Tigzikk @tigzikk@librem.one
Human... maybe?
Joined Jun 2019
@rimugu my intent was not to misrepresent. I asked about modelling oversight off of the uni accreditation system, which afaik the accrediting agencies are solely selected by DoE. It's acceptable for uni, but not for K-12?
We agree, choose your school. But to be tax payer funded (via fed or property tax) there should be oversight. Not what _must be_ taught, but to stop misrepresentations. Pub schools are a common foundation. The evidence is some localities actively undermine that.
Tigzikk
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#PinebookPro trackpad and keyboard firmware updater now works for BOTH ANSI and ISO hardware variations.
And yes, ANSI users also need to update too.
@rimugu Despite businesses generally preffering graduates from accredited university programs you think that system has no merit because the federal gov't chooses the accrediting agencies?
Tigzikk
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@npr you know if the federal government refused to hire tobacco users the right would melt down but because this is a corporate overlord they'll probably applaud them and agree that they can dictate morality to employees. Perhaps this is one more reason all health insurance should be delinked from employment.
Pre-employment drug testing should be illegal. What people do on their own time is their business.
Tigzikk
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So I was recently asked why I prefer to use free and open source software over more conventional and popular proprietary software and services.
A few years ago I was an avid Google user. I was deeply embedded in the Google ecosystem and used their products everywhere. I used Gmail for email, Google Calendar and Contacts for PIM, YouTube for entertainment, Google Newsstand for news, Android for mobile, and Chrome as my web browser.
I would upload all of my family photos to Google Photos and all of my personal documents to Google Drive (which were all in Google Docs format). I used Google Domains to register my domain names for websites where I would keep track of my users using Google Analytics and monetize them using Google AdSense.
I used Google Hangouts (one of Google’s previous messaging plays) to communicate with friends and family and Google Wallet (with debit card) to buy things online and in-store.
My home is covered with Google Homes (1 in my office, 1 in my bedroom, 1 in the main living area) which I would use to play music on my Google Play Music subscription and podcasts from Google Podcasts.
I have easily invested thousands of dollars into my Google account to buy movies, TV shows, apps, and Google hardware devices. This was truly the Google life.
Then one day, I received an email from Google that changed everything.
“Your account has been suspended”Just the thing you want to wake up to in the morning. An email from Google saying that your account has been suspended due to a perceived Terms of Use violation. No prior warning. No appeals process. No number to call. Trying to sign in to your Google account yields an error and all of your connected devices are signed out. All of your Google data, your photos, emails, contacts, calendars, purchased movies and TV shows. All gone.
I nearly had a heart attack, until I saw that the Google account that had been suspended was in fact not my main personal Google account, but a throwaway Gmail account that I created years prior for a project. I hadn’t touched the other account since creation and forgot it existed. Apparently my personal Gmail was listed as the recovery address for the throwaway account and that’s why I received the termination email.
Although I was able to breathe a sigh of relief this time, the email was wake up call. I was forced to critically reevaluate my dependence on a single company for all the tech products and services in my life.
I found myself to be a frog in a heating pot of water and I made the decision that I was going to jump out.
Leaving GoogleToday there are plenty of lists on the internet providing alternatives to Google services such as this and this. Although the “DeGoogle” movement was still in its infancy when I was making the move.
The first Google service I decided to drop was Gmail, the heart of my online identity. I migrated to Fastmail with my own domain in case I needed to move again (hint: glad I did, now I self host my email). Fastmail also provided calendar and contacts solutions so that took care of leaving Google Calendar and Contacts.
Here are some other alternatives that I moved to:
Gmail → Fastmail → Self-hosted (via Cloudron)
Google Contacts → Fastmail → Nextcloud Contacts
Google Calendar → Fastmail → Nextcloud Calendar
Google Search → Bing → DuckDuckGo
Google Maps → Bing Maps → OpenStreetMaps and OsmAnd
Google Analytics → Matomo Analytics
Google Drive → Nextcloud Files
Google Photos → Nextcloud Files/Gallery
Google Docs → Collabora Office (Nextcloud integration) and LibreOffice
Google Play Music → Spotify / Plex → Spotify / Jellyfin
Google Play Movies/TV → Plex → Jellyfin
Google Play Audiobooks/Books → Audible/Kindle
Google Play Store (apps) → F-Droid / Aurora Store
Google Android → Lineage OS → Ubuntu Touch on PinePhone (coming soon?)
Google’s Android Apps → Simple Mobile Tools
Google Chrome → Mozilla Firefox
Google Domains → Hover
Google Hangouts → Matrix and Nextcloud Talk
Google Allo → Signal
Google Podcasts → PocketCasts → AntennaPod
Google Newsstand → RSS
Google Wallet → PayPal and Cash App
Migrating away from Google was not a fast or easy process. It took years to get where I am now and there are still several Google services that I depend on: YouTube and Google Home.
Eventually, my Google Home’s will grow old and become unsupported at which point hopefully the Mycroft devices have matured and become available for purchase. YouTube may never be replaced (although I do hope for projects like PeerTube to succeed) but I find the compromise of using only one or two Google services to be acceptable.
At this point losing my Google account due to a mistake in their machine learning would largely be inconsequential and my focus has shifted to leaving Amazon which I use for most of my shopping and cloud services.
The reason that I moved to mostly FOSS applications is that it seems to be the only software ecosystem where everything works seamlessly together and I don’t have to cede control to any single company. Alternatively I could have simply split my service usage up evenly across Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple but I don’t feel that they would have worked as nicely together.
Overall I’m very happy with the open source ecosystem. I use Ubuntu with KDE on all of my computers and Android (no GApps) on my mobile phone. I’ve ordered the PinePhone “Brave Heart” and hope to one day be able to use it or one of its successors as a daily driver with Ubuntu Touch or Plasma Mobile.
I don’t want to give the impression that I exclusively use open source software either, I do use a number of proprietary apps including: Sublime Text, Typora, and Cloudron.
Tigzikk
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The Australian fires have turned the skyline into the aboriginal flag
@rimugu I'm saying that a body that funds, has power over interstate trade, and has in the past performed oversight (e.g. Voting Rights Act) seems the most logical to help ensure evidence based, data driven standards. I see this as different than mandating what is on the curriculum. But maybe more when a curriculum is inadequate.
Maybe similar to university program accreditations. I, perhaps wrongly, still think of that as federal oversight as DoE selects the agencies.
@rimugu Federal dollars going into schools (potentially including charters via vouchers) should mean that the federal gov't (DoE) should be able to mandate some, not all, standards. Example, TX is the second largest textbook market. A decision to omit evolution or downplay slavery/segregation can affect other schools hoping to take advantage of economies of scale.
Data driven teaching should be an important part of determining curriculum (e.g. phonics vs whole language reading).
Tigzikk
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🌸Hibiki
#fanart #TheLastBlade #月華の剣士 #SNK #NeoGeo #krita
blog post (full res): https://www.davidrevoy.com/article753/hibiki
~critics welcome~
@yogthos@mastodon.social it would still take some personal action, as we're self segregating too. People have to be willing to listen to sources from the other side. Check out a news org from across the aisle at https://mediabiasfactcheck.com
For instance I get a lot of (US) news from National Public Radio and balance that with reading RealClearPolitics.
I just don't think that the Bible should be used as a literal history of the world when the stories are allegories.
Teaching the diversity of human experience and that all deserve to be treated with dignity; that is just how to be a decent person.
@rimugu I suspect that we would disagree on what constitutes brain washing.
For instance I would say teaching creationism as if it were scientifically valid is brain washing. As would be abstinence only sexual ed. They refute established science and purposefully limit thought to a certain subculture's moral norms.
To be clear I also wouldn't support schools teaching that God doesn't exist.
@yogthos@mastodon.social
@SallyStrange @feld another thought... I wonder if @MarkWarner@twitter.com, US Senator (D-VA) that is trying to pish regulation in the US, is talking to open protocol and open platform developers to see what kinds of things could foster continued innovation in the social media landscape.
@SallyStrange interesting conversation. I think a big portion of flak that big data tech recieves has to do with how they operate. They built a user base using a TOS and privacy policy filled with opaque language and rolled out new collection as silent automatically opt-ins
I think that @feld is probably right. We need gov't bodies to regulate, audit, and when necessary penalize. Privacy would be a min, open protocols to break up monopolistic lock-in would be great
artofgregmartin.com used to be home to some magnificent spacescapes. For some reason the universe page of the site has been under construction for years now. Here's hoping Greg's 2020 resolution is bringing his beautiful space paintings back to the internet. #art
@redstarfish @viv@toot.site i learned something today. Time to punch out.
"Getting to Know You" question of the day
Tigzikk
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Privacy shouldn't be a luxury. We’ve joined with @privacyint and over 50 other orgs to ask Google to take action against the exploitative practices of pre-installed apps.
Read the letter & add your voice: https://privacyinternational.org/advocacy/3320/open-letter-google #Bloatware
Tigzikk
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@feld @kingu_platypus_gidora how about if we aim for less harm but keep the internet? Or are we only allowed to talk in black/white binaries where there's either maximal harm or none at all?
Human... maybe?
Joined Jun 2019
