mastodon - Link to source

No single person has ever reinvented all the wheels and built something genuinely useful.

You can reinvent all the things for fun and for education, but then that's all you will achieve. Enjoyment and education. That's fine, if that is your goal.

If you want to actually build something people will use, you have to stand on the shoulders of giants. You get to reinvent one thing, and reinvent that one single thing well. Maybe two.

Believing you can single-handedly redo the work of thousands of people across dozens of (sub)fields, and do a better job than them, so much so that people will actually believe your work is superior and choose to use it, is pure lunacy.

Unless you can recruit your own team of hundreds or thousands of people, of course... but for that you have to be a (very) good leader.

This entry was edited (2 days ago)

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source
I normally don't like to use the blind card, but the utter crap Chris went through yesterday is completely unexcusable and unexceptible. He was scheduled for a sleep study and called ahead to let them know he is visually impaired and would need assistance walking from security to the sleep lab. The lovely individual was like well can you have someone come with you? Chris was like no my roommate and wife are blind and my wife is working. She was like well until you find someone to come with you we're canceling your study. When will people get it through their heads.Blind does not mean stupid and we aren't born with a magic sighted assistant to do everything. I did mention to the doctor that the next time he referrs him to a sleep specialest or anywhere she needs to note taht he is visually impared and will need assistance. It's 2025 people really need to realize what inclusion is and how to make that work.

mastodon - Link to source

I notice people posting about trying to get a job, so here's hoping that an appropriate candidate reads this.

My employer is looking for someone with devops skills (Linux, databses, networking and development) who's willing to work in Singapore.

The job involves supporting customers (mostly banks) running financial software.

Let me know if you want to know more.

Not sure what hashtag to use for this, so feel free to boost.

mastodon - Link to source

Pablo Rodriguez, leader of the Québec Liberal Party, has allegedly taken the decision to resign

cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/pa…
- - -
Pablo Rodriguez, chef du Parti libéral du Québec, a pretenduement pris la décision de démissionner

ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2…

#Québec #QCpoli #QLP #PLQ


Pablo Rodriguez aurait pris la décision de démissionner

Le Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ), en crise depuis la mi-novembre, devra vraisemblablement se trouver un nouveau chef pour le mener aux prochaines élections générales.
Jérôme Labbé (Radio-Canada Info)
#quebec #qcpoli #qlp #plq
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to Sean Randall

mastodon - Link to source

Simon Jaeger

@cachondo There are now two versions of Mona on the app store, 6 and 7. You probably have Mona 6 right now, you might have noticed it changed names. Other than possible bug fixes, 6 won't be getting any further upgrades. Mona 7 is now just called "Mona."
Back when you upgraded to the full version of Mona 6, you either bought a single-device upgrade or the "pro max" upgrade. If it was the pro max, you've unlocked a lifetime upgrade option in Mona 7 that isn't available to other people. If you haven't bought the pro max upgrade in Mona 6, it's $10 and you might want to check whether it's still available as an in-app purchase in Mona 6, because otherwise you're locked into a subscription. The grandfathered lifetime upgrade from Mona 6 to Mona 7 is $20 USD. So you end up spending the equivalent of $30 US total, if I'm not mistaken.
Hope fatherhood 2.0 has lots of good parts to balance out the sleeplessness.
@Sean Randall

sharkey - Link to source

Сегодня папу внезапно заинтересовало, насколько мне выгоднее печь хлеб в хлебопечке в сравнении с покупным.

При очень округляемых подсчетах расходников и электричества получилось, что булка белого 0,75 гр мне обходится в примерно 20,5 рублей. Я бы сказал, вполне, вполне. Это без учета того, что хлеб точно свежий, на него никто не чихал, и я точно знаю, что внутри.

This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to sad axolotl

mastodon - Link to source

André Polykanine

А ещё он лежит по неделе и не плесневеет. Когда-то давно, когда мы жили в Москве (было и такое время), это было очень актуально. Окончательно меня добило, когда жена принесла с работы хлеб вечером, а к утру уже всё, капец. Тогда я пошёл и купил хлебопечку. До сих пор хочу её себе снова…

mastodon - Link to source
🎧 The Sounds of the Disability Holiday Festival 2025
This podcast contains some lovely music recorded live at the festival, but more stunningly, it contains an original short story by that Audio Describer and Raconteur of legend JJ Hunt. Filled with descriptive language, it tells the truly heart-warming story of two kids in Toronto in the 40s or 50s at Christmas. Set in and around the TTC Streetcar barns just south of St. Clair, now known as Wichwood Barns, it vividly recreates Toronto of an earlier time, and is just so delightful it’ll overflow your sweetometre in an extremely pleasing way. Its an instant classic that immediately earned its place in my very select collection of Holiday regulars. If you want to jump straight to the story, it begins at 23:11
thedisabilitycollective.buzzsp…

The Sounds of the Disability Holiday Festival 2025 - The Disability Collective

It was all smiles and good-cheer at the Collective's annual Holiday Festival again this year. With gentle snow falling, and the scent of hot apple cider hanging thick in the air, friends in Toronto's vast and diverse disability community gathered ...
Buzzsprout

hometown - Link to source

Maybe someone should tell senior management in some services that DO use performance metrics (translators are not the only ones).

---

The first two recommendations in the report call on Statistics Canada to explore and report on the development of a “productivity measurement program” for the public service, and for agencies to develop productivity metrics for departments and agencies that provide direct services to Canadians.

“Without reliable data, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of government services or identify areas for improvement,” the report said.

The president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada said productivity cannot be improved by productivity measurement alone.

“We don’t build productivity through distrust and surveillance. I think that it’s two things that productivity depends on is having trust and faith in the work everyone does,” Sean O’Reilly said on Tuesday.

He says public servants are already dealing with understaffing, outdated technology and paperwork, and those problems won’t be solved by performance tracking.

...

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says it is not considering four of the recommendations from the task force, including measuring productivity across the public sector.

#cdnpoli

ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/fede…


Federal government should report on ‘underperforming’ public servants, measure productivity: report

The federal government should measure productivity in the public service and publish annual reports on “underperforming” public servants, according to a new report on public service productivity.
Josh Pringle (CTVNews)
#cdnpoli
This entry was edited (2 days ago)

glitchsoc - Link to source

I really regret contributing to this situation. I didn’t anticipate how completely it would dominate the narrative.

"On the first night of #Hanukkah, #Jewish families gathered in #Sydney to celebrate. Instead of #candlelightings and #latkes, they were met with #gunfire from two armed #terrorists. At least a dozen Jewish #Australians, including a #Holocaust survivor, were murdered, and the first candle of Hanukkah was lit in grief.

Almost immediately, however, the focus of the public conversation began to drift.

Rather than centering the #victims or grappling with what it means for #Jews to be targeted at a Jewish #celebration, much of the discourse has fixated on a different element of the attack, one that, while important, should not be the story itself."

jpost.com/opinion/article-8804…


How antisemitism is erased after attacks on Jews | The Jerusalem Post

When antisemitic incidents occur, the world prefers to talk about the feel-good narrative rather than Jewish victims of terror.
The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com
#jewish #holocaust #terrorists #sydney #jews #hanukkah #candlelightings #latkes #gunfire #australians #victims #celebration

mastodon - Link to source

At my childhood home we had a Panasonic microwave that could automatically cook potatoes to perfection and you could program sequences with different power levels, two features that I really loved.

After 30 years of service it stopped working, but turns out you can still get basically the same thing from Panasonic, only slightly modernised on the outside, inverter on the inside.

It wasn’t made “smart” with IoT, it’s not different for the sake of it. It worked then, it works now. More of this.

in reply to nixCraft 🐧

mastodon - Link to source

nixCraft 🐧

People use ad blockers to protect their computers from scams and malware because Google and other ad companies have failed to do so. They put profit above everything else. I can't believe this guy is on a mission to kill Firefox by the end of this year. People who use ad blockers are also less likely to buy your product if you bug them too much. I can't believe Mozilla has fallen to this level, where the CEO openly issues soft threats for a product that has little market share left.

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source

Any apt experts out there? I'm trying to add MSSQL to a Debian-based image. I can do it, but the instructions use apt-key, which is deprecated. The articles I've read about the new way, using [signed-by=/path/keyfile.gpg] in my .list or .sources file, all talk about GPG keys. The problem is that Microsoft supplies a .asc file that contains a PGP key, not a GPG key. What do I do?

Also, the genius that decided the two key types should be GPG and PGP deserves to never sleep on a dry pillow again.

mastodon - Link to source

Comparing the early internet with the Sloponet that we are sliding into currently is mind boggling to me.

The early internet gave more people more tools to easier publish and learn and collaborate.

The slopfest centralizes knowledge so that you can only exist when you’re in a symbiotic relationship with an LLM that you pay a lot of money for when the bubble pops.

The internet distributed knowledge, the sloponet centralizes it and gives you only the bits you explicitly ask for.

mastodon - Link to source

Danish head of government IT (left) hands over the first "microsoft-free" computer to the head of Danish Traffic control, December 2025. They are testing Linux as the primary OS, with open source alternatives for stuff like office, on peoples work computers in government agencies. Traffic control gets to be our first test subject. This is gonna be put in the hands of somewhat tech-illiterate people.
reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1p…

The EU is slowly becoming tech independent from *big tech* :)

In this picture we see, Danish head of government IT (left) hands over the first "microsoft-free" computer to the head of Danish Traffic control, December 2025. Source https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1pohupu/danish_head_of_government_it_left_hands_over_the/
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to Tuta

mastodon - Link to source

Gagagoogle

A possible New Years Resolution for You 🎁:
No more Shit Talking through Ads Disguised as Information (maps and lists). Focus on the task at hand: Security, Integrity and keeping Big Data at bay.

Acknowledge Proton Mail and maybe even cooperate against Big Data and Foul Legislation in all off Europe.🔒️

The trust from the Core of the Community will then slowly be building up. When that trust trickles down to the oblivious now becoming aware, you will indeed Live Long and Prosper ❤️.

in reply to Simon Jaeger

mastodon - Link to source

André Polykanine

@graham I'll describe approximately, if you want, I'll record a voice message. first you pronounce the "beau" like "boh" but without the final w component, so like "law" but the sound is more closed, closer to "oo". then, you drop the H (it's not read in French), you pronounce "ar" like the verb "are". then, you pronounce "nwah", so it's N, then W, then A as in Father. Boh-Ar-Nwah.
@Graham Pearce
in reply to André Polykanine

mastodon - Link to source

Simon Jaeger

@menelion @graham This actually makes a ton of sense especially as I took some French up to early high school. It was that transition from “eau” to the silent “h” that was tripping me up. Sure, if you’ve got the motivation to record a voice message, I’d be curious, but if not, I imagine the internet has recordings. I was just exceptionally lazy, and more amused that the first name I had trouble with was right here in my home country. On the west coast there are about seven languages that are vastly more common than French, so it’s not as emphasized in the education system as it would be in Ontario and other neighbouring provinces.
@André Polykanine @Graham Pearce
in reply to Cory Doctorow

mastodon - Link to source

Alan Langford 🇨🇦🧤🧊摏

The number of times I've asked for something like a key that needs to go into a DNS record and received a screenshot in a word document in response is ludicrous. This is the sort of stuff that's error prone when manually transcribed (especially in the case where I receive a 6MB *photograph* of the web page.)

If only there was a way to select, copy and paste text information directly into an email...

mastodon - Link to source
Não basta postar o vídeo, dizendo que o contexto muda tudo. O que as pessoas entenderam da citação dele, não mudaria consoante o contexto - mas, não surpreendentemente, o vídeo só confirma o que já se pensava: é totalmente elitista e preconceituoso. Dizer o contrário é gaslighting.

mastodon - Link to source

So @sovtechfund published the report on their experiment with Fellowships program.

And I love it. I love it because the results are so frigging good and align with the model of open source maintainers I keep pushing forward.

And it gives me a bit of hope. At least we have some support for the model of the problem. And possible solutions.

Let's make it better for everyone!

Thanks you @soverin

sovereign.tech/publications/ev…


Sovereign Tech Fellowship 2025 Evaluation Report | Sovereign Tech…

Sovereign Tech Agency
@Sovereign Tech Agency @Soverin

mastodon - Link to source
So Eloquence for Android has finally been released to the public on Google Play Store. I don't know how I feel about this. I just hope that Code Factory doesn't abandoning the product as quickly as they're releasing this thing. play.google.com/store/apps/det…
#Android #TTS #blind #accessibility

Eloquence Text To Speech - Apps on Google Play

Eloquence is the Android version of the popular ETI-Eloquence voice synthesizer.
play.google.com
#Accessibility #android #blind #tts

mastodon - Link to source

hmmm.... the UK is expected to announce tomorrow that it has rejoined the Erasmus student exchange scheme.

the Q. will be how much the UK will be contributing to the scheme to have closed the deal - anyone thinking that the UK has beaten the EU down much from their original request has not been following the various negotiations with the EU since Brexit.

But no doubt Keir Starmer will trumpet this as part of reset that Britain has 'won'!

#Brexit #ersamus

#brexit #ersamus
in reply to Emeritus Prof Christopher May

mastodon - Link to source

Emeritus Prof Christopher May

So, the cost of rejoining the Erasmus scheme is £570m for 2027; almost double the scheme contribution when we were members of the EU.

While its good to see the scheme back for university students, its difficult to see how this can be anything other than (another) aspect of the costs of Brexit.

What we once had is now nearly twice as expensive after five years. Keir Starmer may say its a win for the 'reset', but once again we're worse of than we were!

#Brexit #Erasmus #universities
h/t FT

#brexit #universities #Erasmus

mastodon - Link to source

Weird thing about the kids in this part of the world is that when they're upset or whining, they have a unique thing they do to add emphasis to whatever they're saying.

Some people stamp their foot. Some drop their lip. These kids? They add a very emphatic vowel to the end of the sentence. The more upset, the harder they cough that vowel out, and the longer the micropause between the word and the vowel.

"It's not fair'a!"

"They won't let me play with my toys'a!"

"She said I smell like a dog'a!"

mastodon - Link to source

I'm sure the @Vivaldi folks are sick of hearing this feedback, but I'll say it anyway (sorry): the only thing that holds me back from adopting and enthusiastically recommending Vivaldi is that it's not 100% open source.

With Mozilla chasing the AI dragon, now would be a really great time for Vivaldi to take the plunge and go fully FOSS. I don't know that it gains much, if anything, by being just mostly FOSS.

#Firefox #Mozilla #Browsers #Vivaldi

#firefox #mozilla #browsers #vivaldi @Vivaldi Browser
in reply to Thibaultmol 🌈

mastodon - Link to source

Joe Brockmeier

@thibaultmol I'm quite familiar with that post.

But it's been four years since it was published. They've had four years to assess whether being closed is accomplishing their goals, and a lot has changed with Mozilla in that time as well.

If I were at Vivaldi, I'd be arguing that the benefit of going fully open and welcoming Firefox users who are unhappy outweighs the benefits of being closed. Yes, people could fork the UI bits - but I've seen some pretty snazzy Firefox forks since that post that have really done wonders with the UI. I don't think the value of preventing forks is as high as they seem to believe. (Of course they don't have to provide their branding/trademarks in any source.)

Especially since AIUI Vivaldi has already struck a stance that is less AI-happy than Mozilla, I think they have an opportunity to win over some hearts and minds, as it were. They could also become the default browser and ship with distributions like Fedora and Debian, which won't ship it now as closed-source...

But, that's just, like, my opinion.

@Thibaultmol 🌈
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