Sylvain Miermont @miermont@qoto.org

Others have said this, but the Internet Archive's appeals-court loss to Big Publishing is a disaster for everyone but the cartel of companies and a tiny number of A list authors.

The publishers will tolerate libraries only as long as they can control everything about how books can be loaned. If public libraries were being invented today, the cartel would make their core functions illegal.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/4/24235958/internet-archive-loses-appeal-ebook-lending

By popular demand, here is the same thing as text.
Phrack Inc
Breaking The Spell
It can feel like the world is in a dreamlike state; a hype-driven delirium, fueled by venture capital and the promises of untold riches and influence. Everyone seems to be rushing to implement the latest thing, hoping to find a magic bullet to solve problems they may not have, or even understand.
While hype has always been a thing, in the past few years (2020-2024), we have witnessed several large pushes to integrate untested, underdeveloped, and unsustainable technology into systems that were already Going Through It. Once the charm wears off, and all the problems did not just magically disappear, they drop these ideas and move on to the next, at the cost of everyone else.
Many of these New & Exciting ideas involve introducing increasingly opaque abstraction layers. They promise to push us towards The Future, yet only bring us further from understanding our own abilities and needs. It's easy to sell ideas like these. What isn't easy, is creating something both practical and sustainable. If we want to make the world more sustainable, we need to understand the inputs, outputs, dependencies, constraints, and implementation details of the systems we rely on. Whenever we make it more difficult to know something, we inch closer to an information dark age.
After the past several decades of humanity putting all of its collective knowledge online, we are seeing more ways to prevent us from accessing it. Not only is good information harder to find, bad information is drowning. it out. There are increasing incentives to gatekeep and collect rent on important resources, and to disseminate junk that is useless at best, and harmful at worst. In all of this chaos, the real threat is the loss of useful, verified, and trusted information, for the sake of monetizing the opposite.
Fortunately, there are still hackers. For every smokescreen that clouds our vision, hackers help to clear the air. For every new garden wall erected, hackers forge a path around it. For every lock placed on our own ideas and cultural artifacts, hackers craft durable picks to unshackle them. Hackers try to understand what lies beyond their perspective.
Hackers focus on what is real, and what is here.
We can move forward through this bullshit. We can work together to maintain
good information, and amplify the voices of those who are creating and
curating it. We can learn how things actually work, share the details,
and use these mechanisms to do some good. We can devise new methods of
communication and collaboration, and work both within and between our
communities to jam the trash compactor currently trying to crush us to death.
Hacking is both a coping mechanism and a survival skill. It represents the
pinnacle of our abilities as humans to figure out how to use whatever tools.
we may have, in whatever way we can, to do what we need to do. Hacking is a
great equalizer, a common dialect, a spirit that exists within all of us.
It has the power to shape the world into one we want to live in.
The hacker spirit breaks any spell.

A project to make it so you can fab chips in a hack space

https://hacker-fab.gitbook.io/hacker-fab-space

« You're not doomscrolling, you're hopequesting.

You need those tiny pieces of joy from seeing friends and strangers share their art, their good news, their wacky unique selves.

We need light to live.

And we find it in each other. »

@Ruth_Mottram Another dimension of the pristine myth is the idea of a “degraded” forest. This is a really dangerous and misleading category, as across the world many legislators protect only “intact” forests and allow plantations etc to be established in “degraded”forests. They are written off. But there is no such thing as a permanently degraded forest, they can and do recover quite quickly.

Suspect we're going to see ever more geoengineering /carbon sequestration schemes - generally inadequate, unlikely to work, and/or actively harmful. But at least this one on seaweed is beautifully illustrated.

https://www.science.org/content/article/can-dumping-seaweed-sea-floor-cool-planet-some-scientists-are-skeptical

I have a #Kobo Aura one e-reader. I got it almost ten years ago. And it just got another software update.

It's a really good e-reader, and it's open enough that you can install your own software on it. But it also has a stellar support length. I can't recall another consumer product of mine that is still updated nine years after release.

I don't know when I will replace it. I do know I will get another Kobo when I do.

Anyone interested in the librarycloud.org domain name? I've had it since I was co-dir of Harvard #Library Lab. Free to a non-profit (at my discretion). Reply, or find me at weinberger.org

"Rich kids would eat free too" is actually a good thing for the following reasons:

1. Reduces stigma for those who need the program.
2. Reduces cost and limits bureaucratic waste when the entry bar for the program is streamlined
3. There are very few actual rich kids; there are kids with rich parents. And not all of those are as loving and attentive as they should be.
4. Rich kids are still kids. All kids should eat.

People with experience with nightjet ÖBB trains: I have booked a night train that arrives at 10:01 at Munich.
What are my chances of making a 10:48 train?

What about a 14min connection in Mannheim?
I remember making shorter ones in Mannheim, but have German trains become that (un)reliable?

#NightTrain #NightJet #Obb #Zug #Interrail

@freakonometrics @aaaabbbb French here. There are testimonies now of zealous controllers giving 70€ fines to 20 years old under poverty line students for minor violations. Something which previously would call for a polite reminder.

French rails is an historic national monopoly and strong Union, key to past century social struggles.

For the past 20 years it has been privatized, dismentled, deprived of due fundings. It is now agressively pitting the working class against the working class.

STUDY: ‘Dual-mode households’ (cars & ebikes) can reduce their car use by 19% compared to those solely reliant on cars, particularly affecting shorter trips. This supports households moving to one car and adopting a ‘car light’ lifestyle. Via @MomentumMag https://momentummag.com/study-shows-how-e-bikes-are-shifting-the-transportation-landscape/

Meta is the Gold Sponsor of an alt-right climate denying conference, headlined by the guy who helped create the moral panic around transgender people and critical race theory.

https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/12/meta-and-koch-industries-to-sponsor-event-featuring-climate-denier-barry-cooper/

Another lesson in "Don't Use An App for things that should be a Website":

https://news.patreon.com/articles/understanding-apple-requirements-for-patreon

Basically, Apple is going to steal 30% of Patreon's money that's supposed to go to creators. Because... Apple. If it's an app and it's in their store, they will squeeze you for every penny they can get.

Note: Android isn't innocent in this, either. Use the website whenever you can.