Ominbus tech thread

[Dr Strangelove]

The movie Spider-Man: Brand New Day paid BMW to take over the display of every BMW made after 2020.

The movie Spider-Man: Brand New Day paid BMW to take over the display of every BMW made after 2020.

[Dr Strangelove]

Apple: We briefly removed Telegram from the App Store after our review found content that violates our strict guidelines prohibiting child sexual abuse material. The app was subsequently restored after the developer promptly removed the content and banned the user who posted it.


Apple previously removed Telegram in 2018 for similar reasons — illegal content discovered during App Store review.

[testerone]

I did it.
Took Windows off the laptop I use to read the news, check FB and email, do my online banking from as I have morning coffee.
Linux Min Cinnamon on that 16GB 8th gen i5 runs great, but U'll probably add KDE Plasma as I use that on my other Linux Machines.
I still have Win 11 on my work tower but can't access the Shared folder anymore. The printers, the NAS and the Bluetooth were already there the minute booted up, but a simple Windows share NOOOOOO...
Good riddance to bad rubbish!

[Dr Strangelove]

Gratz man.

[Dr Strangelove]

The Problem of Digital Colonialism: The video opens with the story of Judge Kimberly Prost (0:02-3:18), who had her digital accounts and credit cards cancelled due to US economic sanctions. This serves as a cautionary tale for how dependent individuals and entire nations have become on US technology.
The Shift in Philosophy: Host Stephen Marche and guest Tim Wu (6:24-13:58) discuss how the "optimism of the 1990s"—which viewed the internet as a tool for liberation—has given way to a reality where tech monopolies act as extractive, amoral, and potentially weaponizable infrastructure.
Europe's Response: Experts Margrethe Vestager (14:34-21:18) and Cristina Caffarra (21:30-30:30) detail strategies to regain sovereignty. Key steps include:
Enforcement: Strictly applying laws to ensure market competition.
Building Alternatives: Directing public sector demand toward local, homegrown cloud and software solutions (the "Euro stack" concept).
Taking Agency: Moving away from being "infantilized" by waiting for regulations to fix everything and instead actively funding and scaling local tech providers.
Conclusion: The video argues that tech is not just a commercial product but a vital pillar of national infrastructure (31:30). Canada is beginning to pursue its own sovereign AI compute infrastructure, but must recognize that digital independence is essential for future economic and democratic security.

[testerone]

Excellent points made.
The US govt should not be able to block your accounts with amazon.ca or walmart.ca or stop your RBC or TD Visa. We need to protect our own people.
We should also seriously look at following Europe and de-Microsoft govt services.

Got an old computer kicking about? Start protecting your own files. Load it up with Ubuntu Server, TrueNas or OMV and get rid of those goddam Cloud accounts. That old 80GB hard drive holds 15 times more than the cloud bullshit does before it starts telling you you must buy more. No matter how old the computer is it will upload and download your stuff faster than to the 'cloud'.

[Dr Strangelove]

Our provinces spend as little as possible warehousing personal information. Only laws and regulations prevent them from cutting even deeper into the bone. That said, there are few proveniences that take personal information as seriously as BC does. PIPPA was ushered in an era when P3 (public private partnerships) was all the rage to cut costs as a means to offset the risks that private interest could threaten public good. As such it became the standard other provinces looked to and industry set their forecasts upon. Alberta and Ontario clearly went the other way and tried to sell government out of everything at fire sale prices to corporate buddies. Well once you burn everything down to the studs you can rebuild with better blueprints. Problem is when it comes to regulations and provinces it is like herding cats. It why we still have interprovincial trade barriers to this day that still make it more expensive to trade with the province next door then the country on the other side of the planet. This is where the feds should be reading the riot act and telling the provinces that they are not countries onto themselves. Such as no contract with any foreign interest.

Till that is done they will keep using cheapest possible software in the market that caters to the USA. Make it law that they can't and then they will change habits, not before.