GadgeteerZA

I blog about #technology #gadgets #opensource #FOSS #greentech #traditionalwetshaving #LCHF #health #alternativeto #hamradio (ZS1OSS) #southafrica - see https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog. I also blog to various other social networks which I list at https://gadgeteer.co.za/social-networks-i-post-to.

  • 142 Posts
  • 323 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: January 20th, 2021

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  • Linux and FLOSS unfortunately don’t have budgets, and rely on logic and common sense. Microsoft has a big lobbying budget, gets in to see senior politicians and decision-makers, and then sponsors training, digital villages, etc. Yes, it costs a country overall much more than Linux, but it is easier for schools/gov depts and middle-men make some actual money in their pockets. That’s what Linux and FLOSS end up against. What would turn it around is having strong local businesses driving training and making tender bids to install and support Linux and FLOSS. A government or school wants to have it done for them. That’s the reality, unfortunately.


  • They know little about open source. Microsoft is exclusively in schools and government, and that is what they grow up with. They probably know more about pirating Windows, than using Linux legally. There is also a good kick-back in terms of MS license mark-ups for middle-men businesses. One would hope there is some mandatory education around different OSs as I’m sure kids would love to explore and modify software.









  • Yep good advice, some services have no investment value loss e.g. short term insurance, life insurance, etc. You can switch elsewhere for a cheaper rate and lose nothing.

    Unless you have a family or dependants, I’d cut out life insurance and focus on the essentials for now to recover. I also learn long ago to pay my credit card off every month to not have to pay interest on it…


  • Surely we need some context with this, as what we post is basically publicly visible. Even if we defederate the posts are anyway visible. Our IP addresses are probably visible to the home instance we connect to (or our VPN IP address etc) but how does our IP address then travel off with the federated post to someone following us on Threads? It’s only what travels out through the ActivityPub federation.

    What would help with this post was, instead of just a link, maybe extracting the two or three issues that look problematic, and say why. That gives us something definite to actually debate.

    For those who have friends stuck on Threads still, this maybe a good way for them to stay in contact. The Threads user gets their login times, IP address, location, etc tracked by Meta, and the Lemmy user with their Lemmy app, only identifies with their Lemmy instance. Threads should only be seeing the post and time that a Lemmy user posts something that is followed by a Threads user.





  • I certainly notice it as I post a lot across networks. I always have a title with my content explaining what’s what. There are so many times I have to reply to a commenter, saying “yes, that was what I mentioned in the post”. Clearly, way too many just dive in and comment on a title without even bothering to read the post content. It’s not that the content is pages long, it is usually maybe 3 or 4 paragraphs.

    It’s no wonder so much misinformation takes hold, as few take the time to critically comprehend what they’re reading.

    I think it is partly just fast scrolling and laziness to actually read the point being made. But then you may ask, why bother commenting at all then…