@prologic@twtxt.net Here you go:

(LTT = “Linus Tech Tips”, that’s the host.)

LTT: There was a recent thing from a major tech company, where developers were asked to say how many lines of code they wrote – and if it wasn’t enough, they were terminated. And there was someone here that was extremely upset about that approach to measuring productivity, because–

Torvalds: Oh yeah, no, you shouldn’t even be upset. At that point, that’s just incompetence. Anybody who thinks that’s a valid metric is too stupid to work at a tech company.

LTT: You do know who you just said that about, right?

Torvalds: No.

LTT: Oh. Uh, he was a prominent figure in the, uh, improved efficiency of the US government recently.

Torvalds: Oh. Apparently I was spot on.

Bavaria is moving to the Microsoft cloud: The state government intends to conclude a contract with the US corporation by the end of the year for the use of the cloud office package Microsoft 365.

Source: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Bavaria-wants-to-move-to-Microsoft-cloud-by-year-end-11066929.html

🎉🎉🎉

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Gemini liked your opinion very much. Here is how it countered:

The criticism of AI as untrustworthy is a problem of misapplication, not capability.

• AI as a Force Multiplier: AI should be treated as a high-speed drafting and brainstorming tool, not an authority. For experts, it offers an immense speed gain, shifting the work from slow manual creation to fast critical editing and verification.
  
• The Rise of AI Literacy: Users must develop a new skill—AI literacy—to critically evaluate and verify AI’s probabilistic output. This skill, along with improving citation features in AI tools, mitigates the “gaslighting” effect.
  

The fear of skill loss is based on a misunderstanding of how technology changes the nature of work; it’s skill evolution, not erosion.

• Shifting Focus to High-Level Skills: Just as the calculator shifted focus from manual math to complex problem-solving, AI shifts the focus from writing boilerplate code to architectural design and prompt engineering. It handles repetitive tasks, freeing humans for creative and complex challenges.
  
• Accessibility and Empowerment: AI serves as a powerful democratizing tool, offering personalized tutoring and automation to people who lack deep expertise. While dependency is a risk, this accessibility empowers a wider segment of the population previously limited by skill barriers.
  

The legal and technical flaws are issues of governance and ethical practice, not reasons to reject the core technology.

• Need for Better Bot Governance: Destructive scraping is a failure of ethical web behavior and can be solved with better bot identification, rate limits, and protocols (like enhanced robots.txt). The solution is to demand digital citizenship from AI companies, not to stop AI development.

I noticed Google put out this article: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/09/lets-talk-security-answering-your-top.html it’s very current day Google, but the comments under the YouTube video are pretty on point and I saw a few familiar faces there. There is also, unexpectedly, ways to contact Google.

First a form for “teachers, students, and hobbyists”, that I filled politely, as someone who falls under their hobbyist category. It can be filled both anonymously, or with an e-mail attached, to be contacted by them (I chose the second option).

Also a general feedback and questions form, that I was not as polite in and used to send them the following message:

I have already provided some feedback, in the teacher, student and hobbyists form/questionaire, as well as an open letter I’ve recently sent to the European Commission digital markets act team, as I do believe your proposal might not even be legal, given the fact it puts privacy-focused alternative app stores at risk (https://f-droid.org/cs/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration-decree.html) and it was proposed this early, after Google lost in court to Epic Games, over similar monopoly concerns. Why should we trust Google to be the only authority for all developer signatures, right after the European courts labeled it a gatekeeper?

Assuming this gets passed, despite justified developer backlash and at best questionable legality, can you give us any guarantees, this will not be used to target legal malware-free mods, or user privacy enhancing patchers, like the ones used for applying the ReVanced patches? I have made a few mods myself, but I am in no way associated with the ReVanced team. I just share many peoples concerns, Google Chrome has been conveniently stripped of its manifest v2 support, that made many privacy protecting extensions possible and now you’re conveniently asking for the government IDs, of all the developers, who maintain these kinds of privacy protections (be it patches, or alternative open-source apps) on Android.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Thanks, it’s mostly following the Louis Rossmann thing https://youtu.be/2_Dtmpe9qaQ

- a symbol of protest, against the rapid enshitification the Internet is facing, accelerated to the extreme, during this year. It has reached a point where something really has to be done about it all. Obviously not just everyone changing their profile pictures, but also cataloguing all the consumer rights violations, invasion of privacy, censorship,… to shove it in the face of as many government officials, as possible.

@prologic@twtxt.net I’m not smart enough to answer that question. 😅 Certainly feels like unregulated capitalism. Governments being too slow and/or unwilling to intervene … It’s a mess.

America’s nuclear arsenal to cost $946B over next decade
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A threat model for opposing authoritarianism
A decade ago, I published a book on privacy “Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance.” In the book, and since then, in articles and speeches, I have been dispensing advice to people on how to protect their privacy. But my advice did not envision the moment we are in – where the government would collaborate with a tech CEO to strip-mine all of our data from government databases and use i … ⌘ Read more

CISA extends funding to ensure ‘no lapse in critical CVE services’
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This is such an interesting reading

Lessons from open source in the Mexican government
https://lwn.net/Articles/1013776/

Mike Waltz Used Personal Gmail for Government Communications: Report
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US government’s attack on free speech, science, and research is causing a brain drain
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It is no longer safe to move our governments and societies to US clouds
We now have the bizarre situation that anyone with any sense can see that America is no longer a reliable partner, and that the entire US business world bows to Trump’s dictatorial will, but we STILL are doing everything we can to transfer entire governments and most of our own businesses to their clouds. Not only is it scary to have all your data available to US spying, it is also a huge … ⌘ Read more

@bender@twtxt.net @prologic@twtxt.net The outcome was to be expected but it’s still pretty catastrophic. Here’s an overview:

East Germany is dominated by AfD. Bavaria is dominated by CSU (it’s always been that way, but this is still a conservative/right party). Black is CDU, the other conservative/right party.

The guy who’s probably going to be chancellor recently insulted the millions of people who did demonstrations for peace/anti-right. “Idiots”, “they’re nuts”, stuff like that. This was before the election. He already earned the nickname “Mini Trump”.

Both the right and the left got more votes this time, but the left only gained 3.87 percentage points while the right (CDU/CSU + AfD) gained 14.72:

The Green party lost, SPD (“mid-left”) lost massively (worst result in their history). FDP also lost. These three were the previous government.

This isn’t looking good at all, especially when you think about what’s going to happen in the next 4 years. What will CDU (the winner) do? Will they be able to “turn the ship around”? Highly unlikely. They are responsible for the current situation (in large parts). They will continue to do business as usual. They will do anything but help poor/ordinary people. This means that AfD will only get stronger over the next 4 years.

Our only hope would be to ban AfD altogether. So far, nobody but non-profit organizations is willing to do that (for unknown reasons).

I don’t even know if banning the AfD would help (but it’s probably our best/only option). AfD politicians are nothing but spiteful, hateful, angry, similar to Trump/MAGA. If you’ve seen these people talk and still vote for them, then you must be absolutely filled with rage and hatred. Very concerning.

Correct me if I’m wrong, @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org, @arne@uplegger.eu, @johanbove@johanbove.info.

Short summary of Project2025 and Trump’s plans for the US:

• Abolish the Federal Reserve
  Why? To end what is seen as an unelected, centralized body that exerts too much influence over the economy and monetary policy, replacing it with a more transparent, market-driven approach.

• Implement a national consumption tax
  Why? To replace the current federal income tax system, simplify taxation, and increase government revenue through a broader base that includes all consumers.

• Lower corporate tax rates
  Why? To promote business growth, increase investment, and stimulate job creation by reducing the financial burden on companies.

• Deregulate environmental policies
  Why? To reduce government intervention in the economy, particularly in energy and natural resources sectors, and to foster a more business-friendly environment.

• Restrict abortion access
  Why? To align with conservative pro-life values and overturn or limit abortion rights, seeking to restrict the practice at a federal level.

• Dismantle LGBTQ+ protections
  Why? To roll back protections viewed as promoting LGBTQ+ rights in areas like employment and education, in line with traditional family values.

• Eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs
  Why? To end policies that are seen as divisive and to promote a merit-based system that prioritizes individual achievements over group identity.

• Enforce stricter immigration policies, including mass deportations and detentions
  Why? To prioritize border security, reduce illegal immigration, and enforce existing laws more aggressively, as part of a broader strategy to safeguard U.S. sovereignty.

• Eliminate the Department of Education
  Why? To reduce federal control over education and shift responsibilities back to local governments and private sectors, arguing that education decisions should be made closer to the community level.

• Restructure the Department of Justice
  Why? To ensure the department aligns more closely with the administration’s priorities, potentially reducing its scope or focus on areas like civil rights in favor of law-and-order policies.

• Appoint political loyalists to key federal positions
  Why? To ensure that government agencies are headed by individuals who are committed to advancing the administration’s policies, and to reduce the influence of career bureaucrats.

• Develop training programs for appointees to execute reforms effectively
  Why? To ensure that political appointees are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to implement the proposed changes quickly and effectively.

• Provide a 180-day transition plan with immediate executive orders
  Why? To ensure that the incoming administration can swiftly implement its agenda and make major changes early in its term without delay.

Do y’all agree with any/all/some of these poliices? Hmmm 🤔

#Project2025 #US #Trump

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Nice! totally legit government page: https://tour.diplomaticrooms.state.gov/?id=0&xml=https://sour.is/awesome.html

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@prologic@twtxt.net @carsten@yarn.zn80.net

There is (I assure you there will be, don’t know what it is yet…) a price to be paid for this convenience.

Exactly prologic, and that’s why I’m negative about these sorts of things. I’m almost 50, I’ve been around this tech hype cycle a bunch of times. Look at what happened with Facebook. When it first appeared, people loved it and signed up and shared incredibly detailed information about themselves on it. Facebook made it very easy and convenient for almost anyone, even people who had limited understanding of the internet or computers, to get connected with their friends and family. And now here we are today, where 80% of people in surveys say they don’t trust Facebook with their private data, where they think Facebook commits crimes and should be broken up or at least taken to task in a big way, etc etc etc. Facebook has been fined many billions of dollars and faces endless federal lawsuits in the US alone for its horrible practices. Yet Facebook is still exploitative. It’s a societal cancer.

All signs suggest this generative AI stuff is going to go exactly the same way. That is the inevitable course of these things in the present climate, because the tech sector is largely run by sociopathic billionaires, because the tech sector is not regulated in any meaningful way, and because the tech press / tech media has no scruples. Some new tech thing generates hype, people get excited and sign up to use it, then when the people who own the tech think they have a critical mass of users, they clamp everything down and start doing whatever it is they wanted to do from the start. They’ll break laws, steal your shit, cause mass suffering, who knows what. They won’t stop until they are stopped by mass protest from us, and the government action that follows.

That’s a huge price to pay for a little bit of convenience, a price we pay and continue to pay for decades. We all know better by now. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? It doesn’t make sense. It’s insane.

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On LinkedIn I see a lot of posts aimed at software developers along the lines of “If you’re not using these AI tools (X,Y,Z) you’re going to be left behind.”

Two things about that:

1. No you’re not. If you have good soft skills (good communication, show up on time, general time management) then you’re already in excellent shape. No AI can do that stuff, and for that alone no AI can replace people
   
2. This rhetoric is coming directly from the billionaires who are laying off tech people by the 100s of thousands as part of the class war they’ve been conducting against all working people since the 1940s. They want you to believe that you have to scramble and claw over one another to learn the “AI” that they’re forcing onto the world, so that you stop honing the skills that matter (see #1) and are easier to obsolete later. Don’t fall for it. It’s far from clear how this will shake out once governments get off their asses and start regulating this stuff, by the way–most of these “AI” tools are blatantly breaking copyright and other IP laws, and some day that’ll catch up with them.
   

That said, it is helpful to know thy enemy.

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You’re right @ullarah@txt.quisquiliae.com I just watched Australia Post Outrage: Did She Need To Go?

and I do believe I’ll start adding this to my “watchlist” – I don’t use Youtube specifically (because privacy eroding garbage); but the content this guy produces is awesome! 👌

Scotty from marketing really needs to be fired! Can we even fire Prime Ministers besides calling an election? 🤔 The more you dig into our #Australian #Government the more you realize just how fucking corrupt they all are and have been over so many years. How?! 🤦‍

@adi@f.adi.onl Oh boy… we don’t want to go down that route. There is plenty to know about the Taliban, not just from the news but from people who lived—and still lives—under their “governance”; all of which is, I am afraid, much more accurate than your highschool girlfriend story telling.