Updated 03-Aug-2025 The Fediverse is a disparate set of social media services across many implementations, with two core elements: They use open protocols to communicate across services and instances, creating a federation of users and uses. They are primarily distributed and decentralized. This decentralization (and federation) is not in the sense of a blockchain with ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Fuck Elon Musk. So, Mastodon. I'd created accounts back when it first got started in 2016, so I'm @jeffmcneill@mastodon.social. The server feels a bit slow, so it may be useful to move to another server, and there is a migration path for users in that case. The main thing is to find other ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 By 2024 the Pentathlon event will likely replace horse jumping with some kind of obstacle course. But is a run + laser pistol really modern? And fencing? Perhaps a complete rethink is actually needed. I do get that shooting and running are a useful combination, much like skiing and rifle shooting of biathlons. ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Kodable is a somewhat slow website (and iOS app, no Android) which teaches "coding" in a somewhat rudimentary way. It is engaging for the children (tested on ages 4 and 6) but limited in what it can teach. Navigation is problematic as there are two interfaces and so sending a task from the ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Install a repository to manage Zotero via apt. Install Chrome Zotero connector
Updated 03-Aug-2025 In January, 2022, a German Court Fined a Website Owner for Violating the GDPR by Using Google-Hosted Fonts. The fine was 100 Euros, but could be much higher, based on German law. The lesson here is to self-host all content (including Google Fonts), and/or stop using Google Fonts.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The result is that there is a significant difference between several honey extracts and an equally sweet placebo taken before bed, on ameliorating nighttime coughing and sleep disturbance.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Acute creatine loading enhances human growth hormone secretion
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Hawaii Dept. of Education opposing Acellus Cloud of controversy follows Dr. Hydrogen Hawaii DOE’s Distance Learning Tool Very, Very Questionable The extremely weird story of a remote-learning company that’s making parents livid AKA Power Homeschool
Updated 03-Aug-2025 This recipe takes about 30 minutes, and is mainly about being organized. It is very useful to have rubber gloves to do the hand kneading of butter into flour, otherwise cleanup is a lot messier. 30 minutes 8-9 scones Ingredients 200g flour 100g butter 1 tsp baking powder 2 TBSP sugar (plus a ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Learning Spanish (Spain or Central American) is a popular past time, and is fourth in the number of non-native speakers (behind English, Mandarin, and Hindustani). It is also the fourth most spoken language by native speakers. For an English language speaker there are many similarities that can help in Spanish language acquisition. There ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 One learns a language to speak with a people and/or read their writing. All languages are useful to someone who has some use for them, though in general not all languages are equally useful in the abstract. Putting aside native vs. non-native speaker divides (which are hard to account for), languages are put ... Read more
Updated 17-Sep-2025 Typing in English Typing Club The key to this is to not register, and then use the basic instructions. My then-7 year old became quite proficient only using this site, and then transitioning to copywork typing and dictation typing. Typing in Thai Typing in Thai (Lanna Innovation) provides information on sites and such. ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The Linux Mark The Linux Mark is a protected (reserved) mark and beyond fair use, requires a sublicense for its use. The Debian Logo and Trademark The Debian Logo and Debian trademark are protected (reserved) and require licenses (or may not be used) in certain ways.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The global birthrate continues it's ongoing descent. In some countries there has been a dramatic drop due to covid, such as in the Philippines whose annual births in 2019 were 1.5 million, and which dropped to 900,000 and 400,000 in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Thailand Birthrate In 2021 the birthrate of Thailand dipped ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Balena Etcher is software to flash Operating System images to USB drives and SD cards. It works well. Normally it is offered as an AppImage, but it is also possible to add the Balena Etcher github repository and install as a .deb file from there. Installing Balena Etcher on Debian with apt Debian ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Wordle is a popular five letter guessing game, akin to Hangman but guessing five letters at a time. A confusing implementation which shows how things should be worked out on paper first, to save time and frustratoin. More complicated implementation, include creating a word list.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Make Linux look exactly like Windows XP
Updated 03-Aug-2025 At first glance, Fig seems to be re-inventing the wheel when it comes to autocomplete, but it is actually doing this at the OS level, and not integrating into the shell. Linux is not yet supported (10 April 2022), but coming soon. This means a faster implementation of extending the shell. Bash-it is ... Read more