this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2026
50 points (98.1% liked)

Right to be Offline / Analog / Unplugged ๐Ÿ”Œ๐Ÿ“ช๐Ÿ“–๐Ÿ“Ÿ๐Ÿ“

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The developed world is increasingly forcing people to use incompetently designed technology. The #digitalTransformation movement is being forced onto people.

Just like we cannot rely on the public sector to solve the climate crisis, we also cannot rely on the public sector to deploy well-designed privacy-respecting inclusive technology. We always need an analog option.

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[โ€“] vrek@programming.dev 5 points 3 days ago

Reminds me of some systems I used to work on... I don't know how they were approved by osha. That got plugged into a power outlet, that wire went into the emergency power shutoff switch,physical disconnect... Big red switch, labeled emergency power switch, designed to allow for loto measures if you are working on the machine.. Seems all good right??

From the emergency power switch it was hard wired into... A UPS. That's right you switch off the "emergency power switch" and practice loto with your lock and tag, to cut off power to a ups powering everything else. All the switch did was create an annoying beep and left the rest of the system energized.

For bonus you might think this was a simple machine... It was a combination of a laser, pnuematics and a cnc so plenty of ways to hurt yourself. Yes proper loto says if before you attempt any work verify it's not energized. If something happened where say the pnuematics didn't close the door before firing the laser and was just firing radiation to everyone in the room, I switch the emergency power switch... The system should be de-energized or at a minimum not still receiving energy. Instead you had to find a screw driver(luckily #2 Philips, not proprietary), loosen 4 screws, move the metal plate of housing, press and hold the tiny power button on the ups for 10 seconds to cut off power...

Then check if any of your co-workers were bitten by a spider while that was all going on.

These systems were about $50k each....

[โ€“] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Cool but I don't want to waste my time and nerves later trying to recover data from unsafely unmounted partitions