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However alt-text is useful for many reasons, which benefit your viewers, as well as you, the creator!

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I posted this elsewhere, but I thought it was worth bringing here.

there's a common sentiment in some communities i'm in that people who understand computers at more than the most surface level can't really be trusted. and, yk, i get it; it's an inscrutable, esoteric, yet deeply powerful art, and the people who practice it are often quite disconnected from society by financial privilege or simple introversion. it's one of many reasons i call what i do wizardry, which is meant in the AD&D, swords and sorcery, Forbidden Tower sense - but, at the same time, it isn't actually magic; it's a complicated tower of social conventions baked, in part, into sophisticated patterns of metal on glass.

lots of folks in my little pocket of the 'net, myself included, use the term "computer toucher" broadly and with only a little irony to mean programmers, hackers, system administrators, computer engineers, and the like - but that's silly, right? if we're talking via the Fediverse, we're touching computers; if we're talking via Discord, we're touching computers; by definition, anyone reading this post in its original medium is a "computer toucher" in its literal sense.

i certainly don't believe it's incumbent upon everyone to understand "how computer work" in any detailed sense. i have four years of formal education and a decade of autodidactism behind my knowledge of things like the syntax and semantics of programming languages, the operation of network protocols, and the conventions behind USB device communication. i have an entire bookshelf full of titles like Linux Kernel Development and Rust Atomics and Locks. you do not and should not need to understand all this nonsense to live in the world. that said, i do think there is a basic level of competency that it's reasonable to expect from people who use computers on a daily basis, and the more i see companies like Apple and Google try to erode computer education, the more important i think it is to make sure people get some.

to analogize: i drive a car (i know, i hate it too lol.) i am not a "car person"; i know some people who are, which is great, because i can ask them for help with things like changing my oil. i don't really understand why i have to change the oil; does it like, get hot and chemically change? does it get contaminated with dust? i haven't found the time to look into it. i don't know how my car works; i understand that it's got an engine and a transmission (though i'm not totally sure what that is). and that's okay.

but can you imagine if i tried to drive a car without ever learning that cars use gasoline? if i tried to get a license without learning the difference between the accelerator and the brake? if i got angry and shut down the conversation when i said i didn't want to set my e-brake on a steep hill and someone tried to tell me that it's unsafe? that's absurd.

that's how i feel about computers. no, people shouldn't have to know what a kernel is to use Discord, and indeed they do not. but you do have to know that the car burns gas. you are on the hook for understanding the basic operating principle of the thing you're operating - the thing that runs every nook and cranny of the society you live in.

While I was being sedated for my hysterectomy, the (woman) surgeon came in to check on everything. I asked her if she would be so kind as to send my uterus to Congress. If they want to control them, I said, they can have mine.

Every person in the room was female and I passed out to the sound of roaring laughter.

See this animated gif?

It's two comb jellies, each of which was injured, with a part of its body ripped off ...

... and the two healed themselves by merging into one

All their systems -- nerves, gastrointestinal -- merge. If you poke one of the jellies the whole organism reacts

Scientists only just now discovered that comb jellies can do this

Item #6 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free to read and subscribe to here: buttondown.com/clivethompson/a…

A teacher trying to teach good manners, asked her students the following question:

'Michael, if you were on a date having dinner with a nice young lady, how would you tell her that you have to go to the bathroom?
'Michael said: 'Just a minute I have to go pee.' The teacher responded by saying: 'That would be rude and impolite. What about you Sherman, how would you say it?'

Sherman said: 'I am sorry, but I really need to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back.'

'That's better, but it's still not very nice to say the word bathroom at the dinner table. And you, little Johnny, can you use your brain for once and show us your good manners?'

Johnny said 'I would say: Darling, may I please be excused for
a moment? I have to shake hands with a very dear friend of mine, whom I hope to introduce you to after dinner.'

A reminder that science is gatekept wby oligarchs who exploit the free labour of academia to make billions on their back while restricting access to science.

And they will to great length to jail those that gets in the way.

And you know what's free (gratis)? Misinformation propelled by the same oligarchs.

Taken! I made someone happy!!!
I still have my first computer, an Osborne Executive with all of its original software and manuals. It still worked great when I last booted it up in 1999. We're really trying to not hang on to stuff forever, so it's heading for the electronics recycling in a week unless someone wants it. Free, but I don't think I can deal with shipping it anywhere, so pick-up in Woburn, MA.
(Computer details at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_…)
(Any ideas, @knizer?)

#free #VintageComputer

Planned portable computer

^{Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)}

Man, maybe I’m just old school but I am really not digging the now-unfortunately-well-established trend of people on Instagram putting music behind their photo posts

I just wanna look at some, like, pictures

but scrolling down my feed is now like sitting in an old car where someone won’t stop spinning the tuner and all I hear is 0.75 seconds of like ninety songs

it is such a hilariously wretched UI experience

At 14, he helped create RSS.
At 16, he contributed to Creative Commons.
At 17, he co-created Markdown.
At 18, he co-founded Reddit.

The web would be different if he were alive.

#AaronSwartzDay

I use an RSS feed for news, and I’m sure I’m not the only one here on the Fediverse who appreciates the convenience it offers, because it helps me stay informed in a way that suits my preferences.

How do you keep up with the important topics that matter to you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

- hyliu.me/fluent-reader/

#Linux #OpenSource #FOSS #Ubuntu #Fedora #ArchLinux #LinuxMint #Debian #Manjaro #Privacy #Decentralization

#GNOME Papers finally becomes a PDF viewer that can digitally sign documents and verify signatures.

The latter was implemented by Marek Kašík from our team. It was several years in the making. He originally implemented it for Evince, but Evince is pretty much dead and it's been waiting to be merged upstream for 1.5 years. When Papers were forked from Evince, Marek rewrote it in #Rust and implemented it there. It's currently under review and should be merged soon. ✌️

#Linux #desktop #PDF

Montréalaises, montréalais, soyez informés que l’armée canadienne va «faire du bruit» pour les Alouettes vers 15h00. 🙄

From: @camerondotca
mastodon.nz/@camerondotca/1134…

Today is a good day to remember the time I told my Jewish grandmother, who had been an officer in the Red Army all through WWII, about the debate over punching Nazis.

"This is trick question," she said, narrowing her eyes. "When you are done punching, Nazi is still alive, yes?"

Spanish often has an H where most other Romance languages have an F.

Take 'hijas' (daughters) vs. French 'filles', Italian 'figlie', Portuguese 'filhas'.

In Old Spanish, Latin [f] became an [h] sound.

Later, this sound disappeared.

Click to hear how it went:

A thread: 1/

Random Poll on Fedi's Demographics

where are you from?

• the USA (23%, 4 votes)
• Europe (58%, 10 votes)
• Literally Anywhere Else (17%, 3 votes)

We don't need to buy a Sun NAS server, we have one at home

The Sun NAS server at home:

K dnešnímu celostátnímu fóru Pirátů mám jednu myšlenku.
Poslouchal jsem zhruba 40 minut poté, co byl zvolen předsedou Zdeněk Hřib. Na pořadu bylo „snížení byrokratické zátěže a převedení pravomocí pod jiné subjekty ve straně, nejčastěji vedení“.

Korektně zaznívaly argumenty pro i proti. Zdeněk Hřib argumentoval, že centralizace moci je ve snaze urychlit procesy ve straně - že je to žádoucí i ze strany voličů, neboť příští volby prý projedou.
(1/x)

Es gibt ein neues Heft in der kurz&mündig Reihe von @digitalcourage

👉 Open Educational Resources. Wie freie Materialien funktionieren und warum dir das hilft.

Download und weitere Infos in meinem Blog:
ebildungslabor.de/selbstlernku…

Bestellmöglichkeit im Shop von Digitalcourage:
shop.digitalcourage.de/digital…

@joeran und ich hatten beim Schreiben viel Freude bei der kreativen Weiternutzung von #OER 🙂

#Erwachsenenbildung #FediLZ

Ein Pixi-artiges Büchlein zu Open Educational Resources (OER) | eBildungslabor

Ich mag diese Reihe, weil sie sich ganz wunderbar dazu eignet, solch ein Büchlein einer anderen Person in die Hand zu drücken, wenn man sie beim Einstieg in ein Thema unterstützen oder sie auf etwas hinweisen will.

^{eBildungslabor-Blog (eBildungslabor)}

This account recently turned two years old. I'm one of the many emigrees from Twitter that started to dabble with Mastodon in November 2022 in the wake of the Musk take over.

My account on Twitter isn't *that* old either, only starting in early 2022. I had long thought to close my account there when reaching 1000 followers here (I have almost 3000 on Twitter), but this consideration changed recently after Mark Nelson convinced me during the Luxembourg pro-nuclear event two weeks ago.

I'll first observe that my followerbase has been growing much slower than I first anticipated and perhaps hoped. I just hit 650 and this has several causes. One is that people on Mastodon perhaps just don't care, following degrowth logics. Maybe my style of posting also doesn't 'connect', but most importantly, I think, is that the mass adoption of Mastodon and the wider fediverse hasn't happened yet.

Many that tried Mastodon in the November 2022 wave, weren't prepared that they needed to put in some work to get a filled timeline, due to a lack of algorithm serving as an onboarding mechanism. Most people just don't care and rejoined Twitter/X or, later, Threads.

This mass adoption can still happen, probably via the route of Threads fully implementing ActivityPub (still pending after 1.5 year...). Either way, Mastodon et al are still a very safe bet if we look further into the future. It can only grow on the long term, say a decade.

But for now, the 'Twitter bubble' regarding accounts posting on energy, politicians, journalists, even many people on the far left don't care about setting up shop on the fediverse... yet. As an activist aiming to influence to get nuclear energy wider adoption, this is a hindrance to my primary function of caring at all about social media.

For now, I'll remain on Twitter, be it that I'll post more 'strategically', in line with my goals. The fediverse is still my long term bet. We just started this journey, on towards a future of an open web!

#Mastodon #MastodonMigration

Do you like psych in tech and want to see it more valued? Some suggestions for folks in tech that have helped me directly:

- if you have presence in org-legible places, post about our work in places our bosses see it, like linkedin (I know, I know 😭 ). It can be as simple as "loved this! [link]" boom!
- we're often judged on engagement numbers (I know 😭). Post things like our preprints (osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/qz43…) in community groups, or employee channels. Who knows maybe you'll find friends!