Federated Republic of Sean @freakazoid@retro.social

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Since I plan to switch my work laptop to dm-crypt eventually so I can move /boot to zfs (with Grub) and be able to hibernate without having to put in a separate passphrase, I set up my backup disk with dm-crypt. Unfortunately, this means that my computer needs to decrypt and then reencrypt the data (though it doesn't need to uncompress/recompress it). If I were using native zfs encryption in both places I could use raw mode and never decrypt it.

The person who had made the comment about RabbitMQ just came up to me and gave me a bit more background. Sounds like they were having issues with Erlang across the board, including data corruption. A lot of the issues appeared to be with external libraries, especially XML processing. I am starting to suspect they had some buggy NIFs.

The equivalent using modern technology will cost you at least $1000, won't work when you need it to, and will steal your identity.

Imagine being able to use a pen and write on a paper-like sheet that can then be magnified by 10x just using a light bulb, a few lenses, and a mirror. It's like magic!

Asked Henry Spencer about his use of the Thinkpad instead of the Psion 3. He said he still has his Psion 3 but has been using the laptop more and more lately. But the main reason was that he hadn't yet finished his slides before the conference.

I'm tempted to buy the conference an overhead projector so he can go back to using transparencies.

The biggest risk to any open source project is not getting enough users to develop a sustainable community. If the project allows secondary objectives to keep users away and compromise its primary mission, it's far more likely it will be unable to reach critical mass.

I know this is ambitious, but software for governance will be useful no matter what. Teaching kids how to engage effectively will be useful no matter what. Getting them to know the hopes and dreams of people very different from them will help no matter what.

I forgot translation. Both human and machine.

You know, we could just write the software for world government. Structured debate, committees, votes, meetings, bills, laws, etc. And then make one. Out of kids. And then when they grow up that'll just be the world government.

There is no national sovereignty, nor "self-determination", over carbon emissions, pollution, or any other kind of activity whose consequences cross borders. There is no national sovereignty over human rights even when the humans don't cross borders.

Russia is pushing back on American dominance, but they are also pushing back against the notion that national sovereignty has limits. They wish to be left alone to persecute minorities and brutally suppress dissent in peace.

My wife just condemned all majorities. I think there's something to this.

@tinker Really great story on Darknet Diaries! I was on the edge of my car seat the whole time. Really educational too! Never heard the show before. Host did a great job too!

Anyway, enough drunken rambling for the moment. I'd love to hear a different perspective, though. In particular I'd be very happy to be convinced that we can get significantly better at economics, or that I don't actually understand what people mean by scientific socialism.

Economists who work at investment banks must believe investment banks are Good Things. Economists in academia have to teach stuff that will get their students jobs.

The fundamental problem with economics is that the vast majority of it is unfalsifiable. Well, that's one of the fundamental problems. The other problem is that the salaries of the vast majority of its practitioners depend on holding particular beliefs. Economists who work for the government must believe the economy can be measured fairly precisely and that the government can usefully intervene in it in all kinds of ways.

By "where the rubber meets the road" I mean when we're creating technology that depends on some scientific principle for its operation. We understand the science of rocketry and semiconductors. Psychology a bit less. Sociology even less. Economics not at all.