TIL why Sun Microsystems (Bill Joy and all) bought an office suite company in 1999. 🤨

"In August 1999, Star Division was acquired by Sun Microsystems[81][82] for US$59.5 million (equivalent to US$112 million in 2024), reportedly because the acquisition was less expensive than licensing Microsoft Office for Sun's 42,000 employees.[83][84]"

😄

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOff…

And that's how eventually LibreOffice became available for many. 😇

#SunMicrosystems #staroffice #openoffice #libreoffice

reshared this

Why would the Firefox flatpak do this:

- a) Updated it automatically circa 1 month ago; it lost all my containers and sessions. I think it restarted empty.

- b) Updated it automatically about 5 days ago; again it lost all my containers and sessions, and restarted with my REALLY OLD windows and tabs from before (a).

Neither update lost my bookmarks or anything critical. I just have to re-do my logins in the appropriate containers; no big deal, but it's annoying.

I gave to @thunderbird today to #freetheinbox. Join me to support communication privacy. thunderbird.net/

updates.thunderbird.net/en-US/…

#donate #thunderbird #foss #opensSource

I’ve built a few Braille-related apps, and I’m learning the hard way how difficult this space really is.

Discoverability is hard, onboarding takes time, and even motivated users often need practice before the apps become useful. Some software concepts are innovative, powerful, but slower compared to hardware tools.

I’m still iterating and listening carefully to feedback.

#Blind #Braille #Accessibility #a11y

This entry was edited (1 day ago)

Hello Mastodon 👋

I’m Stefan, an indie developer working on accessibility-focused apps for blind users.

My current work explores how light, color, and structure can be translated into sound and haptics without being overwhelming. A lot of it is learning by listening — to users, not just to code.

I’m here to learn, exchange ideas, and hopefully contribute something useful.

Happy to connect, and grateful for thoughtful feedback along the way.

#Accessibility #a11y #Blind #IndieDev

A miserable complaint:
You know what really grinds my gears? When people who speak English as their first language have no fucking clue what they're talking about and have the gall to correct you about something they're wrong about, about their own language.

I learned the fucking rules and grammar! I checked the spelling in the dictionary! I read the style guides and the outlines of prose and poetry, I studied the classics! Sit the fuck down and go home to learn your own fucking language you silly oblivious little git. 👿

Kauai Coffee is a 3,000-acre farm on the south side of the island, the largest coffee farm in the US. Its lease is being threatened by the landowner and they may have to close shop.

I have mixed feelings about this because, a) The company provides jobs for the island, but b) Their coffee is absolute shite. They grow it in sandy soil near sea level and it tastes like dog's balls. Sorry not sorry.

#coffee

in reply to Táta Geek

Já jsem ten příspěvek zkonil, protože jsem chtěl napsat evropskej trh, ale měnit už to nebudu.

Golf vypadá tak, jak by člověk od Golfa čekal. Nuda, ale tak jak jí známe. Vlastně jsem s tim v pohodě, jen mě to nebaví :)

Vlastně se mi celkem líbí myšlenka "vezmu starej model, trochu ho uhladim a narvu do něj baterku". Třeba Renault 5 byl za mě fakt chytrej tah...

in reply to Táta Geek

No hlavně viděl jsi co za to chtějí?! Za 150? Na ježdění kolem komína? Ideální. Ale jinak pardon, to je vykuchaný spalovák, to není designově eauto sauto.cz/osobni/detail/fiat/50…
in reply to Schmaker

za 150 asi dobrý, ale má to jen 24 kWh baterii. Jako jeté už spíš 20-22. Po půl roce s elektroautem už bych nechtěl nic pod 40 kWh ani jako městské auto. V zimě na krátké trasy si to vezme klidně 20-25 kWh/100 km. S takovou baterií to musí být v jednom kuse na nabíječce. Z praktických důvodů je dobré mít rezervu. Když zjistím, že se potřebuju otočit na druhý konec Brna a v baterii mám momentálně třetinu a nemůžu čekat, až se to nabije.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)

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

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.

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

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

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.

reshared this

in reply to Beb0p

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.

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

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

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.