Dave Lane @lightweight@mastodon.oeru.org

Very good! https://xkcd.com/2425/

What is your choice after switching from #WhatsApp?

Please help me share.

#FreeSoftware #OpenSource

Lately I've been reacquainting myself again with #FreeCAD after 20 months of barely using it. I was a little surprised to see that 0.19 still hasn't been released yet (its development had started when I left the community). I use the development builds. When using it just for a few minutes, I didn't notice many changes. But I've been using my 3D printer again, and I needed to design a few things I wanted to print.

There are huge improvements across the board.

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My Fellow Americans is Yuvraj Sing's open licensed (CC0) /name your price book tracing the histories of US presidential inaugural addresses; it reproduces each address along with a scholarly essay exploring its context.

https://gumroad.com/l/myfellowamericans

The book has a companion podcast in which various people read each address aloud:

https://anchor.fm/myfellowamericans

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I was VERY pleased to get the chance to read FDR's first address:

https://anchor.fm/myfellowamericans/episodes/FDRs-1st-Inaugural-Address---03041933---Read-by-Cory-Doctorow-emvtge

That's the "nothing to fear but fear itself" address. It's a barn-burner.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4938/4938-h/4938-h.htm#link2H_4_0037

eof/

Over the 15+ years I've been using GNU/Linux, there are many programs that have become second nature to me. As a hacker, I enjoy tinkering with my system---why use a desktop environment when I could do the same thing with 100s of programs and hand-written scripts...!?

Each day I feel up to it, I'll give thanks to a free/libre program that has made a positive impact on my life, from every corner of my operating system, with the hope that others will find them interesting too.

#thanksfreesw

I just setup a new computer that comes with Windows 10. I was *shocked* at how in-your-face all the privacy violations are.

For starters, before it would even install you MUST login to a Microsoft account (and create a new one if you don't already have one). I saw no way to skip that step, AFAICT it wasn't possible at all.

Then it loads up and I try to install Chrome, but it won't let me. Why? Because it has something called "S-mode" which basically means...

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To everyone joining right now:

Welcome to the fediverse. With your account on mastodon.online you get access to people from lots of other Mastodon servers (in fact, this message you're reading originates from mastodon.social!). You can follow people from these other servers and you can even move your account (incl. your followers) to another server. Beyond that server stuff the UI should be familiar enough, there's a lot of mobile apps.

Enjoy!

Long Cow

The right has long held that homelessness is a symptom - of a lack of self-control, a lack of foresight, of addiction, mental illness, etc - and therefore the solution to it is training, incarceration, rehab, or rigid discipline.

None of this stuff worked.

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MS Excel Files Exceeding the Maximum Size Resulted in Nearly 16,000 Covid-19 Cases Go Unreported in England

https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/10/05/199251/ms-excel-data-files-exceeding-the-maximum-size-resulted-in-nearly-16000-covid-19-cases-go-unreported-in-england

🤦‍♂️

Spreadsheets are for finances databases are for datasets. Learn the difference people.

Yet another fluff piece from #Mozilla about how we outta do something about the Internet

Uh, you?
How about you?

> Let’s take back control from those who violate our privacy

You're sponsored by Google

> We’re a non-profit backed organization that exists for the sole purpose of protecting the internet

You laid off 250 employees while your CEO made almost $2.5 million and continue to rake it in

> Big tech has gotten too big

Again, *literally* taking in Google bucks

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/09/30/the-internet-needs-our-love/

"If we're gonna make it through this monopolistic era of evidence-free policy that benefits a tiny, monied minority at the expense of the rest of us, we need to demand democratic accountability for market abuses, demand a pluralistic market where dominant firms are subjected to controls and penalties, where you finally realize birthright of technological self-determination."

eof/

I fully believe that some of the energy for breaking up tech is coming from astroturf campaigns run by ISPs and movie studios and record labels - but they're betting that if we break up Big Tech, that'll be the end of it.

Like trustbusting is Thanksgiving dinner, something that leaves you so satiated that you can't even think about going back for second.

That is so wrong. If history teaches us anything, it's that trustbusting is like potato chips, and once you start, you can't stop.

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It's inevitable: whenever I talk about the need to curb concentrated power in the tech sector, someone comes along to ask why I only care about tech - why not do something about concentration in telecoms or entertainment?

That's not wrong, but it's not right either. Yes, telecoms and entertainment are grotesquely concentrated and abuse their monopoly power to the great detriment of the rest of us.

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But no, gunning for Big Tech does NOT mean that we're not gunning for Big Content and Big Telco, too.

Bust 'em all!

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/09/bust-em-all-lets-de-monopolize-tech-telecoms-and-entertainment

The idea that these monopolized industries are somehow keeping each other in check - rather than colluding to screw the rest of us - is wrong. Google did an anti-Net Neutrality deal with Verizon. And all the tech and content companies illegally fixed wages between 'em.

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