Some TROM numbers!

TROM.tf

Social (friendica): we have 1.100 users and this year it was a record of sane registrations. Still the majority of accounts are likely not active. Our database is around 50GB in size and we store 23GB of files.

Files (nextcloud): we have 100 users and 81 of them are active. We store a total of 370GB of files. We are still able to provide trade-free accounts with 10GB storage space for each.

Chat (matrix): around 500 users, 22GB of files stored and a 200GB database (too big, needs optimization). Unsure how many of these users are active but we are using this for our own TROM chats every single day.

Videos (peertube): 1.400 users, 2.800 videos stored with a total of 400.000 views and 1TB in size. Unfortunately only a few users are active and uploading but this is our main TROM hub for videos and we will do our best to keep it alive and grow it.

In total our TROM.tf provides 17 services and is around 2TB in size. We do daily backups of the system with Timeshift (some 1.2TB) plus daily backups of our files and services to Borg.

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TROMjaro : This year we have coded from ground up our own custom made Layout and Theme Switcher apps and made them better. We are still managing a library of over 600 curated trade-free apps and have released a new ISO almost every single month!

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TROMnews : This year we did a major upgrade to the website. We made it a lot better, more diverse, and relevant. Every month there are thousands of items that are posted to this website.

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VideoNeat : Since 2012 we kept this website relevant and updated. We have over 1.300 documentaries/courses available trade-free!

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Trade-Free Directory : We have over 750 entries in the directory, manually added and reviewed. A must have database of wonderful projects that we will use more in the future. We are trying to add more to the directory whenever we have time.

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TROMSite : Do not forget that we are still providing 2 huge documentaries, over 30 books, and many videos. All trade-free, all full of relevant information. The hope is that we will start to create new content soon!

Lastly, we are almost half way with the support we need to keep these projects alive and relevant! 94 out of 200 people are donating 5 Euros a month! tromsite.com/donate Thank you so much!

If we are not going to fight for a different kind of world, offline or online, and walk the talk, then nothing, for sure, will ever change. We are trying to change the online landscape bit by bit, by providing trade-free, saner services, and scientific content. We need this more than ever in today's idiotic society.

#trom #tromsite #foss #opensource #peertube #nextcloud #friendica #xfce #linux #tromjaro #capitalism #society

Only when people have access to their basic needs trade-free (via a Universal Basic Income or other means) we can talk about "some choices" they may have. Right now you cannot refuse to be abused at your workplace (working extra hours, work in terrible conditions, being poorly paid, etc.) when you depend with your life on that job.

Remove most "social" programs that are only meant for a selected few and are infected with paperwork, and provide people with a guaranteed Basic Income. Make the healthcare, transport, and a few other basic services free to keep them from derailing towards a profit path. And then we can talk about justice, climate change, environment, rights, and so forth.

We need some fertile soil in order to grow something else.

There is no way we can fix this society by putting more rules and laws. Bosses will abuse the ones they employ, businesses will take the shortest path to profit regardless of consequences, and overall people will live a boring and meaningless life doing nothing more than consume and waste because they have no time and incentive for anything else.

The first step we need to do is to provide people with their basic needs as trade-free. This should be on any activist's agenda!

TROM will focus more and more on this first step from now on. As much as possible. Scream, do, get engaged, collaborate with others. We need to fix people in order to fix the problems they create.

#climatechange #society #trade #capitalism #money #ubi #universalbasicincome

A very on point article by TheGuardian theguardian.com/environment/ng… talking to almost half of all the IPCC scientists, asking them important questions.

The message is this: climate change will have a massive impact on so many ecosystems and overall on billions of people. Pretty much all scientists are pessimistic and realize that their work is in the end futile. They show us what is happening and why. But politicians are not giving a shit. Influenced by a fucked up society of trade and in the pockets of oil giants, they only have words and no actions.

But no one talks about trade, and how this society is based on trade and thus the situation at hand is predictable. Of course everyone cares about trading. Thus billionaires, thus inequality, thus waste and pollution, and so forth.

Also no one talks about the fact that all of us are slaves to trade. How can you and I get involved about this matter when we all have to trade in order to survive!? What are these scientists expecting from ordinary people to do when they are all in chains in this system?

They slightly poke at "capitalism" but too little, too late.

How about banning ads? How about a Universal Basic Income to let us get involved and do something about this? People can't even afford to protest for-fucks-sake... How about some historians and anthropologists explain to everyone that we live in a society based on trade which evolved for the past 10.000 years and it is now obsolete and incentivizes us to be idiots and terrible. How about we talk about a different kind of system?

Too edgy!?

Sure....

Then let's continue to produce more reports so we know exactly how fucked up things are and will be. At the same time no solution will emerge.

Pathetic for an "intelligent" species.

#climatechange #climate #ipcc #environment #waste #pollution #capitalism #trade #TradeRuinsEverything

Do not forget that the internet, youtube, netflix, cars and supermarkets, lightbulbs and modern medicine, do not make our society "civilized". These are a result of often enslaved humans producing "stuff" in a trade-based society. Technologically we, as a society, are quite advanced, but morally we are primitive.

Despite all of this technological progress humans are still forcing ALL of their billions of members to trade in order to survive, despite being able to feed, house, and take care of everyone on Earth. This means we are still primitive and have no greater goals such as exploration, the advancement of technology and science, understanding where we came from and where we are heading... All that humans do is trade, day in, day out.

Slaves and slave owners. Simple minds. Robots.

If you take away the electrification, internet, the gadgets, the hot water and the mass produced products - stuff - you are left with the "naked" humans who all they want is to acquire more, get "married", work, have kids, drink, and cheer up for their tribe.

It is the environment who creates these behaviors so if we do not change the "mental" environment, nothing will happen. We do not need new tech, new science, new materials. We need new lives for the individuals of this species. Lives that are relaxed and taken care of. Scientific, globally oriented, and to live in a non competitive environment.

So the UN or other institutions, if they ever want to solve any global issues, they need to first propose that we should take care of people and create a decent life for them. All of them, not just the very poor. We are all trapped in this trade-prison. You can't expect for a different society to emerge when all humans do is to slave away and compete with each other. Dog eats dog world.

Happy 1st of May to all of the slaves who got a day off. What a disgrace of a society.

#may #fistofmay #worker #capitalism #money #1may #trade

We have a brand new TROMnews website - tromnews.com/

The plugin that we've used for TROMnews for the past many years stopped working so we had to find a new one. When that happened I was sure I will have to let go of this website, simply because I need to focus on other things, especially personal stuff. If I were to get at least half the financial support that we need for TROM, then I could focus on these projects more.

But anyway, after talking to Sasha I realized that the website is indeed important, despite the fact that I am sure not many are using it. We will talk more about that. But first:

TROMnews is more work than you may think.

The idea is to pull news/videos/photos/etc from many online sources and coalesce them all into a website that makes sense. But choosing the sources, finding and RSS feed for them, and all that, is not as easy. Plus, some do not have an RSS feed so I have to use other services to create it on the fly. Also, the way I pull the RSS feeds is not arbitrary. For example I cannot grab all of the videos from a Youtube channel since that would include the absolutely retarded "shorts", so I have to tell the RSS to only pull the videos that are at least 2 minutes long. And so forth....

I ended up with over 200 sources: from websites to Youtube, from subReddits to playlists. I want to make sure we pull a featured image for each (or most posts), and to not overwhelm everyone with whatever I pull. Like I choose to pull from the subReddit "Sky Porn" only the images that have over X amount of votes. This way we make sure that add only a few a week, but the good ones. The amount of X in this case depends from subReddit to subReddit - I test these to see what's the best value.

Now you get 200 feeds that each can pull several items every hour or so. A server may struggle with so much stuff. And so the old plugin disabled many feeds daily, and I had to reactivate them to make them update...one by one, manually.

On top of all of this, I had filters for many of these feeds as to what posts can pull or exclude, based on keywords. Just to make it more relevant.

I use TROMnews daily, and so are a few friends. But I bet no one else uses it.

I want to stay in touch with what is happening in the world, but not the world of politics (the nonsense world), I want to know about science, tech, and the natural world mostly. I can so that via an RSS reader on my local machine, but my goal with TROMnews was always to provide a tool for others to stay informed and sane.

I started this project exactly 10 years ago. Because I feared that if people are idiots and feed their brains with bullshit then we have 0 chances to ever change anything in this world. Humans live inside of their brains, and if what's inside is bullshit, then they are bullshitters and we live in different worlds altogether, despite being on the same planet, inside the same reality. How can we build the future together?

If some think that gods made them, others that money is real, or that climate change is an invention, then we are fucked. And such a website makes it easy to keep your brain sane.

For me no other website is enough to use it as my news source. From BBC to PBS, or Scientific American, and so forth, they are plagued by politics and promotional articles. It is a mess.

Anyway, I spent many years trying to find the best sources, and subcategories on some good news websites that were still relevant, and I wanted them all in one place. This is why I use TROMnews. It is my main, and many times only, source of brain-food.

10 years ago when I released it I had some big hopes for it, because people were still able to choose stuff for themselves. Like they were intentionally visiting websites. Nowadays the vast majority of people are on maximum 5 platforms (Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Youtube, or Instagram). And they are all fed whatever these companies want.

A vomit of ads and retarded content. And people stay, and eat. Scroll through an endless stream of whatever they are fed with.

Sick.

So I know that I cannot make people use TROMnews. And I do not care anymore. I and a few friends use it. Plus it is a very interesting website. That's enough for me.

The new website needs more work, but it is a bit more "interesting" in my view.

Before the website was simply displaying the same kind of cards for all categories and that's all. A bit boring. Even I was not that motivated to read the news - too many of the same cards, too many news. Now the homepage looks like a news website, highlighting every category.

We even have a Recommended Documentary section that automatically pulls from VideoNeat. :)

Every page is a bit more unique to emphasize whatever category is showcasing. Here's a cool photo I just found on TROMnews:

Freaking spider! :) - that's what I love about TROMnews - it is a bundle of interesting stuff, ranging from important news, to wonderful photos or super interesting videos. It is my place, and I am not giving up on it :P.

The advantage now is that I can have a lot more control over the individual items. I can probably add a proper search and even allow others to subscribe to our own feed. So that you can subscribe to our TROMnews NEWS. How cool....

I still need to add the Dark mode and tweak it for mobile screens, but also monitor it to make sure it all works well. I came across a bunch of issues with the auto-updating of sources so let's see if it is able to keep up with updating from over 200 rss feeds.

I also lack the ability to filter the feeds based on keywords, but I can live with that... What I'd like is the ability to showcase from where an item is. Like who posted this or that, as it was before. I can only do that if I buy the pro-bro version... So if I get enough financial support for TROM I will make TROMnews a bit better.

Oh, when I was searching for a replacement WordPress plugin for TROMnews I came across many RSS Aggregators. And all, without exception form my findings, are geared towards making more money. Of course.... Who is using them like I do, to pull science/tech/interesting news for all to see? No ads, no bs...

But I was aware of this, it was always the case. People use these plugins to pull stuff from other websites into their own, to then inject ads and make money. In turn destroying the internet, which has become a garbage bin made of vomited and re-vomited content. And now it is getting easier:

Welcome to the Internet 3.0. The complete fuckery, a tsunami of nonsense.

TROMnews is a little place of sane stuff. I hope some people appreciate it.

#tromlive

This November Facebook is rolling out a subscription model for EU. Their options: pay 10 Euros a month and you will not see ads on Facebook, or as they say it:

Let's quickly unpack this shitshow.

For the past 10.000 years humans have used a practice to move stuff around the globe: trade. You take care of my sheep, I give you cheese. In time it evolved into specialized work, the notion of debt (trade for it later) and the invention of "currency". A worthless resource that humans imagine to have value. Such as gold, shells, coins, etc..

You do not have to build houses for others in return for some clothes and food, you will get a currency in return for your work. In time humans started to lose track of what is really happening in this society of trade and then believed that they work for the currency itself. Like you work for money. Despite the fact that not a single human works for money, they work for what money gets them (food, comfort, access, power, etc..).

Therefore, from economists to regular workers, journalists or historians, everyone got tricked and confused by the ways the trade practice mutated over the past thousands of years.

Nowadays it is even more confusing because one can trade their attention (watch ads) in return for accessing some digital content. Or agree to let their data being mined in return for other services. Therefore a currency is often not needed, but the practice of trade is the same as it was 10.000 years ago.

So today humans somehow think that if something does not cost money (or other currencies) that something is FREE. This is almost like saying that someone is not dead unless it has a death certificate.

If we were to understand this simple fact of life, we could cut through a lot of the crap that is raining down in today's society. We could easily ask the question: What Am I Trading? Like: what do I have to give in return for using Facebook?

And the answer is simple: you need to give them your attention (watch ads), your data, and your currency to either pay to reach your followers and so forth, or pay for a monthly ads-free experiencing.

As you can see in no scenario Facebook is free. NONE.

This is what TROM is trying so hard to make visible: the invisible part of our society. The fact that TRADE is at the core of how this society works, and how this force of trade is making us all complete jerks, charlatans, and abusers. We need to understand what the problem is, in order to come up with any solution.

Understand first!

#tromlive

Transportation.

In Germany they came up with a plan: pay a monthly fee of about 50 Euros and have access to all of the public transport across Germany. Lately they proposed that if you are to "surrender" your driving license, you can get access to all of that for free. (source).

Now this, if properly managed and made even more accessible for everyone in Germany, can severely cut down the use of cars. Why would anyone want to buy a car, maintain, take care of, repair and so forth, if they have access to an affordable and good transportation system that is efficient? If people are to use a lot less cars, then we need a lot less roads. Thus you can transform the roads and parking spaces into green public spaces. Add bikes to the mix and you can create much better places for people to live.

Think about how much space cars take:

Did you know that most of the microplastics in the air is due to car tires? It is true.

So of course it makes total sense to ditch this outdated practice. Paris, Barcelona and other places are trying do to similar schemes. Some cities are restricting the access to cars in some areas.

This is one of those massive problems that we can easily fix even within this bullshit trade system. And the solution is simple: make the public transport very cheap (or free), and efficient. Plus restrict car access to many areas. The goal should be to make it trade-free, so that it will become a lot more efficient. No more tickets, no more ads in the buses or any of that crap. Because what many seem to not realize is that advertising is a massive drive of consumerism (of course, that's its only purpose), and that in turn creates the destruction, waste, pollution and all of the crap we see.

Therefore the way forward is to aim for a trade-free transport system in different parts of the world. No currency, no data trading, no ads, no bullshit. And this will create a much better environment for people and nature.

Restoring nature... and a good life....

Doable now. Happening (little by little) now.

Healthcare

In USA the healthcare is private and thus trade-based for its citizens. Therefore USA has the most expensive healthcare systems in the world with a life expectancy of just 76. (source 1, 2) - In short the people in that tribe pay more because companies decide what's the price of this drug, that surgery, and so forth. And their incentive is of course to charge more and more.

It is obvious that if you create a healthcare system that's free (or trade-free if you can) then people live longer, healthier, and you spend a lot less resources on that.

Conclusion.

In both cases, the evidence is clear: if we make these services free (and aim to make them trade-free eventually) then we see a lot of positive outcomes. And as you can see it is not only doable, but happening. However we need to push for more of these, in more parts of the world, and inform people about trade as the origin of most problems.

Let's stop dreaming about hyperloops, round cities, futuristic 3D nonsense. These are fantasies. We need to focus on realistic solutions that can have an enormous impact, while keeping an aim in sight: that of making this trade based society obsolete.

#tromlive

Just bashing the billionaires and big corporations, is shortsighted.

People think that Musk, Bezos, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on are now the "evil" that we should stand against and defeat. In truth these entities are no different from most humans living on this planet and most companies. It is just that some are bigger players, some are smaller.

When Bezos launched his small business in the early 1990 he was praised for making books available for more people.

We are all forced to be scammers, liars, fake, corrupted. Do you think there is any difference between Musk and Bezos buying other companies to gain influence or to shut down the competitors, and smaller companies temporarily lowering the prices or bribing the local politicians to gain more of the same? There isn't. The practice is 100% the same.

"Regulating" Facebook, Amazon, Google and the like it's like plastic recycling. You give the false impression that it works, and you continue to do this, while more plastic is being wasted than ever before, and more billionaires and corrupted people are being created than ever before.

Unless we calm down and dedicate some time to understand that these problems (corporations, climate change, corruption, influence, billionaires, etc.) are HUMANS, and human behavior comes from the ENVIRONMENT, and the environment is that of TRADING, unless we understand that, nothing will ever change. Period.

You can chop the heads of Musk and Bezos, you can destroy Google, Amazon and Facebook, and then realize that absolutely nothing has changed. New billionaires and new monopolistic corporations will evolve out of the same trade-environment.

What can we do?

Provide humans with at least their basic needs as trade-free.

Humans NEED to have access to a decent life, without having to trade anything in return for this. We need calm, relaxed, and educated humans, in order to do anything more than that. There are no plants growing out of a soil that has no nutrients, moisture, and such conditions.

We need to make people understand that life is not about consuming more shit, but about enjoying the nature, discover, learn, explore. We need to make companies and billionaires obsolete. Because what Google and the like fear the most is not the competition (because they can buy that), but becoming irrelevant. When people do not see any value in what they "sell", in what they "do".

If only there was a documentary explaining all of these in great detail....

#tromlive

We need 200 people to support TROM forever. And they only have to give us 2 cups of coffee a month. See this - tromsite.com/donate/

The goal is to find only 200 people who can donate 5 Euros a month. This is a very reasonable goal and it will make TROM fully sustainable, forever.

Think about it: everyone will contribute equally and a very small amount. And I also won't get rich. I want to keep TROM humble, real, genuine, and to make sure that those who support it are many and do the least amount of effort.

I have a dream....and my dream, if I were to keep it realistic and down to Earth, is to (for now) achieve the "200 or TROM" goal. Because if I achieve that, then I can continue to create new things for the project, and to reach more people. In time maybe something bigger will spark.

The truth is that the only reason TROM is alive is because I had the motivation and financial support to continue. But for the past years the financial support has dropped so much that I can barely pay for the servers and I have no means to support myself other than doing some webdesign work for others. And that too is no more than 200 Euros a month.

This new donation approach will be the only one I will try. I am sick and tired of asking for support, so I put all of the eggs into that basket. And I will push this until I either manage to find 200 humans who are willing to give 2 cups of coffee a month to support the so many projects that we are doing, or I will fail while trying.

You know for the past 3 years I worked on the TROM II documentary. A new project basically. So I wonder what new projects I will do in the future. I started to write a book about The Internet and I think it is a unique overview of this complex subject. I then thought what if instead I would start a new video series and pick apart such complex subjects.... I then talked to Roma and Roko and others about it....what if we collaborate and make something cool together? I do not lack ideas or motivation, I lack money. And for that matter, not a lot. I need the bare minimum to have a life and nothing more.

Ok folks, let's see how this goes. 200 people is not a crazy number. There are hundreds, if not thousands who enjoy the TROM content or use our services, daily.

Let's see how many of them can and are willing to help.

#tromlive