Kind: Notes

I’d like to read The People’s Platform by Astra Taylor. Looks pretty on point to me.

"The Internet has been hailed as an unprecedented democratizing force. A place where all can participate equally. But how true is this claim? In a seminal dismantling of techno-utopian visions, The People’s Platform argues that the Internet in fact amplifies real-world inequities at least as much as it ameliorates them. Online, just as off-line, attention and influence largely accrue to those who already have plenty of both. A handful of giant companies remain the gatekeepers, while the worst habits of the old media model — the pressure to seek easy celebrity, to be quick and sensational above all — have proliferated in the ad-driven system.

"We can do better, Astra Taylor insists. The online world does offer a unique opportunity, but a democratic culture that supports work of lasting value will not spring up from technology alone. If we want the Internet to truly be a people’s platform, we will have to make it so."

My book at the moment is Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. I’m fairly certain I’ve read it before, many years ago (my Mum had most of his books when I was growing up) – long enough ago to remember only brief flashes of it.

Enjoying it greatly so far. It’s a lot lighter than I remember Banks’ books being (maybe I’m just thinking of The Wasp Factory…). I came back to it after a recommendation from a friend, of science fiction with some thought experiments around a socialist society. The Culture, a race within the novel, are I believe what one podcast I listened to recently called ‘space communists’, warts and all, so it should be interesting to see how they’re explored.

✔️ federation
✔️ renewable energy
✔️ cooperatives

Sounds good to me.. anyone know more about ii?

"REScoop.eu is the European federation of renewable energy cooperatives. We are a growing network of 1,250 European energy cooperatives and their 1.000.000 citizens who are active in the energy transition."

https://www.rescoop.eu/

I learned all about the latest in gaming graphics, including real-time raytracing, and deep learning co-processors that will predict part of what needs rendering in the next frame, from the guy who cut my hair at the barber’s today. Pretty wild and completely unnecessary stuff. Apparently he’s going to drop £1,500 on a new graphics card. Also this is how I learn about new technology these days.
Had a go at fixing two laptops at today’s Restart Party, with mixed success.

One was a 2010 Macbook Pro with a swollen battery. The battery was pushing against the trackpad which was failing to click. Took the battery out and ran off mains, but still no joy from trackpad. Owner had forgotten the password so then became a bit of a mission resetting password just to get to a login to check the trackpad setting. It looked like one-finger clicking was disabled but then we ran out of time before I could figure out how to navigate to the setting with just the keyboard. A USB mouse would have been a help.

The other was a very recent Acer Chromebook that had been dropped and was supposedly no longer turning on. It turned on fine though. The screen was flickering occasionally but nothing too egregious so I suggested rather than prying the screen off, for which I couldn’t find that much info, but some thing suggested it was glued down, best to keep using it as is and then actually pulling the screen off if it failed completely.

So both laptops went away in usable order, but didn’t really have the satisfaction of a ‘fix’ as such.

Who’s actually behind the Data Transfer Project? According to its homepage it’s Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter. Seems like maybe it’s a noble effort from a few devs from within those orgs, but not actually genuinely supported by any of them at a corporate level.

Because it’s been going since 2017 and with the combined finances and skillsets of these orgs they could have easily figured out data portability, if they really cared.

https://datatransferproject.dev/