Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

Apropos of nothing, writing deliberately inflammatory posts with robust evidence is a highly effective way of making sure that it reaches the eyes of people who would actually consider that evidence and act on it.

The people along the way who are put off by it, or who are offended by its inflammatory nature, are essentially the cost of distribution.

It would be nice if these kinds of tactics weren't necessary to draw attention to pressing issues, but unfortunately they often are.

Hey, if there's an image AND text in an image you share here, you should describe them both.

If this seems obvious, great you're winning, but people mess this up enough to warrant a PSA.

I've seen people write out the text in a meme but not the image, not even say that it is a meme, and the result makes no fucking sense if you can't see the meme.

If there's just a decorative background to your text it doesn't warrant a lot of explanation. But if the visual is relevant to the text, include it.

The Chosen One ™️
#mosstodon

We have the millennium prizes in mathematics. There should be a similar prizes in computer science. Here's 5 problems I suggest for the list. Maybe they're too hard, I'm not sure.

* Synchronizing audio and video streams.
* Detecting an external display has been plugged in. Especially if that display is a projector.
* Establishing that everything is correctly set up at the start of a video conference call. Especially verifying audio is working, and unmuted.
* Bluetooth. Especially emulating the straightforward operation we can do with wired devices: unplugging from one and plugging into the other.
* Printers. Making them work.

If you want corporate email servers to reach your email address that isn’t one of the big dozen-or-so email providers, you need to post your email to social media or put it on your homepage and leave it there for a year. That’s why my main personal email receives messages when my aliases often don’t.

So to get outgoing-spam-filters to accept you, you must welcome spam.

So today I got to explain to my very much not online coworkers what UwU is. Thanks, Kubernetes.

As an #introvert I relate to this.

#extrovert

There's no more polarisation in society than ever. It's a myth.

Everyone being online and active in societal discourse simply means that the majority out-groups are just seeing what the minority in-groups are saying and that makes them feel uncertain about keeping their position in society.

I'm glad folks are trying to be encouraging about picking up art. Here's the problem: you *have* to be specific.

Yes, tablets can be cheap. Which?

You can learn from books and youtube. Which?

Is there anywhere they can go *that's not a Discord server* where they can receive critique? Etc.

So here's an observation I had some time ago that I feel is very obvious and cannot be original, but I don't recall anyone else having said it:

The goal of capitalists is not to maximize their profit in absolute numbers. The goal of capitalists is to make as much *more* money than everyone else as possible, because having more money gives them power, which is the true goal. If they make everybody worse off including themselves, that still serves their ends as long as the disparity of wealth and power is increased.

Pointing out how businesses would be more profitable if they treated workers well misses the point. They would have more money, yes, but their workers would have more power, and that can't be allowed to happen.

I've just read the latest Nix community trash fire^W^Wopen letter (https://save-nix-together.org).

The commentary on Eelco sitting on leadership roles and not doing anything + not allowing contributions fully reflects my experience with joining the #NixOS infra team. When I expressed interest to join the infra team when it was clearly understaffed and malfunctioning, this was blocked for **6 months** by Eelco, even though I was supported by the foundation board member nominally in charge of infra.

"I want to make my own resistor": get a piece of wire. you are now done. this will perform perfectly well.

"I want to make my own inductor": get a piece of wire. wrap it round a stick. you are now done. this will perform perfectly well.

"I want to make my own capacitor": here is a twenty page essay on building a foil capacitor. follow these steps. it will perform like dogshit.

just signed: https://save-nix-together.org/

if you're one of the people who have recently told us you'd felt ostracized by the Nix community, it may be of interest