Dave Lane @lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz

Thanks to @mackiwg for pointing me at this - I encourage everyone to use a password manager, and Bitwarden's been my preferred option for a few years. Here's someone else who's come to the same conclusion: https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-start-using-password-manager/ - I prefer to run my own Bitwarden servers (which is an option because it's fully #FOSS) - here's how I do it very cost effectively: https://tech.oeru.org/setting-your-own-bitwarden-password-manager-and-sync-server

I'd love to see society turn wholeheartedly against the idea that "blind faith" can be virtuous. We need to employ peer pressure to help people break their old patterns. The same way we've dissuaded most of society from smoking. To me, lacking incredulity (not questioning faith) is a clear character flaw.

Interesting - putting a value on the contribution of FOSS developers... TL;DL -> $100s of billions contributed to the economy. https://www.zdnet.com/video/open-source-developers-contribute-hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars-to-the-economy/

Oops - should've been "that they perpetually *pay* for... "

Seems to me that a convenient side effect of this: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/437849/microsoft-email-users-in-nz-told-to-act-quickly-after-mass-hack from Microsoft's perspective is that it'll hasten (ignorant) people's/organisations' shift from running MS Exchange servers (that they've already paid for) to MSFT's cloud-based systems... that they perpetually paid for... **rubs chin**...

Ouch, this sucks for Windows email users (i.e. most people): https://www.reuters.com/article/BigStory12/idUSKBN2AX23U One hopes that those people are smart enough to realise that the solution to it *is not* going to come from Microsoft. In fact, it could even be that Microsoft was somehow involved... they're keen to get people off their (already paid-for) MS Exchange systems, and instead onto MS' subscription-based (perpetually paying for) Office 365 "solution"...

Indeed. The revolution we need will not be sponsored by those against whom we are revolting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldhHkVjLe7A

Encourage your favourite tech pundits to be brave. Most aren't speaking out like Bernard Hickey here: https://thekaka.substack.com/p/dawn-chorus-reclaiming-our-information because the strangle-hold that the Frightful Five have over our media in NZ means that those pundits (usually contractors) can't afford to piss them off or be seen as "too controversial" by their Frightful Five-partner or otherwise totally dependent customers. We need to encourage the to do the right thing.

Someone discouraged me in my FOSS advocacy yesterday by saying "but, the stuff you're promoting... it's not *familiar* to people, so they won't use it"... It occurs to me that folks smoking used to be very familiar to people until a few years ago... today, I'm hard pressed to think of a single person I know who smokes. Culture changes. It's on us to make sure it's for the better.

This, folks, is the unstoppable power for FOSS: someone's created https://inkstitch.org/ by building on the superb FOSS app, Inkscape. FOSS lets *you* be the developer. If you want to be. As this person clearly did. And now everyone doing embroidery has a cool new tool to help them.

If someone you know wants to create an amazing digital image, here's an amazing tool to try right now: Inkscape - https://inkscape.org - there're thousands of video tutorials & docs on line. It saves kids & institutions the outrageous per-seat cost of the "professional" tools (which, honestly, are totally unnecessary). With fully Free and open source software like Inkscape, we can remove barriers to education. This is how we achieve digital equity. No corporations required.

No god for the damn I don't give, indeed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7aQtVfB-88

I wonder how many bands have a lead singer/band sysadmin?

Just showed my boys this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu27IQPsqdU to help them understand what the fuss was all about... they weren't as impressed as I'd hoped...

Fascinating read from @doctorow - https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/21/paltrow-industrial-complex and it seems to me that the lack of antitrust enforcement in EU GDPR legislation might be because the EU gov'ts have realised that they're totally dependent on at least one US corporate monopoly (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg and https://davelane.nz/mshostage )