Notices by switching.social (switchingsocial@mastodon.at), page 14

@cubicgarden

One would hope so! 👍

Public money ought to produce public code etc.

@Sosthene @lubuntu

Yup, I've had very similar experiences with older relatives who bought computers. Windows 10 is stunningly slow and cumbersome.

Ubuntu and Lubuntu are *so* much faster, and they do everything my relatives need from a computer (web, word processing, solitaire 😉 ).

I don't know who Windows is for any more, it certainly isn't ordinary people on ordinary machines.

@Sosthene @lubuntu

Yes, exactly! 👏

Windows especially makes people think they need to buy a new computer, but it just isn't true most of the time.

@noodleman @lubuntu

I'm guessing not?

https://mastodon.technology/@lubuntu/102294468726732839

@TreacherousNexus

Hey Bob, hadn't seen you around in a while! Glad to see you're still on here.

@cubicgarden

It would definitely be good to have more publicly-owned bodies dealing with this topic, instead of leaving it entirely to for-profit corporations.

Also, maybe public bodies have better chance of donating their work to the commons through free open licences?

@dublinux @mastalab @DashEquals @wigglytuffitout @bob

Just a general reminder, people can untag themselves from threads on Mastodon:

https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial/102196334991007440

If you've got a slow or old laptop, you may be able to speed it up by installing the Lubuntu operating system:

https://lubuntu.me

You can follow their official account here:

@lubuntu

Lubuntu is a lighter version of Ubuntu Linux. It can run the same apps as Ubuntu, but has a simpler interface that makes it run extremely quickly even on older/slower computers.

The increased speed is especially noticeable if you use it to replace Windows 👍

#Lubuntu #Linux #Ubuntu #Windows #Alternatives

@rugk @dublinux @mastalab

To mangle a famous phrase, "you might not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you".

Social media is innately political, and so is development work around it, because it affects who can use it and how their message can spread.

Social networks are now, whether we like it or not, powerful political weapons, and those who design weapons bear some responsibility for how they are likely to be used.

@rugk @dublinux @mastalab

"Being a dev is not intrinsically political."

...with the best will in the world, this isn't true any more, not in the social media age.

A long time ago, being an atomic scientist was once seen as a purely academic profession with no connection to politics or ethics.

Mastodon has a dark theme by default, but have you tried the light theme?

It's especially good on the latest update (version 2.9 and above).

1. Click on Preferences

2. Click on Appearance (if necessary, not always needed)

3. Set "Site Theme" to "Mastodon Light"

4. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click "Save changes"

5. Click "Back to Mastodon"

And that's it 👍

#MastoTips #Mastodon #Themes

@masterofthetiger @angeles @whatcraic

It just shows why we need libre platforms for things like this.

I think @inventaire uses Wikidata for their book database?

Also the Open Library site is trying to build a libre database of all books ever published.

@fitheach @farhan

Hmm... I wonder if that was written before it started federating?

Maybe the Write Freely website has something about it? (https://writefreely.org)

By the way, someone in the thread I linked to said that on their fork of Mastodon, the entire Write Freely article is visible instead of just the link.

So maybe it's down to the platform you're on to decide whether it just shows the article link or the entire article?

@fitheach @farhan

Yeah, apologies, I guess my reply wasn't hugely useful :blobgrin:

Maybe the devs can give a proper answers.

@fitheach @farhan

Weird...

Ahh... I think I see the problem.

The thread is there, but if I click on the date (to bring up its public URL) it autodirects me to the article itself instead of the thread.

Hang on, try this:

https://writing.exchange/@matt/102298196119696329

@masterofthetiger

It's a really good idea! 👍

I think there was talk about it a while ago with @inventaire but there were technical barriers to decentralisation?

(By the way, their software is libre, but designed to be run on single sites.)

@masterofthetiger

AFAIK there's no *exact* replacement :blobsad: but there is some overlap with these:

Open Library
https://openlibrary.org

Inventaire
@inventaire
https://inventaire.io

Libreture
@libreture
https://www.libreture.com