bignose
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@billyjoebowers
> Honestly the only button needed on the microwave is the 30 second button.My home upgraded to a new microwave oven last year.
The “start” button and the “+30 seconds” button is the same, large, easily-found button.
We're blissfully happy with it.
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“AI didn't take our jobs. Greed did. Same greed that moved factories to Bangladesh and keeps slaves in cobalt mines in the Congo. It just wears a new mask now.”
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It's effectively an experience as a second-class citizen @karen. The rhetoric asserts that proprietary protocols and systems are freely chosen. But for those who opt out, who choose #SoftwareFreedom, we find *our* lives burdened by the proprietary systems *others* chose without our consent.
And those who accept the shackles of proprietary systems, don't bear the burden of finding those alternate paths because everything assumes you've put those shackles on, and is unreliable if you don't.
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I don't know which single article you saw @mherbert, but I try to tailor my response to where the individual person is.
People have widely divergent knowledge about #GenAI and #ArtificialStupidity, because there's a *deluge* of deliberately false framing and speculation out there. Need to know what lies or hype the person has been subject to, and address those. (Attempting to head off *all* the misinformation is sure to just overwhelm the person.)
You might like this clearing house, with links targeting specific issues: https://justsayno.ai/
but I'd not send them *to* that site; instead, gently find out what they don't know.
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Long-established #FreeSoftware accounting software #GnuCash is pretty good, @PAgent
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@felix
> Out of the box #Emacs lacks modes for a lot of newer languages.The good news is that #Emacs now has built-in support (via Eglot) for #LanguageServerProtocol, so it can now natively use whatever LSP programs you install.
The bad news is that the LSP ecosystem seems to be really scattered and there's no smooth way to just get general support for arbitrary languages.
So you need to hunt down each one. But it is no longer necessary to get Emacs-specific support.
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Bah. We all know the Tawny Frogmouth has won it this year. Why be coy, #TheGuardian?
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The opening of this piece is remarkably like one of the favourites of my #Taiko group 和太鼓竜胆 (Wadaiko Rindou) https://www.wadaikorindo.com/, a piece whose name I can't recall composed by Toshi Sakamoto for four players sitting on the floor each at a single shime drum.
The piece in this video branches out from there to make fascinating use of the different arrangement, I love it.
(@mherbert knows, which is why he directed that video to me)
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#CivilInfrastructure critic Adam Something turns his attention to City 17:
The Urbanism of #HalfLife City 17
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=O0zPArN1s2gHe finds a laudable investment in high-density housing, walkable streets with no car traffic, and an extensive train network. Worth a watch.
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@theluddite
> do you think it explains just how much money they're willing to set on fire? And even then, what is it about AI that makes that connection?I'm convinced by Ed Zitron's thesis of the #RotEconomy:
A huge portion of financial activity, is based on the value of tech company stocks
Tech stocks are valued only because investors expect them to grow, rapidly and forever
Tech corps that don't promise unreasonable 10×, 20×, etc. growth, are severely punished
They have *no ideas left*.
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Over at Chinwag, they have responded to #Australia calls for #AgeRestriction on #SocialMedia, with a characteristically Aussie policy.
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#reStructuredText, which pre-dates #Markdown, has always been superior for my purposes @danielittlewood.
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I'm having okay results from #Stract https://stract.com/
but honestly, I just keep using DDG, and use #UBlockOrigin to automatically delete the AI pest from the page.
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@travisfw
> "using the internet" should always mean engaging directly with other individual humans, with nothing but routers in-between.We need to un-shackle the internet from its current #monopoly #SurveillanceCapitalism #feudal lords, and return the net to the proper #WorldOfEnds.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050828023214/https://worldofends.com/
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“I designed this clock years ago, with the intention to incorporate every feature request I ever received for the previous precision clock.
“[…] I never got around to releasing it – until now.”
Precision Clock Mk IV
2025-05-31
Progress: Complete
https://mitxela.com/projects/precision_clock_mk_iv -
We need #ProtocolsNotPlatforms for reliable, safe, future-proof communication @evan
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@DaveMasonDotMe
> I like how it opens an image quickly, then allows you to cycle through any other image files found in the same folder/directory with the arrow keys.I like #Shotwell image viewer because it also does that.
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@Sarah
> Is there a fedi platform for pins and pinboards like pinterest?Here's an article describing the #Fediverse bookmarking service (with #SelfHosting option), #Postmarks:
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how many thumbs-up reacts does the #USDoJ need for this to be the endorsed remedy @camwilson
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#USDoJ ruling reiterates: Google must sell #Chrome to a competitor.
Much better would be to mandate #FreeSoftware license, so it stays in community control and all the #UserHostile #monopoly crap can be freely stripped. But splitting the business is a good start.
https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/03/doj-google-must-sell-chrome-android-could-be-next/
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Whether or not the #Firefox obnoxious "Terms of Use" actually come into effect, the @mozillaofficial corporate management have shown us their arses. We cannot trust them again.
The current leadership of #MozillaCorp have failed the primary job of that organisation:
* Be a champion for #SoftwareFreedom, #UserFreedom, and #Privacy on the #OpenWeb.
* Maintain and promote the excellent, #StandardsCompliant, reference web browser for everyone.
* That's all.Workers, boot the leadership out.
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It's no slight on the #Python maintainers that the #OpenPGP system is inadequate. They have correctly sounded the alarm, they're right that the system has lots of problems and should be replaced.
What I do fault the Python maintainers for, is dismissing valid concerns about GitHub and Google, by recommending them as replacement. If we don't have an open replacement, that's bad, but that doesn't justify vesting trust in proven untrustworthy entities.
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Agreed @todd_a_jacobs.
To head off anticipated objections "but PEP 761 doesn't *mandate* using #GitHub or #Google": Technically true, but there's no open implementation #Python is willing to rely on today.
PEP 761 steps *backward* from open technology (though imperfect) to a closed platform (even more imperfect).
If #SigStore were a good idea, it should not have replaced existing open implementations until it also has reliable open implementations. If that's infeasible, why switch to it?
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Congratulations! #Containers are an excellent technology, useful for many things as you've discovered.
Be warned, though, that #Docker is not necessarily the best system for containers. It is IMO too dependent on a centralised unaccountable registry of images.
Look into #PodMan https://podman.io/ for a more accountable, open, #FreeSoftware approach to containers. It's designed for the #OpenContainerInitiative so it's compatible with your Docker configuration files.
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@freakboy3742
> It's getting increasingly difficult to argue that Bluesky *isn't* where the vast majority of public discourse is headingEven if that were true, it doesn't imply people should build anything there.
Building community in a centralised (no real plan for a distributed ATProto), cryptocurrency-grift, venture-capital-owned, corporate platform
is the same mistake people made that led to the Twitter collapse. Never again.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/06/fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again/
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It's really cool that we found salt crystals and amino acids on #AsteroidBennu. Salty brine in #space!
It's no surprise to astrobiologists that we found those things; it does not “upend” any of our understanding of #PrebioticChemistry, it confirms what we knew.
Cool discovery, with a false clickbait headline in Nature.
Here's an evo-biologist with more:
“We might have to upend a few theories if these molecules were found to have been assembled by living organisms that had been living on an ancient space rock. But they weren’t, so nobody is rewriting any biology textbooks.”
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/29/soup-in-spaaaaace/
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Why do people
* Write out a long-arse Open Letter
* Render that Open Letter, which is entirely text, to graphical form
* Screen-shot the rendered graphic
* Post the Open Letter not as readable text, but as a far less-accessible image
* Post a screenshot of that image on a text-primary mediuminstead of
* Post the text of the Open Letter, as entirely accessible text
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Because those devices *are* in direct communication across distance. By design.
Humans brains do not have 802.11 interfaces built in (until #Transhuman advancements arrive).
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I'm very grateful to @AntennaPod for showing us that you absolutely *can* have "Your year in review" without #surveillance or #capitalist incentives. #FreeSoftware makes this feasible.
The #AntennaPod Echo 2024 shows me interesting summary facts of my past 12 months of audio; with no snooping, no invasion of #privacy, all data controlled by me on the local device.
#DataSovereignty #OwnYourData #NobodyElsesBusiness #SoftwareFreedom #DataFreedom
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Ed Brims: “I spent a lot of the summer of 2016 reading #BeatrixPotter to my 2-year-old, and I became obsessed with trying to work out if the recurring characters all exist in the same universe.”
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Some software platforms are *complex*. Even integrating two systems that use the same technologies, can be fraught with a thousand small barriers.
@fastmail took three decades to finally integrate the #email systems of POBox into #Fastmail email systems, and this week published an interesting examination of what all that involved.
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Oof. Yes, this code
> if self._unique_id == 'none':
is glaringly un-#Pythonic to this reader.
I venture to say it's even a mistake, because the only place that attribute gets set is earlier:
> self._unique_id = kwargs.get('unique_id')
which will return the `None` object if 'unique_id' is not in `kwargs`.
So that conditional test should just be using the normal Pythonic:
> if self._unique_id is None:
Which is why the `dict.get` method returns `None` when the key isn't found.
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Thanks @sethmlarson for committing to make #FreeSoftware #Python volunteer maintainers lives easier.
I'm sadly shocked, though, that PEP 761 lauds dependence on #platform providers out of our control (Google, GitHub, etc.) as some improvement? Have we not learned that we need #community control of our identity, not #corporation platforms?
#ProtocolsNotPlatforms is a necessary part of divesting centralised power over our #SoftwareFreedom. Vesting yet more control in Microsoft is not the way.
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You may be interested @rods, in this presentation of the History of the Tube Map
https://www.maproomblog.com/2022/09/unfinished-london-history-of-the-tube-map/
from Jay Foreman of the #MapMen humour / geography channel. He's parcelling it off as #UnfinishedLondon, and it's (so far) a two-part story.
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Sometimes, an #LLM can accurately summarise a body of text.
And, if you can't be bothered reading someone's messages but want a machine to summarise? Maybe they are right to break up with you.
“How did he feel about getting the news via AI summary? "I do feel like it added a level of distance to it that wasn’t a bad thing," he told Ars Technica. "Maybe a bit like a personal assistant who stays professional and has your back even in the most awful situations, but yeah, more than anything it felt unreal and dystopian."”
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/10/man-learns-hes-being-dumped-via-dystopian-ai-summary-of-texts/
#GrimMeathookFuture #Alienation #UnreliableButPowerful #Enshittification
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This doesn't explain why that #ProprietaryPlatform (#Discord, #Slack, MS Teams, etc.) were initially chosen for that specific group of people. The person who made that decision did it for other reasons.
But it does explain what you asked: Why is this so popular, i.e. why are *so many* people continuing to use it?
#NetworkEffect and #SwitchingCosts. Nothing much to do with the properties of that particular platform.
#ProtocolsNotPlatforms avoids those problems.
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#SwitchingCosts: One people are on #Discord or #Slack or whatever, they've got their group meeting there, often primarily and by default.
It's a #ProprietaryPlatform, so they're hostage. Leaving would require abandoning *that group* of people. For many people, they really need or want to stay in that social group.
And that means they must stay on the platform with the proprietary bloated surveillance client.
And, worse, bring new people in and hold *them* hostage too.
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@pganssle
> How is this platform [#Discord] so popular?I lean on the old reliable explanations:
Network effect, brings people in.
Switching costs, prevent them from leaving.
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@LeftistLawyer
> How many people need to die from a discrete natural catastrophe before […]Another factor is the strategy learned from the #tobacco industry and expanded into effective #ClimateDenial:
“Who can really say how many of those people died *because of* #GlobalHeating? This expert says many of them were already unwell, or chose to live in marginal environments. We need hard facts, not hyperbolic chicken-little alarmism”, etc. etc.
#MerchantsOfDoubt, the #FossilFuel industry included, don't need to *disprove*. They merely need to foster the impression the facts are not settled, which impression results in more delay.
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Thanks for posting, @danielquinn.
(And thank you for #AGPL3 license!)I see that the repository contains:
* The source code for the actual running application.
* A `Containerfile` (here, `Dockerfile`) to build a container image.
* A Compose spec file (here, `compose.yaml`) to compose multiple containers to run all the necessary services, including the running app container.Which of those actually belong in the *same* repository?
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“When are we going to acknowledge that shit like this the fault of higher-ups and have *them* face the consequences? I’m sick of hearing about companies “realigning for success” or whatever word salad they’re using to justify it this week.”
https://crashthearcade.com/post/760563725130498048/on-the-rocksteady-layoffs
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Please won't somebody think of the database administrators?
Rain and a trade means ex-Jay will become 1st in MLB history to play for both teams in same game
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/mlb/baseball-danny-jansen-double-duty-aug-25-1.7304649 -
“How to pay #FreeSoftware maintainers comes down to wanting to do it. If you enter the field with a preconception that maintainers don’t want to get paid, or that most maintainers shouldn’t be paid, or that maintainers only merit payment when they agree with your corporate priorities, then it should be no surprise that you find it hard going.
“If […] you find that maintainers generate literally trillions of dollars of value […] you too can #PayTheMaintainers.”
https://allthingsopen.org/articles/a-how-to-guide-for-paying-open-source-maintainers
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@hamatti predicted this.
> When the company calls their home appliances "smart", what I hear is:
> - they spent money on features I don't care about
> - those features will be worse than standalone devices but will drive them out of market (looking at you TVs)
> - the appliance is more likely to break
> - my data is likely being sold to advertisers
> - when the company loses interest in it and cut support, I will need to buy a new device
> So no, I don't want "smart" home appliances.https://social.chinwag.org/@hamatti@mastodon.world/112943946581235674
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Codeberg knows to implement #ProtocolsNotPlatforms so that every service can inter-operate without lock-in.
So that we don't get a #FreeSoftware community so confused that they worry "why are some people not linking their software project to *this one proprietary platform?*" like that's a bad thing.
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The #AfferoGPL (#AGPL) with its requirement that any network service using licensed software must offer, to the same network user, the #CorrespondingSource to modify and build and redistribute the same software
is so much more needed now. Demand the #SoftwareFreedom that any network service must be #FreeSoftware anyone can fork as needed, end their artificial monopolies of our online lives.
https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2021/fall/the-fundamentals-of-the-agplv3
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With a retrofit chip and cable (so it connects over USB), my IBM #ModelM keyboard is apparently immortal.
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If you're already familiar with #PasswordStore, the #QTPass interface is quite functional. My close family members are using it for years now.