shirro

Don''t send to landfill. Give it to someone who uses Linux. The cost/availability of used/refurbished hardware isn't great in Australia. I think a lot ends up being dumped.

Old laptops are great for remote admin and coding under linux. I like ex-enterprise mini pcs for home servers. They have reasonably fast CPUs and use much less power/noise than real servers. And old Windows computers with a wipe and update to Linux make great low maintenance computers for older relatives.

Unless China gets control of our mining companies and then we lose that strategic advantage.

A lot of US brands are just relabeled Chinese stuff with a markup. They get us badly on financial, services and IP. I am down to one streaming service and I only have one US based hosting service left which I will be moving to Australian owned hosting soon. My PCs run open source except for games. I will probably keep buying Steam games but it isn't realistic to totally cut out US business. Things like PayPal and Netflix are easy to do without.

As much as I dislike the iconography of hate I don't know if such laws are effective. They get media attention and their followers think they are martyrs and it feels like virtue signalling and easy options. Also I think the mandatory part was pushed by the conservatives whose leader seeks to benefit from the votes of these people so that tells you what you need to know about the likely effectiveness.

We need to have a serious adult public discussion about fascism, why people want it and what the consequences are because it tends to be catastrophic for everyone, not least the people who gave it power. Our lives aren't perfect but they are way too good to euthanase our society in pursuit of hideous intolerance.

The leader of the opposition's mask keeps slipping and the media refuses to examine the issue seriously. The party of Bob Menzies always represented a set of values in opposition to the progress of the Australian working class but they were still generally committed to a democratic and moderately liberal Australia which provided a voice for the many self-employed, small business owner types and others who shared their values. They were never generally more or less bigotted than the ALP or Australian public of the time to my knowledge. In the old days the ALP strongly supported White Australia as a form of labour protectionism and they still have a strongly religious conservative branch. It was never a cartoonish dichotomy between the sides.

While I would say I am generally center left now I have voted for Liberal and National parties in specific elections based on local issues or representation. Choice is good and once we lose our commitment to the rule of law and pluralistic democratic values we lose that choice and people will need to fight to get it back at great cost.

The import of Trumpism and the bigotted dogwhistling pushing the boundaries from the leader of a major party needs to be discussed seriously and unfortunately it won't be in our current media and tech environment and that concerns me greatly. I helped bring 3 great kids into this world in a bountiful and mostly united country full of hope and opportunity. There were big challenges ahead in the form of climate change but I thought we would have made some headway on those by now and there was progress on other issues. Western democracy turning to the fascism which our forebeears helped defeat wasn't on my bingo card.

Are people still buying Murdoch papers and watching Sky News? Are all the US media giants who have kissed the ring of self-identifying NAZIs still operating? Then the media environment is already fucked.

The ALP and Greens will struggle more than ever to get their message out to voters if they rely in normal channels. They have to get really creative.

Within the stupidity of the US system there is a legal argument for the President, in the execution of their Constitutional powers and the legislation passed by Congress to have immunity in upholding the law. Personally I think the US system is outdated and dangerous and always has been compared to more mature parliamentary democracies where no single person has much power. But it is what it is. You just can't tell some dumb cunts because they get all defensive instead of taking in information that might actually help them. Perhaps keep it in mind for the third revolution (along with SI units). When the President is acting against congress I don't believe immunity should hold and an unbiased future supreme court could overturn any ruling otherwise.

If laws are broken by the executive then Congress has the power and the obligation to act. They are sworn to act. If they don't then they answer to the mob as that is all that remains. I don't think the mob is a good resolution to this. Things can get worse.

Remember there is a gap between the regressive shitfuckery the majority of people who bothered to vote expect and want from this executive and the outrageous law breaking that might force a limp and insipid Congress to grow a spine. If they haven't selected a line in the sand now and committed themselves to act they are going to struggle to catch up to events.

Heads up if you get a lot of tech news/discussion from HN they appear to be heavily censoring submissions along these lines.

I am all for diversity but if you want a bunch of goons honestly young men is a solid pick historically.

Throw them at machine guns. Drug them up, give them machetes and guns and set them to ethnic cleansing. Give them brown shirts and have them violently intimidate people. Rev them up with hate on online forums and have them commit acts of terrorism.

That doesn't mean they aren't competent. They can be super competent. And they can be a force for good.

But some young men seem extra prone to an authoritarian mindset and are super willing to surrender themselves to the authority of older men. Perhaps some women are as well but they tend to get used differently.

Meanwhile our governments services and tenders practically demand US software and services provided by US companies on US controlled hosting. I haven't seen any good use for LLMs beyond being an amusement but downloading the Deepseek model to run locally is absolutely safe and local models is all anyone should be using with any data where they have a responsibility, ethical or legal, to maintain privacy and security. And it you are doing things properly and everything is local then Deepseek reportedly has some efficiency advantages that make it worth considering over alternatives.

Preventing exfiltration of Australian data to foreign jurisdictions is absolutely the correct thing to do but block OpenAI and Microsoft and other US companies as well. Once again Australia does whatever its told. I kind of understand when it is the mining barrons or real estate developers given they do at least make some economic contribution to the country. But I have no idea why we suck off US tech bros when all they do is lower our productivity by addicting us to crap products, corrupt our democracy and extort rent from us for the privilege.

Australia doesn't give a shit about trade with the US. They are less than 5% of our exports. They are the ones that lose in a trade war.

We care about trade with China and when China got petty and Trumpish we handled it fine by diversifying markets until they got over their hissy fit and returned to their senses.

Often the US is an aggressive competitor in our export markets and if they score some own goals in trade wars our exporters will take the advantage just like they do to us whenever they can.

The real problem is what this idiocy does to the global economy as that impacts everyone.

That is the way the USA works. The country elects a tyrant who runs the executive government stacked with their cronies, people who will back them and who need to be rewarded for their support (the spoils system). It has always been like that. They formed too early and didn't have the benefit of evolving mature parliamentary democracies like the other British colonies.

It is the job of their sorry excuse for a parliament and the politicised institution that substitutes for a high court to keep the executive accountable but both have demonstrated an unwillingness to hold the executive to account and without a true separation of powers they are clearly in very dangerous territory.

The people of the US are in control of their own destiny. They have the numbers and the power to make their country whatever they want. If they fail to do so, through their cowardice or complacency it isn't because they lack the ability but the will.