Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

I'm pleased to announce the immediate release of How To Write A Tech Book!
If you have ever thought about writing a tech book, but wasn't sure how, this is for you. I distill twenty years of experience writing a dozen books for multiple publishers (and self-publishing) into a book that walks you step-by-step through the full process.

Sample chapter: https://kylerank.in/htwatb_sample_chapter.pdf

Order page: https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kyle_rankin

#writing #publishing

Ich sitze seit Minuten vor diesem Screenshot, und mir fällt einfach kein guter Kommentar dazu ein. Also hier bitteschön, ohne Worte.

Wow, we are so incredibly fucked.
I'm sitting here scrolling through the feed and come across somebody posting a fake story about cops being assholes (cops are assholes, but this story is fake). People ask for a source, the OP mocks them for asking, then claims it doesn't matter because police are bad. Yikes.

"So long as it makes my enemy look bad, it's ok to pretend it's true, even if you know it ain't." seems to be the attitude, and that is a recipe for nothing good.

To all #musicians, #singers and #songwriting enthusiasts: The #DFF is holding a contest to come up with the most clever song to help promote #SoftwareFreedomDay. It must have a #CreativeCommons or #OpenSource license. The winner will receive a subscription to Musescore. Know anyone who might be interested? Please pass the word on about the #SoftwareFreedomDay2023 #contest. Thanks. See the #SFD wiki for more details: https://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/SFDSongContest
#FOSS #FLOSS #FreeSoftware #AskFedi #AskFediverse

Douglas Adams: "The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

Are Libraries the Future of Media?

Fantastically innovative and great work from Kate Harloe at Popula, building on the ideas of @victorpickard @libraryfutures and other visionaries

A Must Read

#journalism #libraries #albany #communities #cities #media

https://popula.com/2023/08/07/are-libraries-the-future-of-media/

Periodic reminder: if you're not using a password manager, you should be.

A #LibreSoftware password manager is demonstrably better than a proprietary one. Bitwarden is the best you can pay for SaaS.

You can also host your own instance (with premium functionality) for a few $/month using the community implemented highly efficient server called VaultWarden (which removes Bitwarden's proprietary dependency on yucky MS SQL Server.), written in Rust. I wrote this howto: https://tech.oeru.org/setting-your-own-bitwarden-password-manager-and-vaultwarden-sync-server

One of the reasons people are bamboozled in to working against their own interests is because they're vulnerable to marketing. And marketing-led tech is almost always bad. See https://davelane.nz/marketing

Periodic reminder: just because 'everybody does it!' or 'everybody uses it!' doesn't mean that everybody isn't wrong, generally badly informed, and working against everybody's best interesting. In fact, more often than not, that is, in fact, the case. In the context of software provision, it's almost always the case.

New South Wales is considering adopting an "anti-discrimination" law that would prohibit condemning people for crimes if the crimes are motivated by religion: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/04/nsw-gay-conversion-opponents-may-have-to-be-careful-what-they-say-under-new-anti-discrimination-law That would give religious people more rights than everyone else.

In case you haven't noticed, the results are in. Turns out that creating secure software, respecting the privacy of your users, and actually being 'trustworthy' do nothing to increase shareholder value.

Proposed: it is completely, utterly, gobsmackingly horrible that Mastodon users - even smart, highly engaged ones that read documentation and understand federation - *cannot tell* just who is going to be shown what they post or what the various privacy settings mean in practice.

There is an animated conversation going on in the comments of the poll I just posted where we're trying to reverse engineer under what circumstances a comment reply will show up in the commenter's followers' timelines.

That this conversation even exists is, I'm sorry, completely horrifying. The fact that this is even a matter of discussion, to say nothing of needing to be a matter of speculation and investigation, is appalling.

How can anybody make informed decisions about participating on a platform, the behavior which they do not understand and cannot predict?

For instance,

Read the inspiring story of how Eyüpsultan, Turkey switched to free software, gained independence from proprietary software, and saved money ($$$) in the process! If they did it in their city, your city can do it too! | Read more at: https://u.fsf.org/3m9

@your_huckleberry It's going to come from making less junk so we need less energy

It's not an energy production issue... it's an energy waste one.

It's not optional... we do it or we consume everything and die.

Facial recognition products are a public menace -- but law enforcement (and private companies) are moving full speed ahead to ruin lives. Because they can. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/technology/facial-recognition-false-arrest.html

Zoom's terms of service now include training GenAI with no ability to opt out

Check section 10.2 Service Generated Data; Consent to Use.

https://explore.zoom.us/en/terms/

Just learned this morning that Bram Moolenaar, creator and maintainer of Vim, passed away recently at 62. I’ve been a user of Vim since my 20s, so even though I’ve never met Bram his work has been an important part of my life.

https://dissociatedpress.net/2023/08/05/w-gnu_bram_moolenaar-md/

Latest comic: Tech billionaires just want to save humanity!

#tech #inequality #economy #philanthropy

Here's the backstory about how I figured out the threat a lawyer representing Trump Entertainment Resorts investors reported receiving back in 2009 and how I ultimately obtained a police report describing the threats after the FBI redacted it from docs.

Whenever I talk about #FOIA I use these documents as an example of how you can still sleuth out information from redacted documents.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/how-i-got-the-facts-the-fbi-really-didnt-want-me-to-have#.nu5958lV