| Name | Marco von Ballmoos |
|---|---|
| Member since | |
| [hidden] | |
| Home page | https://earthli.com/users/marco |
| Description |
The (only) developer at earthli.com. |
| 3757 | Articles |
|---|---|
| 113 | Comments |
Published on in Technology & Engineering
I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords.A friend sent me the article Finger weg von den neuen KI-Browsern by Michael Andai (20min) (“Hands off of the new AI-browsers”).
The article largely focuses on the grievous security holes in these browsers, making them not browsers but data-exfiltration apps. In an age of unprecedented scammery, it is an affront that these tools even exist.
But that’s not even the worst of it.
With a web browser, you type in an address and see the content hosted for that address. You trust your browser to deliver—unfiltered and... [More]
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Public Policy & Politics
This is also a couple of months old but remember when, about 400 news cycles ago, federal museums like the Smithsonian were told to dial it back on exhibits that cast slaveholders in a bad light? I don’t recall hearing whether that was retracted in the meantime. Probably not, because so many closet racists have positively soared out of the woodwork and and are cheerily enjoying what I imagine is, even for them, a wholly unexpected moment in the sun that they will, characteristically, round up... [More]
Published on in Public Policy & Politics
Almost every line in the following video was important and necessary for people to hear. I dare say …. brilliant. This video seemed completely extemporaneous. It’s Hasan expressing his deeply held and well-considered beliefs, pretty much all of which I agree with. Chapeau.
TRUMP'S MILITARY REVENGE by HasanAbi (YouTube)
The video’s not even 20 minutes long and I found nearly all of it worth citing below.
“What could be a solution to crime? Great question. This has been something that thinkers have gotten together and and tried to find... [More]”
Published on in Public Policy & Politics
The article Trump & the Russophobes by Patrick Lawrence (Scheer Post) was written near the end of August—about two months ago—and discusses the U.S.‘s obsession with just absolutely hating first Bolsheviks, then the Soviet Union, and now Russia.
“I say this because Russophobia is about more, much more, than near-term geopolitical strategies and policy choices. This is a question that goes to the ideology that makes America America, to the collective psyche, to Otherness and identity (which are intimately related in the... [More]”
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Philosophy, Sociology, & Culture
The article It’s Not Socialism–It’s National Socialism by Liz Anderson (Crooked Timber) discusses how buying 10% of Intel does not a socialist make.
“When National Socialists speak of “the people,” they never mean, as social democrats do, all the people, but rather the “real” people, the ethno-racial-sexual-religious group that they identify with the nation, to the exclusion of all other citizens and denizens of the state.
“
OtheringTrump, of course, checks all 3 National Socialist boxes. It’s no secret that his “real”... [More]”
Published on in Finance & Economy
The article Luck Shouldn’t Determine Our Fates by Ben Burgis (Jacobin) discusses a topic that has also been well-covered by Freddie deBoer in his book The Cult of Smart, namely that: modern, western society privileges intelligence above nearly everything else. I posit that our societies tend to privilege plunder and those who can do it without a twinge of conscience. Sociopaths, in other words.
“[Marxist analytic philosopher G. A.] Cohen calls his view “luck-egalitarianism.” He thinks inequalities are... [More]”
Published on in Philosophy, Sociology, & Culture
The article What Our World Sounds Like Now by Justin Smith-Ruiu (Hinternet) discusses how the grinding progress of the market toward maximizing margins by delivering the minimum amount of value that satisfies—sometimes by adjusting value delivered but mostly now by adjusting people’s expectations downward of what is satisfactory—affects music and how AI-produced music is a natural progression from blandly mediocre musical blasphemers of the past—who produced “lite” versions of everything: easy listening and muzak, which... [More]
Published on in Philosophy, Sociology, & Culture
The article Influencerism is the highest form of capitalist realism by Yasha Levine (Nefarious Russians) makes many interesting points, many of which have been made before, in other ways—perhaps most famously and thoroughly in Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent—but it almost always bears repeating because the lessons are so often and easily forgotten.
“[…] these technologies, while they have thrown off the old masters, have acquired a new one. And this new master is harder to see. It’s not a person who tells you what you can... [More]”
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Public Policy & Politics
The article Only Liars And Manipulators Say Gaza Isn’t Starving by Caitlin Johnstone (Substack) makes what I consider to be a logical error in argument in the following passage,
“When a nation keeps having to publish denials that it is intentionally starving civilians, you can safely assume it’s because that nation is intentionally starving civilians. If you saw someone on social media loudly denying the latest allegations that they are a child molester over and over again for two years, you probably wouldn’t let them... [More]”
Published on in Public Policy & Politics
This video presents an excellent topic on which to shine the spotlight. Unfortunately, Oliver spends a bit too much time with “pooping on pigeon” jokes and too little time on examining the root causes of why corporate crime goes largely unpunished or lightly punished while personal crime is punished incredibly harshly.
Deferred Prosecution Agreements by Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (YouTube)
It’s somewhat obvious to say that a just society would seek to build and grow a system in which most of the members can thrive. Sometimes, something bad needs to be pruned... [More]
Published on in Public Policy & Politics
The article Will Trump’s Working-Class Base Turn on Him? by Yanis Varoufakis (Project Syndicate) writes,
“I, too, hope and pray that Trump’s working-class base will rebel against a president who so readily betrayed them. But I suspect they might not.”
I know they won’t. I just spent almost four weeks among a good sampling of them. They are heavily propagandized and well-trained to ignore anything and everything that they might accidentally hear that might cause an otherwise principled person to at least consider reconsidering... [More]
Published on in Books
Standard disclaimer[1]
Book CoverYou will often hear this book described as a feminist masterpiece. I honestly can’t figure out why. It is about so much more than feminism, though it is also about that. I think it is a masterpiece, though. It is a wholly realized world, limned with light brushstrokes onto which the reader hangs their own detail, unlike so many modern books where every last detail is included, to avoid the reader having to fill in anything themselves. Instead, Le Guin has a light hand,... [More]
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Quotes
““The Law of Implicit Interfaces”: Given enough use, there is no such thing as a private implementation. That is, if an interface has enough consumers, they will collectively depend on every aspect of the implementation, intentionally or not. This effect serves to constrain changes to the implementation, which must now conform to both the explicitly documented interface, as well as the implicit interface captured by usage. We often refer to this phenomenon as “bug-for-bug compatibility.””
“For... [More]”
Published on in Public Policy & Politics
The article Roaming Charges: From of the Mouths of Madness by Jeffrey St. Clair (CounterPunch) discussed several interesting news items.
St. Clair started off with a few items about immigration:
“Cost of painting Trump’s border wall black: $500 million.
“ICE recently shelled out $2.4 million for a fleet of new trucks and SUVs, which were custom detailed with gold wraps reading “DEFEND THE HOMELAND, INTEGRITY, COURAGE, and ENDURANCE.”
“ICE has lowered the hiring standards (it will no longer require agents working the... [More]”
Published on in Public Policy & Politics
The article That Big, Beautiful Summit in Alaska by Patrick Lawrence (Scheer Post), although informative, ascribes much more consistency and reasoning to ‘Trump and his administration’s actions than the situation warrants. For example, much is made of Trump’s statement that he wants to end the war in Ukraine.
“No Western leader, if you have not noticed, has ever called for an end to the war. None among them has ever mentioned a peace accord for the simple reason the Western powers do not want peace with Russia. It is with this... [More]”
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Design
This is a lament from the beginning of 2024 but it still applied in 2025 and will probably still apply in 2026.
It’s the start of a new year, so it’s time to download the yearly salary certificate.
I checked out the web site.
EnshittificationThe generated-documents folder is empty. Reload. Nothing. Switch to a different folder. Switch back. Now there are two folders, one for 2023 and one for 2024.
The documents are all called the same thing. If you download the document out of the app, it gets a... [More]
Published on in Philosophy, Sociology, & Culture
Neutrality means sending aid—food, water, medicine, doctors—where it’s needed, condemning crimes where they occur, and working diplomatically toward a ceasefire, then peace accords. The only thing neutrality excludes is military participation—sending weapons and/or troops. And yet. there is always a laser-like focus on that part.
Switzerland is a neutral country but no-one can stand it. Each “side” claims that there is no such thing as neutrality, that there is only the side of good,... [More]
Published on in Philosophy, Sociology, & Culture
One thing that I’ve noticed that’s changed from when I was younger is that I’m genuinely no longer threatened by people living lives different from mine anymore. That is, I’m not threatened by simply knowing that there are other people out there doing things differently, or believing different things, or simply finding solace or reassurance in things that I think are completely unfounded in reality or foolish. I haven’t stopped feeling that they’d be foolish for me; I just realize that it... [More]
Published on in Notes
Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.
Published on in Quotes
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
We have chosen this because we all think we’re in the in-group, or that we will soon be in the in-group. We do not care about the out-group because we all egotistically and absolutely immorally believe that we are only “temporarily embarrassed” out-groupers (to steal part of a quote from John Steinbeck[1]).
