Robert J. Berger

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... PC Revolutions, C compilers clacking huge Floppy Disks , Lisp Machine Nirvana, Unix Wars, building an early ISP, Metro Wireless, #Startups that went down, Hardware Image Processing, Objective C training from Brad Cox, first C++ Conference, unreadable Perl, lots of Python, Ruby, #Clojure and now back to #Python, #DevOps, #AWSCommunityBuilder, #Serverless, #Sourdough Software System and Cloud Architectures. Not time to die!

#AntiFascist tootfinder

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Last Notes

2026-03-09 17:36:27 UTC

One of @nprofile…ugpy's best posts and one of the best reasoning as to why we need to get rid of billionaires.
"The problem isn't whether rich people believe stupid shit; it's the fact that when a rich person believes something stupid, that belief can turn into torment for dozens, thousands, or millions of people.”
#billionaires
https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/09/autocrats-of-trade-2/#witness-the-firepower-of-this-fully-armed-and-operational-battle-station

2026-02-17 22:36:04 UTC

We are no longer a free country. Treasonous insurrectionists have stolen elections, not thru vote rigging but thru passing laws to make it harder to vote and thru their billionaire owner’s control of the Media. https://masto.ai/@Nonilex/116088070271581809

2026-02-13 06:38:09 UTC

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@nprofile…yz28 So is he worse than Susan Collins?

2026-02-04 19:44:51 UTC

Peter Thiel is the Stephen Miller of the TechBros

2026-02-02 19:52:25 UTC

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@nprofile…llgf @nprofile…xg4c https://holocaustcenter.jfcs.org/education-resources/ordinary-men/ is one such book (I haven’t read it though)
And then a nice article: We are Not "Good Germans"
While echoes with the 1930s abound, a closer look at how Germans failed to stop Hitler suggests that America's antibodies are much stronger.
By Micah L. Sifry
https://theconnector.substack.com/p/we-are-not-good-germans

2026-01-22 03:10:02 UTC

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/21/ice-minnesota-trump

2025-12-22 21:36:42 UTC

Tapper and all the Trump apologists in the Media must go. Time to take back the Media from the Billionaires (and tax the Billionaires into single digit millionaires. https://universeodon.com/@jaykuo/115667672680555988

2025-10-12 22:24:54 UTC

“Simple shade from panel rows can create a gentler microclimate at ground level, cutting wind stress and helping fragile seedlings establish."
#solarpower
https://glassalmanac.com/china-confirms-solar-panel-projects-are-irreversibly-changing-desert-ecosystems/

2025-10-12 01:19:52 UTC

“Stephen Miller looks like he should have been one of the guys melted at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark”
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/115/358/563/798/764/574/original/d78503df89c7cc64.png

2025-07-23 04:16:16 UTC

“Many State Offices are concerned that Starlink proposals may be the lowest bid and alternative proposals may not be within the 15% window for consideration. What this analysis presents is that across many geographic areas Starlink may not be a qualified bidder as it may be unable to attain the required 100/20 Mbps service level (and, in deploying Starlink services, may actually degrade pre-existing users’ services to the point that they no longer receive minimal broadband speeds).”
#Enshitification #StarLink
https://communitynetworks.org/content/new-research-starlink-unlikely-meet-bead-speed-needs-scale

2025-07-01 22:48:55 UTC

Fascism in the USA:
Oklahoma Set to Teach Trump’s Election Lies in Public Schools as Parents and Teachers Push Back
https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/oklahoma-set-to-teach-trumps-election-lies-in-public-schools-as-parents-and-teachers-push-back/

2025-06-25 01:19:58 UTC

American Democracy Might Not Survive a War With Iran
The United States is well down the road to dictatorship. Imagine what Trump would do with a state of war.
#GiftArticle #USPolitics
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/06/democracy-iran-israel-war-trump/683269/?gift=E9o0y7Rlfcfv2OQ1sSVCEglNGkNaOm3ulZvY2L-kUho&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

2025-06-15 00:04:54 UTC

Over 12,000 people at San Jose #NoKings march!
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/114/684/453/055/405/549/original/4aca7171e4378a60.jpeg
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/114/684/453/352/058/200/original/18c7a0101cb7d6d5.jpeg
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/114/684/453/768/093/835/original/a29ce91d5f5189aa.jpeg
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/114/684/454/105/086/464/original/5abbe442648c91f3.jpeg

2025-05-23 03:25:24 UTC

America is going to be Trump's 7th Bankruptcy
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/114/555/009/340/659/206/original/c44d1f6ef235eb8b.jpeg

2025-04-27 19:48:27 UTC

"I think it is a huge mistake for people to assume that they can trust AI when they do not trust each other. The safest way to develop superintelligence is to first strengthen trust between humans, and then cooperate with each other to develop superintelligence in a safe manner. But what we are doing now is exactly the opposite. Instead, all efforts are being directed toward developing a superintelligence."
#AGI #AI
https://www.wired.com/story/questions-answered-by-yuval-noah-harari-for-wired-ai-artificial-intelligence-singularity/

2025-04-13 18:50:57 UTC

"The one thing that can stop the rise of the far right is the one thing mainstream parties are currently not prepared to deliver: greater equality. The rich should be taxed more, and the revenue used to improve the lives of the poor. However frantically centrist parties avoid the issue, there is no other way."
#FightingOligarchy
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/13/trump-populists-human-nature-economic-growth

2025-04-08 16:49:20 UTC

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@nprofile…74c4 I have a Bluesky account just to see what's up, hardly use it. Last weekend I decided to post a video from the Hands Off march in San Jose I shot and it ended up being marked as SPAM by the official moderators. So yeah, its not trustworthy..

2025-04-08 04:38:00 UTC

"The Republican Party is a hollow, decrepit husk. It is not a political movement. It is not a governing apparatus. It is not even an ideology with any internal coherence. It is a decaying vessel for a set of impulses: authoritarianism, greed, cruelty, nostalgia, and fear. And now, with the party marching in lockstep behind a man openly exploring how to violate the Constitution to seize a third term in office, it is fair to say the Republican Party has collapsed into something far worse than irrelevance. It is a clear and present danger to democracy."
#USPolitics
https://www.theindex.media/the-gop-is-the-most-dangerous-organization-in-america/?ref=dispatches-newsletter

2025-04-08 01:29:10 UTC

"But Wall Street professionals, like so many other ostensibly smart people, refused to see Trump clearly, mistaking his skill as a demagogue for wisdom as a policymaker. “I don’t think this was foreseeable,” a mournful Ackman posted on X on Monday. “I assumed economic rationality would be paramount.” What an odd assumption to make about a man who bankrupted casinos.
Berezin thinks Wall Street still hasn’t come to terms with the cost of the nascent Trump presidency. “I do think that at this point we might have passed the event horizon, meaning that even if Trump backs off from the tariffs, there’s been enough damage done to the U.S. economy, to the global economy, to investor confidence, consumer confidence, that we’re probably going to see a recession regardless of what happens,” he said.""
#GiftArticle #USPolitics
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/opinion/trump-stock-market-wall-street.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-E4.q7Gk.5YS3EpoLnh8C&smid=url-share

2025-04-06 22:57:12 UTC

"The damage isn't theoretical. It's active. It's live. And it's reshaping the world. Trade routes are shifting. Investment is diversifying. Global power is rebalancing. China, Korea, and Japan are shaking hands. All of it is premised on a hard-earned truth: the United States cannot be trusted to lead. Not because of one man but because of what half the country has chosen to normalize. Not because of Trump alone but because every institution built to restrain him failed and then got in line."
#USPolitics
https://www.theindex.media/trust-is-dead-trump-keeps-selling-the-corpse/?ref=dispatches-newsletter

2025-04-06 20:00:56 UTC

"You should know Trump isn’t doing this on his own. The Hoover Institution has been plotting revenge against FDR since 1932. Groups like the Heritage Foundation and Heartland Foundation are generations old. The Federalist Society has been promising to overturn liberal justice since the 1960s. The Religious Right started working to overturn Roe v. Wade the day it was promulgated. All these groups have big money, and they play the long game.
What’s happening today is their platform, backed by their research. The fact it won’t work, that the 20th century won’t be put back into a bottle, that the Amendments put in place after 1865 somehow aren’t part of the “real” Constitution, is yet to be proven by events."
https://danafblankenhorn.substack.com/p/all-in-the-family

2025-03-29 05:49:04 UTC

"These men—human beings with names, histories, dreams—were marched through a gauntlet of armed guards, beaten, stripped naked, shaved, and thrown into overcrowded cells. A photojournalist on the scene described watching men age a decade in two hours. He watched as one young man sobbed, “I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.” This man was slapped for his tears, beaten for his vulnerability.
No phone calls. No visitors. No books. No talking. Just exile to a place “so cold and far from home they may as well have been sent into space, nameless and forgotten.”
And all of this—every slap, every sob, every stolen dignity—stamped with American approval. Coordinated with American officials. Executed with American efficiency."
#USPolitics
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/28/what-is-it-exactly-that-being-an-american-means-to-you/

2025-03-25 23:22:28 UTC

"I've seen smarter cabinets at Ikea." - quote of the day

2025-03-19 17:44:02 UTC

Imagine saying "empathy is a weakness" and also wanting people to feel bad for you because your cars
are being boycotted

2025-03-18 16:24:21 UTC

The role of this "human in the loop" isn't to prevent errors. That human's is there to be *blamed* for errors
The human is there to be a "moral crumple zone"
The human is there to be an "accountability sink"
- @nprofile…qz4x
#Enshitification #AISlop #USPolitics
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/asbestos-in-the-walls/#government-by-spicy-autocomplete

2025-03-18 05:23:15 UTC

"The authoritarian playbook exploits the machinery of democracy against itself. It uses democratic processes to undermine democratic substance. It leverages judicial independence to capture courts. It uses free speech to spread disinformation. It uses elections to install leaders who then methodically dismantle the guardrails that might constrain them.
And it works because not enough people care enough to stop it.
This isn't fatalism. It's an warning bell, and it's being rung by journalists, writers, academics, activists, and believers everywhere."
#USpolitics
https://www.theindex.media/the-parchment-barrier/?ref=daily-newsletter

2025-03-15 08:46:25 UTC

The article has some useful context about Musk's career, notably what a sleazeball he has always been in his business and public dealings. It also points up the way governments have refused to do their regulatory jobs – and, less explicitly, how journalism has been a lapdog along the way.
But as it accurately points out Musk's desperate efforts to slow or reverse the well-deserved slide at Tesla, it doesn't get into the truly scary stuff. Namely, Musk won't give a damn about Tesla or its shareholders if his coup (per the first piece in this newsletter) succeeds. If he can divert U.S. government spending even more (see: SpaceX) into his bank accounts, Tesla will be an afterthought. Everything we know about this guy says there are no boundaries on his lust for money, and power. - @nprofile…6gnj
#GiftArticle #USPolitics
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/elon-musk-human-meme-stock/682023/?gift=E9o0y7Rlfcfv2OQ1sSVCEgkDEKZYs7EieUCMLo2g4Cg&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

2025-03-12 00:45:41 UTC

Like most Democrats, I’m trained to believe that you always vote for [continuing resolutions]. Government shutdowns are a stupid idea. It’s the radical Republicans who want to shut down the government.
But this is a bizarre situation in which the president of the United States and this billionaire are already shutting down the government.
So if I’m a Democrat in Congress, why do I vote for a continuing resolution to fund programs that are not continuing? It really is just a blank check.
It’s like giving Trump and Musk a trillion dollars and saying, Spend it as you like…
#USPolitics
https://newrepublic.com/article/192575/transcript-trump-sinking-heres-dems-shouldnt-save-him

2025-03-04 19:34:34 UTC

Assuming that the past six weeks are predictive of what’s next, expect an age of anxiety; expect the elimination of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of jobs; expect the decimation of liberal institutions to go on for all four years of Trump’s second term; expect government services to deteriorate; expect reduced funding of the safety net; and expect more homelessness, hunger and disease.
Expect poverty; expect the financial starvation of universities and of nongovernmental organizations; and expect unannounced raids, unreliable data and an America increasingly aligned with authoritarians worldwide.
Expect a pervasive climate of suspicion and a preoccupation with revenge. Expect more suffering, more fear, less security and less happiness.
In other words, expect the worst.
#USPolitics #GiftArticle
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/opinion/trump-imperial-presidency.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1U4.8Mol.St36SiEOgZWc&smid=url-share

2025-02-18 19:00:30 UTC

The Musk/Trump administration is committing treason, giving aid and comfort to our enemies right in front of our eyes.
#USPolitics
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/18/us-russia-ukraine-talks-riyadh-saudi-arabia

2025-02-10 05:47:17 UTC

Its time to hold these treasonous fascists accountable. They swore to uphold the constitution but day after day they are attempting to shred it.
The VP nor President Musk nor CP (Cuck President) Trump get to interpret the Constituion as they want.
Constituion 101 is the separation of powers and how they are designed to check and balance the 3 branches of government.
We had a revolution to overthrow kings. Time to throw out the wannabe kings.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/us/politics/vance-trump-federal-courts-executive-order.html?unlocked_article_code=1.v04.7CfI.zeMvHxTbrUFc&smid=url-share

2025-02-09 20:28:40 UTC

Just one of the many sociopaths Musk is using to destroy our civilization.
"Davis is known for cost cutting and running fast-paced operations, which have at times resulted in clashes with safety regulators.
While he was president of Boring in 2023, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) found that 15 to 20 Boring employees in Las Vegas had been burned with chemical accelerants due to hazardous working conditions at the site.
The company’s former safety manager told Fortune that Davis had undercut and isolated him in ways that prohibited him from doing his job, while former employees said Davis imposed difficult deadlines and encouraged a breakneck pace.
One Boring employee emailed the safety manager warning that workers “consistently flirted with death” while in the tunnels, according to Fortune."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/08/elon-musk-doge-team-staff

2025-02-09 07:04:26 UTC

"Trump, the convicted felon, proves each day that he is unfit for the high office he holds.
He aims to destroy the fundamentals of American democracy: the separation of powers, civil and voting rights, secularism, free speech and equality under the law.
He is a menace to global peace, stability and prosperity.
Pushback has begun, largely through the courts. Yet a few defiant judges cannot win this huge, rapidly developing struggle. The Democrats, stunned into virtual silence, must wake up"
#USPolitics
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/08/the-observer-view-vengeful-and-reckless-donald-trump-must-not-go-unchallenged

2025-02-07 21:00:59 UTC

"In trying to make sense of the wrecking ball that is Elon Musk and President Trump’s DOGE, it may be helpful to think about the Evil Housekeeper Problem. It’s a principle of computer security roughly stating that once someone is in your hotel room with your laptop, all bets are off. Because the intruder has physical access, you are in much more trouble. And the person demanding to get into your computer may be standing right beside you.
So who is going to stop the evil housekeeper from plugging a computer in and telling IT staff to connect it to the network?
What happens if someone comes in and tells you that you’ll be fired unless you reveal the authenticator code from your phone, or sign off on a code change, or turn over your PIV card, the Homeland Security–approved smart card used to access facilities and systems and securely sign documents and emails? What happens if someone says your name will otherwise be published in an online list of traitors? Already the new administration is firing, putting on leave, or outright escorting from the building people who refuse to do what they’re told. "
#USPolitcs #CyberSecurity
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/07/1111283/elon-musk-doge-and-the-evil-housekeeper-problem-government-technology/

2024-12-25 20:22:29 UTC

Elon Musk has ordered everyone to stop donating to Wikipedia.
I never started, until today seeing a similar message.
‪donate.wikimedia.org‬ is the link, if anyone feels like disobeying a direct order from a billionaire jerkwad.

2024-03-03 05:29:36 UTC

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@npub1g7t…n6x7 We need to have massive protests in every city and particularly in Washington DC demanding the removal of Trump Appointees from all Judicial positions and insurrectionists from Congress.

2024-03-03 03:43:46 UTC

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@npub1gsf…fhkr I don’t understand why we’re not having huge protests against the clearly corrupt Supreme Court, Gerrymandering, and Citizens United

2023-12-23 06:49:52 UTC

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@npub1gha…ffp5 @npub107s…4xuc Lock him up already

2023-11-08 08:25:45 UTC

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@npub18lj…80hq Story is from the perspective of a guy who falls in love with a Rich women who tells him to meet her next Pluterday. In order to get enough money to get into Pluterday, he gets a Time Machine (that’s a funny story too) goes back in time, writes the book of the Jewish People, comes back and is super rich from royalties from the Bible… (at least that’s what I remember from reading it decades ago)

2023-11-08 08:22:52 UTC

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@npub18lj…80hq Where were you last Pluterday? Hilarious book originally in Dutch. The theme in the book is Pluterday, an extra day in the week which can be withdrawn if one saves enough time (e.g. by taking a plane instead of a train). Only the rich can save enough time and thus Pluterday is in practice reserved for the "happy few", resulting in a class society. The existence of Pluterdays is kept secret from non-privileged people. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_were_you_last_Pluterday%3F

2023-09-03 20:45:40 UTC

…the worldviews of men like Hammond and Lincoln are still fundamental to our society: Should our government protect people of property as they exploit the majority so they can accumulate wealth and move society forward as they wish? Or should we protect the right of ordinary Americans to build their own lives, making sure that no one can monopolize the country’s money and resources, with the expectation that their efforts will build society from the ground up?
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/september-2-2023