Dave Lane @lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz

Participating in #COEP19, but rather than using Twitter, a proprietary centralised close network, I'm posting to a federated, decentralise open social network, Mastodon... And my post is pushed to Twitter too. You're welcome to join us: mastodon.nzoss.nz here in NZ, or mastodon.oeru.org if you'd like to use one focused on OER, and used by learners...

Regarding the leak of gun owner details, being blamed on SAP... er, I think our gov't is hiding behind "the supplier took the blame". But where does the responsibility lie? With the gov't. Not the contractor. Those sorts of excuses don't deserve sympathy or forgiveness from the people.

Thanks very much to the NZOSS voting membership - we now have a new Constitution - I'll post a link once we've removed various comments and notes from the drafting process. 92% of eligible members voted and were unanimously in favour of the new Constitution (75% support was required as per our former Constitution).

The thought occurs to me: what if we had a "no Xmas tree strike" this year... by my back of the envelop calculation, that'd be a few hundred million carbon sequestering, oxygen belching trees... towards our climate-change-arresting global tree planting goals. Not an inconsequential amount.

This is rather interesting, somewhat unexpected (apparent) consequence of global warming... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0622-6

Thanks to @zalandocalrissian for showing me this... yes, this is the sort of mainstream wisdom in education that the world's dealing with... :( We have so much work to do. https://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our-kids-back.html

Dee Snider, holding forth with aplomb. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Vyr1TylTE Go you good thing!

Public schools in NZ are struggling to meet the new costs of IT. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/404387/extra-teachers-it-leases-overseas-trips-put-schools-in-financial-trouble Much of that is because they're procuring almost entirely the wrong software and hardware, and are receiving ill-informed guidance from their ministry. I believe they could vastly reduce their costs while vastly increasing their educational value: https://davelane.nz/different-approach-digital-technology-schools

Great, often forgotten, Australian band - the EasyBeats - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iW2_Ec3uEU

Everyone with a gov't IT procurement role needs to read this: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/barriers-acquisition

Yup, self-hosting your technological dependencies has many advantages, generally swept under the carpet in this outsource-ueber-alles world we currently inhabit. https://elearncommunity.com/news/self-hosted-lms-benefits-we-tend-to-overlook/

Another reason (if you need one) why a developer should *never ever* sign an NDA. For anyone. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uber-hack-company-allegedly-paid-hackers-ransom-had-them-sign-ndas/

I see on FB my old highschool in the US has been in lockdown (for an unknown reason)... Amazed to see people - without irony or sarcasm - sending their prayers. Ugh. So much pointless superstition. Such a glaring lack of tangible action or change.

Suffering from a serious bout of chronic Weltschmertz on this otherwise stunningly beautiful spring day in Christchurch.

Listening to https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018724459/national-transport-ticketing-system-delayed - they're making the same mistake as always - awarding a *monopoly* to one provider at the expense of all the others - and they're doing it with incredible ineptitude. Why can't we have people in gov't who get this: https://openstandards.nz ?? Seems so obvious.

As an expat American in NZ, I find it uncomfortable the way that US-based interests (e.g. much of the dominant tech platforms) assume the rest of the world cares about Thanksgiving. Or even knows what it is. The fact we have "Black Friday" sales in NZ makes me puke in my mouth. And everybody's all like "what the hell is Black about Friday?"

Interesting to hear reports that Christchurch is being pitched as the best space tech launch point anywhere... Robert Heinlein anticipated this 30 years ago - his book "Friday" featured all space launches from earth happening from Christchurch, NZ.