LarrySanger.org

Month: February 2019

  • The meeting of the Larrys

    Today I was on Larry King Now (his Hulu/YouTube/RT program, similar to the old CNN “Larry King Live”). I was on a half-hour panel about blockchain with XYO’s Markus Levin and Eric Tippetts of NASGO. It’s due out March 1. Here are some pictures:

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  • How to decentralize social media—a brief sketch

    The problem about social media is that it is centralized. Centralization empowers massive corporations and governments to steal our privacy and restrict our speech and autonomy. What should exist are neutral, technical standards and protocols, like the standards and protocols for blogs, email, and the Web. Indeed, many proposed standards already do exist, but none…

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  • 18 things about Apple that suck

    Apple, how dost thou suck? Let me count the ways: iTunes, the worst software in the world. The App Store is a centrally managed walled garden. I can’t run apps Apple hasn’t approved of on my phone, and on my own computer, I have to give special permission to run programs Apple doesn’t like. iCloud…

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  • My Facebook #DeletionDay goodbye message

    Here’s what I posted as my last long message to Facebook. Folks, as previously announced, tomorrow will be my #DeletionDay for Facebook. It’ll be the last day I’ll post here, and I’ll begin the process for the permanent removal of my account. (Among other things, I’ll make a copy of my data and my friends list.)…

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  • I joined a homeschooling legal defense association

    Actually, I joined the Homeschooling Legal Defense Association (as a rank-and-file paying member). Authoritarianism is on the march, and while homeschooling has enjoyed a golden age in the last couple decades, having achieved both acceptance (even a measure of prestige) and legal freedom, I’m worried that that might be changing. It isn’t any particular event,…

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  • How deep should one go into this privacy stuff, anyway?

    Probably deeper than you thought. Here’s why. If you are convinced that privacy actually matters, and you really want to lock down your cyber-life, as I am trying to do, there are easy options, like switching to Brave (or Firefox with plugins that harden it for privacy). I’ve done that. Then there are more challenging…

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  • Why is consciousness mysterious?

    So why, precisely, is consciousness mysterious? What is it, anyway? My view on this, in short, is that the weirdness, the mysteriousness, of consciousness lies primarily in the fact that it is an event, an activity, which is a kind of property of the brain. Much of the ontological weirdness of consciousness stems from the…

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  • Join me on my new friends list

    > Go here to subscribe < My theory is that people have a hard time keeping away from Facebook because Facebook scratches a certain kind of online socialization itch. Well, since I’m leaving Facebook on #DeletionDay (Feb. 18), I reasoned, I should provide another outlet for that socialization behavior. But I wanted to be in control,…

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  • Notes on choosing a Linux distro (for Linux geeks only)

    I’ve ditched Windows on my desktop machine. Similarly, I can’t keep using macOS on my laptop. I decided to put Linux on it (and dual-boot). I thought it would be a good idea to use a different distro. But which? I thought I would do my deliberations publicly. So here goes. If I haven’t exactly…

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  • Why I quit Quora and Medium for good

    It’s not a temporary rage-quit; I’ve deleted both accounts. I have zero followers, no content, and no username. I’m outta there. This is going to be more interesting than it sounds, I promise. When I first joined Quora in 2011, I loved it, with a few small reservations. Then, after some run-ins with what I…

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