Mastodawn

lucie digitální Jan 15

@terminaltilt

EndicottRoad59 Jan 15

@luciedigitalni @terminaltilt Which is why I've never put things on the cloud.

Tom 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️Jan 15

@terminaltilt
They'll take my computer from my cold, dead hands.

R.L. LE Jan 15

@tom @terminaltilt "How cold", said Elon Musk

@herrLorenz @tom @terminaltilt

Beldarak Jan 16

Interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCiYmCVikjo

VoidZeroOne

Jan 15

@terminaltilt that's been the plan ever since people were stupid enough to buy into SaaS (Software as a Service)

NP: Dead Kennedys - "Let's Lynch the Landlord"

Dead Kennedys - Let's Lynch The Landlord

YouTube

Don Hawkins - W7DAH Jan 15

@terminaltilt Over my dead body. Fook Bozo!

@terminaltilt 😡🤬😡

@terminaltilt
f Bezos.
NOT ONE PERSON NEEDS AMAZON.
Divest

ShovelTrouble Jan 15

@terminaltilt This is possibly the worst form of censorship I can see. The chilling effect could lead to permanent enslavement. Literally creating scenarios like 1984.

hairylarry Jan 15

@terminaltilt

The cloud is like a ministorage. You fill it up. You don't have time to take care of the stuff. You pay forever.

Any given month you might lose everything because of the vagaries of corporate assholes.

LukefromDC Jan 15

@terminaltilt I'd sooner pay over $1,000 for RAM than rely on cloud and AI crap for my work. Ad supported corporations are NOT WELCOME to scan my raw video files that have to be redacted before publication for one thing.

I rely on a zero-rental/zero subscription model in all things electronic and would sooner edit on film and tape than use rental software. You still have to have some RAM to use that shit anyway, and a big swapfile on a fast NVME drive (which can also be your boot drive) really helps get by with small RAM.

One of my machines is a laptop with 8G RAM soldered to the board and no expansion of it but a decent AMD proc. With a swapfile it runs Kdenlive just fine for video editing. It did all my video editing on both of my last protest/direct action deployments to my old home town of Washington DC and worked fine.

Note that it would not even be POSSIBLE for me to use rental space on a server farm for video editing anyway: I don't have a landline because it is too easy to prove who owns one. Therefore I could not export that 2-10 GB of senstive raw files to Amazon or Google for editing anyway, even if I trusted those motherfuckers with files that have to be kept from cops and ICE.

They can stick "software as a service" and "cloud computing" up their ass dry with no lube! It's local or nothing for me.

I already own two good machines that are NOT overclocked to extend their lives plus a circa 2011 AMD Phenom II X4 that is entirely capable of editing 1080p video. I can outlast this AI crap on hardware I already have.

Then there's all that still-good Intel Core2 stuff probably still in offices, and THAT is more than enough computer for most people's needs and can edit video though rendering will be slow. Does Bezos have a plan to round up all of these too?

sͧb̴ͫƸ̴gͬᵉ Jan 15

@terminaltilt There was an RPG game, Paranoia, that sadly is eminently quotable here:

“The Computer is your friend.”
“Trust the Computer.”
”The Computer wants you to be happy.”
”If you’re not happy, you might be used as reactor shielding.”

And some good advice, as well:
“Stay alert. Trust no one. Keep your laser handy.”

Pēteris Krišjānis Jan 15

@terminaltilt to be frank, this is nothing new. Microsoft tried to make remote software subbing for years till landing for zombie that is Office 365.

Mr. Lance E Sloan (IRL) 👤Jan 15

@terminaltilt
Reminds me of the old time-share computing models of the 1960s.

Oblomov Jan 15

@terminaltilt this has been my thought for some time. The jacking up of prices being not just a market effect byproduct, but an intentional strategy to kill personal computing.

@terminaltilt and if you really have to go cloud, don't go to them, don't surrender and become their captive

NormanDunbar Jan 15

@filobus @terminaltilt What other options are there? Oracle? Microsoft? If you had to use the cloud, where do you go to avoid the big guns and trump buddies?

Kinene⭐🐻Jan 15

@NormanDunbar @filobus @terminaltilt Various vendor in Europe are working on setting up their own cloud systems. Personally, I would trust a German cloud service much more than any US company. I already have a tuta.com email address.

(Rather ironic.)

@c_merriweather @NormanDunbar @terminaltilt yes, gafam aren't the only, there are many providers
It depends on your requirements, but they are in a nation that is in conflict with EU and it will be more and more
And they are locking an ai into every product, with no privacy, they could do industrial espionage, block or tear down their service under order of their authorities
Their is no more a reliable service
(When Ukrainian war started Kaspersky was removed from many business pcs)

Kinene⭐🐻Jan 15

@filobus @NormanDunbar @terminaltilt I'm betting on Tuta being safer for me, in California, than gmail or att.

@c_merriweather @NormanDunbar @terminaltilt the only thing, I've read that Tuta uses Amazon for dns (I've not looked into it any further, so I don't know if it's true o it it was true but no more o whatever)
@Tutanota

yazomie (she/her)Jan 16

@filobus @c_merriweather @NormanDunbar @terminaltilt @Tutanota Just use providers like Mailfence which do not use any American DNS

@NormanDunbar @terminaltilt maybe here there are some suggestions
https://european-alternatives.eu

European Alternatives

We help you find European alternatives for digital service and products, like cloud services and SaaS products.

European Alternatives

NormanDunbar Jan 16

@filobus @terminaltilt Thank you.

b00g13 Jan 16

@NormanDunbar @filobus @terminaltilt you can build your own cloud, organise

Licho Jan 15

@terminaltilt the difficult part starts when they jack up the prices of components the way we see it happen with ram. It's artificial, there were analyses that it was bought for money that are not there to be put in graphics cards that don't exist in data centers that aren't built yet in response to demand that is yet to come.

So they can push us out from the local computation with price. Or at least make it an upper middle class thing.

I_give_u_worms Jan 15

@licho @terminaltilt
shitty wages have meant people choose, have a phone (the latest phone, because that's what they can figure out, which costs as much as a computer, spread over months or years) and maybe get a tablet/notebook/computer

IPads turn to a brick over a couple years, they just stop playing videos and slow to a frustrating crawl.

Android has disabled the data capability of the USB cable for the most part, in order to keep people closer to monthly storage charges.

Milly Jan 15

@terminaltilt Good luck with that. There haven't been a real reason to upgrade hardware the last 10 years, and I don't see a need for the coming years either. Unless you want to tinker with ML models and burn the earth. Sure business buys new, people buy new, cause compile time/fps "go brrrr". But if you skew the "go brrr"/cost metric... well, let's say I hope for their sake the AI bubble doesn't do as all of us want and burst like a money eating black hole at a piñata party.

GeraintLlanfrancheta Jan 15

@terminaltilt over my dead cold hands, jeff #fuckhyperscalers

I wont do it!

I_give_u_worms Jan 15

@terminaltilt
this dude will take business losses long enough to keep competitors heads underwater

André Ourednik Jan 15

@terminaltilt As much as I abhore anything that Jeff does and represents, I see an environmental point in a rental model. In the sense that ownership of hardware in a programmed obsolescence industry model is ecologically worse. Most people run their daily apps on massively overpowered individual machines, produced at huge environmental cost. And I see potential in sharing hardware here. But definitely not on AWS. Rather local hubs, something like a decentralized network of remote processors

Silver Owl Jan 15

@andre_ourednik @terminaltilt IIRC, there were multiple studies on game streaming which came to the conclusion that even with a thin client, streaming consumes more energy and resources. A local gaming PC is a self-contained device. Streaming not only requires powerful data centres, but also robust infrastructure between your local device and the data centre. Furthermore, thin clients are more prone to be replaced every few years due to non-replaceable batteries and a lack of software updates.

Sven Slootweg, low-spoons mode ("still kinky and horny anyway")Jan 15

@andre_ourednik @terminaltilt You're likely significantly overestimating the difference, and it may not even be a positive one. Servers in datacenters get rotated out and disposed of on a fixed schedule, typically, long before they actually stop working - whereas consumer hardware often gets handed down until it literally breaks.

Not to mention all the technical and resource overhead of remote anything. That network hardware and corresponding power use isn't free to the environment either.

If you're looking for a way to materially reduce the environmental footprint of computing, I would suggest that "the advertising industry" is probably the first place to look instead. They're responsible for a vast, vast chunk of energy and resource usage in computing and networking, while providing marginal to no value to society - it's a purely extractive industry.

Even ignoring the web, look up the power consumption of a single one of those video ad units they put on train stations and in shopping centers, and you'll probably be reeling from just how environmentally wasteful all this stuff is - and consumer hardware will suddenly look like a drop in the bucket. As a teaser: virtually all of those advertising screens have audible active cooling despite sound insulation attempts.

So... no, there's really no environmental point in a rental model. Insofar it makes any positive difference at all, that sure isn't the intention behind it, and all it does is further support an extractive culture that destroys the environment with no consideration for anything but its own profits. You don't even get to choose whether the hardware is turned on anymore. That is not an environmental win.

@joepie91 @andre_ourednik @terminaltilt

Aprazeth Jan 15

Small side note; research was done on the actual benefit of in place repairs or swaps of defective components/servers in a rack (as an engineer entering the server room invariably causes other risks etc.)

The results were in *most cases* for hyperdense computing (cloud/Ai/HPC) to simply not even attempt a repair. What then happens is after a % of a rack is defective, the *entire rack* is removed and scrapped. Even the potentially working parts

@joepie91 @andre_ourednik @terminaltilt

Aprazeth Jan 15

Also, I recall that resources for Ai are generally written off after 3 years. Most enterprise server hardware previously was expected to last between 5 to 10 years.

Most of those GPUs don't even last the 3 years - as they are running full speed 100% of the time.

Wasteful doesn't begin to describe it

Sven Slootweg, low-spoons mode ("still kinky and horny anyway")Jan 15

@Aprazeth @andre_ourednik @terminaltilt I was not aware of this, but I'm also not surprised. It's a general pattern that whenever profit optimization is involved, with rising labor costs, the outcome of any situation is almost always to throw more non-human resources at the problem...

@joepie91 @andre_ourednik @terminaltilt

Aprazeth Jan 15

It's insane. Even the water consumption is not necessary.

Better cooling exists and is far more efficient (Microsoft did their research and acknowledged it). But water and chemicals (anti fungicide, -herbicide, -corrosives) are way cheaper for them at this point. So that is what gets used.

And the chemical sludge at the end? Good luck filtering it back to even "safe to dump" levels. Yay progress :-(

André Ourednik Jan 16

@joepie91 @terminaltilt I see your point, thanks. Would you have refs for the enregy/material consumption tradeof between individual devices and remote processing systems?
Recently I've pulled 2 10yrs Mac Books of my parents-in-law from obsolescence by updating to the latest compatible OS, as they weren't even able to access mail accounts and simple websites anymore. Ultimately, they'll have to buy new machines for mere software incompatibility reasons, and this I find crazy. What alternatives?

inamruzui Jan 15

@terminaltilt there's a reason why I prefer my steamdeck and valve hardware over this bullshit

TrimTab 🇺🇦Jan 15

@terminaltilt Bezos is the alternate universe inverse evil version of Patrick Stewart.... Utterly cruel, greedy, narcissistic, and uncharismatic.

Please send Bezos back into the worm hole, to the shitty universe that made him.

Aleš Roubíček Jan 15

@TrimTab @terminaltilt Do you imply that Bezos's mother had worms when he was born?

Damon L. Wakes Jan 15

@TrimTab @terminaltilt He could at least have the decency to grow a goatee.

meek cynics Jan 15

You will rent your computing power from the cloud. You pay a subscription for the privilege of using a computer.

@terminaltilt, this already happened, through the form of applications that are thin clients to SaaSS.

Run Linux.

Run or something idk, but Linux users are renting computing powers through SaaSS.

> but Linux users are renting computing powers through SaaSS.

Please elaborate how

meek cynics Jan 15

Already did in that comment, but since I can't rule out custom emoji inaccessibility issues, Imma spell it out for thee, @snep: Android Google/Linux.

Cc: @terminaltilt

Snep

Jan 15

@cnx @terminaltilt So your comment isn't regarding Linux distributions as a whole, you're rather referring to Linux kernels running underneath Android *specifically?

meek cynics Jan 15

Yea @snep, I was replying to @terminaltilt who claimed using Linux is a solution against SaaSS, when it's really about empowering everyone with a free software. Linux is not a politically important part of GNU/Linux distributions (and GNU implementations too for that matter, but at least the GNU project, unlike the Linux Foundation, isn't advocating for proprietary software and SaaSS). Neither do GNU/Linux distributions hold a significant market share of Linux, most of which being Android that many people are already using.

Iron Bug Jan 15

@cnx @terminaltilt I use Linux. and I have never ever used any SaaS.
and yes, it is Linux with only a very few GNU untils. because I can build Linux-based system without gnu utils at all. this is not important and does not have any special meaning,
really, I don't like it where GNU goes nowadays and prefer to avoid it, except, maybe GCC wich is not ruined yet (but they try!).

@iron_bug, I use Linux. and I have never ever used any SaaSS is a very different statement from what @terminaltilt suggested, i.e. use Linux and you'll be free from SaaSS, consider the majority of Linux systems force and trick its users to only know of SaaSS as the sole way to do things.

FWIW I use Linux kernel too and I don't use SaaSS, but the kernel could be swapped out for a BSD one and there'd be literally no difference to the way I do computing, hence Linux is hardly the representative for software freedom. The people behind GNU or OpenBSD or whatever free userspace, no matter how shit thou perceive them, at least don't try to fuck over people like what's on the front page of linuxfoundation.org.

Linux Foundation - Decentralized innovation, built with trust

Helping open technology projects build world class open source software, communities and companies.

@cnx @terminaltilt >the majority of Linux systems force and trick its users to only know of SaaSS as the sole way to do things.
this is blatant lies. I'm not tolerant to lies.
there's no any SaaS that Linux distributies would mpose to users. I use Linux for ages, more than 25 years, and there's nothing that is imposed to users at all. user can choose any distributive he likes, any architecture and pick whatever packages he needs. or build his own distributive, like I do. total freedom of choice. I don't understand these strange, unproven and senseless accusations of Linux in some imaginary "SaaS dependencies".

@iron_bug, thou'rt living in a bubble if thou thinkest Google makes any of the mentioned activity easy (or even possible depending on the OEM). This is not the year 2000, distributions other than

Google/Linux are outliers, not the majority. Cc: @terminaltilt

@cnx @terminaltilt now you switched to Google? tell me what Google and their services have to do wtih Linux? Linux does NOT offer any Google SaaS or whetever to their users. Linux is an operating system. it works with hardware, that's all. the rest is user level software and there're tens of major and minor distributions based on Linux with very different sets of packages and settings, from basic end user ready-to-go installations to higjly customizeable systems like Slackware or Gentoo, and they all are very different. so your claims about "Linux imposing something to users" are just senseless and groundless.

and I'm not "living in a bubble", I'm a professional developer and work with Linux for ages. I worked with Linux systems from tiny embedded devices to gross high-load servers with hundreds of CPU and terabytes of traffic. and I won't let you spread lies about it.

@iron_bug, our niche experience with GNU/Linux is not representative of the majority of Google/Linux systems deployed in the wild on end-user devices.

As an analogy, @terminaltilt said drink soda and you can avoid sugar, I commented most soda has sugar and thou replied with actually my sugar-free soda doesn't have sugar. Well yea, no shit, so doesn't mine, and that was my point, soda is a shit indicator that the drink doesn't contain sugar. What part of the reality that 99% of end-user systems using the Linux kernel are some variant of Android Google/Linux dostn't thou refuse to understand?

@cnx @terminaltilt nope, you said "my personal cup of shit contains sugar" and that means "the most cups contain sugar". something like this. but I have experience with many Linux distros and builds and there's no SaaS anywhere. I can't even imagine where SaaS could be applied to Linux, because those are usually proprietary bullshit and Linux software is free in most cases, and has nothing to do with corps. moreover, you wont be able to install proprietary crap on most distributions.

@iron_bug, out of 3.3 billion end-user devices running Linux, only about 33 million of them uses free-ish distros thou'rt talking about. Please read what I wrote a wee more carefully because it seems I'm repeating meself here. Cc: @terminaltilt

@cnx @terminaltilt you counted this yourself? I haven't such statistics from any serious and reliable sources.
Linux is about servers and embedded hardware, first of all. and that devices much more in number than end-user gadgets.
and once again: Linux is an operating system. the kernel. it does not deal with any SaaS or whatever. it provides HAL for user level software. and user level software may be whatever, but this is not "Linux".

meek cynics Jan 27

you counted this yourself? I haven't such statistics from any serious and reliable sources.

@iron_bug, let's take the Google I/O 2021 for 3 billion end-user devices running Google/Linux and 1361 million desktop/laptop computers from Gartner times 2.2% GNU-like/Linux market share from Statcounter.

Linux is about servers and embedded hardware, first of all. and that devices much more in number than end-user gadgets.

The original post by @terminaltilt was about end-user devices, and so was my comment.

Linux is an operating system. the kernel. it does not deal with any SaaS or whatever. it provides HAL for user level software. and user level may be whatever, but this is not "Linux".

Agreed, but that's not relevant to my point. To advocate for people to plainly run Linux doesn't involve any recommendation for the userspace, thus most people can follow the advice by the most obvious way of using a Google/Linux device and continue to rent computing power from SaaSS. It would have been a useful suggestion if it was something along the line of run free software instead of proprietary spyware or subscribe to services.

There are over 3 billion active Android devices

Google announced that there are over 3 billion active Android devices at Google I/O, its annual developer conference.

The Verge