Boosted by @GroupNebula563@mastodon.social
A reminder that when the billionaire tech bros say "move fast and break things", the "things" they're talking about are "society", "democracy", "ethics" and other things they think aren't necessary.
Remote
Preston von Gabbleduck
@backupbear@aus.social
mastodon 4.7.2Enterprise tech worker focused on ethical advancement of the industry. Heavily into #DataProtection – of the storage/availability kind (particular emphasis on #backup and #recovery). Blog and publish books on it, just for ongoing nerdery on the topic.
Also a huge #PowerPlate fan & user.
Posts are my own, unassociated with any employer. Links at https://linktr.ee/backupbear
1167 Followers
847 Following
50 Posts
Joined August 08, 2023
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Replying to
@jpm@aus.social @shlee@aus.social "Got your nos(ql)!"
Worried about what people will think of you over your AI stance? Here's a thoughtful tip:
1. If you say you're vehemently pro-AI, you'll piss-off the vehemently anti-AI.
2. If you say you're vehemently anti-AI, you'll piss-off the vehemently pro-AI.
BUT
3. If you talk about how there are valid use cases for AI that need to be explored and used, but it needs careful guardrails and regulations, you'll simultaneously piss-off the vehemently pro-AI and vehemently anti-AI together.
So, choosing option (3) makes life simpler – you'll always know where you stand!
A genie appears!
Genie: "Sorry, things are tight. You only get one wish. No killing, no people falling in love with you, no changing history. Whaddyawant?"
Me, screaming at my US-centric document template: "REPLACE LETTER WITH A4 WORLD-WIDE"
Genie: "Damn. I might have to give that one to you as a freebie."
Well, if anyone wants a meeting with me they've left it too late. I started the product management role on 10 January 2022, and wrapping it up on 11 September 2026 I can give a final meeting tally: 5,400 meetings done.
September 2026 was definitely my quietest: none.
Boosted by @trending@homestead.social
Who knew that the easy way to obliterate copyright was just to tell governments that a few super-rich prats who occasionally give them financial handjobs would get richer from it.
Two pics I'm particularly happy with from my trip yesterday to the Ian Potter Centre at Fed Square. Both were taken on my Oppo Find N6 in 200MP mode. Original image size for both was a whopping 16384 x 12288 pixels; these have been downscaled to 6000 x 4500 in Preview. "Shearing the Rams" and "The Pioneer" are two of my favourite early-settler period artworks. Sadly, the John Brack art wasn't up in the gallery yesterday – otherwise I'd have been sharing snaps of them. #art
Currently watching a D-grade movie called "Dragon Wasp" so you don't have to. It's as bad as the name implies.
All these people who are seemingly so flush that they never pay attention to either being owed or receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars #ICAC ...
...
...somewhere, in the distance, Tracy Chapman's "Mountains o' things" starts playing hauntingly.
Even high quality/advanced bone conduction headphones cannot compete against city noise. What a lesson for how quiet my area of Ballarat is – I can walk around with my Shokz headphones and get great audio fidelity. In Melbourne I'm lucky to hear a thing.
Congratulations Apple for continuing the AI industry trend of making an AI-related logo look like someone was trying to draw a puckered sphincter.
#ICAC (paraphrasing) "No I'm not going to ask you the questions you'd like me to ask you". LOL.
Yeah #ICAC doesn't want to dwell too long on people having unread email.
30 days has September, April, June, and November
All the rest have 31
Except March 2020 which has been going on for admittedly an awfully long time at this point
"I came, I saw, I said WTF!?"
- Gen-X
I’ve been laughing at this all day. #OneNation #paulinehanson #gina #auspol #drag
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdQ5_-YTJUP/?stkn=eXJkNjZrbWRzb2N6
Somewhere in the history books of the future, some poor bastard academic is going to write how the fall of a society can be sometimes measured by getting to the point that they let animal-fuckers into law enforcement, and call them the victims. #uspol
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/15/kash-patel-fbi-hiring-policy-bestiality
IT was definitely simpler in the 90s when we just blamed solar flares for everything that went wrong.
#uspol As another horrible person approaches their end, remember that "speak no ill of the dead" is a terrible admonition that can turn even the worst people into saints.
Instead, comfort yourself with this: "Of the dead, speak only the truth".
Cool. Now do billionaires private jets, and fossil fuel companies.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/29/organic-eggs-climate-caged-chickens-carbon-emissions-environment
Acrobat: "This appears to be a long document. Click here for an AI summary."
Me: "Pretty sure I know how to read and think, thanks, champ."
Do not go gently into that good night.
For it is very dark, and you are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Malicious compliance is always a valid protest tactic.
https://metro.co.uk/2026/08/10/councillors-wind-reform-colleagues-singing-much-national-anthem-29340726/amp/
Guardian: "Albanese to meet Apple heads in US after social media reform".
Me : "TELL 'EM YOU'RE GOING TO LEGISLATE THE RETURN OF SCROLLBARS"
At the rate he’s going within 6 months he’ll be jerking off each soldier to make sure their emissions are “manly enough”. #uspolhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/15/us-military-testosterone-screening-hegseth
Me: "Look out, it's the eeekuinox!"
Them: "Don't you mean equinox?"
Me: "No."
Remember, it's only illegal if a private citizen does it. If a company does it, it's "increasing shareholder value" and "business initiative'.
The only traditional difference about how the ALP and the LNP like to kick disadvantaged people in the face is that the ALP try to discretely jerk off about the misery they cause later. But more recently, they seem to even be giving up on that. #auspol
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/09/centrelink-pursuing-debts-that-are-more-than-40-years-old-despite-agreeing-to-waive-old-arrears?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Remember to periodically assert your dominance in the office (and encourage management to suggest you work from home more often) by regularly reheating Tuna and Gorgonzola wraps in the kitchenette, and eating fresh Durian at your desk as an afternoon snack.
"People of Earth. I am Slaaartvast the Magnificent, the transcendent son of Slarm and daughter of Graabnust. I regret to inform you that your simulation has (again) run off the rails. Please stand by while I adjust the prompts that run your reality. This may be disconcerting and for some, uncomfortable. However, I need to max out the empathy traits and that will also involve getting rid of this 'capitalism' bug you seem to have developed. Oh, let me know if you need some guillotines. They came in handy last time I had to adjust the simulation several hundred of your years ago."
#MicroFiction
Replying to
@QasimRashid@mastodon.social Well, keep in mind she does like doing things in public. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/lauren-boebert-theater-beetlejuice-denver-b2448089.html
Imagine if you bought a box set of DVDs from a nearby store. Then a year later they changed their distribution agreement and could no longer sell those DVDs, so they broke into your house to remove them from your library.
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/15/sony-deletes-a-bunch-more-movies-from-the-accounts-of-people-who-bought-them/
Every time I see friends post excitedly about going to the USA for a holiday, it takes all my fucking effort to not reply "Enjoy the fascism! Hope they don't arbitrarily arrest you and put you in indefinite detention!"
Like, seriously, why the fuck are you still going over there?
Replying to
As someone who has been in data protection for nigh-on 30 years and pretty much every month of every year of that has been on the receiving end of some business decision along the lines of "Every vendor responsible for the creation of system X has abandoned it but we expect your backup solution to protect it", I can honestly say that this process of ignoring legacy systems because the "project to remediate it" is too expensive is more of an absolute in life than death and taxes.
Replying to
@futzle@old.mermaid.town The supposed self-anthropomorphism side of LLMs particularly irks me. Like, seeing a recipe from one where it starts with, "Personally, when I'm making this..." No, no, no. Maybe the starting rule should be, "A computer shall not lie about itself".
From a behaviour and ethics perspective, this tells me far more about Peter Diamandis than it does about an average human being. #surveillance #ethics #privacyhttps://techcrunch.com/2026/06/26/xprize-founder-says-humans-behave-better-when-theyre-being-watched/
Me: "This email received 25 June looks familiar."
Me to Copilot: "Have I replied to this email?"
Copilot: "Yes, you replied on June 10."
Me:
Scientist1: "I have good news and bad news."
Scientist2: "What's the good news?"
Scientist1: "I have definitive proof that the Universe is a simulation."
Scientist2: "Good grief. Then what's the bad news?"
Scientist1: "The simulation is written in SNOBOL."
Replying to
@peterdrake@mstdn.social The Noumenon Trilogy by Marina J. Lostetter is difficult to go past. Slow Gods by Claire North is a standalone but still worth going for. For older, the rarely heard of "Phoenix Legacy" trilogy by MK Wren is great space opera.
For the love of *waves hands* everything, if you are thinking it would be cool to "add a voice agent" to a business application, could you please pay 10 people to go into random offices and start Enunciating Commands Loudly to understand just how much it will piss off the average worker?
Entire V/Line service shutdown because of a Telstra outage?
Jesus Fucking Christ, it's 2026 and concepts like "robustness" and "redundancy" still seem to be completely missing from some business lexicons.
Back to watching more "Ride or Die". And absolutely in love with them using "Kill of the NIght" by Gin Wigmore as the theme song. #musichttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK_NnGSTf0M
Replying to
@MattHatton@aus.social Wonder how long it will take one of them to demand full back-pay, too...
Replying to
@decryption@aus.social "If she says yes..."
So, gays not welcome to apply, I wonder?
Ooh sandpaper is even worse to touch than microfibre.