That’s related to the proverb “writing code was never the main part of software engineering.” Also related to the difference in difficulty of writing the first 90% and the last 10% of useful software.

A really important part of FOSS is testing and bug fixing. Often the bulk of code is done by a small number of people but what makes their software truly useful is the testing and fixing contributions. Unless LLMs could deliver bug-free code, the FOSS projects that have community and userbase would always be more reliable and therefore useful than bespoke LLM-written software. I wouldn’t write my own grep with some custom feature. I’d use GNU grep and augment it with another tool, or perhaps get an LLM to add the feature I need to it.

More or less my thought process so am not rewriting it. Local Qwen 3.8 27B Q8 produces useful output that saves development time. It’s better at some things than others. It can save phenomenal amount of time in certain tasks like parsing codebases one’s unfamiliar with. Same with documentation. Given that FOSS is mostly volunteer work, time saving tools tend to be a benefit, if the quality can be maintained. And quality can be maintained when one has that as a goal and not pushing the absolute maximum amoumt of code. Then there’s also the tasks where quality doesn’t matter beyond the happy path working, e.g. build scripts. FOSS has such wide positive effects that the ability to make more of it should be balanced against the cost of the tools.

Supply managed?

Well this was a nice conversation to read.

I didn’t imply hiding views. I meant dodging dangerous or thought-terminating labels while being honest abt views with people. When I talk to communism-is-satan people in Canada, I don’t use labels. I tell them what I think and they listen and often agree with a lot. After a while a couple have gone so far to telling me they “think they might be a socialist” in a hush-hush manner at first, then normally. So this seems to work in my little corner.

In abstract - yes. In a state where one label puts you on a terrorist list while the other is getting popular, I think many American communists understand these words aren’t used in their book definitons in the US media and by the US state, and therefore wouldn’t feel alienated, as evidenced by the communist membership of the DSA. In my mind it’n not about the right liking me more. It’s about avoiding the lists that would make organizing much more difficult, and about not alienating the left-curious uber-propagandized people who like the ideas they’re hearing from the DSA but still consider communism to be Satan.

Branding oneself anti-communist is a condition of survival for any leftist activity approaching power in North America. Comrade Burgis does the right thing there, given “Antifa” was already declared terrorist.

This article is a tour de force in liberal idealism. It asks no questions, it answers none, it offers no reflection. Instead it appeals to liberal ideals, points to threats to those ideas and admonishes those who have turned away from them.

This sort of thinking and analysis is in large part why we find ourselves where we are in western democracies.

Two days later, autistici.org became unreachable after Public Interest Registry (PIR), the U.S.-based operator of ​the .org domain, placed it on serverHold status. PIR said it was legally required to ​suspend the domain following the designation.

Banca Etica, an Italian lender where the collective held an ‌account, ⁠subsequently suspended the account, citing sanctions-related risks. The bank criticised what it described as the use of U.S. sanctions for political purposes.

This is how it works. All they have to do is but you on that list and the whole US-linked and dollar-linked system takes you out of the economy.

Then she added one more layer of data — where people were getting help paying their electric bills each summer, from public programs or local organizations.

An obvious pattern emerged. There were big clusters of dots collected in certain areas: lots of deaths, and little assistance.

Those clusters turned out to be mobile home parks.

Yup, the poor are first under the bus.

Holy mother of psychopath…

There’s likely pros. Not sure if the cons would be less. Has anyone not-oil&gas-funded made an analysis?

My impression is that we go through the motions for more independence, but it is more to apeace the population than it is to be independent.

This is how it feels around here too. Lots of people hope this time it’s different, and so do I but I’m not holding my breath. I’m waiting to see material changes before I praise anyone.

Then the goal of the EU is to cut gas consumption. This is happening as gas boilers are replaced by heat pumps and gas power plants by wind, solar and batteries.

I think this is really the best way out.

Then you get mfkers be like - ‘but Midea is Chinese!’ - completely ignoring the massive difference in real dependence (lesser) created by importing heat pumps, solar, wind and batteries compared to importing and burning gas.

Good info. A quarter (a bit over) provides enough leverage during “negotiations.” To examine that I picture the effect of cutting 25% of EU’s gas supply and use historical examples of what that looks like.

Here’s what import trends look like without RU and US:

There’s a bit of growth in Norway.

And here’s what US imports look like:

Qatar would be in the Other cat:

That was down prior to the US-Israel war on Iran compares to earlier years.

Would be spectacular if the US gas trend reverses direction but I wouldn’t count on it without significant indignation from EU citizens. Industry needs gas, the US provides gas, industry buys it. Individual players in the industry care about their bottom line, not whether this creates leverage for the US to use in other parts of the economy. It’s the same mechanism that created the dependence on Russian gas. The only way this process changes is through state intervention and that won’t happen unless citizens strongly demand it. Cause industry demands the opposite from the gov’t. It’s a shit predicament. I’m pessimistic but would love to be wrong in 5 years.

It makes great sense actually.

None of this points to decreased dependence on US gas in the future. In case you’re confused about why I mentioned gas, check how the dependence on Russian oil & gas affected Europe’s ability to help Ukraine.

US LNG producers climb as EU agrees to $750 billion in energy purchases

Probably not before a switch away from American LNG.

Fewer treats these days are hard to ignore.