Adrian Cochrane @alcinnz@floss.social

This episode of the When the Facts Change podcast features an interview with Imogen Schoots, founder of cohousing development organization Forever Affordable Housing:

https://shows.acast.com/when-the-facts-change/episodes/joining-the-dots-to-solve-the-housing-crisis

#podcast #WhenTheFactsChange #cohousing #ForeverAffordableHousing #ImogenSchoots

The slab and the permacomputer
https://society.robinsloan.com/archive/slab/

Every time I read the news, I can’t come away with any positive forecast for society and humanity. Not as long as capitalism and other forms of greed reign dominant across the world. Not as long as a significant percentage of the world is so susceptible to disinformation that they believe in “alternative facts”. Not when those “alternative facts” stir hate towards their fellow humans.

There’s layers and layers of awful things to unravel, but it doesn’t feel like anyone has the power to change it. So things keep going and going, until eventually we’ll hit an endpoint - whether that’s a bang or a whimper.

The question on my mind is: where do we go from here? The only thing I can see is some sort of dramatic upheaval, and power structures have been built to very effectively quell that sort of thing before it even starts.

Our leadership is either ineffective or beholden to corporate interests - that or beholden to their own greed and need for power. We can’t rely on them to be effective anymore.

The corporate class is working to take what little power we have left. Society under their money has been built so that we are meant to work ourselves and planets to death. When we refuse to participate, they use child labor or literal slavery to get work done instead. And we can’t refuse for long, otherwise we starve, or are left without shelter. So, the abuse continues on and on.

Is this just the way it’s going to be until there’s no one left? I can no longer see the bright future I used to envision as a kid. Not under the current trajectory. But I still want that future. I want to see it myself, but also create it for the people that come after. I don’t want the kids of today to have a worse future. It feels irresponsible that we’re still bringing people into this world while we let it decay.

And yet, I feel powerless to bring that future into fruition. I’m a college dropout who doesn’t have any capital. I can vote, but what use is that if nothing ever changes for the better? You might be able to prevent things from getting worse, but real positive change is forgotten.

What can I do that will actually make a difference? Is there anything I can do that won’t violate my principals? It feels like there are no good options.

Maybe the answer lies in organization, but I don’t really have the power or influence to effectively mobilize. Not at the level I’d need to when things are so urgent.

The #Muen separation kernel project has released version 1!

Muen is an #OpenSource separation kernel (SK) for the #Intel #x86/64 architecture that has been formally proven to contain no runtime errors at the source code level.

Announcement: https://groups.google.com/g/muen-dev/c/mzd5E6lLomw

The https://muen.sk/ website is running #MirageOS on Muen.

1/4

A separation kernel is a specialized #microkernel that provides an execution environment for components that exclusively communicate according to a given security policy and are otherwise strictly isolated from each other. The covert channel problem, largely ignored by other platforms, is addressed explicitly by these kernels.

#infosec

2/4

Muen uses Intel’s hardware-assisted virtualization technology VT-x as core mechanism to separate components. The kernel executes in VMX root mode, while user components, so called subjects, run in VMX non-root mode. Hardware passthrough is realized using Intel’s VT-d DMA and interrupt remapping technology. This enables the secure assignment of PCI devices to subjects.

3/4

Caveat: This is a software solution, so it cannot address security failures in the Intel hardware. However, as far as open-source high-assurance x86 kernels go, its only companion is #seL4 which is verified in Haskell but hand-written in C.

I would rather see this kernel design adapted to #RISCV and incorporate capabilities like seL4 does. Nevertheless, we can learn a lot from the #Ada / #SPARK source code and documentation.

@ada_spark

4/4

Two things to ponder:

- Facebook products are used by 2.8 billion people _daily_.
- “87% of the spending on combating misinformation at Facebook is spent on English content when only 9% of users are English speakers.”

Y'know what really fucked the idea of capitalism for me?

The documentary "The Light Bulb Conspiracy", which is a doc about planned obsolescence.

I hate how cryptocurrency has tarnished the idea of decentralization, because decentralization has now become another term for the blockchain.

A couple years back, the charitable foundation I work for took up MSFT's donation programme for Azure-based hosting (they gave us a USD 5k 'credit' for hosting services for a year). Azure was demonstrably less capable, needlessly complex, & uninformative compared to other cloud providers we were using alongside it. When our 'credit' ran out (Azure doesn't tell you how much you've spent on their dashboard - that's an extra $$ service), turned out our instance was costing USD600ish/month 1/2

Rather than risk having to pay for that again in future, with all the issues we were having (did you know that Azure Linux instances don't support Websockets by default?), we migrated our Azure instance to a higher spec DigitalOcean droplet... costing USD 40/month. Yes, something like 1/15th the cost. We haven't regretted the move for an instant. We similarly ditched AWS, with massive productivity gains & substantial cost reductions. I can't believe businesses use either of those services. 2/2

Microsoft are quite despicable. Look at https://email.connectingup.org/t/i-e-cjukitt-shutkotj-k/ - this is the web view of an email I just got from 'Techsoup', who exist to addict non-profits to MSFT proprietary software (offering 'donated' MSFT software at 'almost free' prices, so NGOs don't adopt #FOSS instead)... and now MSFT, having addicted them, are jacking up the price and forcing them to switch to subscription pricing. Yuck.

And yes, I think Techsoup is an unethical organisation that is completely complicit in the wilful exploitation of charitable and non-profit organisations, globally. They actively avoid mentioning or promoting excellent Free and Open Source Software to their audience... because they make all their money from 'clipping the ticket' (the 'admin costs' they charge) getting them addicted to MSFT's proprietary software producing proprietary digital artefacts.