Meshtastic uses end-to-end encryption, without any central authority. There are circumstances under which that encryption can be compromised.

The strongest thing Meshtastic has going for it right now is obscurity. No one is likely to be looking at it, to say nothing of tracking and decrypting it. You can pretty much guarantee that your cell is being identified if you attend any kind of protest. There’s also a good chance that all of its voice and digital traffic is being intercepted and analyzed. Until and unless Meshtastic becomes far more common, it provides a good alternative.

This is the perfect time for LLM-based AI. We are already dealing with a significant population that accepts provable lies as facts, doesn’t believe in science. and has no concept of what hypocrisy means. The gross factual errors and invented facts of current AI couldn’t possibly fit in better.

That’s the beauty of modern corporate capitalism. The upper tiers of management are shielded from any responsibility by their subordinates. Their subordinates then have a strong incentive to shift the responsibility elsewhere so it doesn’t fall on them. Paying someone else to take the responsibility does not actually benefit the company, except may be in the short-term, but it does benefit the people who get to make the decisions about it.

And if the service provider really screws up, and loses too many contracts, they either sell out to another company just like themselves, make further profit, and go back to doing what they were doing, or they shut down, form a new company, and go back to what they were doing.

The only people who can be hurt by all of this are the regular employees, who lose their jobs as part of the cycle, and, occasionally, the shareholders, who are never adequately represented by the board. It’s a prefect system where bad decisions only affect those who have no part in them.

“The Cloud” just means “someone else’s sever”. A lot of people who should know better just don’t get that.

It’s entertaining to take almost any internal memo or external press release and substitute “someone else’s server” every time “the cloud” appears. They all suddenly look insane.

The company of friends, which includes my dogs and cats. Other people, of any species, are comforting and provide something else to focus on.

I also do a lot of reading these days.

To answer the question asked in the meme, no it doesn’t. We have two problems. One is a Democratic party that is largely run for the benefit of the ruling class and not the workers. The other is a Republican party that is actively trying to overthrow the government and replace it with a dictatorship. They are both serious problems, but they are not the same. The Democrats still acknowledge the rule of law and can be fought within the system. If the Republicans get what they want, there will be no system and the Democratic problem will become irrelevant.

You have to avoid disaster before you deal with anything else.

Pro-Trek 3500 in titanium. It has multiple sensors, radio-based time correction, a great display, a separate button for the backlight, and solar power. It you want a watch that blends in with the business-ware this is not it, but I like the way it looks.

I, for one, welcome our new cat overlords.

Actually, when I think about it, nothing is going to change.

I will always treasure the episode where the someone is explaining how their life was ruined by finding their prom date having sex with someone else during the party, and Wynonna realizing the someone else was with her.

Financially ruining the AI industry would be an awesome side-benefit.

At seventeen, I drank several beers to see if I could get used to the awful taste. The answer turned out to be “no”. It put me off alcohol for life.

I have tried various a lot of different drinks, but I have never found anything alcoholic that I actually like. I am now in my 60’s and I’m perfectly happy with not drinking.

Late stage capitalism rewards management for any appearance of change. It really doesn’t matter whether the results of that change are good or bad. And even a CEO who keeps destroying companies can always find a similar position elsewhere. The feedback loop is hopelessly broken.

AI is not universally bad. There are some things it does well. The problem is that there are a lot more things it does badly, often in harmful ways, and most people using it have no idea how to tell the difference.

You seem to be using it the right way, with caution and awareness.

Actual computer scientists should also be included with those groups.

I have tried to charge my Samsung watch on all kinds of Qi devices. They don’t work. The newer Samsung phones can charge them, but only because they have a separate set of coils that support watches.

I would follow Bernie Sanders into hell, if he said it was necessary. He would be the ideal choice to anchor a new progressive party if he were just a little younger. Not that he couldn’t do it now, it’s just likely to turn some people off. AOC would be my second choice.

Getting anything resembling a new party off the ground seems nearly impossible under the US system. You may be right that our best option, at least for now, is an informal organization of progressive candidates and supporters.

I think the question is if we can either reach a competitive level of fundraising, which seems unlikely, or find ways to make the money a less overwhelming factor. There have been enough races that money failed to buy to show that it is possible. It just isn’t very common. For something like this to work, we will need almost everyone to become an activist.

The Christian left is quite large and active, but it doesn’t attract media attention. Treating everyone like human beings and trying to help those in need isn’t nearly as interesting as spewing mindless hatred and engaging in constant hypocrisy. Those who follow “Republican Jesus” make for better entertainment.

The new model is SAAH (Software As A Hostage). You would think that overpaid CTOs and CEOS would be able to anticipate something as obvious as this. “The Cloud” just means “someone else’s server”.

I don’t think any of the current Meshtastic radios can be used in the usual way via ethernet. Some support WiFi, but not the RAKs that I know about. That leaves USB and Bluetooth.

There is a very neat option that allows you to set up to remotely administer a node via radio. That has saved me a lot of trouble with my repeater. You can’t do everything that way that you could with a direct connection, but you can do most of it.

The repeater will automatically forward messages from your personal radio to anyone who is outside your direct range. You don’t have to do anything special to make that happen. Likewise, any node, including your repeater and your personal radio, will automatically forward encrypted messages without knowing what’s in them. Only the endpoints need to have the encryption keys. Anything in between just forwards the raw data.

I’m glad it was useful to you!