Draketo neu

Es sind die dritten Sommerferien in der Pandemie; wir sind zu Hause und ich bin im Homeoffice. Um trotzdem spannende und erinnerungswürdige Ferien zu haben, müssen wir sie planen. Und weil ich das schön haben will, habe ich einen Ferienplan in LaTeX gebaut.

-→ Regenbogen-Ferienplan für die Sommerferien in LaTeX

Code speaks to the machine and humans, comments only speak to humans. That’s why comments can always be easier to understand and give more context than code.

-→ Please comment your code

Im Jahr 2006 löschte Amazon das Buch 1984 von allen Kindles — das Buch, in dem der Machtapparat des Staates ständig alle verfügbare Information umschreibt und unliebsame Informationen entfernt. Dabei hat es gleich die privaten Notizen von Leuten zu dem Buch mitgelöscht.

-→ Fernlöschung gefährdet unsere Gesellschaft

Es ist der 1. März 1921. Ich bin Joseph N. Balard. Privatgelehrter, Ex-Offizier und Wissenschaftler. Ich reise nach Peru, um Geheimnisse zu erkunden und neue wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse für die nächsten wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen zu gewinnen. Mit mir reisen mein persönlicher Assistent Charles Mortimer Simpton III, der Großwildjäge Westley Richards mit seinem Hund und Bruce Robertson, ein junger Archäologe.

-→ Expedition nach Peru

It’s no longer funny how with COVID it was suddenly important to say “with other conditions and causes”.

How many people died from traffic accidents who would have survived (maybe crippled, but alive) if they had been healthy men in their 20s? How many died from cancer who would have had and survived the chemotherapy if they had been healthy and young?

But no, come COVID and suddenly some people don’t count anymore, because they aren’t at top health. What do you think how many Free Software Developers are among those with other conditions?

• Often sitting day job? Check.
• Often inside a lot? Check.
• Often introverts who rather not meet with others or meet online? Check.
• Often spending the evenings creating tools for others instead of working out? Check.
• Often rather finishing a cool new feature instead of going to bed early or cooking fresh? Check.

I should be happy that I’m healthy, but fuck calling out those with other conditions.

And when the next pandemic strikes, how will we call those with Post COVID? Will that be the next "other condition"?

Over a hundred thousand people in Germany died. Millions died worldwide.

In 2011 we should have seen the Awakening, but there was no great dragon over Mount Fuji at Christmaas!

Not to forget Daniele Coleman did not lead detained native Americans to Freedom under the protection of a glowing magical shield that repelled bullets shot at him.

So now we’re waiting for The Crash of 2029 and Echo Mirage who destroy the Crash Virus by raw-riding the internet with their bare brains connected to the first Cyberdecks!

I like this story much more than any other rapture-story. It’s unlikely to happen, but Shadowrun is still a lot of fun to play.

References and further reading:

• 2011: The Year of Chaos
• 2029: The Crash Virus

Public administration in Germany is finally getting secure communication right: A New Future for GnuPG:

We estimate that a quarter million workplaces will be equipped with GnuPG VS-Desktop and provide the users state of the art file and mail encryption. Our longer term plan is to equip all public agency workplaces with end-to-end encryption software - not only those with an immediate need for an approved VS-NfD solution.

And just as important:

Although we support S/MIME, the majority of our customers decided in favor of the OpenPGP protocol, due to its higher flexibility and independence of a centralized public key infrastructure.

We’re finally doing some things right. Thank you, Werner Koch and all contributors and donators, for keeping GnuPG working and up to date all these years!

Now for the all the E-Mail frontends … but that’s a next step.

„die zweithäufigste Diagnose ist dieses Post-Covid geworden“ … „dass so etwa 20 bis 25 Prozent von den Leuten …, die ich gezielt befrage, über Minderleistungen vom Gehirn berichten. Also, die können sich Dinge nicht mehr merken. Sie können Sätze nicht zu Ende sprechen, müssen noch einmal überlegen. Eine Lehrerin zum Beispiel kann ihren Unterricht nicht einfach so die Stunde durchziehen, weil ihr Dinge einfach nicht einfallen. Das ist wirklich erschreckend“ — Interview des MDR mit einem Pneumologen, 2. Januar 2022

Einzelhandel 2021 mit Umsatzrekord — Kleine Händler verlieren, Kaufhäuser gewinnen fast 10% gegenüber dem Vorkrisenniveau. Online wächst in der gleichen Zeit um über 30%.

Um das mal festzuhalten: Kaufhäuser, wo sich Massen an Menschen treffen, haben 10% mehr Umsatz. Kleine Händler, wo sich weniger Menschen treffen, verlieren.

Da wurden nicht nur Öffnungen völlig verantwortungslos vorangetrieben, während über 1 Million Kinder unter 15 Jahren infiziert wurden (inzwischen ist das jedes 10. Kind!), sondern es wurde auch noch so falsch organisiert, dass vor allem die kleinen Geschäfte litten — in denen das Infektionsrisiko geringer ist — und die Großen wuchsen.

Missing absolute integrity of the person does not cause problems for society. Absolute integrity of the person would create scattered, isolated individuals who do not let anyone close.

It’s not the integrity of the individual that’s the problem we currently have in social networks. You never have absolute integrity of the individual in a society.

The problem is that the loss of integrity of the vast majority feeds a tiny group of people in power.

That’s what creates autocratic structures.

If you live in a voluntary commune with 5 other people and you share most you have think and do, you still have community. It’s when that one ruler peeks into all that it gets broken.

It’s not the integrity of the individual that’s the problem. You never have absolute integrity of the individual in a society.

The problem is that the loss of integrity of the vast majority feeds a tiny group of people in power.

That’s what creates the autocratic structures.

If you live in a voluntary commune with 5 other people and you share most you have think and do, you still have community. It’s when that one ruler peeks into all that it gets broken.

Antwort auf einen Kommentar in der Taz.

Es gibt Leute, die bewusst in Kauf nehmen, dass sie andere gefährden.

Und das ist das Problem, das wir in der Corona-Krise haben.

Wie wir die richtigen Maßnahmen treffen, und welche das sind, ist offen für Diskussionen.

Bei der Frage, ob wir Maßnahmen treffen, geht es allerdings darum, wie wenig Wert einem Menschlichen Leben zugewiesen wird.

Wer die Gefährdung anderer bewusst in Kauf nimmt, muss sich im Klaren darüber sein, dass er von den Gefährdeten dann für die bisher über 100.000 Toten mit in Verantwortung gezogen wird.

Das gilt für alle Ungeimpften, die sich impfen lassen könnten, das gilt für Geimpfte, die trotz Delta Urlaub in Risikogebieten machen oder ständig auf Parties gehen, und das gilt für einige Firmenchefs und Teile der Politik, die trotz steigender Infektionszahlen vor 2 Monaten weitreichende Öffnungen vorangetrieben haben.

Durch Corona sind 20-mal so viele gestorben, wie in der gleichen Zeit im Straßenverkehr.

Wer die Pandemie durchlaufen lässt, macht sich der fahrlässigen Tötung genauso schuldig, wie jemand, der die Tempo 30 Schilder vor Schulen entfernt.

Wer andere Maßnahmen will, kann die vorschlagen. Wer keine will … (ich schreibe hier nicht weiter, weil ich zu zornig werde, um noch etwas konstruktives zu schreiben).

Licensed under cc by by Patrick Breyer, available from chaos.social.

Converted with

ffmpeg -i patrick-breyer-digital-services-act-2021.mp4 \ -g 999 -b:v 100k -b:a 48k \ patrick-breyer-digital-services-act-2021.ogv

Ich hatte heute das Glück, kurzfristig einen Impftermin zu bekommen, weil jemand abgesagt hatte. Bin jetzt mit Moderna geboostert.

Und anders als der, der vor mir geimpft wurde, nicht, um alles zu dürfen (Zitat: „nur darum geht es ja“), sondern um die Infektionswahrscheinlichkeit für andere zu reduzieren. Für Fremde, für Freunde und für meine Kinder.

Mein persönliches Risiko ist schon durch die zweite Impfung gering. Corona ist durch die schnelle Verbreitung und die schiere Anzahl Infizierter gefährlich. Beides reduziert die Booster-Impfung — und damit auch das Long Covid-Risiko für Kinder.

Danke, V!

Maybe it could be worthwhile to research the methods AI finds to solve problems and extract something we can actually understand.

Bionics means learning how nature solves problems and making them usable to us. In a similar (cheeky) way, Cyonics could learn how AI solves problems and make those solutions usable to us by making them understandable.

Once we have general purpose AI, we’ll need the skills to translate requirements into a description a conscious being with slightly different thought processes understands correctly.

Teachers can tell you how hard that will be.

From a discussion about programming when AI helps you code.

Last week research showed that properly worn FFP2 masks offer more than 99,9% protection against infection during 20 minute interaction.

Badly worn FFP2 masks (likely the majority) still offer 96% protection.

Medical masks are weaker, but better than no mask.

Without mask and without vaccination you have almost 100% chance of infection if you are in close vicinity to an infected for a few minutes.

See: https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/corona-masken-studie-sicherheit-100.html

Publication: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/49/e2110117118

It is OK to let something you feel guide you, but you need to check it from time to time. You need to stop and think. Because it can be wrong. But it doesn’t feel like that.

To stop and think is one of the huge strength of humans. It is how we can guide our much faster and much less strenuous intuitive reactions, because it can compensate for their biases.

We can afford much more efficient reactions, because they need not be perfect. Our consciousness serves as corrective, and that gives us part of our versatility: we need not be right. We just need to stop and think from time to time to get closer.

reply to a question in Sone, Freenet.

• The vaccine reduces transmission by factor 3 to factor 6: While the average unvaccinated person infects 6 other people (without additional measures), the average vaccinated person only infects 1-2 people.
• Vaccinated people have a massively reduced rate of severe cases. If they do get infected, they only rarely have to get to the hospital.

Get vaccinated because that avoids overloading hospitals. We as nations and as humanity failed at controlling COVID-19, but once most people are vaccinated we can afford letting the illness become part of our lives within 1-2 years without risking to have droves of people suffocate in front of clinics because there is no more room for them inside.

For COVID-19 I doublechecked the official numbers during the first year myself, and they check out. It’s good to be critical, but if you check something in depth and it actually matches, there comes a point when the sceptical position is to accept that here you were told the truth by health officials (as far as it was known at that time, and updated when new information came in).

My wife told me last week that last year she was surprised that I didn’t say that the pandemic is a lie, because I’m usually opposed to many official statements (growing up on official lies about Echelon does that …). Fact is: I checked it where I am competent to do the checking, and it checks out. We are in a pandemic and need to react accordingly — or face the consequences: nature does not give you a break when you are wrong.

Freenet-Links:

• Results of my checking (in German, but see the diagrams): USK@LHeuG-SU5ZvYQXTu8Y9mhjCYyQxB-m-W~ryElufr-2M,Ij9l0U1Wa~FQu7GFBf~ciwUbCwpTFv6mWZkS1YuoxQk,AQACAAE/arnebab-org/262/wissen/covid-19-naiver-blick.html
• Related in English: Is vaccination the rational choice? USK@LHeuG-SU5ZvYQXTu8Y9mhjCYyQxB-m-W~ryElufr-2M,Ij9l0U1Wa~FQu7GFBf~ciwUbCwpTFv6mWZkS1YuoxQk,AQACAAE/arnebab-org/261/politik/covid-vaccination-rational.html

You could say that it’s the fault of previous CIA and NSA lies and coverups and so forth that it’s hard to trust, but fuck them: Can’t let those lies ruin our ability as humanity to respond to actual crises.

A pre-print paper. Stunning quote from the abstract:

Notably, we find that each of these top values is currently being defined and applied with assumptions and implications generally supporting the centralization of power. — The Values Encoded in Machine Learning Research, A. Birhane et al.