I have been using email for 40 years. It used to work.

As an (independent) academic researcher, I need to contact new people, primarily in universities, to ask questions.

I refuse to use Google, Microsoft or the other American IT giants.

But they are increasingly preventing refuseniks from sending email at all.

I know what RFC, DNS, MX, SPF and DMARC mean. My email goes through small British companies with intelligent, friendly and helpful staff.

mxtoolbox.com says that I must have DMARC to send email to M$. So I set it up. I now get a dozen copies of the same report from G or M$ for each email that I send out.

They show that my email gets to G and M$ sites, but then it is marked as spam.

The stupid senior management of numerous universities has surrendered their staff email to M$.

Web searches and AIs preach about spam. I don't send spam - I want to contact my colleagues.

Rumour has it that previously unknown senders are treated with suspicion and their emails are sent to spam. In other words, it is impossible to **initiate** communication with someone.

Let's be blunt about this. They are a mafia that is enforcing an **oligopoly**. It's got nothing to do with reducing spam --- I have no doubt that they let through emails from "trusted partners", ie companies that bribe them enough to send their spam.

The result of this is that it will only be possible to send emails by paying M$ to do it, and then it will only be allowed to express "approved" opinions.

What can we do about this?

At the very least, those of you with senior positions in universities can tell your management to revert to competent standards-based email systems hosted on Linux systems.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116392829261118933

When you are a genocider and American corporate executive teams support your war of conquest, every day is Xmas!

It's clear that AI assisted coding is dividing developers (welcome to the culture wars!). I've seen a few blog posts now that talk about how some people just "love the craft", "delight in making something just right, like knitting", etc, as opposed to people who just "want to make it work". As if that explains the divide.

How about this, some people resent the notion of being a babysitter to a stochastic token machine, hastening their own cognitive decline. Some people resent paying rent to a handful of US companies, all coming directly out of the TESCREAL human extinction cult, to be able to write software. Some people resent the "worse is better" steady decline of software quality over the past two decades, now supercharged. Some people resent that the hegemonic computing ecosystem is entirely shaped by the logic of venture capital. Some people hate that the digital commons is walled off and sold back to us. Oh and I guess some people also don't like the thought of making coding several orders of magnitude more energy intensive during a climate emergency.

But sure, no, it's really because we mourn the loss of our hobby.

…and then there were three (expect delays)

https://xenodium.com/and-then-there-were-three

#fatherhood #emacs #orgmode #ios #blogging

RE: https://mastodon.social/@invadersil/116324993175863094

TWO THINGS:

1. it’s shocking how well written this terms of service document is. #Microslop uses plain language and proper emphatic formatting to identify what’s important.

2. this was updated on October 24, 2025. since then NOT ONE TECH JOURNALIST has read it; because, not one tech "journalist" has reported that #Copilot IS MEANT AS #ENTERTAINMENT.

Fourth Estate my ass.

Satya Nadella gifted Sam Altman a billion of Windoze money for a lap dance?

c’mon #tech #journalism. DO YOUR JOBS!

[Veille 📣] Berne: locaux d’une entreprise israélienne d’armement mis à sac
https://www.24heures.ch/berne-locaux-dune-entreprise-israelienne-darmement-mis-a-sac-381217574708

> L’entreprise visée s’est dite choquée. «Nous sommes profondément préoccupés par la propension de certains groupes à recourir à la violence.»

Dude, tu vends des armes…

Lien vers cette entrée dans ma veille : https://links.vulgarisons.info/shaare/mpdRqg
Toute ma veille est disponible ici : https://links.vulgarisons.info/
#armement #armes #elbitsystem #activisme
#links #veille

La Suite numérique de l’État : critique des critiques (par Framasoft)
https://framablog.org/2026/03/19/la-suite-numerique-de-letat-critique-des-critiques/
« TL;DR:
– L’État développe ses propres logiciels (libres).
– La Cour des Comptes, traumatisée par des échecs précédents, a alerté sur des dérapages possibles. Mais les coûts n’ont pas dérapé.
– Les éditeurs de logiciels libres ont grincé des dents parce que la DINUM a fait des choix qui ne retenaient pas forcément leurs solutions.
– Les éditeurs de logiciels propriétaires crient au meurtre, affirmant que l’État doit passer par eux pour développer les logiciels utilisés par les agents de l’État, sinon ils ne pourraient pas se payer un troisième yacht.
– La Suite a fait largement parler d’elle dans les médias (jusqu’au New-York Times). Et ça, c’est bon pour le libre et les communs numériques.

La Suite, c’est bien. C’est imparfait. Mais c’est bien. »

#logicielLibre #politique #dinum #LaSuite #framasoft