Maya S. Trojan

A lot of managed switches, a lot of ethernet cable, maybe some point-to-point WiFi connections for longer distances, and local DNS and DHCP servers that have failovers for redundancy. You technically don’t need a router because routers are for connecting different networks, and if it’s not connected to the internet, as long as you have local DHCP and DNS, you’re kind of golden for local services. You can even have internal TLS for local security. I do that with Caddy, it’s dead simple, and the certificates are locally generated for a 10 year period. I’m connected to the internet but I don’t expose any of these services to the internet, just my local network.

With a little more work, you could set up a VoIP server too so people could connect their phones that don’t have cellular service and use a VoIP app to be able to call anyone in the neighborhood by their VoIP number.

Oh I forgot to include this:

https://loriemerson.net/2024/08/31/a-brief-history-of-barbed-wire-fence-telephone-networks/

This is piece on the history of Barbed Wire Phone networks which were an early way to roll out local phone access in remote areas without rolling out much infrastructure. It essentially would be an “always on” community line. No ringer, you just pick up your local receiver, and see if anyone’s on any of the other receivers to talk. So if you had 3+ receivers connected to the barbed wire network, all of those would be able to be part of a big community phone call.

This was actually was initially got me thinking about these ideas and in particular how especially dissenting protest groups must stop trying to communicate using the tools of their oppressors. Secured messaging isn’t enough, we need to have messaging entirely removed from the wider, corporate and government controlled internet. Build parallel communications systems and begin to use those instead.

Oh, I also forgot to include LoRa texting for remote areas as well:

https://www.howtogeek.com/esp32-and-lora-module-let-you-text-off-grid-with-no-internet-or-cell-signal/

The point being that all these rely on building out our own networks instead of relying on all the privately owned fiber, cable, dsl, and ethernet that exists between us and our destination on the internet. We can’t avoid passing through someone else’s property on the wider internet, which makes it more at risk of interception and possible decryption. Removing it from the wider internet and closing the loop tighter resolves this.

Every “hop” to a new server online between you and your destination is a place where your data has been replicated to be able to pass through. Parallel networks avoids this entirely.

I don’t think it’s necessarily escaping places like the Fediverse, but the internet as it exists… I don’t know if there’s a way to “heal” it or stop it from getting worse, honestly. So I very much feel like there’s opportunity for people to “disconnect” while also being somewhat connected. Local websites tailored to community needs as opposed to corporate ones.

I mean, if “Big Tech Won’t Broadcast Your Dissent” and the costs of maintaining alternative communities rise, due to the cost of renting servers, it may just make more sense to make a local intranet with your buddies who all have their own Jellyfin servers too, and that becomes a community resource so nobody in the complex needs a streaming service. I mean I have RomM, which allows me to play tons and tons of old video game ROMs in a web browser, so that could become a community resource, too.

There could be community forums and community weblogs, allowing people to update each other on new developments in the community, and updates to community servers, scheduled maintenance times etc. Sneakernets could share local community updates among different local LANs in the area, and share files via traditional file transfer from one disk to another so other communities can get new entertainment, etc.

Especially with Microsoft demanding everyone have a TPM 2.0 chip for Windows 11 there is currently a lot of shunted hardware that could easily be turned into local server stacks and then the only cost is replacement parts if things go down and the regular cost of electricity and maybe a handful of uninterruptible power supplies, and that’s only really if you’re on a system that power loss could cause problematic data corruption.

TL;DR: Seizing the means of communication may be just as important as seizing the means of production. In this case we don’t “seize it” we make our own parallel systems.

Sneakernets, where people trade data on USB sticks and MicroSD cards (I remember back in the day reading about people smuggling data in and out of countries in fake coins with a MicroSD inside). Air-gapped LANs (not internet connected) that cover neighborhoods with people managing local web servers and services for the community. I have probably over 20 services running on a handful of physical servers, most of them old, most of them underpowered, but they could serve a small community on a local network easily.

I honestly think that’s where people will end up to escape the corporate internet.

Even though DHS was created for horseshit reasons and was immediately used for racist purposes post-9/11 no one ever questions it. I mean the name said everything, and people like me said so at the time that “Department of Homeland Security” sounded deeply fascistic and dystopian on it’s face. The TSA? Created as a stealth jobs program for Bush’s failing economy, basically says “lol fuck the 4th amendment,” is nothing but security theater and they do more stealing people’s shit than they do stopping terrorism… but no one ever questions why it’s still around. The thread of 9/11 is long past, but they won’t let go of these levers of control, neither political party will, because it makes domination and control all too easy.

I think the point other people are making is that this can set precedent in German law and allow other people with similar issues to bring suit and win on merit and not have to fight as hard for their case to be considered. It could also end up inspiring similar cases in other countries using similar frameworks, adapted for local laws.

If suddenly Alphabet has thousands people taking to them to court in jurisdictions all over the world, that can indeed hurt them, although it will take longer than injunctions on Google now, I fully agree.

Turns out he’s got a bit of the ol’ GLaDOS in him.

That’s not what I suggested was the solution at all. My point was simply the systems as they were designed to never carry this much weight because no one predicted the massive leaps in life expectancy in under a 100 years. The point rather is that the systems are broken, and it’s not the fault of the people who are living longer. It’s the fault of the people (generally politicians and older folks who benefit from things as they are) who refuse to change the systems to adapt to a modern world where people do live longer, and the only way to functionally do that is to tax the wealthy appropriately. That’s a nonstarter with most politicians, sadly. Further, it can’t really be denied that Boomers did vote for these policies that kept their taxes low and shunted the burden to the youth.

When pyrite came into contact with water and oxygen, it oxidised and generated acidity, she explained. “The acid produced can now leach heavy metals from these rocks into the waterways. The issue we’ve been having here in Longyearbyen is manganese , but other contaminants can be leached out from the rocks.”

It reminds me of the potent idea that Adam Curtis explored in his film series The Power of Nightmares, in which he posited that modern governments and politicians had stopped trying to offer a dream of a better world, but instead started offering nightmares, boogeymen, things to fear. Instead of making a better world, they all turned towards creating nightmares for their populace to “need” them for. They are part of democracies that have become (or started as and continue to be, as is with the case of the USA) morally bankrupt with little more than lip service to actual democracy. Since they can’t offer a dream of something better, they must offer a nightmare to make us afraid and need them as a protective figure.

I mean it seems like all modern neoliberal governments are crumbling under the weight of the fucking Boomer generation living so much longer than anyone expected. There was a smaller, but still significant baby boom in Europe as well.

We are all carrying a generation that was larger than any other, and had quick political impact due to that, and in some places still holds most of the political power.

Their stubbornness and selfishness is literally what is allowing conservative groups to grind the gears of government to a halt. They have seen the ways to break government and used them aggressively, all over the world.

France’s main trouble is with pensions and they had one of the biggest baby booms in Europe.

The reality is that when the Boomers were young there were some massive breakthroughs in medicine, especially in terms of heart health and care. We went from a roughly 60 year average lifespan in the 40s and 50s to 70 in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and have been just pushing 80+ ever since. The programs as they were designed were never designed for people who would live this long and take up this much pension (or social security) money. The Boomers themselves seem to feel entitled to it despite it coming straight from the pockets of their children.

I absolutely love it when something in a Boomer Humor style is actually a good joke.

Were you trying to get the system logo to match your big bright red triangle hazard light button, or was that just a happy accident?

Here in Washington state, “Independent” has always been code for “Republican but that’s not as popular in this state so covering it with Independent”

Their policies are somehow almost always lockstep with the Republican party.

I knew that Norway had a lot of heavy metal bands but this is getting ridiculous.

Seriously, though, this is crazy and scary. How quickly your access to clean potable water dries up (pun intended) when you aren’t the world isn’t taking climate change seriously.

Edit: came back because I realized I made it sound like it was the fault of the people in that town, and not an overarching problem that certainly wasn’t their own fault. That town alone cannot possibly produce enough pollution to blame it on them. It’s obviously a worldwide issue that impacts people all over the world somewhat randomly because can’t actually predict all outcomes of climate change.

Jucika is the woman I aspire to be.

More like to achieve the outcome the computer has to divert all power from all other systems (except minimal life support) for about 42 days… and even then it just produces something that was almost, but not quite, unlike tea.

No heterosexual man will be able to tell you accurately what you have on, even though he just looked at you 10 seconds ago.

Yeesh, either you’re a terrible partner or you’ve had a string of terrible partners and are speaking from personal experience… but I mean I guess all that research that shows that men very much do care what women wear (especially women they aren’t dating, famous women even moreso) must mean nothing…

Look, I hate capitalism and fast fashion as much as the next woman, but socially we’re treated as if our value is within our looks, of which we all know are mostly outfits, hairdos, and makeup catered to the male gaze. So I mean, good for her, and who cares if it didn’t materially change her life for the better or change her habits. It’s quite possibly a whole ass outfit no less, top and skirt, not one whole piece. If it made her feel good and she likes it enough to be lounging around in it a week later, I don’t see the issue. I don’t know, let women have fun. (and that includes you, Stushona! let yourself have fun!)

Yeah, GPU passthrough is pretty tough to get with VMs as well, let alone something very tailored to graphics needs like that. So I can understand if you need that to work why it’s a turn off.

Well, VMs being slower than the host machine is just a real tradeoff that happens. You can try using less graphics/ram/cpu heavy systems like Xubuntu/Lubuntu (although to be fair even Kubuntu is pretty lightweight now). But part of it is how much RAM you give it. If you have the spare ram for it, give it as much as you can. I have 32gb of ram and yet rarely break using 10gb of it so if I am running a single VM I usually give it 12gb of ram at minimum. Also depending on what you’re using for your VM you could give the VM more cpu cores to use, but that will in turn speed it up (although depending on the load may also slow down your host as it loses access to cores). Giving it enough ram, enough cores, and putting it on the next M.2 (pulling the OS of an HDD is slow af) you get if there’s enough room. Those are all things that will bring up speed.