Notices by George Dorn (gdorn@social.coop), page 15

@samtoland But does it let you log in with Facebook?

I know, Facebook = evil, but for a significant number of Facebook users, Facebook is all they understand about the web. They don't want to make another account anywhere, they don't want a separate account for each discussion topic, etc.

@Antanicus Yeah, I've done this a few times. Once, the company I took a sabbatical from re-hired me as a part time contractor six months later, and that was perfect. I made enough money to live on, and still had a 4-day weekend every week.

Part-time coding gigs are pretty rare, but I've got a while to find one. And who knows, maybe the company I'm leaving will improve drastically and consider a part-time arrangement with me six months to a year from now.

@secstate Yeah, my main regret is not making that decision six months ago.

@gemlog Yeah, I've been following the freedombone creator (@bob) for a while now. I like the idea, though I host a bunch of things on a Linode for now.

But I've been thinking about moving a bunch of self-hosted things to a server in my house, and TOR would make accessing that a lot easier, so Freedombone looks like a great solution for that.

@gemlog I had a look at this last week, and it's pretty awesome. If I hadn't already installed self-hosted versions of almost everything I want, I'd totally use this to do it for me.

I may set it up anyway; it's like cPanel but good.

@Antanicus Yeah, I absolutely love being unemployed. And this time, I'm deciding when to be unemployed, and have the savings to do it for quite a while. I'll start looking for another job when I _want_ to, and even then I'll be aiming for a part-time gig working for a non-profit.

In the meantime, I have a permaculture project that could eat up several months and possibly pay for itself in the form of a productive garden with no water required...

I'm your glowing friend.

But really I'm not actually your friend... But I am...

The value of letting Facebook users federate is also worth examining. Many do not understand where the internet begins and Facebook ends. It isn't grandmas; mine is quite capable of registering for a forum. But tons of Facebook users are comparable idiots, and won't get how to sign up for a second service.

I quit my job today. The endorphins were _amazing_.

I cannot possibly over-exaggerate how bad Facebook is as a topical forum. It tries to help, by reordering topics in the order it thinks you might want them to be. It sucks at this, because it is a dumb machine-learnt (durr) tool optimized for engagement, not usefulness, and it shows. It shows _so hard_. Any programmer could knock off a better topical forum in a weekend. Facebook should be embarrassed with how bad this is. PhpBB ate their lunch ten years ago.

As much as I would like to keep using the tools I am most productive with (Python / Django), if I drop that requirement and broaden my search, there are part-time software positions available at nearby non-profits. It feels weird to de-specialize like this, but... 50 hours a week writing Python / Django but hating every hour of work, or 20 hours a week with PHP, .NET, whatever broke orgs are vendor-locked into?

I should probably take a six month sabbatical first, though. #burnout #jobhunt

(Too many h/t to count; this one came at me from several places all at once recently.)

A proposal to replace JavaScript with something less evil:
https://john.ankarstrom.se/english/texts/replacing-javascript/

I, too, have been craving some kind of reduced-instruction-set version of #JavaScript, capable of only doing a handful of safe, well-standardized things.

The author does point out that the two can live side-by-side; I can block most legacy javascript with addons, and allow the safer replacement to run freely.

And by moving everything it does into HTML/CSS extensions, it looks a lot less painful to work with.

@maloki I use an oil-based tincture from a local farm-to-dispensary group. ~17mg per 20-drop dose.

By itself, I find it has some very subtle mood-leveling effects. They're hard to describe, but it can occasionally be just enough of a push to get over amotivational inertia.

With THC, it makes an enormous difference in the quality of the experience. Much more relaxing, far less paranoia and anxiety (both of which I'm prone to).

tagging @muninn on this one, he's more of an expert than me.

Jacobin interviews the software engineers at Lanetix, fired for attempting to unionize. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/04/lanetix-tech-workers-unionization-campaign-firing

Almost every complaint that motivated these engineers to organize applies to my current company, and probably nearly every post-series-C startup in SV. But for cultural reasons, there's nowhere near the same level of interest in forming a union, despite the good it'd do in reigning in "managerial caprice" (I love that phrase).

h/t @constructivejournalism for the link.

@jannamark @starbreaker maybe a free host like tilde.town or whatever? Old-school, but few moving parts and the price is right...

@mikedd @md there's also Yuopon, North America's answer to Yerba Mate, and possibly the only native North American plant containing significant amounts of caffeine. But also it's extremely high in theobromine compared to coffee, which could be a plus.

Also, these are very tech-oriented. That's probably evident from a quick scan, but I didn't really clarify.