In 2022 I said "NEVER buy a smart car where the choice is pay for stuff you'll never use, or pay for it twice":

https://stop.zona-m.net/2022/02/the-millionth-reason-to-never-buy-your-next-car/

Now, I learned BMW ditched that idiotic feature:
https://www.thedrive.com/news/bmw-is-giving-up-on-heated-seat-subscriptions-because-people-hated-them

My new #onthisday almanac service, because #serendipity and memory matter.

A LOT.

Selected links on interesting things, today from 2010 to 2023 (*):

https://stop.zona-m.net/2024/08/on-this-day-august-28/

(*) Like BoingBoing used to be, just with memory, but without ads and distractions.

After the last moves of #Zuckerberg, it seems useful to repost these

"Thoughts on #USA2024, and 9 suggestions to make them work"

because it's important to understand how, exactly, a "disinformation apocalypse" will work:

https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/thoughts-on-usa2024-and-9-suggestions

#Google's obsession for "newness",

the real problem behind #Disney 's "wokeness",

streaming that should be like movie teathers,

and what these three things have in common:

https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/google-sucks-snow-white-is-woke-in

From abroad, it's funny and confusing to see many Americans dislike ANY variant of the *idea* of "candidates chosen w/o primaries & w/o 1 vote cast for them by the people in the name of saving democracy"

Considering how much everything about voting is messed up in the US, that is: https://stop.zona-m.net/2021/01/some-comments-im-seeing-on-georgias-runoff.../

My 1st MILLION words about #digitalRights, #ethics, #automation & much more is still online: https://stop.zona-m.net

To see the second as it happens, subscribe here: https://mfioretti.substack.com

Official request to the maintainers of EVERY #Linux distribution.

In your next release, do NOT ADD or UPDATE ANYTHING (except security fixes of course). NO new features or packages.

Just add to the official repositories native packages of as many more programs as possible

Spare us from pip, rubygems, cargo, npm and all that mess.

That is, spare us from THIS CHAOS: https://stop.zona-m.net/2022/01/the-sorry-sorry-state-of-linux-packaging/

PLEASE

CoSo I need configuration help.

I had a 3 column CoSo interface: left colum to post, firehose/timeline in the center, notifications on the right. Then I clicked some button unvoluntarily, and now the two side columns are gone. How do I go back to the previous layout???

TIA!

Public Service Announcement;

this digital popularization service is STILL ACTIVE. It was just forced (*) to pass through Substack first: https://buff.ly/3kUUu59

TIA for subscribing, sharing it, suggesting topics, & any directly support you can give

(*) see https://buff.ly/3SHhe5L

For REALLY DUMB objections to #UBI, see these screenshots.

I am still waiting for explanations, possibly ones that make sense

If #universalBasicIncome is impossible or intrinsically wrong, it's surely not for "reasons" like these:

About "What RSS Needs" in

https://www.mnot.net/blog/2024/08/25/feeds

The 1st "Best Practice for Feeds" that more and more publishers should be FORCED to adopt is to MAKE VISIBLE the bloody RSS icon or link in all their web pages AND social media accounts

It is really a suicidal shame that they actively HIDE RSS instead. See

https://stop.zona-m.net/2021/02/the-snob-rss-hall-of-constructive-shame/

and, for more, newer examples: https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/what-we-should-all-learn-by-a-famous

This is GREAT.

People who buy this kind of stuff DESERVE to be bricked. They asked for it.

If from #Amazon, they asked twice:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/amazon-is-bricking-primary-feature-on-160-echo-device-after-1-year/

manufacturers of solar inverter panels can switch the power on or off for millions of installations at people’s homes, or on the roofs of businesses.

And if you turn all those panels off at the right moment, half of the European power grid collapses.

https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/the-gigantic-unregulated-power-plants-in-the-cloud/

"Citizen development has sparked a new era in which employees not only improve or streamline their own processes and tasks but automate them entirely."

Translation: the number of people who are PERSONALLY training the exact software that will replace them is increasing

Have a laugh here:

https://hbr.org/2023/09/were-all-programmers-now

"I want to get back to that world where airplanes don’t last as long because we make better ones"

is maybe the least sustainable vision I've come across in months. Found here, by @juliaonatroika

https://arenamag.com/2024/06/05/the-dream-of-speed/

I just fond this website that, if completed:

would contain every book that ever has been written, and every book that ever could be - including every play, every song, every scientific paper, every legal decision, every constitution, every piece of scripture, and so on."

https://libraryofbabel.info/About.html

"As long as you think you are your thoughts and your ideas are your identity, you’ll believe you are a courageous soldier in the culture war when really you are an unconscious slave to your socialized mind."

https://www.sloww.co/meta-crisis-me-crisis/

"will #chatGPT / #AI take my job?"

is the DUMBEST QUESTION EVER, BAR NONE.

Look at things in the RIGHT order, please:

https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/ubi-ai-and-reality-always-in-the