Remote

barbra

@barbra@social.vivaldi.net

mastodon 4.7.3+vivaldimod

6 Followers

6 Following

43 Posts

Joined April 04, 2026

barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@Stefan_S_from_H@mastodon.social @Tutanota@mastodon.social Both "do not track" and "robot.txt" are ignored. The only winning move is not to use their "services." Especially not their email. As long as you don't boycott them you are part of the problem. Don't feed the beast!

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@StarkRG And yet, look at how many 2-year projects never get finished after half a decade or more. Always double the time estimate, then double again. Helps to get rid of the non-essential "nice to haves" that people keep trying to add "because it won't take that much longer" . Because EVERYONE keeps trying to bargain down how long something should take, even though THEY CAN NOT DO IT THEMSELVES. Trying to meet unreasonable deadlines, even if you succeed, just adds technical debt. Glad I'm retired, because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that management can't even manage themselves effectively. That's why they went into management. Because only those who can do, do. Those who can't go into management.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@celeduc@mastodon.social nobody "got to them." They're just showing their true colours. IOW, it's more important to not rock the boat than to stand up for people's rights, so they self-censor. There's a LOT of that going around. Welcome to end-stage capitalism.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@QasimRashid Apparently Iran maintains control of shipping in the Strait, so Trump TACOs again. So much winning! Tens of billions wasted, Trump even more exposed as an incompetent crazy tyrant, the US more isolated on the world stage ...

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@QasimRashid Don't forget that on December 14 2025 Canada changed its citizenship laws. Anyone with a Canadian citizen as a parent is automatically a citizen, and can file the paperwork to prove they have a Canadian parent and get their Canadian passport. Anyone who has a Canadian ancestor who has not renounced their Canadian citizenship can apply for Canadian citizenship as well. Canada is the land of the free.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@emilymbender@dair-community.social @alex@dair-community.social The guardian has really gone downhill of late. And then there's the whole "please register to view this article - it's not a paywall" bs. Paying with tracking your PII and viewing interests is definitely a paywall, same as Facebook et al.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@StarkRG Poor management, funding issues, shifting priorities, and organisational restructuring are ALL management failures. This has always been the case. Just look at the failure of the Denver baggage handling system, originally budgeted at under $200 million and time-compressed from 4 years to less than half, then delayed the opening of the airport by 16 months before being abandoned when it threatened the credit rating of the city of Denver. Boeing had plenty of cost-plus contracts that didn't deliver anywhere :ear on time of budget, ditto Lockheed-Martin, the F35 is way slower than a 50-year-old F16. Not for lack of funding. So double estimates, double again, and you MIGHT be safe. Both in time and budget.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@diazona@techhub.social @sakhavi@aoir.social @GeePawHill@mastodon.social I doubt there's ANY good to come from setting aside ethical concerns, or any valid excuse to do so. Please provide an example to educate me, because this sounds like techbro bs.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Em0nM4stodon Doesn't affect me. I am here as an experiment, because I like Vivaldi's "our browser will never have AI" stance. Don't post anywhere else, so any requirement that I "prove I'm an adult" anywhere and I'm gone. I had created a discord account thinking I would use it for MSFS (not the piece of crap MSFS2024) and x-plane. Never used it, deleted it the day they made noises about needing to upload government D to a 3rd party "verification service" that already had data leaks. I can live without posting anywhere except my own websites. And I won't be doing age verification. "Take me to court." If Fakebook's and Google's AI is so powerful, why aren't they using it to get rid of the scammers on their own platforms (the answer is obvious - it's all a scam). Maroon isn't immune to scammers, grifters, people who get off being white knights for others who can defend themselves, blatant commercial advertising promoting crap, etc. And of course, not being in the US, I won't apply any US laws. It's a shame, but I'm ambivalent about the fediverse. It may not be possible to keep bad actors out as it grows.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Em0nM4stodon Quebec MP Rachel Bendayan, who presented the idea to her caucus and championed it at the convention, said ~~prolonged~~ any social media use can be harmful to the mental health of ~~young~~ Canadians. There, fixed that for ya.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@richlv @peterbrown @QasimRashid I'm well aware of Amazon's anti-union tactics. One warehouse here unionized, they closed them all down. That doesn't mean that unions aren't viable - just that stronger legislation is needed to level the playing field. In other words, change politicians.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@QasimRashid The economic argument in the video is bs. First, two people at that stage would have a comfortable living, so if you're single, double up with someone else. Two income households is the norm nowadays. Second, if you can't make a living there on your wage, either change jobs or move somewhere cheaper - you've got the whole country. Third, no union? Form a union. Union is ineffective? Work to change it. People pull up stakes all the time. Just burning down the place is cowardly.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@david_chisnall Two reasons why not: Road vehicles can't share the same rail track as cars; Double-tracking to allow trains to go in both directions at once gets really expensive.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk

If you check, unsigned code will give you a warning, but you can install it.

As compared to all the npm crap that installs without warning off github.

Trying to download an update to LittleNavMap usually triggers a warning, but I trust the author far more than most random stuff on github that's signed.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@aral It runs on a modified version of linux, doing things like monotonic updates. Ask for the source 🙂 These are the same dicks who brought us systemd. Which is why my local server is being converted to FreeBSD.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@altim @janvlug @veranderwens Appeasement never works. He needs to go.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@codebuzz @jwildeboer Actually, excess tooling guarantees a shit outcome - fragile, hard to maintain, and uses more energy. Funny how many people can't do even a simple site without WorstPress.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@rsada @mcc well, after getting rid of the built-in spyware and ending all Windows updates, and refusing extended support,10 is finally stable. No more crashes since October 24th of last year. Which is what a lot of us who didn't bother with extended support kind of expected to happen.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@Damselfly@blackqueer.life

Anthropology is not psychology, so your being offended by my saying much of psychology (and even more so, btw, psychiatry) has a "proof of validity" problem should not offend you.
It's possible to write zero-detect software. But it takes a couple of decades of more of experience. Read the comments - this survey was written by someone who slimmed over some stuff and write a survey. They have no subject matter experience.

The situation would be the same if they wrote a survey about anthropology.

And yes, psychiatry is mostly quackery. They keep on coming up with new mental illnesses and prescribing medications that have been proven not only to not work, but causing harm.

The second-best example is an obstetrician who miscarried. The NEXT DAY a psychiatrist told her she was depressed and needed antidepressants. She disagreed - grieving is NORMAL!

The best example is Crick (Watson and Crick) who for 40 years was pushing the human genome project with the goal of identifying all the genes that caused mental illnesses so they can be cured.

Turns out that after many premature announcements that "this time we've found one", they had to admit failure - it was "like searching for the mythical abominable snowman".

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@diazona@techhub.social @sakhavi@aoir.social @GeePawHill@mastodon.social Your first example has historically been disproven. For all most a century, gasoline has been an economical way of getting from point a to point b, because setting aside the external costs (such as health effects of pollution) is "setting aside ethical concerns". " Setting aside ethical concerns" is just an attempt to justify short-term short-sighted thinking, which leads to the tragedy of the commons. We live in the real world, where "setting aside ethical concerns" always has negative consequences. That's a fact even your second proposed example demonstrates.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@peterbrown @QasimRashid Grow up. There were 18 other workers in the warehouse when he set fire to it. He deserves to go to jail for a long time for reckless endangerment. He's a crook, and of story. Unskilled labour doesn't command a premium when it can be replaced with anyone walking in off the street. Want more, get skills that pay better. Lots of people do this. But it takes work.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@peterbrown @QasimRashid Fuck off. I'm not american.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@TheBestEntity@rebelbase.site @Tutanota@mastodon.social @mgifford@mastodon.social And yet there are those of us who operate web sites paying out of our own pockets for hosting and domain names, no advertising, no donations. Just having your own email addresses and being able to block spammers at the server justifies the entire cost.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@DeliaChristina@sfba.social Give him a red shirt. He's dead, Jim.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 2mo ago

Replying to on babka.social

@serge@babka.social @gvwilson@mastodon.social it's bullshit question, so I wrote "bullshit" in the comments. A lot of the questions are like that. It's a "push poll" - definition : "An opinion poll designed to produce specific results and "push" a certain narrative by influencing the views of respondents"

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@transworld Solution is very simple - if you take any public funding, you serve everyone. Money talks.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@h2onolan @QasimRashid How does pointing out that this asshole cost his co-workers their jobs make me a "collaborator?" And this doesn't count the other jobs lost from suppliers, big and small, in the community.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@diazona@techhub.social @clew@ecoevo.social @sakhavi@aoir.social @GeePawHill@mastodon.social No, it's everyone saying it's not possible in the real world to "set aside ethics". As for LLMs, we already know that they don't work, they can't work, even Sam Altman has pretty much admitted it, it's just that like in previous bubbles, irrational FOMO has always cause bubbles, and they always burst. This is why we see the latest exit strategy - that LLMs are too important to "National Security" and they're hoping to be nationalised before the bubble bursts. Just another grift by grifters who have no problem putting aside ethical concerns.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 1mo ago

Replying to

@mortal_engine@mastodon.social @Tutanota@mastodon.social Or ditch smartphones altogether. Why do you need to carry around a tattle-tail snitchbox?

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Come on cholesterol, do your thing!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/11/trump-mass-pardons-end-of-presidential-term

theguardian.com

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@ZenHeathen@beige.party @c_9@mstdn.ca Ford is a blowhard. As one example, look how he's ranting against the possibility of Chinese cars being assembled in Canada (which would create jobs) but he never bitched about all the Chinese Teslas being sold in Canada (and getting massive subsidies). He needs to stop huffing his own farts, same as the rest of the conservative party. We need to reduce our dependency on all fossil fuels, and we need to kick out politicians who had a privileged life at birth and keep grasping for more privileges, like not having to be accountable. This isn't Trump's America.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@sleepy62@social.vivaldi.net Done. Obviously against it for many reasons: the planet is already on fire and in uncharted territory, tossing an obvious sop to Danielle Smith makes the Feds look weak, potential buyers like China are determined to reduce dependency on burning fuel, so we should be transforming it into petrochemicals, creating higher value products.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@clew@ecoevo.social @diazona@techhub.social @sakhavi@aoir.social @GeePawHill@mastodon.social The worst part about gas-powered vehicles is that at the beginning of the previous century auto manufacturers bought up and closed many bus and streetcar companies and closed them, forcing the public to buy has-powered automobiles. So the auto manufacturers did what became a habit - setting aside ethical concerns to further their own interests. It's pretty obvious "setting aside ethical concerns" is just an excuse to screw others over.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@peterbrown @QasimRashid

Don't put words in my mouth.

I have 3 courses of active n which are legal, honourable, and don't result in their co-workers losing their jobs:

Union action;
Change jobs to a lower-cost area. Plenty of workers won't take a job in SillyValley because, even with a 6-figure income, they would have a lower standard of living than making half as much elsewhere;
Finding someone else to share expenses with.

So instead the asshole put all his co-workers out on the street. I'm sure they just LOVE him for that.

But HE has no problem - he'll get free room and board and medical care, he's got his, Fuck his co-workers.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@jik or just get a burner plone. A cheap second hand phone without a sim. Say you use it to make videos of cops breaking the law. Wi-Fi is a thing.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@technicaladept @peterbrown @QasimRashid His co-workers COULD have done those things, but once he burned down the place, their jobs are permanently gone. The warehouse was owned by a 3rd party, so this is an opportunity for Kimberly -Clark to get rid of the hub-and-spoke distribution model, and drop-ship to their largest customers, so those warehouse jobs are gone forever. Any future warehouses will be much smaller, and may even be "dark", only requiring a couple of rent-a-cops and one afternoon a week for scheduled inspection and maintenance. But the asshole who set the fire doesn't have to worry about a job for at least 5 years. He's got his, selfish bastard.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@technicaladept @peterbrown @QasimRashid Once the place was burned down, no union would have had ANY ppower. The jobs are gone, and will never come back. The company has contracts with their supplies they have to respect. They can't wait 3 years for the warehouse to be rebuilt. They have clients they will lose it they don't supply them in a timely manner. They will move operations elsewhere. The people who used to work there, and the local suppliers who depended on that warehouse, are out of luck. The ONLY person who comes out ahead is the asshole who started the fire - he'll have free housing, food, and medical for years.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@Damselfly@blackqueer.life @gvwilson@mastodon.social This is what happens when someone who didn't have a career in software and/or hardware development writes a survey. Psychology is already full of loosey-goosey "junk science", statements without an absolute true/false value, unlike code, which either works or doesn't.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@theorangetheme @QasimRashid I proposed constructive solutions. Union action wouldn't have left his co-workers and their families out on the street. And sharing expenses with ONE (not 7) other person is what plenty of working families do. Ask his now-unemployed co-workers how they feel about him. Good thing he's in jail - they'd probably beat the crap out of him because unlike him, who gets all his housing a And medical covered for the next 5-10 years, they're jobless and facing being out on the street and no medical. If they were precarious before, they're facing destitution now. Why not spare a thought for them instead of white-knighting this asshole?

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

I'm guessing white house bigwigs don't like competition.

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/04/10/politics/white-house-staff-prediction-markets

White House warns staff against insider trading on prediction markets | CNN Politics

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@su_liam@mas.to @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social Larry is going broke next year. Oracle debt is already only 1 step above junk, and his last bit loan the lender demanded he pledge assets from his personal trust fund as a further guarantee. So the whole thing is going to crater, and micron and Samsung are going to start pumping out ordinary ram again, and Nvidia is going to have to go back to consumer and business graphics cards because the market for AI accelerators will be flooded. The hyperscalers might want us to rent virtual computers from them, but that won't create the kind of chip demand we're seeing now, so the hardware producers will pivot back as fast as they can to make cheap ram and chips or go broke. 2027 is the bubble bust, 2028 is when prices to back to normal.

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barbra @barbra@social.vivaldi.net

· 6mo ago

@Infoseepage@mastodon.social @zackwhittaker@mastodon.social

Problem with bitlocker is you can't just pull the drive and recover your data on another machine without the key - which can get lost, our you get locked out of your account.

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