Good News: In der Causa Adrienne Fichter/Republik vs. Amazon... 1:0 😎 ✌

Das Bundesverwaltungsgericht sieht keinen Grund warum in den Rahmenverträgen der 4 anderen Tech-Konzerne (Alibaba, Microsoft, IBM und Oracle) Geschäftsgeheimnisse drin stehen sollen, die Amazon betreffen würden.

Die Beschwerde des mächtigen IT-Konzerns von Jeff Bezos wurde abgewiesen. Der Schweizer Rechtsstaat hat schon mal in einer Zwischenetappe gesiegt.

Mal sehen ob Amazon - die sich für dreiste juristische Spielereien nicht zu schade sind und die scheinbar alles dafür tun, um Transparenz für die Schweizer Bürger:innen zu verunmöglichen - die Blockade aufgibt oder an das Bundesgericht weiterziehen wird.

Wenn nicht, erhalte ich in wenigen Wochen schon mal die Vertragsinhalte von IBM, Alibaba, Microsoft und Oracle.

Fun Fact: die Anwälte von Amazon arbeiten offenbar nicht so gründlich...aus Adrienne Fichter wurde irgendwo "Adrienne Richter" (Freud'scher?)

Kollege @petarmarj hat die Zwischenverfügung kurz dokumentiert für blue News:

bluewin.ch/de/news/schweiz/ama…

Commodore 64 Nostalgia Nerds

The older you get, nostalgic moments can be fun, even if fleeting. If nothing else they jog a few memories to the front of your brain for a bit. When they involve bits and bytes they also help you remember just how much things have changed. One of those fun memories for me is of my first computer, The Commodore 64.

Recently, news hit that Christian ‘Peri Fractic’ Simpson, who has been trying to revive the Commodore 64 for some time now, has finally put enough of whatever he needs to start taking pre-orders for a “new” Commodore 64.

The announcement stirred a wave of nostalgia from those, like myself, who owned one of these early personal computers. And like many, those waves felt quite pleasant to surf in for a while. It also has churned up some of the rough waves from back in the day when “what computer is best” was a big part of the discussion.

I owned the Commodore 64, later moved to the Commodore 128 and then an Amiga, before eventually surrendering to the IBM PC/Windows world and later Apple. But I do indeed have fond memories of sprites dancing around on the small TV monitor I had connected to the 64, all of the peripherals I accumulated along the way, and some of the games. Archon and Lode Runner were two of my favorites, and the text adventure version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was my first exposure to Douglas Adams. I was also a fan of the GEOS operating system. And yes, I typed in many a computer program from computer magazines of the day, as well as quite a few words into PaperClip.

Drew Sauer has penned a nice piece on this called The Commodore 64 Made A Difference, continuing the trip down memory lane and also surfacing some of those “what computer is best” feelings, apparently not too deeply buried in some memory banks. Apple bloggers John Gruber and Jason Snell have taken issue with some of Sauer’s comments and recollections.

Frankly, it’s all in good fun, (I hope), I don’t think it matters much for those who hope Simpson can deliver on his promises, and if he does, plop down their money to relive some of those memories. Nostalgia itself also comes in waves.

I’m also sure that memories can falter, become fuzzy, and take on a life of their own. Which is something the Commodore 64 could never do, unlike what so many want their computers to do today.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

#ai #Apple #Commodore64 #Tech #technology #Writing

With a possible new life for the Commodore 64, count me as a Commodore 64 nerd from back in the day.

Commodore 64 Nostalgia Nerds
#Commodore64 #tech

warnercrocker.com/2025/07/16/c…

Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

2025-07-16 13:40:30

Commodore 64 Nostalgia Nerds

The older you get, nostalgic moments can be fun, even if fleeting. If nothing else they jog a few memories to the front of your brain for a bit. When they involve bits and bytes they also help you remember just how much things have changed. One of those fun memories for me is of my first computer, The Commodore 64.

Recently, news hit that Christian ‘Peri Fractic’ Simpson, who has been trying to revive the Commodore 64 for some time now, has finally put enough of whatever he needs to start taking pre-orders for a “new” Commodore 64.

The announcement stirred a wave of nostalgia from those, like myself, who owned one of these early personal computers. And like many, those waves felt quite pleasant to surf in for a while. It also has churned up some of the rough waves from back in the day when “what computer is best” was a big part of the discussion.

I owned the Commodore 64, later moved to the Commodore 128 and then an Amiga, before eventually surrendering to the IBM PC/Windows world and later Apple. But I do indeed have fond memories of sprites dancing around on the small TV monitor I had connected to the 64, all of the peripherals I accumulated along the way, and some of the games. Archon and Lode Runner were two of my favorites, and the text adventure version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was my first exposure to Douglas Adams. I was also a fan of the GEOS operating system. And yes, I typed in many a computer program from computer magazines of the day, as well as quite a few words into PaperClip.

Drew Sauer has penned a nice piece on this called The Commodore 64 Made A Difference, continuing the trip down memory lane and also surfacing some of those “what computer is best” feelings, apparently not too deeply buried in some memory banks. Apple bloggers John Gruber and Jason Snell have taken issue with some of Sauer’s comments and recollections.

Frankly, it’s all in good fun, (I hope), I don’t think it matters much for those who hope Simpson can deliver on his promises, and if he does, plop down their money to relive some of those memories. Nostalgia itself also comes in waves.

I’m also sure that memories can falter, become fuzzy, and take on a life of their own. Which is something the Commodore 64 could never do, unlike what so many want their computers to do today.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

#ai #Apple #Commodore64 #Tech #technology #Writing

Reborn Commodore Is Taking Pre-Orders for New Commodore 64 Models

Link to: https://www.commodore.net/

^{Daring Fireball}

Defending science in public we often talk about 'peer reviewed science'. But could this framing contribute to undermining trust in science and holding us back from improving the scientific process? How about instead we talk about the work that has received the most thorough and transparent scrutiny?

Peer review goes a step towards this in having a couple of people scrutinise the work, but there are limits on how thorough it can be and in most journals it's not transparent. Switching the framing to transparent scrutiny allows us to experiment with other models with a path to improvement.

For example, making review open to all, ongoing, and all reviews published improves this. When authors make their raw data and code open, it improves this.

It also gives us a way to criticise problematic organisations that formally do peer review but add little value (e.g. predatory journals). If their reviews are not open and observably of poor quality, then they are less 'thoroughly transparent'.

So with this framing the existence of 'peer reviewed' but clearly poor quality work doesn't undermine trust in science as a whole because we don't pin our meaning and value on an exploitable binary measure of 'peer reviewed'.

It also offers a hopeful way forward because it shows us how we can improve, and every step towards this becomes meaningful. If all we have is binary 'peer reviewed' or not, why spend more effort doing it better?

In summary, I think this new framing would be better for science, both in terms of the public perception of it, and for us as scientists.

#science #metascience #peerreview