mastodon - Link to source

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


free and open-source productivity software suite

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)
#libreoffice #openoffice #sunmicrosystems #staroffice

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mastodon - Link to source

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.

mastodon - Link to source

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

updates.thunderbird.net/en-US/…

#donate #thunderbird #foss #opensSource


Only 3% of users support Thunderbird

Thunderbird is a free email application that’s easy to set up and customize - and it’s loaded with great features!
Thunderbird
#foss #thunderbird #donate #freetheinbox #OpensSource @Thunderbird: Free Your Inbox

mastodon - Link to source

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

#a11y #Accessibility #blind #braille
This entry was edited (5 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

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

#a11y #Accessibility #blind #indiedev

glitchsoc - Link to source

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. 👿

mastodon - Link to source

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

#coffee
in reply to Táta Geek

friendica - Link to source

Schmaker

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

mastodon - Link to source

Unreed

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…

Fiat 500E ELEKTRO 82kW | Sauto.cz

Inzerát na prodej Hatchback Fiat 500E, ELEKTRO 82kW. Stav: Ojeté;, Elektro; barva Černá; tachometr 60 832 km; cena 169 999 Kč; prodejce MAMA CAR a.s. - okres Hlavní město Praha
www.sauto.cz
in reply to Schmaker

mastodon - Link to source

Jiří Eischmann

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 (4 days ago)

mastodon - Link to source

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

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.

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