Today colors of landscape was a bit martian on sunset, so I took few photos. I noticed that overall palette changed as I turned left more.
Interesting that it was enough to use my phone to take these quite colorful photos. But anyway, eyes catching much more, especially when look in direction perpendicular to sunlight. It giving some Martian vibe. Not sure photos capturing this look and feel but I did my best to catch it.
Sadly, even MORE days of protests did not brought the results people hope for. The anti-EU rethoric of ruling party “Georgian Dream” leaded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili is going on and GD still prevent EU membership for Georgia and adopts more and more repressive laws.
Recent move of GD is to create a censorship department that formally tasked with fight against “hate language”. But local NGO already fears it will be abused by GD.
Other recent such move is law forbidding calling GD parliament or government as illegitimate.
There are more such laws GD adopted recently. Often these repressive laws are sadistic perversion of EU (and sometimes – US) laws.
Protests are ongoing in other ways now. People not count days like before as all possible records are set. Time will tell how victory over GD will look like.
This is a bit of thoughts about Elena Rossini article and Aral Balkan explanation of these strange decision by EU commission to move to W Social instead of Eurosky project.
Reblog via Aral Balkan
“My fear is that W Social is just another for-profit Big Tech startup that happens to be based in the EU. We don’t need that. We don’t need more European surveillance capitalists and people farmers. We need ethical alternatives working for the common good.”
– Yours truly, in @_elena’s excellent expose on W Social.
Do read the article to the end, especially noting the bit about the composition of their board of advisors, which includes an ex-Google AI lead and an ex-Paypal Chief [Violate Your] Privacy Officer who now works at Tools for Humanity (Sam Altman’s “Sci-fi dystopia? Hold my beer…” identity farming startup that wants to scan your eyeballs).
#WSocial #EuropeWashing #PrivacyWashing #BigTech #peopleFarming #surveillance #capitalism #EU #ATProto #fediverse
Enough of quotes and references. Here is my own bit.
I find this EU commission is very concerning. It looks a bit illogical at first. Like turning 180 degrees, compared to starting a fediverse server, for example.
Automation of propaganda via so called “AI” become the “9/11 of the internet” – an event that eroded trust and made life more difficult for everyone via stricted security checks everywhere – from bank account open procedures to security checks at airport. I see same thing here. Trust between people is being eroded and everything looks suspicious, especially everything or everyone new. “Is this an AI slop?” is what first comes to mind to many people so often these days. So I guess this is how W social sold the carrot to the donkey of EU politics. They promised that every account there is a human. The EU commission puts very strong attention into verification there. It claimed to do so for sake of children safety, but may be real goal of de-anonymization of the internet is a bit different – to expose AI bots and automated propaganda agents because they can’t provide an ID document, pass a selfie check or give a real payment details. There are experiments already when at least some of these checks passed more or less automatically. But so far I don’t know yet about the widespread use of things like that.
So here we are again. For sake of filtering bots out as they used to spread disinfo and pro-dictatorship propaganda en masse in automatic way, EU ready to impose age checks and identity collection over everyone. Eroded trust for sake of security. This is not just a some evil conspiracy – this is a result of social experiment abusing second time the same traits of state-based governance. For sake of security it always prefers centralized, “well defined and well controlled” solution like id data collection and deanonymization of the internet over less centralized and “vague” solution as to improve society immunity against disinformation, especially regarding elections. Such measures assume improving immunity of every single person to disinformation, at individual level. Becoming own feed self-moderator. “But this is so hard to do!”, said politicians and did what they do best or what they taught to do: introduced more rules, checks and complicated compliance procedures everyone will have to obey now, like a criminal whose guilt has been proven in court.
Internet will be deanonymized. it will become less usable for organizing and activism. People will seek VPNs at first, but later they will be outlawed or adapt (by embedding age checks into them, by need to perform age check to be able to use them). People will return to the roots, and will have to turn their eyes and ears to their local communities they live in. Some people in marginalized groups can be unlucky as in case of real danger they can end up in situation where there is nowhere to go, nobody to scream “HELP!!!!” to. The single thing we can hope on that some informal decentralized mutual-aid networks would be created and being underground they still be reachable for those who need the help.
Whistleblowers, investigative bloggers and other activists exposing crimes committed with use of state resources and via state apparatus actually will end up in an absurd context when they can’t use safely internet to spread their investigations and findings.
Most of the time I read about that coming de-anomization of the internet, everyone speaking about collecting identity data from people who visit social media and other websites via dedicated “third-party” service.
But eventually the goal to eliminate bots away from the internet will end up with need to do identity-collection over people who own website names, who rent ip addresses, compute, storage, and bandwidth for websites to work. So it will end up being much more widespread thing, not regarding social media and other “stuffed with people” websites.
Regarding elections, I still not sure whether deanonymization of internet will keep automated disinfo agents at bay. Lets see for how long W Social and “verified internet” will stay untouched from automated agents invasion.
For translation, scroll below.
Шел казак1 куда-то вдаль.
На груди была медаль:
«За отвагу», «За победу»,
«За приятную беседу»,
«За научные труды»,
«За охрану всей среды»,
две медали космонавта,
орден игрока Варкрафта,
символ сдачи ГТО,
«Прохождение ТО»,
Клуб беременных «Журавлик»,
Гардероб ДК «Гидравлик»,
«Альтависта точка ком»,
«Общество больных грибком»,
Капитан игры «Зарница»,
«Гомельская психбольница»,
табакерка, и огниво,
восемь крышечек от пива,
«Фестиваль цыганской пляски»
«Крановщик, работай в каске!»
«Берегись велосипеда»,
«Тридцать восемь лет Победы»
Орден РСФСР,
тайный орден «Тамплиер»,
вкладыш жвачки «Лёлик-Болик»,
«Анонимный алкоголик»,
«Клуб ценителей вина»,
Символ панков из говна,
«SUSE-Linux», «Бизнес-тим»,
«Тында — город побратим»
«Самый опытный водитель»
«Лучший хряк-производитель»,
знак «Почетный водолаз»,
стикер «Ельцин-пидарас»,
Октябрятская звезда,
«Героиня мать труда»,
группа крови, и Ай-Пи,
и пацифик на цепи.
Поскользнулся вдруг казак…
И медальками — херак!
И теперь медальки все
раскатились по шоссе.
Ребятишки! Дяди, тёти!
Если где-нибудь найдете:
Орден Славы, Орден Мира,
пуговку с гербом Алжира,
фенечку, консервный нож,
малахитовую брошь,
Красный крест, Петровский крест
«Город Прага», «Город Брест»,
«Полковая медсестра»,
«Детство — чудная пора»,
«Эсперанто», «ЦСКА»,
личный номер лесника,
запонки к военной форме,
«Лучший токарь», «Выхлоп в норме»,
«Похудей за пять минут»,
Молодежный клуб «Сохнуд»,
«КГБ», «Почетный донор»,
«Частный фонд Елены Боннер»,
«Фестиваль чеченской моды»,
номерок фидошной ноды
хоть медалькой, хоть значком
поделитесь с казачком!
Here an automatic translation by Kagi Translate goes:
A Cossack was walking somewhere far away.
On his chest, there was a medal:
“For Bravery,” “For Victory,”
“For a Pleasant Conversation,”
“For Scientific Works,”
“For Protecting the Whole Environment,”
two astronaut medals,
the Order of the Warcraft Player,
the GTO fitness symbol,
“Vehicle Inspection Passed,”
“The Little Crane” Pregnant Women’s Club,
“Hydraulic” Cultural Center Cloakroom,
“Altavista dot com,”
“The Fungal Patients Society,”
Captain of the “Zarnitsa” game,
“Gomel Psychiatric Hospital,”
a snuffbox, and a fire striker,
eight beer bottle caps,
“Gypsy Dance Festival,”
“Crane Operator, Wear a Helmet!”
“Beware of the Bicycle,”
“Thirty-Eight Years of Victory,”
Order of the RSFSR,
the secret “Templar” order,
a “Lolek and Bolek” gum wrapper,
“Alcoholics Anonymous,”
“Wine Connoisseurs Club,”
The symbol of punks made of shit,
“SUSE-Linux,” “Business Team,”
“Tynda—Sister City,”
“Most Experienced Driver,”
“Best Breeding Boar,”
the “Honorary Diver” badge,
a “Yeltsin is a faggot” sticker,
the Little Octobrist star,
“Heroine Mother of Labor,”
blood type, and IP address,
and a peace sign on a chain.
Suddenly the Cossack slipped…
And his medals went—clatter-fuck!
And now all the medals
have scattered across the highway.
Kids! Uncles, aunts!
If you find anywhere:
the Order of Glory, the Order of Peace,
a button with the Algerian coat of arms,
a friendship bracelet, a can opener,
a malachite brooch,
the Red Cross, the Peter’s Cross,
“City of Prague,” “City of Brest,”
“Regimental Nurse,”
“Childhood is a Wonderful Time,”
“Esperanto,” “CSKA,”
a forest ranger’s ID number,
cufflinks for a military uniform,
“Best Turner,” “Exhaust is Normal,”
“Lose Weight in Five Minutes,”
“Sokhnut” Youth Club,
“KGB,” “Honorary Donor,”
“The Elena Bonner Private Fund,”
“Chechen Fashion Festival,”
a FidoNet node number—
whether it’s a medal or a badge,
share it with the Cossack!
This fun poem about a Russian fake Cossack illustrated overall lack of understanding of anything, let it be symbols or meaning of uniform they wear, or what is spirit of being Cossack, and whether “Siberian Cossack” existed ever or what it was about, and how they were different from Don Cossack.
Reblog via Tuta
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Image from the post is a brief exploration of various software (and some phones) to choose from for people who want decouple their life from Microsoft Meta, Google, et cetera. Here it is:
I already use plenty of this:
I guess only when it will be mandated by EU law for delivery services, taxi operators, banks and companies with turnover over 1 million EUR annually to create mobile apps compatible with linux mobile distributions or “websites as progressive apps installable on the home screen of mobile devices” providing identical functionality as apps for android and iOS, it would be possible to speak about real de-googling and de-appleing people en masse via possibility to make a linux phone usable for ordinary people lives, not just tech enthusiasts .
I am less concerned about this aspect. And I will think about ways how to put the relay to a good use.
Thanks for pointing this out. Yeah, I deserved to be RTFM-ed because all I read so far is the installation docs and description of these links.
And being a bit over-anxious about not spam per se but more about automations and bots, with their usage for some evil purposes.
Thanks again for explanation.
I have now to use the post https://legends.house/private-messages-better-with-email-and-pgp/ I wrote a while ago as a “profile card”. Main changes are DeltaChat card and link and also Matrix address I have.
This of course does not mean I expect many people would start to contact me via these ways. Quite contary.
But I looking for ways to test these.
Here are the quote from author description of the Cow on Road game:
My wife is Georgian and I have lived in Tbilisi for five years. We decided the driving experience here deserved its own video game, so we built one.
You drive a marshrutka down an old Tbilisi street and dodge what the road gives you: Priuses drifting between lanes, Wolt couriers, potholes that rattle the whole bus, street dogs that run out to chase cars, pedestrians who cross wherever they want, and cows. Of course cows. There is honking and authentic Georgian yelling from the car windows.
It is free, browser-based, no signup needed to play.
There is a monthly leaderboard and the top driver wins a free course bundle from EasyGeorgian, the Georgian learning platform my wife and I run.
Would love feedback, especially on what Tbilisi road hazard we forgot.
Regarding feedback, it has been asked on Reddit here.
I played this game a bit and enjoyed it a lot. It represents in a simple and a fun way the difficulties of work of marshrutka driver on the Tbilisi steets.
Speaking of Marshrutka, this is a phenomenon of its own. They are usually (old?) Mercedes minibus with seats on each side, a narrow space in the middle and a overhead grab bar above each row of seats. They used often by passengers who ready to suffer by having a tough ride standing and holding by the overhead bar with one hand and pressing a seat with a leg or other hand to not fall.
To me they become a social mirror of energetic, intense, zero-regulation freedom vibe of years when Bendukidze & other reformers from Saakashvili team made their unique reforms and projects. One of key aspects of this period was hyper-expressiveness of anything and vibe that anything possible. Including having a ride being stuck standing between plenty of random people busy their lives in a hurry. Meanwhile driver do few things at once, like drive, speaks by phone, screams at other drivers on the street, takes cash payments from passengers, gives them the change, and all this immersed often into loud music or radio air.
Now marshrutkas are used primary as a way of inter-city transport, and it is a bit civilized a bit, but jokes are still here about Tbilisi Marshrutkas and their unique atmosphere.
In this post I will not use any illustration. Because I am writing about absence of something today that was one of nice thing that was part of some masterpieces games of 1990s. Some games like C&C had real video cinematics in them as cutscenes. With real actors playing there as characters and surrounding people and so on.
Today I miss this kind of cinematic cutscenes in games.