@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

carmenbianca

@carmenbianca@todon.eu

Cooperator @ Coop IT Easy in #Brussels, https://mastodon.social/@fsfe board member, author of #REUSE.software.

🐱️ beautiful

I toot mostly in English, Dutch, and French.

Some hashtags I like: #FreeSoftware #Vegan #Esperanto #Cooperative #Socialism #AntiCapitalism #BanCars #TTRPG

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carmenbianca, to vegan
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

you lot are killing and hurting and raping animals, destroying the planet, orgasming at the dead flesh on your tongue and putting up giant banner ads to invite people to have their fill because it tastes so fucking good

gee i don't know i'd rather not sign up to your hedonistic death cult sorry. love the hedonism, not so much the death part. maybe workshop that a little.

#vegan

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

of course, i'm the radical one (or worse: the killjoy) when i actually say the above to real people in actual meatspace.

'no thank you' is the appropriate response to an invitation to murder, and silence is the appropriate response to witnessing a murder. 'i'm not a murderer' is a bit of a faux pas.

#vegan

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

In more seriousness, I struggle with the above a lot. Most (well, all) of my non-vegan friends are all right. I like them. They're cool, funny, witty, happy, lovely, and many things I aspire to be.

But it's so hard to not feel conflicted. When you've correctly reached the moral stance that maybe murder is bad, it's hard to put on a smile and say 'oh no, you go on ahead at the barbecue, I don't care, I'll just have the sad salad'.

But I do care. That's the thing. It's fine for me to make my own moral choices when it comes to, I don't know, how much I want to reap the benefits of American cultural imperialism by watching the newest hot film or not. But murder? Abstaining from murder is a moral imperative that's rather a bit more serious.

But if I were to treat my beliefs seriously—actually seriously—I'd be a stark raving mad lunatic shouting at people to stop stuffing murder victims down their throats like holy shit what are you sadistic fucks doing?

But I like having friends, so I treat my rather sane and reasonable belief of 'murder is bad' less than a hundredth as seriously as maybe I should.

#vegan

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

How do other #vegan people deal with the intense conflict of genuinely believing that animal abuse is bad, but also being a somewhat sociable person who gets along in modern society?

Because I kind of don't. If I think about it too hard, I become like Chidi from #TheGoodPlace.

carmenbianca, to cars
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

I'm going to try a thing. There are two related phenomena regarding and that I basically never see discussed. I wrote an article about these two things which includes two very clear definitions. I want to see if I can get some reach to disseminate these two things like a mind virus.

Boost if you like. Or don't. I'm not your boss.

The premise: when you own a , it is cheaper to drive the car. But: we want to get people out of their cars, even while they still own cars.

The definitions:

  • Sunk cost discount: for as long as you own a car, it is cheaper relative to public transport to use that car for individual journeys, even though you would save money if you got rid of the car and exclusively used public transport.

  • Trip cost scaling problem: for each additional passenger taking a journey together, the cost per passenger becomes lower when travelling by car, but higher when travelling by public transport.

The article: https://www.carmenbianca.eu/en/post/2023-07-27-the-sunk-cost-discount-and-the-trip-cost-scaling-problem/

Shamelessly tagging @notjustbikes @TheWarOnCars @ianwalker

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

Oops. Reminder to self to proofread. The public transport cost per passenger doesn't increase when travelling with more people. Rather, it stays the same! It's the total cost that increases.

arstechnica, to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

Waymo kills off autonomous trucking program

Ride hailing will let Waymo focus on "near-term" commercial success.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/waymo-kills-off-autonomous-trucking-program/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@arstechnica lmao

carmenbianca, to internet
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

In the 2000s, I once returned to an #internet community under a different #pseudonym after a while of absence because I had grown up a bit and no longer wanted to be associated with my previous self.

I managed at least a year without being recognised, until at last someone recognised me because I write 'all right' instead of 'alright'.

I still think about that sometimes.

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

And before long, #AI will probably be able to track us across the internet by identifying our writing quirks. I'm not sure if there exists any #privacy research or advocacy on this, or what could possibly be done about this.

Ought we filter our #anonymous writing through an obfuscator?

thilosophus, to Brussels

The city of wants to know my ID Card number to - hold your breath - give me access to study spaces. I know it's a public authority, but it just feels plain wrong...

https://www.brussels.be/student-booking

Also can't think of any way to effectively complain about that.

It's probably too small of an issue to be taken up by consumer protection organisations or other NGOs? If anyone has experience or ideas, feel free to enlighten me...

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@nemobis If you need a Dutch-language native speaker to help you with the above, @thilosophus , give me a prod. I'd be glad to cause GDPR mayhem.

drewdevault, to random
@drewdevault@fosstodon.org avatar

https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commit/6f47a22906b2899412e79a2727355efa9cc8f5bd

Rayan Kanso, Peter Pakkenberg, Dmitry Gozman, Richard Coles, and Kinuko Yasuda are now persona non-grata for any matters over which I have decision making powers regarding hiring, contracts, etc.

Every programmer has a private responsibility regarding their complicity in writing and shipping harmful software.

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@drewdevault We really need a Hippocratic Oath or similar ethical standard for programmers.

Instead, in my years of studying software engineering at NHL Stenden, I never once had a single ethics course, and Microsoft bought influence over several teachers.

becha, to random
@becha@v.st avatar

I’ve passed all my exams for !!! 2x10 & 3x9!! Well done me! cc @vaurora @drewdevault @th @holly @quixoticgeek @wmd

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@becha Gefeliciteerd! Uitstekend resultaat.

Geniet van nog veel kringverjaardagen :)

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

We all get to bear personal consequences of oil companies' decisions and actions. :blobcatangry:

Their CEOs, executives, and managers should bear personal consequences for making these decisions. :blobcateyes:

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@rysiek We all get to bear personal responsibility for the decisions and actions of oil companies.

🤮

njoseph_1, to opensource

I've seen so much open-washing in the past few months that when a corporation claims that their product is "open-source" on the front page of their website, I start with the assumption that it is false marketing until it gets disproven after I read through the license.

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@njoseph_1 If I don't see a link to the source code on a project's home or about page, I assume it's non-free.

bryan, to random

I don’t understand the #bancars hashtag. I thought maybe it was just for shock value, but I think its users are just supremely out of touch.

We’ve spent the last 100 years building sprawl. Banning cars now would be like building cities in space and then banning spacesuits. We need to build places where people can actually live without cars. Advocate for that instead of being a self-righteous punk.

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@bryan @Bman Not only is that a mischaracterisation of what 'the #bancars people' actually believe, it's also incredibly short-sighted.

The planet doesn't have time to wait for us to get to step 132.000. We can do a few steps, and then pull the plug on the whole thing, even if the status quo isn't perfect for car-free living.

I live in #Brussels. I can cycle across the city (border-to-border) within 1 hour. I could walk across the city if I wanted to. The internal public transport is serviceable, and the connection to outside towns and cities is excellent. Barring public outcry, the city could ban cars NOW, even though a lot of the city is an asphalt hellscape.

We even have a yearly #CarFreeSunday, which mostly goes without a hitch.

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@MKW @bryan @Bman 'Good thing X doesn't work where I live, therefore X doesn't concern me at all'. Or its terrible cousin, 'X doesn't work where I live, therefore X is bad'.

I'm really sorry for the curt response, but even 'Bend, Oregon' can #bancars. It just takes political will to implement enough of a foundation to make it happen.

Switching to electric cars doesn't address the problem at all. If that's 'the best we can do', then that's a very sorry state of affairs. It's sticking one's head in the sand, ignoring 99% of problems caused by cars in favour of optimising tailpipe emissions. It's barely an improvement, and political effort is best spent literally anywhere else.

gamingonlinux, to random
@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social avatar

What is an actually controversial Linux opinion you hold?

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@gamingonlinux Most people shouldn't be running any #Linux distribution other than Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora (+ RHEL/CentOS), openSUSE (+ SLE), or Arch.

Operating systems are absolutely massive undertakings, and I do not trust a small team of hobbyists to correctly package, maintain, secure, translate, make accessible, and polish thousands of software components.

I don't want to point fingers necessarily, but distributions like Manjaro, Zorin, Mint, Nobara, or Pop!_OS are not only unnecessary, but also severely undermaintained. I have effectively no trust in the people---or more importantly, the structures and systems---behind these distributions to take good, secure, and long-term care of my installations.

I'm more accepting towards innovative distributions such as Nix. New paradigms necessarily start out small, which is fine.

helenczerski, to random

It’s not “a car” though, is it? It’s an SUV - a two tonne lump of metal with an incredibly powerful engine that is completely unnecessary in an urban environment.

“Eight-year-old girl dies after car hits London primary school”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/06/car-crashes-into-primary-school-in-south-london-wimbledon?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@helenczerski

"Eight-year-old girl dies after car hits London primary school"

Read: "Eight-year-old dies after driver runs their SUV into London primary school"

Is there a word for the phenomenon where drivers are grammatically absolved of their actions?

drewdevault, to random
@drewdevault@fosstodon.org avatar

Our leaders set an example for our communities. They define the norms for acceptable behavior among our members. And if the behavior of our leaders makes someone uncomfortable, then the entire community will not be a safe space for them.

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@drewdevault Full agree.

Also maybe let's rethink the concept of having leaders if so many leaders are failing our communities all the time.

We need to stop putting individuals on such high pedestals that allow them to cause so much harm in the first place.

Nothing wrong with just a smidgen of #anarchism. Democratise everything everywhere.

carmenbianca, to twitter
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

Apparently I joined this Mastadon thing in the midst of a massive wave of unsatisfied #Twitter users abandoning ship. Can I ride that newbie wave to ask how I'm supposed to interact with the rest of the #Fediverse? I'm aware that #Pixelfed and #PeerTube exist, and I'm aware that Mastodon can talk to those instances, but I'm not sure what I need to do to see pictures and videos of #cats.

I want cats, please.

gamingonlinux, to random
@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social avatar

"I am following this account for news about, well, gaming on Linux. I'd appreciate it if you could stick to the content I, and I expect most others, are following this account for."

If this is you. Don't follow me. And anyone sending me that shit will be blocked. I am an actual person, not a robot, thanks.

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@gamingonlinux If I did daily affirmations, saying 'I am an actual person, not a robot, thanks' out loud would be a pretty cool way to start the day.

drewdevault, to random
@drewdevault@fosstodon.org avatar

Another fine example of the impeccable intellectual arguments of the RMS stan

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@cestith @drewdevault

Aïe, I'd remove the SFLC from that list.

https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=92066968&pty=CAN&eno=109

sinabhfuil, to random

Anyway, now that we're all raging over RTÉ and its free cars, can I ask a little questioneen? Do any of the car companies quietly hand free cars to any of the civil servants or city planners who decide if we'll have the Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network and other cycling infrastructure? Maybe I just have a nasty evil mind

carmenbianca,
@carmenbianca@todon.eu avatar

@sinabhfuil @siobhanmcelduff @clickhere @raycunningham @dec23k

"It's the cyclists that are causing all the deaths."

P.S. mastodon.ie seems like a pretty cool place!

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