Notices by Dave Lane 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz), page 5

So great to see this: https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/discussions/2450 A #FOSS project working as a well oiled dev community should! Contributors to the VaultWarden project so engaged, and giving their express permission to the lead dev to relicense the project under the (very appropriate!) AGPLv3 license. Many thanks to you all! A superb initiative.

These people continue to be oblivious and/or advised by idiots. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/484105/online-voting-civics-education-key-to-turnout-turnaround #onlinevoting is *not* a valid answer.

Just making a batch of this in the pressure cooker: https://pipingpotcurry.com/aloo-wadiyan/#recipe as a way of using my Punjabi Vadi... time will tell if it was a good choice of recipes and random ingredients (I saw the vadi at the Indian grocery & didn't know what it was, so I bought a bag for about $2 so I could investigate)... A wee food safari.

Here's the result...

What sort of hell is this? https://www.computerworld.com/article/3687809/github-lays-off-10-workforce-plans-to-go-fully-remote-to-cut-costs.html I couldn't stomach working for Github... moving from Slack to MS Teams. Out of the crusty old frying pan, into the smokey, sputtering fire.

Wouldn't it be funny if the first casualty of ChatGPT was marketing/ad agencies...

Fascinating watching/hearing (via RNZ) the biggest of the Big Tech believing their own hype. Seems to me (hopefully) it might lead to their downfalls.

I have a theory that MIcrosoft is vastly overstating the profitability of its Azure cloud, and it's actually losing money. They're fully committed not to building a great cloud (it's definitely not), but rather to locking their customers into proprietary components of their cloud (like Active Directory) and then they'll jack the prices, reaping monopoly profits. Sadly, the only bankable thing Microsoft knows is that its customers are clueless and will allow themselves to be milked.

Welp, while not new, this piece from @glynmoody is definitely spot on. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/without-free-software-open-source-would-lose-its-meaning #FreeSoftware is required for #OpenSource to have any meaning. 50% Free Software is still totally non-free.

Right. In an ill-advised late night spur of energy, I've just made two vegetarian Indian curries from my friend Rajani's blog... she's got an amazing range of offerings - a tribute to her mum. These are the two I made: https://amma-cheppindi.blogspot.com/2006/12/aloo-kurma.html & https://amma-cheppindi.blogspot.com/2006/12/courgette-pachadi.html Now to let the kids go to sleep without kitchen fans and clanging pots & pans. Phew. Going test a bit shortly, and the rest will be lush reheated!

Here's my rendition of Rajani's aloo kurma...

And the courgette pachadi...

I should note, too (with gratitude!) that the same community can a) recognise the value of and then, b) design the open standard they need for such an endeavour. In the capitalist system, that sort of cooperation for the greater good is almost unheard of. In most cases open standards only occur under duress because of external regulation. And even then, most of the time, the vested interests require royalties and other barriers to participation.

In case you want a set of great arguments why all Governments should shift their IT-related procurement to a fully #FOSS preference, look no farther than this: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=g-h6CtSwk30 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-h6CtSwk30 The #MichiganStateUSA appropriations committee were convinced by arguments presented by @waldoj ... This is a template we should all be pushing to our various Gov'ts. I haven't seen/heard of a single one that does this well currently.

@Oozenet interesting - I'm not familiar with the EFA... who's that/where are they? Too few values-based organisations are 'prefigurative' about their technology choices (i.e. selecting technologies that reflect their stated values). And many other organisations are similarly deficient, tech-wise, but don't have values, stated or otherwise.

It's extremely disappointing that all the political parties I've investigated - including my preferred parties, #NZGreens, #TePātiMāori, and #TOP - all use US-owned proprietary software Nationbuilder. (all the other political parties also use it) Politics in Aotearoa NZ needs to happen and be run here in NZ. What's the point if every single step of our political process here is framed an dmediated by deeply untrustworthy US corporate interests? Kiss our sovereignty goodbye.

Is anyone aware of any NZ-based political party that *doesn't* use #Nationbuilder? Do we have a total monopoly by a foreign corporation's proprietary software product over our country's political campaigning? I really hope not, because that absolutely wouldn't be a good situation.

I always say that democracy is the least-worst form of government we know about, by far... but I'm always on the lookout for something better, because democracy still sucks in lots of ways. This is an interesting tweak of democracy: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018875527/adam-cronkright-using-a-lottery-to-pick-politicians

@lienrag @alcinnz yes. She's hopeless in that area, and poorly advised. When Microsoft announced they were going to build an Azure node in NZ, she was effusive, saying how great it would be to finally have a 'cloud in NZ'... despite the fact that NZ-owned companies have had world-class clouds - largely snubbed by gov't - for almost a decade. It was a real slap in the face for the domestic providers. She also fawned over Bill Gates when he visited, similarly other US tech barons.

@alcinnz yes, that's a special case. In the ideal world that I'm working towards, it'd be untenable for HW companies to create proprietary drivers.