⊥ᵒᵚ Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️ @falken@qoto.org

@falken Yes. ;)

Rishi Sunak decides to end political career with general election
https://www.normalisland.co.uk/p/rishi-sunak-decides-to-end-political?publication_id=1407757&post_id=144880877&isFreemail=true&r=2j00d3&triedRedirect=true

Rishi Sunak, the UK’s greatest prime minister since Liz Truss, has announced he will be stepping down through a process known as a “general election” that he has zero chance of winning.

So, back when I was a Civil Servant, I wrote a bunch of blog posts which I *absolutely* couldn't publish while employed there.

I'm rather looking forward to publishing some of them in the coming weeks!

#GE2024

The real problem now is that Starmer will likely become Prime Minister and everyone will expect him to fix things overnight, which won't be possible.

#UKpolitics

I reckon some channel will show Independence Day as normal, and then show V for Vendetta after the polls close
(UK election 4th July)

*Holding head in hands* We just tried to git clone the C# runtime and it failed because it would have created a pathname which is too long.

We used Microsoft's source distribution server (github)

To download Microsoft's programming language VM (dotnet)

Onto Microsoft's operating system (Windows)

And this was not supported.

UK General Election 4-July-2024

And so it begins. Everything between now and then is Party Political Campaigning.

Get registered. Get Voter ID. Vote!

Remember: The first job is to Get The Tory Out #GTTO
So don't fight among yourselves. Support the party most likely to get your local Tory out. Tactical Voting FTW!

https://stopthetories.vote/

A lot of people who are not experts in domestic abuse think they're making a clever point by informing me that if an abuser has physical access & login credentials, the game's already over.

I am very tired and do not have the energy to explain why making spying easier for abusers is bad, actually.

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as PC, is in fact, a Windows laptop, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Copilot plus PC.

#WindowsRecall

Microsoft is ABSOLUTELY going to sell Recall as a way to spy on employees... likely through tiers (tied to your "e5 or above" licensing.. The MORE you pay.. the more granular your access to spying)

The same will likely be true for selling the right to spy on students who use campus computers (being tied to academic institution licensing)

Linux is a bit shit sometimes,

There's your headline. I don't care whether you use linux or not; ten years ago that might have mattered, I might be trying to get more people to use it so that adobe or whoever would put more effort into supporting it, but that doesn't really matter anymore, these days everything either Just Works or there's a native equivalent that's better and I've no selfish reason to recommend linux anymore, so if you're happy with windows stick with windows.

If you're *not* happy with windows, here's the other half of that sentence at the top of this post:

Linux is a bit shit sometimes - but when it's a bit shit, it's a bit shit in the way of a cat who watches the mouse run across the living room floor, not in the way of a cat who suddenly decides to bite you for no reason. It's not *actively malicious,* it's just a bit shit sometimes, which these days is tbh pretty damn good compared with a lot of stuff.

Like, it's not bad because it's being hollowed out for investors, it's not bad because it's spying on you to make more money, it's not bad because its makers know you've gotta take it anyway, it's not bad because it knows it can get a lot worse before you look elsewhere, it's just... bad. But bad in like a normal way, like a bike with a wonky gear shifter and tyres that keep going soft, not like a bike that shows you adverts.

There's my linux recommendation.

LINUX: It's A Bit Shit Sometimes™

Microsoft Build 2024 looks like it's more about AI fluff than developer stuff

Windows? We're the Copilot company now Comment  Microsoft's Build 2024 conference is getting under way in Seattle. As the Copilot company makes a multitude of AI announcements, one question seems pertinent: Is Build and Microsoft's commitment to developers starting to wither?…
#theregister #IT
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/22/microsoft_build_2024/

That last retoot? Linux is sometimes a bit shit?

Yeah, definitely my experience. Been using one distro or another for 20+ years. As my main machines for over ten. It breaks, it annoys, it's sometimes bizarre.

But it is absolutely mine. It doesn't try to monetize me. It doesn't actively get in my way. It doesn't change how I use it just for the hell of it.

And my ancient laptop is still supported with the most up to date stuff. Built in obsolescence? Yeah, Linux never heard of that.

Microsoft Recall in Windows 11: in what way can this be POSSIBLY compliant with the requirements of GDPR?

(Same goes for Office365 requiring autosave to stash files in OneDrive, and Outlook slurping all your emails into Microsoft's cloud and using them for AI training.)

Or this post https://www.manton.org/2024/05/21/microsofts-recall-on.html where he praises the idea behind Microsoft’s “AI” spyware feature “Recall” despite its obvious potential for abuse

At least, the potential for abuse should be obvious to somebody who runs a social network that puts privacy and control over your own data front and centre. That he doesn’t see the potential issues makes you wonder how careful he’s being about privacy issues on micro.blog

Good morning, and welcome to Enshittification Tuesday. We've got quite a selection for your perusal today, and shockingly it isn't all related to AI.

We've got:

* Microsoft adds AI spyware at the OS level

* iTerm2 adds AI spyware at the Terminal level

* FireTV interface has been sneakily tweaked to automatically subscribe users to new services when downloading certain apps (yes, there's a confirmation screen, but blink and you'll miss it & might get double-subscribed)