Dave Lane @lightweight@mastodon.social
I'm a FOSS and OER advocate and developer based in Christchurch, New Zealand. Have many other interests besides https://davelane.nz
Last November, I interviewed @menn0, the project lead for the #CacophonyProject ( https://cacophony.org.nz ), about how they're using open source, AI, and Moore's Law to control introduced mammalian predators in NZ and restore the gorgeous cacophony of the NZ's native bird "Dawn Chorus" - here's the interview: https://www.accessgranted.nz/episodes/2018/4/3/menno-finlay-smits-blending-of-tech-and-environment
Sooo... lil' old New Zealand became a spacefaring nation yesterday! http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/348550/rocket-launch-marks-new-era-of-access-to-space
in the airport, seeing professionals hunched over computers in the lounge. desperately hunting and pecking on their keyboards. Painful to watch. One would think these folks would be motivated to invest the energy to learn how to use their primary tool... But apparently not. They prefer to limp along.
En route to #NetHui17 in Auckland. Bracing myself for the tough part of the trip: the post-flight trial of getting from the airport into Auckland city... Looking forward to seeing all the fine peeps at the event though!
Wow, just watch a near altercation in the neighbouring drive as a guy and his wife (he was trying, painfully, to back a trailer down the drive) took issue with a motorbike courier who zoomed around him down the drive to do a delivery and then back out (over my front lawn, no harm done, though)... The driver was pissed off (but I'd say it was 90% due to the fact that he couldn't back a trailer)...
(Not that I have anything against overnight parcel bags, or receiving them, with the caveat that I prefer my incoming post, to the extent that I get any, without shit in it)
Similarly, sending a #FOSS advocate an MS Word document is a bit like someone shitting in an overnight parcel bag and sending it to you.
(Note, I'm not vegan, and have nothing against beef stew - that was just an analogy)
Inviting a #FOSS advocate to a Slack is a wee bit like inviting a vegan over for a dinner party and serving beef stew.
Heh, it's pretty funny/sad when you encounter people on social media and they make all sorts of assumptions about you and what you're like... and it turns out you're way more experienced and have a way longer track record and achieved much more in the fields they're passionate about, but because they assume you're not like they never realise it and just figure you're a lost cause... :) Ah well.
So... after 4 days without hot water, we have a new (solar-ready) hot water cylinder and we're both warm and clean again (simultaneously). #firstworldproblem
I think this is an entirely appropriate song to promote in this neck of the Fediverse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtNWGUKOvEM# Plus, it totally rocks.
So, just worked out that this household has:
1 server (Linux Mint 18.2), 3 x Rasberry Pis (v2B, v3B, ZeroW, running Raspian), 4 x Laptops (3 running Linux Mint 18.2, 1 running ChromeOS), 3 (working) cellphones (2 in active use) both running Android (one LineageOS Nougat, the other an OEM image), 2x Routers/WifiAPs (DD-WRT on main, OpenWRT on second), and a fitness watch (Android?), LG TV (Linux?) & an aging "Leap Pad" running who knows what... Safe to say, we're a "mostly-Linux household".
So, in other news, Facebook Messenger is a shitty technology, further ruined by Facebook's self serving insistence that you log into their bloated platform (with ads and user tracking) to see a few words that someone has chosen to send you when they could've just put yge message text into the alert email.
Just wrote a blog post describing the #OERu's fully open source process of automatically transforming #OER course materials from WikiEducator (MediaWiki content) to a stand-alone WordPress course site with mobile-friendly layout and nav. https://tech.oeru.org/oeru-mediawiki-wordpress-snapshot-toolchain
Just talked to Cub pack about air quality in Christchurch, which morphed to talking about inversion layers and then to the temp in space, and then on to absolute zero and what it means... I took a stab at describing it, but decided to check myself just now... and this finding freaks me out: https://www.mpg.de/research/negative-absolute-temperature (possibly in a good way)
Chuffed that my "how to install Mastodon" article is running on LinuxToday.com right now :) http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/installing-mastodon-with-docker-compose-on-ubuntu-16.04-170610032017.html
Very good article on why gov'ts' calls for encryption keys is a load of rubbish. https://medium.com/privacy-international/winning-the-debate-on-encryption-a-101-guide-for-politicians-4ff4353d427
The NZ IT Professionals orgnisation (itp.nz) published my latest blog post on its Techblog.nz - https://techblog.nz/1321-The-Folly-of-the-Short-Game-in-IT
Fascinating: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/93410946 Seems like a pretty tone-deaf move given the current scrutiny being placed on multinationals here in Oceania...