Stuart Croall @stuartcroall@librem.one
Surviving leukemia since 2001. I was grateful to receive fresh stem cells in 2009. Now, trying to make choices to model a better world for my family and others.
Joined Jun 2019
Stuart Croall
boosted
"Unlike giving cash to needy people on the streets, HandUp helps donors give money to homeless people who commit to using it to fulfill specific needs like rent, security deposits, food, or health bills."
https://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/07/16/a-crowdfunding-app-for-the-homeless-handup-raises-850000/
No human being deserves to have their lives micromanaged by strangers, just in order to secure the basics of life. *Especially* in countries more than wealthy enough to supply them to everyone unconditionally. This is why we need a #UBI.
Stuart Croall
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🦣
Stuart Croall
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Massive protests around the #Aotearoa yesterday, in solidarity with the US protests against cops routinely murdering people and getting away with it:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/418031/photo-essay-thousands-march-in-solidarity-with-black-lives-matter
Stuart Croall
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asking for help to get away from an abusive living situation, boosts needed
Stuart Croall
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Here are our plans for #PeerTube's v3 (#live streaming for this automn!)
▶️ more info on the framablog https://framablog.org/2020/05/26/our-plans-for-peertube-v3-progressive-fundraising-live-streaming-coming-next-fall
▶️ read and support the roadmap https://joinpeertube.org/roadmap
Stuart Croall
boosted
This comment from 2016 is telling in a number of ways.
"U.S. intelligence officials also believe that any attempt to ban Microsoft will be limited because its products are too integrated into Russia's IT infrastructure"
-.https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/putin-wants-push-microsoft-out-russia-battle-us-n674781
I can relate. I had my first Mac in April or May of 1984, when I was in Grade 5. My Dad won one of the first MacIntoshes at a conference. I've had many Macs, and a few iDevices since.But a few years ago, as my 2008 Macbook packed it in, and I looked at what I could get from Apple to replace it, I decided to move to linux.
Now, I use a couple machines that were handed down to me, running KDE Neon, and I'm pretty happy with how it's working for me. 🙂
Stuart Croall
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"Online, there is no requirement of proximity, which allows students to get instruction from the best teachers, no matter what school district they reside in."
- #EricSchmidt
Schmidt, like so many people, doesn't seem to understand that teaching is more like counselling than programming. It's more about facilitating learning than installing capabilities and pushing content. The younger the students, the more true that is.
Stuart Croall
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The software commons gets broken and fragmented by morality licences like the Hippocratic License and Anti-996 License. Maybe instead of trying to have their cake and eat it too, these principled software engineers could campaign to abolish proprietary software, and refuse to work for any organisation that makes it? Without it, any activity using computers would be open to public scrutiny, and tech companies couldn't build oligopolies on free code by wrapping it in proprietary layers.
"B.C. explores universal basic income for post-pandemic world"
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-explores-universal-basic-income-for-post-pandemic-world/
@strypey
I think this sets up a false dichotomy that sets being immersed in the social stream against disengaging entirely. I don't agree that stepping away from the firehose is an abdication of agency. I think, done intentionally, it can be an act of reasserting ones agency.
I think the most valuable role is to be able learn from and add to the "stream," while tying that work to the physical world, where most of our problems will eventually have to be solved.
Stuart Croall
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I'm taking my #Hubzilla instance for a test drive, and trying to learn about all its features and possibilities. The one challenge of finding tools, software, and platforms in the #decentralized, #federated social world is simply the number of options, and their various quirks
I'm interested in the idea of social networks and virtual social spaces bridging the physical/virtual divide, where groups of physically-proximate communities could collaborate to host servers for their communities, rather than relying on physically distant, often abstract entities to host their server-based tools.
For a couple of years now, I've thought about Community Centres - in the sense of the actual physical locations and organizations of people that exist here in #Winnipeg - as potential places to start in terms of a physical unit of organizing hosting and tech support.
Another model that is interesting is that of "community bike shops/collectives." Here in Winnipeg there is a growing number of these organizations that train volunteers to help others repair their bikes, and learn to repair their bikes, and even build their own bikes from parts. On a number of occasions, they've organized volunteers to salvage bikes from the piles of old bikes at the city landfill, and then had a marathon volunteer bike-building session where, using the parts from salvaged bikes, they build bikes for those in need.
I like the idea of the #social.coop. The #cooperative movement is strong on the Canadian prairies, and I think the idea of #platformcooperatives could certainly resonate among Winnipeggers and other prairie folk. I do think, however, that there is some additional value in terms of adding a tangible physical-local component to such a model.
Coming back to Hubzilla, one of the reasons I'm drawn to it as a platform, and to some of its underlying concepts and philosophies, is it seems like something that could serve a great virtual hub, to mirror a supportive and cooperative physical-local hub, such as is presently represented by #community centres.
These are all just thoughts and ideas that have been bouncing around in my head for a while and I'm, just now, trying to fill them out and ground them in reality. Any thoughts or comments anyone has would be appreciated :-)
I'm interested in the idea of social networks and virtual social spaces bridging the physical/virtual divide, where groups of physically-proximate communities could collaborate to host servers for their communities, rather than relying on physically distant, often abstract entities to host their server-based tools.
For a couple of years now, I've thought about Community Centres - in the sense of the actual physical locations and organizations of people that exist here in #Winnipeg - as potential places to start in terms of a physical unit of organizing hosting and tech support.
Another model that is interesting is that of "community bike shops/collectives." Here in Winnipeg there is a growing number of these organizations that train volunteers to help others repair their bikes, and learn to repair their bikes, and even build their own bikes from parts. On a number of occasions, they've organized volunteers to salvage bikes from the piles of old bikes at the city landfill, and then had a marathon volunteer bike-building session where, using the parts from salvaged bikes, they build bikes for those in need.
I like the idea of the #social.coop. The #cooperative movement is strong on the Canadian prairies, and I think the idea of #platformcooperatives could certainly resonate among Winnipeggers and other prairie folk. I do think, however, that there is some additional value in terms of adding a tangible physical-local component to such a model.
Coming back to Hubzilla, one of the reasons I'm drawn to it as a platform, and to some of its underlying concepts and philosophies, is it seems like something that could serve a great virtual hub, to mirror a supportive and cooperative physical-local hub, such as is presently represented by #community centres.
These are all just thoughts and ideas that have been bouncing around in my head for a while and I'm, just now, trying to fill them out and ground them in reality. Any thoughts or comments anyone has would be appreciated :-)
Stuart Croall
boosted
Lots of great pieces have come out recently calling upon those of us in the free/open-source software to go further in making ethical tech.
* @ntnsndr on the culture war in open-source https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-culture-war-in-open-source-is-on
* @CoralineAda on **ethical** open-source software https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/a-six-month-retrospective-on-ethical-open-source
Stuart Croall
boosted
#ShowerThoughts giant container ships are engineered around the way combustion engines work. Trying to swap in electric engines for the diesel engines on those ships is dumb. What we need to do is ask engineers to design entirely new forms of marine transport, which take advantage of what electric engines can do that diesel engines can't.
As far as I can tell, the version of #zap available through #yunohost is either old, or explicitly disallows federation through #ActivityPub.
I created a channel at @stuart (the only public zap instance that was working at the time), and it has a switch in settings for ActivityPub. I was also able to follow my channel here.
On my Yunohost instance, there is neither any mention of ActivityPub settings, nor was I able to follow that instance here.
I'm kinda disappointed...
@strypey @muppeth I'm just dipping my toes in at this point - last night I installed #yunohost on an old PC and have a few things installed, including #zap. Zap has an "access lists" app (not installed by default) that appears to allow the creation of (as best I understand them) something like circles. I just added a "family" list to the default "friends." These can be selected when posting, and there is an access list filter on the stream.
I've been hovering on the periphery of IT for 25 years, but never really fully engaged. In 1997, I wrote a paper in undergrad poli sci entitled, "Virtual Space and Idea-Sharing Amongst Public Interest Groups in Canada." It was the seed of an interest I regret never pursuing.
Post leukemia treatment, "thinking work" is that much harder, but the intersection of policy and tech is more important than ever. I feel compelled to engage.
#policy #government #privacy #cooperation #leukemia #advocacy
I've been hovering on the periphery of IT for 25 years, but never really fully engaged. In 1997, I wrote a paper in undergrad poli sci entitled, "Virtual Space and Idea-Sharing Amongst Public Interest Groups in Canada." It was the seed of an interest I regret never pursuing.
Post leukemia treatment, "thinking work" is that much harder, but the intersection of policy and tech is more important than ever. I feel compelled to engage.
#policy #government #privacy #cooperation #leukemia #advocacy
Is it just me, or is everything in the Mastodon universe related to #canada spawned by people with a right wing, ignorance-based agenda?
Is the a secret hashtag behind which #sensible, #rational, #evidencebased, #progressive discussions about #canadianpolitics and #policy are hiding?
@strypey With respect to privacy models, would Hubzilla and, perhaps more specifically Zap offer a similar privacy experience to Diaspora? At some point I had an account on a Diaspora pod that seems to have since gone offline. My understanding is the Hubzilla/Zap concept of "Nomadic Identity" and cloning seem to offer a potential safeguard to the "my pod went offline" problem.
I'm interested in the tech, but my background is more in policy. Still feeling a bit like an outsider.
Surviving leukemia since 2001. I was grateful to receive fresh stem cells in 2009. Now, trying to make choices to model a better world for my family and others.
Joined Jun 2019
