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Santa Claus is still a woman

The first line of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is “Christmas won’t be Christmas without presents”, while Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1850 short story The Good Fairy is about Christmas presents and, specifically, women trying to help each other figure out how best to navigate the task of choosing them. It is a mark of your columnist’s slow wits, then, that after 20 years o

timharford.com/2025/12/santa-c…

#UndercoverEconomist


Santa Claus is still a woman

The first line of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is “Christmas won’t be Christmas without presents”, while Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1850 short story The Good Fairy is about Christmas presents and,…
Tim Harford
#undercovereconomist

mastodon - Link to source

Constantine ending persecution of Christians in 313 AD was really good. The previous policy of persecution under Diocletian was terrible. These are facts.

But, one can't help but lament the shift in Christianity as the faith transformed from being a deliberate rejection of the world to a path of ease and power. This is still true today as politicians and others misuse the name of Christ for their own ends.

mastodon - Link to source

We've just released Matrix spec v1.17 (hopefully our last release before v2.0!) including a few new MSCs and some exciting usability improvements for the spec website!

Read about it in the blog post: matrix.org/blog/2025/12/18/mat…


Matrix v1.17 specification released

Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications
Richard van der Hoff (matrix.org)

mastodon - Link to source

If you're on an osm-map (like ours) you can improve shop-information on streetcomplete.app , or mapcomplete.org or -if you have an account- on OSM.org

OSM maps are up to date because of nearly 1.6 million active people doing exactly these things.

#map #osm #osmdata #streetcomplete #mapcomplete


OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap is a map of the world, created by people like you and free to use under an open license.
OpenStreetMap
#OSM #MapComplete #map #streetcomplete #osmdata

mastodon - Link to source
Our so called "leaders" can bring in hate laws, but laws don't create hate, they haven't stopped people killing each other.
Ignorance develops/creates hate.
Let's spend money on education which develops what MLKjr called "beloved community".
This would be a good step towards creating the partnership culture we need so much.
#universaleducation
#universaleducation

mastodon - Link to source

I've been on mastodon a few times over the years but this is the first time I've created an account with the intent of actually interacting. And I'd like to start by making everyone here hate me by sharing a clearly unpopular opinion and say: I... Like using AI. And I hope I can win some of you over as well.

Now don't get me wrong, I see the damage, I hate the people causing it, but I would ask, if we gave up on every new piece of technology that wasn't immediately as good as its predecessor, where would we be? We would never have invested in electric cars, or hell, vehicles at all. We wouldn't dare to building anything for fear our initial prototype couldn't compete with a refined legacy standard.

Many of the people on this platform are the people who actually can affect change. We're programmers, hackers, network engineers, the ones who actually get to do something. But instead of finding solutions, trying to make things better, so many are burying their head in the sand and hoping the world doesn't change around them. And I hate to say it but it won't work.

The world is changing, technology is changing, but we have the ability and knowledge to build the alternative. We're the ones who can challege big AI, and implement solutions built by people, outside of data centers, and in the control of people. As a person who has to implement these solutions for businesses, open source, local and edge applications are where I want to see this technology, not in a datacenter thats destroying a community.

I've done a lot over the years to push for open source technology, more than most can say they have. I didn't sit in a bubble and wait for the world to adopt the tools I want them to use, I climbed the ranks as from an IT professional to a sysadmin, a network engineer, and finally someone who actually has a say. And then I deployed those technologies for people. I gave end users linux, I chose proxmox over esxi, I deployed open source office suites instead of just paying for microsoft office because "that's what you do", even when it made my job harder.

I look at the landscape today in tech and I see an opportunity for us as open source devs and builders to shape things before they take place. To take the place of big AI in communities and businesses before it gains a foothold. And it hurts a bit to see businesses and organizations I've loved and followed for so long digging themselves a grave and praying it will all go away while the people like me have to keep helping businesses use chatgpt and gemini trash without good alternatives. Thank you for your attention, I'll be taking hate mail in the comments below.

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in reply to Beb0p

mastodon - Link to source

miki

You don't realize how much not a cost bandwidth is when it comes to AI. One Netflix movie (despite all the layers of CDNs) will probably offset your Chat GPT use for a year (napkin math).

I think you have a point re: community impact, but due to how much of a non-concern bandwidth is, we have a really great opportunity to build AI datacenters very close to green energy sources (or build green energy sources closer to AI datacenters). THis includes things like geothermal. If eveybody is running their own AI, they'll use whatever power they have.

This is one of a very few industries that a) uses insane amounts of energy, and b) the energy can be used at the other end of the world from where the product user is, with 0 loss to the user experience.

mastodon - Link to source

Bei meinem Vortrag auf dem 38c3 habe ich gezeigt, dass die deutsche Zweigstelle der International Association of Accessibility Professionals peinliche & falsche Übersetzungen, die den Sinn einer Prüfungs-Aufgabe für eine Zertifizierung entstellen, veröffentlicht hat.

Sie haben danach noch sehr lange rumgeeiert und mich der Lüge bezichtigt, obwohl der Beweis direkt auf der Folie war und ich auch mehreren (!) IAAP-Mitgliedern gegenüber die entsprechende Quelle gezeigt habe.

in reply to Casey

mastodon - Link to source

Casey

Außerdem steht darin folgendes:

- Für die Prüfung sollten Sie nach Möglichkeit Ihren eigenen Laptop mitbringen, da nur so die
Nutzung Ihrer assistiven Technologien sichergestellt werden kann. Bitte beachten Sie, dass
die vor Ort bereitgestellten Computer keine assistiven Technologien oder sonstige Software
enthalten.

- Wenn Sie assistive Technologien mit Audioausgabe (z. B. Screenreader) verwenden, ist die
Nutzung von Kopfhörern zwingend erforderlich

in reply to Casey

mastodon - Link to source

Casey

Wie ists mit lauten Braillezeilen oder belüfteten Hilfsmitteln? Was, wenn ich auch eine Hörbehinderung habe, die die Nutzung von Kopfhörern unmöglich macht? Was ist, wenn ich Schaltersteuerungen benutzen muss oder Spracheingabe, und dadurch erheblich langsamer bin? Was, wenn ich ADHS oder Autismus habe und mich in einem Raum mit anderen Prüflingen nicht konzentrieren kann?

Tja, dann ist das Angebot der internationalen Vereinigung der Barrierefreiheitsspezialist*innen für dich unzugänglich.

mastodon - Link to source

In a past life, I did an internet radio show, called "Things and Stuff", where much of my time was spent messing with buttons, sliders and knobs, talking about and demonstrating weird things, and playing music.

On December 23, 2017, I did one of only two pre-recorded shows in the 14 years that Things and Stuff existed, this being that year's Christmas-themed show.

Should you care to throw a bunch of Christmas things at your face, including a look back at recordings of somewhat incriminating Perdue family Christmases from every year between 1986 and 2017, except for 1997, as presented by me and another me (who doesn't talk to themselves every now and then), you can do so, at least until I get around to removing all the 2016 through 2019 archives from the place they are currently being hosted.

Now, if that's not incentive, I don't know what is.

stuff.tas.show/tas.171223.mp3

mastodon - Link to source

We can't put enough gratitude in the character limit for everything our community has helped us do this year, so we wrote a recap blog. Thank you everyone who made this all happen! 💙 🙌

#Thunderbird #OpenSource

blog.thunderbird.net/2025/12/t…


Thunderbird 2025 Review: Building Stronger for the Future - The Thunderbird Blog

No year-end judging of your music or video habits here. Just what Thunderbird donors, contributors, and team members made possible in 2025!
Monica Ayhens-Madon (The Thunderbird Blog)
#opensource #thunderbird

Aleca reshared this.

in reply to Nicks World

mastodon - Link to source

Sean Randall

I'm listening with the wife, but we're only half way through the first book so far. Finding time is hard with the baby.

It's weird how I've actually read well over 4 million words of fanfiction, but actually only read the original series 3 times (once as a first read, again for me to log on my goodreads, and a third time with my daughter. She's listened to all the audiobooks many times, but I read them all to her myself when she was younger.
She's looking forward to the new TV series next year.
I imagine these full cast recordings are bringing the stories to another generation, too.

mastodon - Link to source

Just tried getting a program to run that didn't want to.

"ooh I forgot I have that thing called a coding agent, let's see what it can do."

Two minutes (and a few really weird binary metadata inspection tricks) later, I have the command that makes the program run.

Not being very familiar with the environment, I'd be surprised if I could pull it off inside an hour if I had to do it all myself.

mastodon - Link to source

New #screenReader verbosity settings for messages are now widely available in #Slack, under the #accessibility category of preferences. You can now control which parts of messages are spoken and in what order.

As part of this change, you'll also find that recent replies in threads now have relative timestamps (e.g. "just now" or "2 minutes ago") instead of absolute ones. This update brings the screen reader experience in line with the visual interface, with absolute timestamps still being used outside of threads.

If you have suggestions or run into problems, please use the /feedback command and mention that you use a screen reader. Alternatively I'm also happy to pass along any issues if I can reproduce them.

#Accessibility #screenreader #slack

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mastodon - Link to source
Oops! Something went wrong. Try again! Also lots of swearing, sorry not sorry

Sensitive content

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in reply to Jake Gross

mastodon - Link to source

Pitermach

Oops! Something went wrong. Try again! Also lots of swearing, sorry not sorry

Sensitive content

@Jake Gross

hometown - Link to source
Please be advised that all employees planning to dash through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh, going over the fields and laughing all the way are required to undergo a Risk Assessment addressing the safety of open sleighs.
The assessment must also consider whether it is appropriate to use only one horse for such a venture, particularly where there are multiple passengers. Please note that permission must also be obtained in writing from landowners before their fields may be entered. To avoid offending those not participating in celebrations, we request that laughter is moderate only and not loud enough to be considered a noise nuisance.
Benches, stools and orthopaedic chairs are now available for collection by any shepherds planning or required to watch their flocks at night. While provision has also been made for remote monitoring of flocks by CCTV cameras from a centrally heated shepherd observation hut, all facility users are reminded that an emergency response plan must be submitted to account for known risks to the flocks. The angel of the Lord is additionally reminded that prior to shining his/her glory all around s/he must confirm that all shepherds are wearing appropriate Personal Protective Equipment to account for the harmful effects of UVA, UVB and the overwhelming effects of Glory
Following last year’s well publicised case, everyone is advised that legislation prohibits any comment with regard to the redness of any part of Mr. R. Reindeer. Further to this, exclusion of Mr. R Reindeer from reindeer games will be considered discriminatory and disciplinary action will be taken against those found guilty of this offence.
While it is acknowledged that gift-bearing is commonly practised in various parts of the world, particularly the Orient, everyone is reminded that the bearing of gifts is subject to Hospitality Guidelines and all gifts must be registered. This applies regardless of the individual, even royal personages. It is particularly noted that direct gifts of currency or gold are specifically precluded under provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Further, caution is advised regarding other common gifts, such as aromatic resins that may initiate allergic reactions.
Finally, for those involved in the recent case of the infant found tucked up in a manger without any crib for a bed, Social Services have been advised and will be arriving shortly.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas – be safe out there.......

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mastodon - Link to source

Na blogu @iurecz vyšel náš přistup k mobilům, technologiím a obrazovkám obecně. Zkusili jsme dát radu jak to udělat na Androidu pro někoho s non-IT backgroundem. Ty technikálie kolem de-googled Androidu atd nejsou ve skutečnosti to zásadní. Díky @hynekolog za spolupráci.

#digitalnispolecnost #rodicovstvi #digitalnisvobody #rodice #deti

blog.digitalnisvobody.cz/2025/…


Chytrý telefon pro děti bez nežádoucích aplikací? Řešením může být open-source nástroj AppLock - Blog digitálních svobod

Řada rodičů řeší, jak děti bezpečně doprovodit do digitálního světa. Pro někoho může být řešením oddálení koupě chytrého mobilu či pořízení tzv. hloupého mobilu. Lze ale také nastavit telefon do jakéhosi polochytrého módu.
Hynek Trojánek (Blog digitálních svobod)
#děti #digitalnispolecnost #rodicovstvi #digitalnisvobody #rodice @IuRe @hynekolog

mastodon - Link to source

Thank you for your continued support!
Mona 7.1 is now available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

In addition to new alternate app icons and improvements based on first-day user feedback, starting in Mona 7.1, Mona Ultra (supports Family Sharing; works on iPhone/iPad/Mac) is also available to Mona Pro users for just 30 USD as a one-time purchase (limited-time offer).

If you have Mona Pro Max, you can also purchase Mona Ultra for just 20 USD (limited-time offer).

getmona.app


‎Mona for Mastodon

‎Mona is a highly customizable Mastodon app with VoiceOver optimization and native design. Available now on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Mona for Mastodon
This entry was edited (4 days ago)

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mastodon - Link to source

Mein Gastbeitrag ist heute in der WELT (Debatte) erschienen:
„Eingliederungshilfe: Doch, wir müssen uns persönliche Assistenz auch künftig leisten!“

Ich schreibe das nicht als abstrakte Position, sondern aus der Praxis: Ich arbeite im Bundesarchiv, bin (kleiner) Unternehmer und ehrenamtlich engagiert. Das funktioniert nur, weil persönliche Assistenz mir die Handgriffe ersetzt, die mein Körper nicht leisten kann – 24/7 im Schichtsystem. Nicht als „Luxus“, sondern als Voraussetzung dafür, überhaupt Verantwortung zu übernehmen und produktiv Teil dieser Gesellschaft zu sein.

Im Text geht es u. a. um drei Punkte:
• warum 24/7-Assistenz in der Realität Sicherheit und Selbstständigkeit bedeutet – nicht Komfort
• warum die Alternative häufig Heim/Institution oder Überlastung von Angehörigen heißt (und oft teurer ist)
• warum die Bürokratie rund um mehrere Kostenträger, Nachweise und Verordnungen selbst ein Kosten- und Kraftfresser ist – und was man daran besser machen könnte, ohne Transparenz zu opfern

Ich freue mich über eine sachliche Diskussion – gern auch kontrovers, aber fair.

(Artikel ist WELTplus)
welt.de/debatte/plus6942916111…

#Eingliederungshilfe #PersönlicheAssistenz #Inklusion #Teilhabe #Sozialstaat #Leistung #Bürokratieabbau #Barrierefreiheit #Behindertenpolitik #Pflege

Bitte teilen und auf Welt kommentieren und liken!

Screenshot von Welt.de

Eingliederungshilfe: Doch, wir müssen uns persönliche Assistenz auch künftig leisten! - WELT

Eine persönliche Assistenz für Behinderte ist kein Luxus, den sich der Sozialstaat nicht mehr leisten kann – sagt unser Gastautor, dessen Arbeitsalltag ohne Unterstützung „24/7“ nicht möglich wäre.
DIE WELT
#inklusion #teilhabe #barrierefreiheit #Eingliederungshilfe #personlicheassistenz #sozialstaat #leistung #burokratieabbau #Behindertenpolitik #pflege

mastodon - Link to source
Update time! #LibreOffice 25.8.4 is now available, with 70 fixes and improvements to compatibility: blog.documentfoundation.org/bl… #foss #openSource
LibreOffice 25.8 banner

Announcement of LibreOffice 25.8.4 - TDF Community Blog

Berlin, 18 December 2025 – LibreOffice 25.8.4, the fourth minor update to the free office suite developed by volunteers for personal productivity in office environments on Windows, MacOS and Linux, is now available from the download page.
Italo Vignoli (The Document Foundation)
#foss #opensource #libreoffice

mastodon - Link to source

RE: toot.cafe/@baldur/115740595660…

This post is a good example of why truth and factuality same thing. This is the most viscerally true thing I’ve read in a long while, but the degree to which it’s factual or not is largely irrelevant. It feels like a kick in the gut nonetheless

(It is tagged as ‘non-fiction, so it probably is factual)

Baldur Bjarnason (@baldur@toot.cafe)

“The Colonization of Confidence., Sightless Scribbles” https://sightlessscribbles.com/the-colonization-of-confidence/ > The Tech Bros haven't invented the term, but they have automated the process.
Baldur Bjarnason (Toot Café)

mastodon - Link to source

RE: someplace.social/@jonathan859/…

Guess what, btw, I haven't been contacted regarding my work time tomorrow until now. My taxi isn't informed yet, and I have now proactively messaged the responsible person. I'd love to just stay at home if I don't get an answer, but sadly this is my fucking job and I don't need even more trouble.

Jonathan

2025-12-12 10:36:46

mastodon - Link to source

My vocational school class is going to the cinema next Friday, actually, not even just the class, several other classes from the school. Our English teacher was (apparently) able to select a movie from the catalog. But, guess what, oh no how sad, the film has no audio description, but but, we even asked the cinema, so sorry, we need to find an alternative for you. The alternative is that while my classmates to whom I already am separated thanks to several other factors of my disability enjoy themselves next Friday, I'll be sitting at the office (being given the time to work on school stuff), and of course I don't have to stay the full time. You know I'm not even angry, this was totally no surprise to me but it's so fucking ridiculous.

mastodon - Link to source
Ich hätte gerne mal Feedback von Menschen mit #Sehbehinderung oder #Seheinschränkung: Mir ist gestern das erste Mal begegnet, dass die im wissenschaftl. Kontext übliche Bezeichnung Double/Single #Blind Review, bzw. "verblindet" (also dass nur eine Partei den Namen der anderen kennt, oder keine:r von beiden) offensive sei, weil #ablesimus. Wie seht ihr das? Gibt es dazu einen Diskurs/Literatur? Ich finde das Argument nachvollziehbar, ist mir nur bisher noch nicht begegnet. #PeerReview
#blind #sehbehinderung #peerreview #seheinschrankung #ablesimus

mastodon - Link to source

Every time there's news from Mozilla we see a lot of takes around here along the lines of: they're clueless, their heads are in the sand, they don't know their userbase.

Alternative interpretation: We're looking at another case very much like Bluesky - a corporation with somewhat-openwashed branding which knows exactly who their userbase is, hates it, and wants a different one.

The rationale is clear enough; the browser is just a massive opportunity for datamining. The "AI" startups can only dream of controlling a browser with even the marketshare of Firefox. In that light, it's no use having a userbase of technically competent, privacy-aware dissidents who can work around the extractive dark patterns. Let's face it people, we're not profitable to surveillance capitalism

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