Notices by Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman (stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz)
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Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman (stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz)'s status on Friday, 20-Sep-2024 10:31:09 JST 
Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman
I became incautious and now I have COVID for the second time. Meh. So far not as bad as last time. -
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Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman (stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Jun-2024 12:21:04 JST
Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman
"The very best thing to keep the web partly alive is to maintain some content yourself - start a blog, join a forum and contribute to the conversation, even podcast if that is your thing. But that takes a lot of time and not everyone has the energy or the knowhow to create like this.
The second best thing to do is to show your support for pages you enjoy by being nice and making a slight effort. There are different levels of Niceness but roughly from least to most effort:
- Liking or upvoting a URL on a forum or social media that someone else posted.
- Commenting on a URL somebody else posted saying how much you enjoyed the content.
- Posting a URL on social media/discord server yourself, suggesting that others might also like to read it.
- Dropping a quick note of appreciation to the author via email or DM.
- Actually paying money for the content via Patreon, etc.
"
Sound advice on how to keep the web alive by being nice, from @sheephorse here: https://sheep.horse/2024/4/save_the_web_by_being_nice.html -
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Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman (stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz)'s status on Monday, 20-May-2024 09:54:40 JST
Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman
Talked to a very smart person this afternoon who reminded me: climate fatalism ("it's too late") is a soft form of denialism.
Everything we do from here is worthwhile. It counts, it makes a difference. No matter what damage has been done, we can still make things better than if we had done nothing. We can still look after the world, look after our friends and family. Action has results. -
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Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman (stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz)'s status on Saturday, 04-May-2024 19:43:39 JST
Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman
Something I think about on Anzac Day is the traumatising impact of war on all who live through it. What did that do to us as a society, all those damaged men trying to return to normality? What was it like in places where the war was fought and no one was spared seeing it? What is it like right now, wherever there is conflict? -
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Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman (stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz)'s status on Monday, 04-Dec-2023 04:18:43 JST
Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman
@runoutgroover I loved reading this book. Even while I suspect it has a polemic aspect I don't get as an amateur reader, it's a *different* Just So story to current Just So stories. -
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Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman (stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 15:52:26 JST
Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman
My GP clinic uses Manage My Health. About to log in and they say I need to accept their new privacy policy. So I just read their privacy policy (https://www.managemyhealth.co.nz/privacy-policy/), resulting in the following message from me to them:
Hi
I have some questions about your privacy policy.
In 3.e you say you use personal information for advertising.
As you must surely know, online advertising is a privacy nightmare because of widespread use of tracking technology and abuses by companies domiciled in places with poor privacy practices. Technologies such as browser fingerprinting mean that even with adblockers and refusing cookies, it is impossible to stop identity matching by (eg) Google, Facebook, and even less ethical companies.
Do you use 3rd party ad and tracking providers? If yes, then this is a deal-breaker for me in a medical service.
My concern is particularly aroused by reading this provision in conjunction with s4.1.a, where you say you may disclose personal information to a related company who may use it for the same purposes.
How do you define "related company?"
I look forward to hearing how your service does or does not use 3rd party tracking and advertising services so I can make an informed decision.
Thanks
Stephen -
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Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman (stephen@microbe.vital.org.nz)'s status on Friday, 26-May-2023 14:53:23 JST
Mr Salteena is not quite a gentleman
My SiL is trying to re-register as a teacher. The NZ Teachers Council has a form to fill out - and it's a PDF! SiL household is not exactly high income and she has an old laptop running Linux Mint. Predictably, the PDF looked a mess and she was highly stressed.
I fixed the situation by installing Okular, which works fine with PDF forms (why isn't Okular just standard with distributions these days?) but really. This is just the shittiest way to implement a business process. Even a Google Form would be better (and there are many better options than that).
Of course the Teachers Council is not going to do better because they don't have the staff, the budget or the incentives. And so the assumption that you have a recent device with a recent Windows or MacOS and/or family and friends for tech support is just baked in. I hate it.
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