critical engineer / educator / infrastructure activist / artist
I deploy and secure sovereign server infrastructure for defenders of human rights and the environment, and help them stay safe with best-practice information and operations security.
I also make and teach tech art, exhibiting internationally since the late 90's.
Bows, arrows & rainforest conservation when I can.
Pākehā, Tangata Tiriti, he/him, herbivore
| projects | https://julianoliver.com |
| infrastructure | https://nikau.io |
| resilience | https://wiki.collapsible.systems/ |
| home | Aotearoa New Zealand |
To fellow locals in the Wellington region, this will be a talk you'll not want to miss.
@neauoire of 100 Rabbits will give a (remote) talk on Tuesday on the critically vital movement of #permacomputing, & with plenty of time for Q+A after.
There are still a few seats left.
Register here: https://criticalsignals.nz/programme/permacomputing-101/
Perfect on-prem #selfhosting project for a rainy Friday night in winter: taking Ubuntu Server for a spin on a Dell r610 intercepted as e-waste en route to the graveyard. Diagnostics showed the only thing 'wrong' with it is a dead CMOS battery. For fun I installed the OS onto a fast USB stick while I find some SAS drives in RAID to throw at the project.
More of a vanilla Debian person myself, but great to see how far #Ubuntu Server has come, and that it still looks after legacy kit like this.
even if most people will not write computer programs, it is actually **absolutely necessary** that we have a population where everyone understands that the behavior of software is dictated by a *mechanism* that can be studied and understood, and that software is **not** a quasi-supernatural entity that [hand-waves] is capable of "feeling" or "admitting" or "introspection" or "self-reporting" (https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/114987968565740315).
I think Carl Sagan warned us about something like this.
Attached: 1 image We're going to need journalists to stop talking about synthetic text extruding machines as if they have *thoughts* or *stances* that they are *trying* to *communicate*. ChatGPT can't *admit* anything, nor *self-report*. Gah. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chatgpt-chatbot-psychology-manic-episodes-57452d14
I watched the Swedish-Danish sci-fi film 'Aniara' (2018) two weeks ago and am still thinking about it, feeling it through. A film for our time, even though based on an epic poem from 1956.
I could care less for the ratings, I see how some would find it too bleak. I hold it as one of the best sci-fi films ever made.
This is wild. A whole population's calls captured, studied, mined.
"Unit 8200 sources said the information stored in Azure amounted to a rich repository of intelligence about its population that some in the unit claimed had been used to blackmail people, place them in detention, or even justify their killing after the fact."
As a friend just suggested, perhaps one day people will speak of Microsoft & genocide, just as history 'never forgets' what IBM did.
(Via @ira)
This article points to a common misconception around self-hosting.
The author tries hosting at home for a few weeks, & proclaims it is not the way. They then go on to argue for community managed server infrastructure instead (which is very much self-hosting).
Self-hosting does not solely refer to home-hosting ('on-prem'), nor sole owner-operator. It scales up to server infra in a datacenter, run & governed by those using it
So yes, the future is very much #selfhosted!
https://www.drewlyton.com/story/the-future-is-not-self-hosted/
Heads up for Wellington locals. In a couple of days I will give a talk framing server self-hosting as a radical practice of infrastructural reclamation in an era of digital imperialism.
The chat will walk audience through the journey to becoming a system administrator in service to a community, from skills, to mindset, to strategies for salvaging and appropriating powerful server hardware from e-waste.
No prior technical knowledge req.
📷 100,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to protest against the genocide in Gaza. The crowd size exceeded expectations and demonstrated strong support by the people of Australia for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the genocide.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-03/pro-palestinian-march-sydney-melbourne-august-3/105605280
#Palestine #Gaza #protest #auspol #Sydney #AmnestyInternational
TVNZ (Television New Zealand) interviewed me about some of the work we're doing at Nīkau, and infrastructure activism more broadly. It was on TV nationally here this morning, archived soon after on YT.
Apparently a longer version is in the mix somewhere, will follow up.
For now, here's a privacy preserving copy of what was aired today:
🤬 Microsoft bans LibreOffice developer's account without warning, rejects appeal • Neowin
｢ Recently, we reported on LibreOffice, accusing Microsoft of intentionally using complex file formats as a tactic to lock in users to Microsoft Office, hindering open source alternatives like LibreOffice.
Now, Microsoft has banned LibreOffice developer, Mike Kaganski, from using its services, citing an "activity that violates [its] Services Agreement" ｣
James Widman
David
jbz