SamuelJohnson

Scientist, MBA, ex IT professional, Irish & European
Lived 30+ years on 4 continents, now back in Ireland.

Deleted WhatsApp the day Zuckerberg bought it. Ditto Twitter & Musk.
Boycott: Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Tesla. Advocate: EU, open source.

Public Key

npub19rg5mcs4vcymnu3f65j2vuszvgwz4att2gasm8pt4xpxw9mak8fqu3wn53

NIP-05 Address

samueljohnson_at_mstdn.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsz352dug2kvzde7g5a2f9xwgpxy8p27444ywcdns46nqn8za7mr5spz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsz2s3j3

Publishing to

relay.primal.net

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub19rg5mcs4vcymnu3f65j2vuszvgwz4att2gasm8pt4xpxw9mak8fqu3wn53

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Last Notes

2026-08-01 09:33:15 UTC

RE: https://eupolicy.social/@bert_hubert/117013610570019972
A worthwhile essay. I'm old enough to remember when public organizations needed kicking to get online (one UN agency I worked with set up a web site despite management approval being refused). The tendency now, when it comes to AI, seems to be "jump on the bandwagon quick!"
This lunacy has infected even the EU. See @npub1k2l…dvmj's announcement of tenders for "AI Gigafactories".
[@david_chisnall](https://infosec.exchange/@david_chisnall )'s critique is technically 🎯 but people won't appreciate it or be engaged by it.
#note1vew…kx7p

2026-07-20 13:42:46 UTC

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AFAIK motherless isn't simply a porn website. I've never seen it but I have read that it has featured videos of torture and people having their throats cut (taken during the conflict in Bosnia, supposedly)*. I have no objection to that kind of content being taken down and feel it probably ought to be illegal everywhere. A better solution than surveilling the communications of entire populations.
*Did the principals think the 1st amendment protected their right to this "speech"?

2026-06-18 10:40:49 UTC

RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116766862139079403
"eminently guillotineable billionaire"
Doctorow saying out loud what at least one billionaire has warned others about for years: Nick Hanauer.
https://pitchforkeconomics.com/
#note1k4t…arlx

2026-06-03 22:35:11 UTC

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The Kia app.

2026-03-30 17:35:43 UTC

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In Ireland we're laughing. But then we have proportional voting, strict limits on political donations, no gerrymandering and much else the US has yet to discover.

2026-03-04 09:46:56 UTC

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Hmm. Black desk in the video. Wood effect top in the thumbnail? Good review.
What keyboard? (As you're a sensible pragmatist 😉 -- you can tell your wife, no doubt she's cromulent too 😋).

2026-03-04 09:00:14 UTC

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True. The rapid growth of renewables is our only hope and is happening, with predictions being exceeded every year. It's not Game Over yet, and there's some chance that current conflicts will further accelerate the transition.
If cement industry was a country it would rank 7th for emissions (Economist some yrs ago). EU's CBAM should help w some of the diversion to China and others will need to follow. US insanity will (must) be unsustained.

2026-03-03 09:14:24 UTC

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Nevertheless the share of China's energy that comes from coal is declining fast and will continue to do so
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub?country=~CHN
Furthermore, some of the new coal plants replace older inefficient ones and produce fewer emissions.
One would almost think the Chinese have expected trouble in t' gulf and planned accordingly.

2026-03-02 14:21:06 UTC

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Should have paid Kushner a bit more.

2026-02-28 10:02:42 UTC

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If we solve the billionaire problem the climate problem will be mostly solved as a side-effect.

2026-02-08 23:38:20 UTC

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See
https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/116002701900309781

2026-02-07 21:13:18 UTC

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Some fine anti-Irish bigotry here, which is not the best way to elicit support. The US made no request and the Irish state made no response. The flight was carried out in accordance with existing rules as is explained in the article. In light of the report it's likely the rules will change.

2026-01-30 19:22:35 UTC

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BYD has overtaken Tesla globally, has achieved the highest growth rate in Europe, and would have done even better but for tariffs designed to protect, in particular, VW, a company that cheated emissions regulations and now wants more time to catch up in areas it lags rivals.
None of this has anything to do with beliefs. I made no assertion that BYD had overtaken VW (your prime concern apparently) or would do so imminently.

2026-01-30 18:45:13 UTC

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If you count "whipped etc" as outselling right now you're correct, but if you pay attention to the growth rate despite high tariffs it's clear that the Chinese will overtake many European automakers (ie those they haven't bought yet).

2026-01-30 18:23:32 UTC

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I missed any reference to Europe here:
"BYD is now the undisputed king of EVs, outselling everyone by a large and growing margin. Its technology is better, and its prices are much lower."
BYD overtook Telsa in global sales. Telsa sales are falling. VW is surviving behind a high tariff barrier necessitated in part by the billions it blew in fines for rigging its CO2 emissions.

2026-01-07 09:42:41 UTC

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He is wrong. The examples of power failing to prevail against the ability of a people to resist, to endure and to outlast it are numerous. Americans ought to know this.

2026-01-04 11:35:58 UTC

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In Ireland some people attacked US military planes with spray paint and hammers, causing a lot of damage which they freely admitted. They were charged, not with terrorism but criminal damage. A jury declined to find them guilty. "Sorry Sam, nothing we can do" said the govt.
One of these days the English will run out of forelocks.

2025-12-11 14:34:42 UTC

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it's a curious fact that a great many grammatical solecisms are committed by native speakers of English, some of whom value their own opinion more than any accepted authority, such eg
Https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/amount-of-number-of-or-quantity-of
My wife is, among other things, a qualified trainer of teachers of English as a 2nd language and I'm aware of and respectful of the existence of what is considered correct usage, that is, what is taught in *UK govt accredited* language schools.

2025-12-10 18:21:31 UTC

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Interesting but 1. in grammatically correct English number is used for countable nouns and amount for uncountable nouns.
2. One term?
Spicy
Hot
Fiery
Sharp
Piquant
Peppery
Tangy
Zing
Bitter
Etc.

2025-10-24 11:26:08 UTC

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Can you kindly provide a source for this statistic?

2025-04-11 02:59:36 UTC

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Egregious and evil, from an aspiring dictator. "I want my people to stand up" (when I enter the room) who will soon be demanding military parades and eventually disappearances of his enemies.
I'd like to people follow him him around with little notebooks writing down his words of wisdom, but begin to suspect it's too late for even ridicule.

2025-04-09 19:44:52 UTC

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I am familiar with Jabber. I'm also familiar the attitudes of friends, family and neighbours who ALL use either Android or iPhones and aren't about to adopt any messaging app not already popular. One might as well try persuading them to use Dvorak keyboards. I'm well aware of the disadvantages of Signal but I prefer pragmatic solutions over (currently) unachievable perfect ones.

2025-04-09 19:23:53 UTC

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I decline to use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter or Bluesky and don't have any issue with refusing to do so. Using Signal is a compromise I'm willing to make, for now, precisely because it's easy to use for non expert users and already popular.
People I know are already fed up needing multiple apps to charge their EV's at different charging stations. We don't need the equivalent situation for messaging.

2025-04-09 19:00:42 UTC

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All fair points but completely irrelevant to most people who have either iPhones or Android phones and wouldn't have the first clue what an XMPP client is and aren't about to demand one.
Signal used with a username is entirely anonymous. Better, imo, to advocate for what is realistically achievable first then improve on it. When most are using WhatsApp, Gmail etc and are not persuaded of any adverse consequences suggesting unpopular ideal alternatives is futile.

2025-04-09 17:19:10 UTC

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I don't think this is realistic. Most people I know can't be persuaded to give up Gmail & similar and the few who do use Signal don't contribute a cent (I do). Including it with billionaire-controlled for profit /surveillance services is making the perfect the enemy of the good.

2025-04-09 16:51:08 UTC

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Why include Signal? It's supported by a non-profit foundation and is usable without surrendering one's privacy. It's secure, can be used both anonymously and without payment. Not remotely in the same category as either Amazon or WhatsApp (and many others, Google, Apple etc).
Because American = bad?
That just isn't true.

2025-03-28 19:41:26 UTC

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Old Cobol isn't necessarily spaghetti. Lots of Cobol was done using Jackson Structured Design. With proper variable names it should be very clear what it's supposed to do, which was really the point of Cobol. I'd be interested to see the business case for replacing it.
Atlas Saturn rockets never had a launch failure even during testing despite primitive IT. SpaceX replacement has had 7 failures in a row despite the latest IT.

2025-03-03 09:51:25 UTC

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Leasehold tenure was abolished in Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, the US and everywhere else that inherited it from the British Empire. Not done in England and Wales because of resistance from vested interests, from the monarchy on down, not because it's complicated.

2025-02-24 17:49:11 UTC

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I saw the benefit of a similar blind test when I was on a recruitment panel for a graphic artist once many years ago in the Netherlands. Panel was deadlocked so candidates were given an assignment on the spot and the panel agreed to blind adjudication in 30 minutes.
The hands down winner was brown, the other was white.
Both were competent but one was also FAST.

2025-02-23 10:21:00 UTC

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There has been and continues to be a large increase in applications from UK for academic and scientific research positions in Ireland since Brexit. And why not:
Brits currently enjoy free movement to Ireland where they don't need to learn another language, can bring their car and electrical appliances, continue to access all UK media, generally earn more, live longer, enjoy low cost return travel, enjoy saner and more consensual governance and become (EU) citizens in 5 years (or less).

2025-02-22 21:56:34 UTC

US threats to extort Ukraine over access to Starlink underline the strategic soundness of the EU's decision to implement the Galileo global navigation satellite system. European autonomy matters.
The US effectively siding with Russia against democratic allies will not end well for anyone, least of all the US.
The UK shares intelligence with the US and has been shut out of military grade Galileo data. Re-evaluations leading to greater European autonomy are likely in progress.

2024-12-30 00:01:44 UTC

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Consider switching to Ghost. It's the ethical alternative. Substack is a VC-funded venture willing to publish he vilest far-right tropes and has been boycotted accordingly.. Ghost is fully open source and free if you self-host. It's not a publisher and earns $0.00 from your content. A good complement to the Fediverse which it's in the process of joining via ActivityPub support (in progress / imminent).

2024-12-21 08:49:03 UTC

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Before GDPR if I wrote and asked you for data you held about me you'd know you could ignore the request or wave it off. GDPR is about much more than what YOU were already doing.

2024-11-30 00:34:16 UTC

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If you aren't at the table you're on the menu.

2024-11-24 11:19:50 UTC

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Also
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken

2024-11-08 12:50:28 UTC

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Most of the EU budget comes from a flat 0.3% levy on VAT, which is why larger economies contribute more (UK was 8th on a per capita basis).
This is the cost of replacing dozens of sets of regulations with one for the whole single market, and it's peanuts in the larger scheme of things, as the UK now discovers--with the costs of implementing customs *alone* exceeding total contributions to date and needing to be funded from a smaller economy.

2024-10-27 20:06:39 UTC

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Keep hearing such stories and then finding they are not true.
You think?
How many avoidable deaths would you consider acceptable?
The Irish people decided the right answer was: none
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar

2024-08-09 23:48:53 UTC

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Thanks. I know about it; just haven't gotten around to it yet. Plan to start with my old Pixel 3 (2nd hand phone purchased from a kid "upgrading" to an iPhone 15).

2024-08-08 10:01:08 UTC

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👏I own an Android TV (surveillance machine, I have had to regulate). Will never buy another. Gave up Google search long ago. YouTube, Google Maps and Android phone on borrowed time--I hope. For me that is.