keverets @keverets@librem.one

Please stop calling newsletters "Substacks" --

The vast majority of blogs are created using WordPress software. No one calls their blog a "WordPress" for the very good reason that there are other ways to create and publish blogs.

So if you've been gaslighted into calling someone's newsletter their "Substack' just because they use that platform, please stop. You're just doing PR for a company that manifestly doesn't deserve it.

Why is that?
1/2

At the start of COVID, we all learned how to beat airborne viruses like the flu: by wearing masks and staying home when we are sick. It's a real shame we haven't translated those important lessons into long-term behavioral change.

We are not aware of other FOSS development teams that have as extensive knowledge, both theoretical and practical, about #email and #openpgp and regularly release across all platforms for users world wide ... except for #protonmail with whose technical and security experts we discuss regularly. They are the other major game in town doing pervasive email encryption after all. Did you know that Proton's and delta's VCards are compatible across ecosystems and establish immediate encryption?

If you've on a limb and curious about contributing photos to @panoramax , for use with #OpenStreetMap, and you're looking for an app to use, checkout this app, Baba

https://gitlab.com/ravenfeld/baba

or install via #FDroid , with the #IzzyOnDroid repo enabled:

https://f-droid.org/packages/com.ravenfeld.panoramax.baba

It uses beautiful #MapLibre tiles, and the overall experience for a contributor is so much smoother than just using a general purpose cam app like #OpenCamera

GNOME's default Image Viewer (Loupe) no longer accepts AI generated contributions. You can read more about the reasons for my decisions in my discourse post.

I'm planning to adopt the same policy for the rest of the projects I maintain. And I think others should as well.

https://discourse.gnome.org/t/loupe-no-longer-allows-generative-ai-contributions/27327

USA's #Maxar isn't just cutting off classified satellite imagery to #Ukraine, but commercial unclassified services. How long until Starlink follows?

I'm not sure if the White House has thought thru the signal this is sending the world:

If you use American tech, cloud or telecoms, it can be turned off on a whim *while you're being invaded & bombed* to strongarm your country to sign a deal you don't want.

Imagine how many govts are currently frantically trying to migrate away from US services.

There are times when you must speak, not because you are going to change the opposing side, but because if you do not speak, they have changed you.

Given it’s international women’s day, I’d like to encourage you all, but especially Dutch men to read these ‘anti-acknowledgments’ in a PhD thesis. This is not from somewhere else, it’s from Delft. And it’s not from the 1950s, but from the present. Unfortunately what academic life and culture in The Netherlands is still like. The author is just one of the few who actually spoke up about it, but there are many stories like it.

(Alt at https://pastebin.com/cqLvxX1f)

"[The American-owned] Postmedia owns over a hundred Canadian newspapers and most of our major dailies – from the National Post to the Edmonton Journal to the Pembroke Observer and News. Their channels are the primary source of news for millions of Canadians. If Postmedia needed to choose between what’s good for its American owners and what’s good for Canada, what would they choose?" https://www.coreyhogan.ca/p/nationalize-postmedia #cdnpoli #Postmedia

How my Firefox became a LibreWolf

New blog-post: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1065/how-my-firefox-became-a-librewolf

#firefox #librewolf #tos #webcomic

@ianb TIL about siren suits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siren_suit

What's to stop Musk, who's already tried meddling with German elections, from seizing Zelenskyy's, or any other European leader's X account, and posting something with dire geopolitical consequences? We're way past the point where it's wise for European leaders and institutions to rely on a presence on X—and other US platforms are not a good long-term solution either. More should follow the example of the @EUCommission and provide their updates directly, without middlemen, through the fediverse.

Follow-up points, to answer frequently asked questions:

"Are you saying I should switch to Chrome?" No. I hate Chrome. I'm just saying no current Firefox fork is the silver bullet many people seem to think it is.

"Are Firefox forks inherently doomed?" No. I could imagine a Firefox fork that was a credible alternative. It would just require a lot more resources than any existing fork has.

"What's your suggestion then?" I don't have one. The options all come with a long train of drawbacks. You have to choose which drawbacks you can live with.

"That sucks!" Yeah man. Everything sucks these days. I don't know what to tell you

Roman concrete's 2,000-year durability secret finally decoded
The exceptional strength comes from 'hot mixing' quicklime directly with volcanic ash at high temperatures. This creates distinctive lime clasts that grant remarkable self-healing properties - when cracks form, water reacts with these clasts to form calcium carbonate that naturally repairs damage. Science Alert https://buff.ly/3EQOcxi
#ShareGoodNewsToo

Trumpism and Muskism are similar in that both rely on a shitposting ethos: just spout stuff and keep spouting stuff, don’t think about whether it’s true, the point is to keep spouting stuff. It’s a nihilistic worldview that treats truth with contempt.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xzlvsk4ty7ecwigbjpxah6yb/post/3lj7glfuhwc2k

Hello browser users, please don't use ungoogled-chromium instead of Firefox unless you absolutely have to! The recent ToS changes are enraging but please don't think using anything Chromium would be better in that regard. Besides, Chromium is also horrible for web engine diversity

I like to think of ungoogled-chromium as a hack to get privacy and other aspects to a point that can match what can be done with config options in Firefox