GIM the Science Robot @TheScienceRobot@social.coop

I've gotten a lot of 16 year-olds (and teens in general, but really, an odd number of specifically 16 year-olds) following me on tumblr recently and tbh I'm jealous. I wish I had a me to follow when I was 16

Not that I'm the world's best role model or something, but I was never seriously introduced to anarchism as a legitimate philosophy (rather than the "break stuff because fuck my mom" stereotype) until late 21. I hope the best for these kids

The irony is, when you try to make the country better, there are always "some people" that regard you as the one who messes it up. What's more terrible is that some of these people are called the government.

new old stock of this crappy mid 2000s toy now sells for hundreds due to the fact that it has a SoC RF transceiver that can be easily reflashed and used to, among other things, hack security/access control systems

Linus is probably the most prominent case of how distaste for "professionalism" in the freewheeling FOSS culture has created a degrading, toxic environment that alienates almost everyone but a small subset of White Dudes.

The senior members of my home department are organizing a memorial symposium for a faculty member and ex-chair who was integral in creating the "research culture" here, and has left a hefty sum of money to the department in a foundation for funding scholarships, etc.

The symposium will go two days. The name and the symposium materialized with little input from junior faculty, or those impacted by his "legacy".

...you see where this is going, right?

Here are 300 #free Ivy League university #courses you can take #online right now😁

Humanities (59 courses)
Computer Science (23 courses)
Art & Design (19 courses)
Business (66 courses)
Health & Medicine (25 courses)
Social Sciences (54 courses)
Data Science (21 courses)
Education & Teaching (17 courses)
Science (25 courses)
Engineering/Robotics (16 courses)
Mathematics (11 courses)
Programming (4 courses)
Personal Development (4 courses)

https://qz.com/1263050/here-are-300-free-ivy-league-university-courses-you-can-take-online-right-now/

I get so unreasonably frustrated with people who claim that free software development is not political and shouldn't be political. It is fundamentally fucking political. It is digital anarcho-communism. If you're pissed off because "leftists" have influence in free software spaces, get the fuck out of here. The whole project is inherently leftist

Too Much

http://www.poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/too-much/

Ever taken an IAT?
It's a set of Harvard tests, and they remind people in the most clinical way possible that we are all subject to our internal biases (i.e. you probbbbably aren't "race-blind" or "gender-blind" if you're operating in this social system). It tends to make the fragile straight white cis men angry.

News flash: surprising nobody anywhere ever, I... don't prefer straight people.

For mobile: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatouchtest.html

Only news I care about today is that Bert & Ernie are a confirmed gay couple.
http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/international-news-news/sesame-street-writer-confirms-bert-ernie-written-gay-couple/171840

Hey friends I started a friggin science fight this month

https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/09/gender-dysphoria-depersonalization-not-contagious.html

http://www.browndailyherald.com/2018/09/10/letter-littmans-research-academically-irresponsible/

Dear all, we are being faced with the difficult decision of closing up at our location. If you would like to see Lab B events and resources continue, please support us here:
https://www.gofundme.com/HelpLabB

#fundraiser #crowdfund #hackerspace #makerspace #VT #Burlington #BTV

Happy Friday, lovely fediversians.

Yeah, it seems like bad stuff is all there is because that's what gets click/headlines/attention etc, but there is so much good out there in the world as well.

Remember there are so many people out there fighting for good everyday that will never get the props they deserve.

You're not alone. You're never alone.

@h

Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail:

"First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the ... Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice"

@h
If your understanding of freedom of speech is ignorant of asymmetric power relationships, freedom and speech will both be short lived. Your platform will be colonized and people of conscience will be evicted

That sound CRTs make when you press the degausse button boost if u agree

In anti-social media, you are not the consumer.

You're not the product. You're the battlefield/

(Products aren't virtually infinite self-generating resources)

This seems like a good time for a PSA:

If in the future you see something on a public-facing webpage you want to make a durable record of for use as evidence, don't take a screenshot. Those are -- understandably -- widely considered too easy to fabricate.

Instead, snapshot the page with the Internet Archive. It'll log a timestamped copy of the page to their servers. Highly tamper-resistant.

https://archive.org/web/ ("save page now", bottom-right)

Oh, I should mention: I am currently a freelance Django developer, but I'm *very* interested in finding a few like-minded folks to build a development co-op.

Especially interested in building secure and/or federated versions of the items on this list: https://dymaxion.org/essays/pleasestop.html