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tech, politics (sort of?), long 

Honestly, I think that anybody tech-y with an anarchist view of the world should have a look at Nix and NixOS.

Not because they're perfect (they're not!) or because the community is universally anarchist (it's not!), but because it is one of *very* few systems I've seen where egalitarian mechanisms are built directly into its design - generally speaking, if your distro vendor can do it, then so can you, without any loss of reliability.

It (and Guix, obviously) are pretty much the only distros I know of that are designed like this. Highly robust conflict-free 'system primitives' that let you mix-and-match not just packages but also experimental concepts and system organization designs, from many different sources, and where the upstream distro is simply one of those sources with no inherent special privileges.

I won't go into *too* much detail here, but to give an impression of what I mean:
- The Nix language and stdlib are extremely minimal, basically *all* of NixOS is implemented with it, and any of your own 'system configuration code' can use all the same primitives
- nixpkgs, the 'official' package repository, is highly collaborative, without a closed-off team of packagers - *anybody* can contribute packages or updates through a PR
- In fact, NixOS itself is just a pile of Nix code within nixpkgs!
- Things are conflict-free wherever possible; all "derivations" (packages, config files, etc.) are isolated and explicitly-referenced by default, so dependency/config conflicts are essentially impossible
- That means that you can freely experiment with *totally* different methods of system organization and configuration, without breaking anything you already have or littering your system

Basically, NixOS, despite the many docs and UX issues it currently has, is one of very few systems that really gives me the sense that *the user* owns and controls their system, without compromises, and with plenty of avenues for collaboration.

And the freedom to mix-and-match from many sources with direct access to safe internals/primitives is IMO a crucial part of that - it's almost like the idea behind copyleft, where it guarantees that any downstream user is able to tinker with and control their system, regardless of how many parties are inbetween and with what intentions. More systems should take inspiration from this.

That said, before you go rushing off to distro-hop, I wasn't kidding about the docs and UX issues - it's definitely not a "works out of the box" distro yet. I'm recommending it here mainly as something to learn from and maybe tinker with.

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introducing the new "mint this post as an NFT" bot for mastod-- [i am shot]

I'm bored of all the songs on the (broadcast) radio with people being possessive and jealous.

Where are the songs about a boy telling his girlfriend that he's met someone else and they form a polycule?

What about a girl telling her boyfriend she's trans and him being supportive and questioning his own sexual identify?

I think we need more @powderpaint on the radio...

ADHD meds 

Found a Ritalin cheat code: drinking a cup of tea alongside the first dose of the day (ie. before it kicks in) makes the effect of the Ritalin throughout the day *much* more consistent, even after taking it for a long time

protip: joining the fediverse may lead to gender stuff

What's the general consensus on when to boost unlisted toots?

every single platform that has an "about me" field that has a character limit of less than like 5000 is doing queerphobia

normative people are so boring and theyre like "oh okay so we only need to let people write like 300 characters in their bio" FUCK you

:mastodon: Mastodon tip: you can customize a column to list multiple hashtags (and block-list some of them too). It's a good way to discover all the posts gravitating around the topics you like (eg. for art, #mastoart is a popular one). That's really a feature I love here and wanted to share it to newcomers.

Long rambly post about tech pol 

I feel like there's two groups in tech, and sadly the one I am in is way smaller. There's the silicon valley tech cowboys who love new tech and make things to see how they break things, impact be damned. And the people like me who think tech is cool, but maybe we should think about the ramifications of what we create before making it? And not make things that enforce capitalist norms on society etc.

I'm glad to work in a place where I don't need to juggle these concepts, and am free to create free and open software and data. And that mastodon is a place filled with more of my people than the other (though the others are here too to my dismay). I just really wish the field of tech contained more ethics and philosophy instead of just being treated as a purely scientific or mechanical endeavor, all engineering is highly political and we need to consider how it is and what impact we have.

Neurodiversity discrimination 

@cassolotl it drives me batshit the way people treat "normal" as good no matter what the situation is. It's subjective, but even if it wasn't it wouldn't be about being normal. Sociopaths are hated on for having less empathy and being more selfish than NTs, but then when it turns out autistics are more moral, they get hated on too. Double standards.

when you're a lawyer every morning you have to put on a lawsuit

Any recommendations for cosy #scifi or #fantasy novels (or short story collections!) to sink my nose into? I'm thinking along the lines of Elizabeth Bear's white space novels, or basically anything by Becky Chambers.

Something to consider when posting hashtags:

For people using screen readers, they know when to separate words either by spaces, or uppercase letters. 'mastoart' will try to be pronounced as one word, whereas 'MastoArt' will be pronounced as 'Masto Art'. It just makes life a little bit easier for those who rely on screen readers to interact with the fediverse :bear_hugs:

Selfie with eye contact 

Oh by the way, hi, this is me!

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i absolutely love deleting code.

replacing things that are complicated and difficult with things that are simple and maintainable is such a nice way to spend time.

anyway #welcome and make more alts, join more instances, don't tell anyone about them, start from scratch. try different programs. also check out matrix, diaspora, etc. the internet is bigger than 5 websites <3

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