper-individualism applied to source code.

Quite a few of you are a bit too young to have been on this merry-go-round before. This is a bit that VCs and the punditry do: hype up a new startup, drive its valuation up, "it's the revolutionary next thing"—as opposed to being a second tier feature on existing platforms

The mistake Clubhouse did was not to sell at the peak of the hype curve.

(This is what's called 'hubris'. The other link I just posted is already relevant).

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/13/clubhouse-social-audio-app-leave-membership

"So the Hyperloop, for example, [Musk] admitted to his biographer that the reason [it] was announced—even though he had no intention of pursuing it—was to try to disrupt the California high-speed rail project and to get in the way of that actually succeeding."

source https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valleys-transportation-failures-tesla-waymo-bir-1849382788

Your regular reminder that @ProspectUnion is an excellent Trade Union for people working in tech.

https://prospect.org.uk/join/

Covers private and public sector workers. Has professional & friendly advisors.

Join today!

With much of Europe facing record levels of heat right now it feels like a good time to remind all my trans, nonbinary, and GNC friends:

If you take estrogen you are more sensitive to heat and more prone to heatstroke.

If you also take an SSRI like Citalopram or Sertraline you are even *more * sensitive.

Stay cool and safe, but do NOT stop taking your meds!

The crypto space in a giant cargo cult for geeks.

They mimick the real world, hoping it will finally work.

Crypto currencies is cargo cult of money, NFT is a cargo cult of art market. Web3 is a cargo cult of the web.

None of this work.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

This can only be welcomed.

The #OnlineSafetyBill is a mess, it threatens to implement pervasive monitoring and limit legal speech.

Time for a rethink.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62158287

Also, way too many people in tech (devs, designers, managers, etc.) seem to firmly believe that affordances === clutter, which means that the UX of the apps they work on can never rise above "abysmal".

On the "blockchain isn't decentralized" thing, technically a #blockchain system is distributed redundant storage of a single database. It's not a decentralized database system. But this kind of subtlety in distinction gets lost easily within hype-laden tech journalism.

By sheer volume of hype, blockchain systems were able to appropriate the word "decentralized".

This comes off more as a threat than anything else.

"We have moved on from our nonprofit roots..."

horiffic.

Electricity used to mine bitcoin plummets as crypto crisis widens

> Consumption down by third since 11 June, with even sharper falls among other cryptocurrency networks

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/24/electricity-consumption-mine-bitcoin-plummets-crypto-crisis-widens-cryptocurrency

I am very okay with this. More of this please.