Bruce Elrick

virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca

I AM a Luddite.There are always alternatives, not "there is no alternative". Believer in the Politics of Care.Married to a wonderful wife w/ 2 adult sons in Calgary. I like getting out on my bike. I care about social justice.Unemployed or semi-retired? I would actually love to work (part time? consultation?) w/ purpose on something not destructive.Ph.D. in physics & nearly 28 year career in IT."Debts that cannot be paid will not be paid." "The purpose of a system is what it does."

Posts

Post #4143581
I can't recall whether I shared this before, but this video from Hasan Minhaj where he interviews Gowanus, the non-official spokes-puppet for the new Luddite movement. Entertaining and very informative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpV97A5I90 #luddism #summerofludd And yes, there is irony in sharing this here, but to me the Fediverse is more human that other social media, so :-P
Post #3680918
If you are worried about Carney being all rah-rah about oil & gas investment, here Mark Hislop, who is an world & Canadian energy market journalist, trying to play devil's advocate to Max Fawcett, who argued in a recent piece that Carney is removing all federal roadblocks to Danielle Smith eventually learning that industry will never support new pipeline capacity because there is no economic argument for investing in new production capacity. I agree with Max's arguments. https:/...
Post #3456391
An epiphany I've had about reconciling MMT (which is simply a description of how fiat money works) and the way most orthodox economists, politicians, the mainstream (corporate) press, and indeed the popular culture view the finances of a sovereign nation's national government.... Finance and money are technical reflections of real world power and control in terms of people's behaviour, collectively. It is useful to powerful people if we only think in terms of finance and not soverei...
Post #3158113
Just remember, unemployment rates above the structural rate of what, 3%, is a policy choice meant to reduce labourers' agency.
Post #2851175
I am confused by Montreal's power play plays for getting into the offensive zone. It seems designed to avoid getting into the offensive zone. Hell, it looks designed to have difficulty getting into the neutral zone! #hnom
Post #2845276
Excellent video about how our brains work under power... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fchrqBL-8B0
Post #2743452
The logistics of power, or rather, power through logistics. I wonder what David Graeber would have thought about this w/ respect to civilization. I'm also wondering how this applies in the modern world. I suspect it is competely applicable but just with different time & distance scales. And perhaps the addition of one more type of resource added to the mix; data- > information -> knowledge -> wisdom (compare with grass -> sheep -> wool -> thread -> textiles -> cl...
Post #2535729
RE: https://mstdn.ca/@globalnews/116574463384960670 There are no *fiscal* constraints on federal government spending! There is never a reason for the federal government to "raise funds"! Fuck! He should know that.
Post #2500282
I was going to say I eagerly await hearing, in a year's time, how devastatingly brilliant or terribly useless Mythos turned out to be, but the reality is that I am only mildly curious.
Post #2303381
dmesg, lshw, lspci, and lsusb would never showed any indication of Bluetooth existing, Also tried installing firmware. Also tried toggling airplane a couple times. The WiFI would go away and come back no problem, but rfkill never would list the Bluetooth device. Also booted into an Ubuntu running 6.17.0 and 6.14.0 (I'm running with ZFSbootmenu). No joy. Using Kagi assistant to help with problem-determination steps....
Post #2295396
The world needs more slack. Everyone deserves slack. To be human is to work hard in short bursts and then slack. You should care deeply about preserving everyone else's slack. https://noraloreto.substack.com/p/the-life-and-death-of-the-canadian
Post #2245020
@goinfawr@mstdn.social I'm not sure I'd say mechanism because all the elements, at least individually, can be defended in terms of allowing those w/ much less than typical power (or money) to gain power (usually in such a case we'd call it gaining agency). The problem occurs when some group gains too much, especially when that allows them to capture what would otherwise be a legitimate democratic government. I want supporters of capitalism to admit that there must be limits or own...
Post #2234440
Debate: Capitalism is the belief that a society should not put any limits on the accumulation of power by any subset of society. Discuss...
Post #1900828
The parade of guests on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in their final month is incredible as so many well-known people express their admiration. Just watching Michael Stipe debut his (first solo?) song with Louis Cato & the Great Big Joy Machine (formerly & the Late Show Band). (damned autocorrect... garage - > parade)
Post #1892853
I see people who read a software developer describing their use of LLMs in a very limited and thoughtful manner and those people instantly write off the software developer's software, which might be something they've used for a long time. What these people are saying is that they do not trust that software developer at all. They say it in a way that leads me to believe they think they are making a principled stand against...something. But I think they are repeating the mistakes that big...
Post #1890407
My further graduation of Dawkins' graduation of Turing's test: If, after a lengthy interrogation, the candidate AI has not told you that you are boring and does not ask you to hand the keyboard over to someone else, then it fails the Extended Interrogation Dawkins-Turning Test; this time point is sooner for Richard Dawkins himself. https://archive.is/6RdK9#selection-825.132-825.138
Post #1887852
Well said... https://kottke.org/26/05/the-supreme-court-is-corrupt-this-is-what-we-can-do-about-it
Post #1849418
First time charging our new Subaru Uncharted. Using a Tesla Supercharger.
Post #1830568
Jen Gerson had the goods a month ago, told Elections Alberta instead of publishing, and they dismissed her concern, only to file for an injunction weeks later. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/scoop-jen-gerson-elections-albertas?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Post #1792904
RE: https://aus.social/@stacey_campbell/116490430753230762 Yikes indeed
Post #1782627
@devsimsek@universeodon.com @mike@thecanadian.social It was a good video.
Post #1750792
@devsimsek@universeodon.com @mike@thecanadian.social I certainly don't think we are anywhere near it nor will we be until someone invents a silicon nerve (simple multiple-input binary output tunable arbitrary functional nerves) that uses very little energy instead of simulated (via linear algebra on GPUs) ones.
Post #1748246
If Alberta separatists are upset about decades of equal federal income tax funding a significant fraction of the provincial equalization program causing billions of dollars to leave the province, just wait until they find out about what capitalism does with oil revenue! #abpoli
Post #1747615
Is there a github for open source business process documentation? That is, documentation of business processes that are licensed under CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). A lot of corporate power comes from the proprietary treatment of business process documentation. I would think that worker's co-ops can function, perhaps thrive and compete while sharing such documentation ubiquitously since they would pay themselves and for inputs first and profit would be a saf...
Post #1728458
LOL "You are paying for this thing to have a nervous breakdown in front of you...' (followed by a thoughtful critique) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CIlTOnc6I8
Post #1724377
I'm trying to read Alexander Lerchner's paper (https://philpapers.org/rec/LERTAF -> https://philpapers.org/archive/LERTAF.pdf) referenced by this 404media article (https://www.404media.co/google-deepmind-paper-argues-llms-will-never-be-conscious/) and I'm not saying I understand it but I am picking up hints of some very interesting concepts that appear to have been discussed for a long time. Lots and lots of loaded terms that would probably require countless hours of following th...
Post #1595823
Against homophily https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm_L9VCBJ_E #DEI
Post #1542466
Let's hope Smith's UCP takes this as a message and drops this new gerrymandering legislation... https://globalnews.ca/news/11812868/supreme-court-rejects-quebec-election-map/ #ableg #yyc #yeg #elections #Alberta
Post #1534931
I define myself in opposition to schismogenitors.
Post #1500700
RE: https://mefi.social/@MissConstrue/116444748462138719 I am not surprised the Japanese thought of this first. Delightful!