#personalcomputing — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #personalcomputing, aggregated by home.social.
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There might be a long game to #AI, #FOSS, and #personalcomputing .
Basically, #capitalism hates how FOSS has "leaked value", and how [home] PCs and local #compute has enabled value streams outside of corporate control.
The #cloud drive was the initial attempt to force the value back under oligopole control, on the hardware side, #socialmedia platforms were the "sugar" software. But even these two in combination failed to completely eradicate free open source and alternatives, as this fine #mastodon platform on the #fediverse proves.
Enter #AI, the perfect weapon. It offers #techbros both tools: A way to dangle the promise of not even needing people anymore to investors, together with a perfect excuse to kill off the foundation that allows people to grow #cyber skills independently of corporate control - the [home] PC - by driving prices for basic tech like storage and memory way past home budgets.
By making a personal computer impossibly expensive to build or own, the base for FOSS erodes quickly. If all available compute is only by cloud supplied services, then any and all development will be beholden to the platform owner.
If you look at it this way, AI makes good sense, but it's only the last nail in a coffin that's been building for a while; the death of personal computing, and the death of an important freedom.
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There might be a long game to #AI, #FOSS, and #personalcomputing .
Basically, #capitalism hates how FOSS has "leaked value", and how [home] PCs and local #compute has enabled value streams outside of corporate control.
The #cloud drive was the initial attempt to force the value back under oligopole control, on the hardware side, #socialmedia platforms were the "sugar" software. But even these two in combination failed to completely eradicate free open source and alternatives, as this fine #mastodon platform on the #fediverse proves.
Enter #AI, the perfect weapon. It offers #techbros both tools: A way to dangle the promise of not even needing people anymore to investors, together with a perfect excuse to kill off the foundation that allows people to grow #cyber skills independently of corporate control - the [home] PC - by driving prices for basic tech like storage and memory way past home budgets.
By making a personal computer impossibly expensive to build or own, the base for FOSS erodes quickly. If all available compute is only by cloud supplied services, then any and all development will be beholden to the platform owner.
If you look at it this way, AI makes good sense, but it's only the last nail in a coffin that's been building for a while; the death of personal computing, and the death of an important freedom.
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Reminder: Just as with Age ID and Chat Control legislation justifications, the AI build out, the price gauging of memory, storage (and CPU/GPU/SOCs too), the emerging hardware leasing & subscription models — all this is not just driven by generative AI in the form of chatbots, media generators, automation, job replacements, FOMO stories and other "obvious" reasons repeated ad infinitum by CEOs and in the media...
The only way these industry shifts and largest tech investments ever done make any sense (even in the face of the projected severe negative financial returns) is to consider them part of a larger, class-political project of comprehensively centralizing, monitoring/surveilling, renting out, drip-feeding and otherwise controlling future compute resources and access to them. This includes not only pure computation resources, but equally all communication, data & media produced, processed, stored or consumed via these infrastructures. Personal computing is being pushed out and with it privacy and autonomy over your own compute & media resources are going too...
Governments which have been vapidly talking for decades about "Digitization" (and utterly failing) are jumping on rolling out low quality, "good enough" AI services mostly aimed at the working class, allowing govts to maintain existing austerity programs, whilst claiming to be innovative, cutting costs (by pumping billions into overpriced consultancy contracts) and reducing "red tape" (i.e. mostly regulation which was actually beneficial or protecting the population & environment).
The return on these investments is not financial, but mostly political!
As an aside: I see the biggest threads to the fediverse, as self-owned, self-hosted & self-moderated communication space, are not AI bots, nazis or bigtech-owned platforms, but price explosions of the required (and mostly rented) compute infrastructure. In the near future, these ongoing price increases will force more communities to look for alternatives, which will slowly erode this space[1]... Solidarity and crowdfunding are some ways to combat that, but I fear they will only go that far (i.e. not far enough)...
So even when the current AI bubble bursts, this built-up centralized digital architecture will be a key pillar for any authoritarian government (the general trajectory every country is seemingly on, at current...), run in collaboration with oligarch operators whose purposes are served even more so by said infrastructure. At the very least these data centers will be used for vastly increased state surveillance (machine learning hardware/software is uniquely suited for these use cases), at worst to disenfranchise, prosecute & deny entire demographics...
I'd very much like to stand corrected with this, but there are a no publicly available hints to suggest anything drastically different to happen, not with the current breed of politicians and money in play... At least in the EU, all the talk about Digital Sovereignty already has made it clear that it's mostly about building parallel infrastructure to US big tech, but with the exact same anti-democratic bias, justifications, funding structures and neglect of any climate/social considerations. 30 billion Euro investments to create "AI giga factories" and an "AI continent"[2]. Data centers operated by goody, goody European billionaires rather than evil US based ones... How novel and how sovereign!
[1] Related to that I also see the resource-hungry and extremely chatty nature of the ActivityPub protocol and Mastodon itself as primary implementation as large weak points... In order for the fediverse to survive for longer (for the above stated reasons), I think some drastic reconsiderations of existing design decisions are required to achieve a much lower computational footprint & running costs (e.g. storage requirements, consolidation of messages, reducing traffic & worker effort, esp. important for larger accounts or communities etc.)
[2] https://mastodon.thi.ng/@toxi/117010071572799616
#AI #Politics #PersonalComputing #DigitalSovereignty #LongRead
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Reminder: Just as with Age ID and Chat Control legislation justifications, the AI build out, the price gauging of memory, storage (and CPU/GPU/SOCs too), the emerging hardware leasing & subscription models — all this is not just driven by generative AI in the form of chatbots, media generators, automation, job replacements, FOMO stories and other "obvious" reasons repeated ad infinitum by CEOs and in the media...
The only way these industry shifts and largest tech investments ever done make any sense (even in the face of the projected severe negative financial returns) is to consider them part of a larger, class-political project of comprehensively centralizing, monitoring/surveilling, renting out, drip-feeding and otherwise controlling future compute resources and access to them. This includes not only pure computation resources, but equally all communication, data & media produced, processed, stored or consumed via these infrastructures. Personal computing is being pushed out and with it privacy and autonomy over your own compute & media resources are going too...
Governments which have been vapidly talking for decades about "Digitization" (and utterly failing) are jumping on rolling out low quality, "good enough" AI services mostly aimed at the working class, allowing govts to maintain existing austerity programs, whilst claiming to be innovative, cutting costs (by pumping billions into overpriced consultancy contracts) and reducing "red tape" (i.e. mostly regulation which was actually beneficial or protecting the population & environment).
The return on these investments is not financial, but mostly political!
As an aside: I see the biggest threads to the fediverse, as self-owned, self-hosted & self-moderated communication space, are not AI bots, nazis or bigtech-owned platforms, but price explosions of the required (and mostly rented) compute infrastructure. In the near future, these ongoing price increases will force more communities to look for alternatives, which will slowly erode this space[1]... Solidarity and crowdfunding are some ways to combat that, but I fear they will only go that far (i.e. not far enough)...
So even when the current AI bubble bursts, this built-up centralized digital architecture will be a key pillar for any authoritarian government (the general trajectory every country is seemingly on, at current...), run in collaboration with oligarch operators whose purposes are served even more so by said infrastructure. At the very least these data centers will be used for vastly increased state surveillance (machine learning hardware/software is uniquely suited for these use cases), at worst to disenfranchise, prosecute & deny entire demographics...
I'd very much like to stand corrected with this, but there are a no publicly available hints to suggest anything drastically different to happen, not with the current breed of politicians and money in play... At least in the EU, all the talk about Digital Sovereignty already has made it clear that it's mostly about building parallel infrastructure to US big tech, but with the exact same anti-democratic bias, justifications, funding structures and neglect of any climate/social considerations. 30 billion Euro investments to create "AI giga factories" and an "AI continent"[2]. Data centers operated by goody, goody European billionaires rather than evil US based ones... How novel and how sovereign!
[1] Related to that I also see the resource-hungry and extremely chatty nature of the ActivityPub protocol and Mastodon itself as primary implementation as large weak points... In order for the fediverse to survive for longer (for the above stated reasons), I think some drastic reconsiderations of existing design decisions are required to achieve a much lower computational footprint & running costs (e.g. storage requirements, consolidation of messages, reducing traffic & worker effort, esp. important for larger accounts or communities etc.)
[2] https://mastodon.thi.ng/@toxi/117010071572799616
#AI #Politics #PersonalComputing #DigitalSovereignty #LongRead
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Top decision-makers in government and #bigtech have decided that the entire computing industry, other than "Big AI", can fuck off and die.
No one considers computing an essential industry. No country with fabs/foundries have made any real effort to protect general computing from price gouging and collapse. Instead, they feed their #AImafia friends and take their cut.
Remember that. These people have names and faces.
#capitalism #techcrisis #RAMageddon #personalcomputing #AIdiocracy
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Top decision-makers in government and #bigtech have decided that the entire computing industry, other than "Big AI", can fuck off and die.
No one considers computing an essential industry. No country with fabs/foundries have made any real effort to protect general computing from price gouging and collapse. Instead, they feed their #AImafia friends and take their cut.
Remember that. These people have names and faces.
#capitalism #techcrisis #RAMageddon #personalcomputing #AIdiocracy
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It’s the early 1970s and you are maxing out processing time on your timeshare mainframe account skipping BATCH and yet to learn the lessons of planning, design, analysis to maximise processing per second on a leased line connected to a timeshare mainframe.
#AI / #MaxToken / #tokens / #PersonalComputing / #computing / #architecture / #PC
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It’s the early 1970s and you are maxing out processing time on your timeshare mainframe account skipping BATCH and yet to learn the lessons of planning, design, analysis to maximise processing per second on a leased line connected to a timeshare mainframe.
#AI / #MaxToken / #tokens / #PersonalComputing / #computing / #architecture / #PC
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And counting.
#Linux #FOSS #personalcomputing -
And counting.
#Linux #FOSS #personalcomputing -
CW: Long post about loving an old crappy laptop
When I started my recent uxn project I was feeling really burned out by tech, and my personal laptop was a small part if that. I bought it three years ago, and while its a decent laptop on paper (Zenbook, 4k screen, 16gb ram, 1tb hdd, the usual stuff) I started to hate the thing. I had to send it in for screen repairs once and the battery now only lasts about 10 minutes before my system starts panicking, meaning its barely even portable now.
In the spirit of #uxn and reusing older tech I pulled out my "travel laptop" -- a 12 inch linux-compatible chromebook i got for less than $200 CAD in 2018. Disposable laptop in case it got seized or dropped while out of country.
It's a terrible laptop by modern standards. The screen is tiny, the keyboard is weird, the charger is some stupid custom tiny pinhole, no usb-c ports, 4gb ram, 32gb storage, and takes 30+ seconds to boot firefox.
And you know what? I love it. I didn't at first, but what do you even need for coding? Vim and a terminal and some documentation is plenty. Don't even need internet most of the time if you have the uxn docs downloaded!
Now this little guy is my daily driver. It's not logged into a single account I own (I still have a cellphone for that). It's simple and small and peaceful computer-ing.
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CW: Long post about loving an old crappy laptop
When I started my recent uxn project I was feeling really burned out by tech, and my personal laptop was a small part if that. I bought it three years ago, and while its a decent laptop on paper (Zenbook, 4k screen, 16gb ram, 1tb hdd, the usual stuff) I started to hate the thing. I had to send it in for screen repairs once and the battery now only lasts about 10 minutes before my system starts panicking, meaning its barely even portable now.
In the spirit of #uxn and reusing older tech I pulled out my "travel laptop" -- a 12 inch linux-compatible chromebook i got for less than $200 CAD in 2018. Disposable laptop in case it got seized or dropped while out of country.
It's a terrible laptop by modern standards. The screen is tiny, the keyboard is weird, the charger is some stupid custom tiny pinhole, no usb-c ports, 4gb ram, 32gb storage, and takes 30+ seconds to boot firefox.
And you know what? I love it. I didn't at first, but what do you even need for coding? Vim and a terminal and some documentation is plenty. Don't even need internet most of the time if you have the uxn docs downloaded!
Now this little guy is my daily driver. It's not logged into a single account I own (I still have a cellphone for that). It's simple and small and peaceful computer-ing.
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When the #AIbubble pops, let's not suddenly forget that the world's silicon foundries/chip fabs chose to pivot away from general/personal computing, in the name of higher profits.
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When the #AIbubble pops, let's not suddenly forget that the world's silicon foundries/chip fabs chose to pivot away from general/personal computing, in the name of higher profits.
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2000s Windows ME by Microsoft—So Many Possibilities!
Remember when your PC felt like it could do everything? This Windows Me spot leans into that fresh-boot excitement—bright, friendly, and full of “ready for more” energy. If you ever installed ME and felt the future click into place, this one’s for you.
#windowsme #windowsmecommercial #microsoftwindows #microsoft #personalcomputing #dialupera #windowsxpnostalgia #pcgaminghistory #earlyinternet #turnofthemillennium #2000scomputers #retrotech #
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Ostrom's 'Tragedy of Commons' seems incomplete regarding opensource:
Farmer's have never experienced all their crops getting inspected and cloned 24/7 by robots from a handful of superfarmers.
Luckily there's an antidote since the 90s:
robots.txt
Just joking :)
It feels like the "dont copy that floppy"-people went "sloppy that floppy" to lure us into their slop-malls.My current personal antidotes are: #permacomputing #localfirst #personalcomputing #retrocomputing
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Ostrom's 'Tragedy of Commons' seems incomplete regarding opensource:
Farmer's have never experienced all their crops getting inspected and cloned 24/7 by robots from a handful of superfarmers.
Luckily there's an antidote since the 90s:
robots.txt
Just joking :)
It feels like the "dont copy that floppy"-people went "sloppy that floppy" to lure us into their slop-malls.My current personal antidotes are: #permacomputing #localfirst #personalcomputing #retrocomputing
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The concept of an "AI" PC keeps swirling around those days.
This time its #Nvidia with an #arm CPU and a GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores(...) but running... windoz 🤣
Anyway, #linux support might happen at some point but unclear if there will ever be a "new era" for #personalcomputing
After the explosion of #smartphones , #surveillancecapitalism and tech oligopolies the trend has been dumbification and disenfranchisement.
But one *can* envision a different timeline
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The concept of an "AI" PC keeps swirling around those days.
This time its #Nvidia with an #arm CPU and a GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores(...) but running... windoz 🤣
Anyway, #linux support might happen at some point but unclear if there will ever be a "new era" for #personalcomputing
After the explosion of #smartphones , #surveillancecapitalism and tech oligopolies the trend has been dumbification and disenfranchisement.
But one *can* envision a different timeline
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For those designing and writing #software who haven’t learned that processing time can be a scarcity. 🙁
You’ve never submitted pre-designed code with obscure languages, typed up on cards, passed the deck to the Ops centre and waited (usually hours, sometimes next day) for a result. This was the batch, mainframe era. You learned to get the software to work, then optimise, maybe. 🤣☺️
From idea to deploy did get faster, more convenient and cheaper; Now you’ve moved back to mainframes.
#PersonalComputing / #batch / #mainframe <https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/06/02/github-copilot-users-threaten-exit-as-metered-billing-kicks-in/5249826>
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For those designing and writing #software who haven’t learned that processing time can be a scarcity. 🙁
You’ve never submitted pre-designed code with obscure languages, typed up on cards, passed the deck to the Ops centre and waited (usually hours, sometimes next day) for a result. This was the batch, mainframe era. You learned to get the software to work, then optimise, maybe. 🤣☺️
From idea to deploy did get faster, more convenient and cheaper; Now you’ve moved back to mainframes.
#PersonalComputing / #batch / #mainframe <https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/06/02/github-copilot-users-threaten-exit-as-metered-billing-kicks-in/5249826>
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COLLAPSE of Personal Computing | Investigation Into the Destruction of Ownership - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyQwAhppWj8
#GamersNexus #PC #PCSales #SalesCollapse #AI #PersonalComputing -
COLLAPSE of Personal Computing | Investigation Into the Destruction of Ownership - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyQwAhppWj8
#GamersNexus #PC #PCSales #SalesCollapse #AI #PersonalComputing -
“Laura Alice Bracken, a #Geelong-based artist, started building her own cyberdeck as an extension of her creative practice, in which she was experimenting with #MIDI controllers that take #biofrequencies from #plants and transform them into #soundwaves.
But Bracken, 39, wanted something she could take out into #nature and, after falling down a rabbit hole online, her mind started to widen to the world of #cyberdecks.
The device she is making – housed inside a vintage abalone shell – will also double as an e-reader.
“I just found out my #Kindle is about to be made redundant,” she says (Amazon recently announced they would no longer support #eReaders made before 2012).”
“It is a perfectly good Kindle ... so why is it suddenly going to be trash? It’s because they want to sell new ones.”
#PersonalComputing / #computers / #hardware / #DIY <https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/the-young-women-building-their-own-computers-as-a-middle-finger-to-big-tech-20260424-p5zqvv.html> / <https://archive.md/t0DR4>
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“Laura Alice Bracken, a #Geelong-based artist, started building her own cyberdeck as an extension of her creative practice, in which she was experimenting with #MIDI controllers that take #biofrequencies from #plants and transform them into #soundwaves.
But Bracken, 39, wanted something she could take out into #nature and, after falling down a rabbit hole online, her mind started to widen to the world of #cyberdecks.
The device she is making – housed inside a vintage abalone shell – will also double as an e-reader.
“I just found out my #Kindle is about to be made redundant,” she says (Amazon recently announced they would no longer support #eReaders made before 2012).”
“It is a perfectly good Kindle ... so why is it suddenly going to be trash? It’s because they want to sell new ones.”
#PersonalComputing / #computers / #hardware / #DIY <https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/the-young-women-building-their-own-computers-as-a-middle-finger-to-big-tech-20260424-p5zqvv.html> / <https://archive.md/t0DR4>
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Back in THE APPLE II AGE, the first encounters with computers for millions were defined by a software ecosystem including The Print Shop & early games.
Historians Laine Nooney & Finn Brunton explore the lasting cultural impact of this influential 1977 machine on the Future Knowledge #podcast.
🎧 Listen & subscribe ⬇️
https://futureknowledge.transistor.fm/the-apple-ii-age -
Back in THE APPLE II AGE, the first encounters with computers for millions were defined by a software ecosystem including The Print Shop & early games.
Historians Laine Nooney & Finn Brunton explore the lasting cultural impact of this influential 1977 machine on the Future Knowledge #podcast.
🎧 Listen & subscribe ⬇️
https://futureknowledge.transistor.fm/the-apple-ii-age -
On Apple’s 50th anniversary, the Future Knowledge #podcast presents THE APPLE II AGE 🍎
A computer that didn’t just launch Apple but shaped how a generation discovered technology. Historians Laine Nooney & Finn Brunton explore how games, classrooms, and creative tools made the Apple II a cultural phenomenon.
🎧 Listen & subscribe ⬇️
https://futureknowledge.transistor.fm/the-apple-ii-age -
On Apple’s 50th anniversary, the Future Knowledge #podcast presents THE APPLE II AGE 🍎
A computer that didn’t just launch Apple but shaped how a generation discovered technology. Historians Laine Nooney & Finn Brunton explore how games, classrooms, and creative tools made the Apple II a cultural phenomenon.
🎧 Listen & subscribe ⬇️
https://futureknowledge.transistor.fm/the-apple-ii-age -
Ah, the good ol' days of 'personal computing'—a magical realm where mortals could write their own spells 🧙♂️✨. Now it's a tragic tale of consumerist zombies or engineering drones, desperately seeking that lost soap bubble of software 🍾🔮. But fear not, for Josh's uncle is here with photos to remind us of a time he never lived through! 📸😂
https://josh8.com/blog/personal_computing.html #personalcomputing #nostalgia #softwareengineering #consumerism #technologyhumor #HackerNews #ngated -
Ah, the good ol' days of 'personal computing'—a magical realm where mortals could write their own spells 🧙♂️✨. Now it's a tragic tale of consumerist zombies or engineering drones, desperately seeking that lost soap bubble of software 🍾🔮. But fear not, for Josh's uncle is here with photos to remind us of a time he never lived through! 📸😂
https://josh8.com/blog/personal_computing.html #personalcomputing #nostalgia #softwareengineering #consumerism #technologyhumor #HackerNews #ngated -
RAPPLER | Philippine & World News | Investigative Journalism | Data | Civic Engagement | Public Interest [Unofficial] @[email protected] ·The RAM pricing situation: Why it’s happening, what’s affected, and how long will it last
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.rappler.com/technology/features/ram-pricing-situation-explainer/
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RAPPLER | Philippine & World News | Investigative Journalism | Data | Civic Engagement | Public Interest [Unofficial] @[email protected] ·The RAM pricing situation: Why it’s happening, what’s affected, and how long will it last
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.rappler.com/technology/features/ram-pricing-situation-explainer/
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PC company Dell takes a step back from hyping Ai.
Will lack of consumer demand start the bubble bursting?
"The fact that a huge PC brand such as Dell/Alienware has decided to ditch the AI-first marketing that seems to otherwise permeate everything—and honestly still permeates—is entirely welcome, very refreshing, and hopefully the mark of things to come."
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/dells-ces-2026-chat-was-the-most-pleasingly-un-ai-briefing-ive-had-in-maybe-5-years/
#Computing #PersonalComputing #Ai #Dell -
PC company Dell takes a step back from hyping Ai.
Will lack of consumer demand start the bubble bursting?
"The fact that a huge PC brand such as Dell/Alienware has decided to ditch the AI-first marketing that seems to otherwise permeate everything—and honestly still permeates—is entirely welcome, very refreshing, and hopefully the mark of things to come."
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/dells-ces-2026-chat-was-the-most-pleasingly-un-ai-briefing-ive-had-in-maybe-5-years/
#Computing #PersonalComputing #Ai #Dell -
Re: The last part of the above quote, i.e. "Too often in this industry hardware is used to solve software problems."
This one will be quickly coming home to roost in the coming year(s)... Regardless of other Moore's Law aspects losing validity (or past tense already), the "law" also never considered the kind of extreme capital accumulations which would enable a few companies buying up major parts of the entire RAM/GPU market supply (without actually being able to or even wanting to use it[1]), just to transform (or terminate) the landscape/era of personal computing as we know it and so cement their monopolies...
Maybe similar to how #OpenSource culture provided tens of millions of years of free R&D and product development & maintenance labor for Big Tech™, the 50-60 year long era of personal computing provided more generally valuable insights into the types and behaviors people would use computing for. These insights came with the "costs" and maybe unintended side-effects of enabling more individual (and social/political) agency, authority, self-realization, self-organization, creativity and creation of alternatives to capital & state-controlled infrastructure/monopolies, especially since networks were added to the mix. Shouldn't have too much of that!
There might still be a separation of church and state (in some places), but capital and state have always been chums and are becoming ever more entangled everywhere. With the amount of AI & datacenter investments already done (incl. by govts), ROI is becoming increasingly questionable _UNLESS_ AI was just the shiny opportunity to entice sufficient amounts of people to partake and invest these exorbitant sums in this gigantic infrastructure build-up, but the goal was something much larger: Phasing out personal computing and supplanting it with increasingly "thin client"[1] hardware in combination with ad-supported subscription models (mobile phone hardware & software is more than halfway there already). Centralized compute infrastructure to mediate, surveil & censor not just all media/communication (of course unencrypted), but also to provide computation itself as limited resource only, executed centrally/remotely via subscription/quotas and monitored to ensure it cannot be used in unintended ways (or by unintended people/orgs). Very much like the recent wave of debanking hitting left-wing entities in Germany, only applied to computation itself...
Nothing of these developments are in any form in the interest of democratic societies!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnlgwyVahCY
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client -
Re: The last part of the above quote, i.e. "Too often in this industry hardware is used to solve software problems."
This one will be quickly coming home to roost in the coming year(s)... Regardless of other Moore's Law aspects losing validity (or past tense already), the "law" also never considered the kind of extreme capital accumulations which would enable a few companies buying up major parts of the entire RAM/GPU market supply (without actually being able to or even wanting to use it[1]), just to transform (or terminate) the landscape/era of personal computing as we know it and so cement their monopolies...
Maybe similar to how #OpenSource culture provided tens of millions of years of free R&D and product development & maintenance labor for Big Tech™, the 50-60 year long era of personal computing provided more generally valuable insights into the types and behaviors people would use computing for. These insights came with the "costs" and maybe unintended side-effects of enabling more individual (and social/political) agency, authority, self-realization, self-organization, creativity and creation of alternatives to capital & state-controlled infrastructure/monopolies, especially since networks were added to the mix. Shouldn't have too much of that!
There might still be a separation of church and state (in some places), but capital and state have always been chums and are becoming ever more entangled everywhere. With the amount of AI & datacenter investments already done (incl. by govts), ROI is becoming increasingly questionable _UNLESS_ AI was just the shiny opportunity to entice sufficient amounts of people to partake and invest these exorbitant sums in this gigantic infrastructure build-up, but the goal was something much larger: Phasing out personal computing and supplanting it with increasingly "thin client"[1] hardware in combination with ad-supported subscription models (mobile phone hardware & software is more than halfway there already). Centralized compute infrastructure to mediate, surveil & censor not just all media/communication (of course unencrypted), but also to provide computation itself as limited resource only, executed centrally/remotely via subscription/quotas and monitored to ensure it cannot be used in unintended ways (or by unintended people/orgs). Very much like the recent wave of debanking hitting left-wing entities in Germany, only applied to computation itself...
Nothing of these developments are in any form in the interest of democratic societies!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnlgwyVahCY
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client -
Wow, I so love your essay, and what a tour de force it is: personal memoir, reflections on programming, reflections on education, a manifesto for creative programming ... simply wonderful.
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Wow, I so love your essay, and what a tour de force it is: personal memoir, reflections on programming, reflections on education, a manifesto for creative programming ... simply wonderful.
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Microsoft’s new AI features aim to give Windows a voice and mind of its own - Windows machines await a past keynote demo. Microsoft on Thursday announced new A... - https://www.geekwire.com/2025/microsofts-new-ai-features-aim-to-give-windows-a-voice-and-mind-of-its-own/ #artificialintelligence #digitaltransformation #personalcomputing #desktopcomputing #operatingsystems #softwareupdates #voicetechnology #userexperience #innovation #pchardware #microsoft #windows11
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Microsoft’s new AI features aim to give Windows a voice and mind of its own - Windows machines await a past keynote demo. Microsoft on Thursday announced new A... - https://www.geekwire.com/2025/microsofts-new-ai-features-aim-to-give-windows-a-voice-and-mind-of-its-own/ #artificialintelligence #digitaltransformation #personalcomputing #desktopcomputing #operatingsystems #softwareupdates #voicetechnology #userexperience #innovation #pchardware #microsoft #windows11
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Why I Moved to Linux: My Journey to Privacy, Freedom, and Control
https://beitmenotyou.online/why-i-moved-to-linux-my-journey-to-privacy-freedom-and-control/
#MyVoice #AIPrivacy #DataTracking #DesktopComputing #DigitalSovereignty #GamingOnLinux #Linux #LinuxDistros #macOS #MacOSVsLinux #OpenSource #OpenSourceSoftware #OperatingSystems #PersonalComputing #Privacy #SelfSovereignty #TechFreedom #Ubuntu #UbuntuLinux #Windows11 #WindowsVsLinux -
Why I Moved to Linux: My Journey to Privacy, Freedom, and Control
https://beitmenotyou.online/why-i-moved-to-linux-my-journey-to-privacy-freedom-and-control/
#MyVoice #AIPrivacy #DataTracking #DesktopComputing #DigitalSovereignty #GamingOnLinux #Linux #LinuxDistros #macOS #MacOSVsLinux #OpenSource #OpenSourceSoftware #OperatingSystems #PersonalComputing #Privacy #SelfSovereignty #TechFreedom #Ubuntu #UbuntuLinux #Windows11 #WindowsVsLinux -
Memoirs of the CP/M creator released:
“Our father, Gary Kildall, was one of the founders of the personal computer industry, but you probably don’t know his name. Those who have heard of him may recall the myth that he ‘missed’ the opportunity to become Bill Gates by going flying instead of meeting with IBM. Unfortunately, this tall tale paints Gary as a ‘could-have-been,’ ignores his deep contributions, and overshadows his role as an inventor of key technologies that define how computer platforms run today.
Gary viewed computers as learning tools rather than profit engines. His career choices reflect a different definition of success, where innovation means sharing ideas, letting passion drive your work and making source code available for others to build upon. His work ethic during the 1970s resembles that of the open-source community today."
https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-his-own-words-gary-kildall/
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Memoirs of the CP/M creator released:
“Our father, Gary Kildall, was one of the founders of the personal computer industry, but you probably don’t know his name. Those who have heard of him may recall the myth that he ‘missed’ the opportunity to become Bill Gates by going flying instead of meeting with IBM. Unfortunately, this tall tale paints Gary as a ‘could-have-been,’ ignores his deep contributions, and overshadows his role as an inventor of key technologies that define how computer platforms run today.
Gary viewed computers as learning tools rather than profit engines. His career choices reflect a different definition of success, where innovation means sharing ideas, letting passion drive your work and making source code available for others to build upon. His work ethic during the 1970s resembles that of the open-source community today."
https://computerhistory.org/blog/in-his-own-words-gary-kildall/
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"#MySpace pages, Media player skins, the eye searingly gaudy hot dog stand theme. These all were vectors for #selfexpression. But to offer these #freedoms, you have to trust the person operating your system, honour their agency, and respect them as a serious intellectual partner instead of a gibbering idiot to be manipulated for your own ends.
…personal computing needs to make a firm return to normative #design practises.
#TheUser is dead. Long live #PersonalComputing!" -
"#MySpace pages, Media player skins, the eye searingly gaudy hot dog stand theme. These all were vectors for #selfexpression. But to offer these #freedoms, you have to trust the person operating your system, honour their agency, and respect them as a serious intellectual partner instead of a gibbering idiot to be manipulated for your own ends.
…personal computing needs to make a firm return to normative #design practises.
#TheUser is dead. Long live #PersonalComputing!" -
@netizenparty Welcome. I think today we're expected to live in an Internet culture, but the level of education about how the Internet works is virtually nonexistent for non-technical audiences.
Imagine a city of netizens who can't read street signs, and who allow themselves to be (mis)directed by any colorful display or printed map that floats by. The people who are maintaining this city have arrived at the idea that they installed the street signs (of course) for their own use; instructing netizens to check them is frowned upon. If you require the security of verifying who/which address you're actually traveling to, you're given the advice to "avoid all web links and use apps from the app store instead".
Consider this... Some banks now require a verified app to access their services. That means you cannot use a PC or a libre mobile OS to access them. In other cases, users assume this must be the situation because they cannot imagine non-app access to a bank anymore, despite their bank offering web access (sometimes I check this). IMO, this is a major threat to the viability of the Internet. As cultures go, it appears to be one that has passed its heyday and is now in steep decline. The richest and arguably most powerful man in the world claims that in the near future his single app 'X' will be the preferred way to access all types of online services.
#collapse #internet #www #dns #https #phishing #apps #walledgarden #personalcomputing
