Notices by helgztech (helgztech@fosstodon.org)

Trying to avoid drama but honestly, Pink News can go fuck itself. Excuse my language.

https://lucyfromnaarm.com/p/breaking-pinknews-refuses-to-cover

I've been attempting to read E.P. Thompson for years, but it's hard to read more than a page or two without feeling intense rage and frustration at our lack of barricades and molotov cocktails so I put it aside. Now I'm going to try to get through the whole thing and make notes.

@bmacDonald94 is Pummpkin Limited Ram Dass' publisher?

Fuck I'm sick of listening to middleclass white bros waxing lyrical about embracing AI. Such little appreciation of the actual realities of teaching and learning and the impact on educators who are actually doing the teaching and assessment.

I was considering taking Ubuntu for a spin, partly for nostalgia (fond memory of the jawdropping moment I booted to that gorgeous orange and purple wallpaper) and partly because they seem good at what they do, so promise stability and security. But Canonical seems awfully chummy with Microsoft.

Why in god's name would you EVER work for, attend, or send your kids to a college that has put a sniper on its roof and aimed it at student protestors? Like that should be IT for that institution. I would not go within a hundred yards of that institution if it were the last university on earth.

have I mentioned how much I loathe Microsoft Teams?

Whenever I get back into open source, I feel so much more optimistic about things. FLOSS is so contrary to the notion that people are fundamentally selfish. Maybe a lot of people are, but here is a community that loves to make cool things and share them. Where the idea of the greater good still has some value and is not antithetical to personal freedom. You get to feel like your computer is actually yours, not a corporate-mandated data-gathering device, and actually have fun with computing.

@Suiseiseki I take it you're not a fan. I enjoyed them, until they got too pi-focused. Magazines can be a nice way to get a bit of news and a few tips. I enjoy the interviews, too.

Decluttering some old magazines. this one from 2013!

@lanodan IKR. I get so tired of the petty semantics. It's just such a waste of energy.

@fsf it would be awesome if someone would do a licencing talk focusing on edtech that we could share with students and colleagues.

@latenightowl @drewdevault @vazub anarchists are far left and anti-authoritarian. And are not your strawmanned example activists. Anarchism proper works by consensus. Difficult, yes, but that's the ideal.

@vazub @drewdevault @latenightowl There are local and global anarchist movements; by definition holding state power is antithetical. Historically anarchism has been quickly snuffed out (as is socialism in the global south) and individuals murdered (see Sacco and Vanzetti; Judith Bari; Pino Pinelli) so no. But 'success' or contol of government wasn't your original concern: the fact remains that 'far left' emphatically does not equate to authoritarianism.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarcho-a-brief-history-of-anarchism

Just renewed my @fsf membership subscription, now at associate rather than student rate. I wish I could afford to offer more. This is a cause that really matters to me, an I think is strongly connected to other critical issues like environmentalism, anticonsumerism, and anticapitalism. Freedom depends on free speech, and in the connected world, that really does depend on free software.