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The Week #55
by James- The Olympics started this week. I'm not actively trying to watch them ( mostly as I don't care about the Olympics in general, but also because I think holding them without herd immunity and with un-vaccinated athletes in a pandemic is incredibly selfish and irresponsible). Problem is: they're on every channel all the time. And I must admit I enjoyed watching the mountain bike race.
- But because of the Olympics some holidays moved around making this week a 4-day weekend. Unfortunately they didn't move the holidays until a few months into the year, so all calendars are printed with the wrong dates for the holidays.
- We took a short train ride to Odawara to visit our prefecture's natural history museum. The stars of the museum are a bunch of dinosaur fossils all put on display. Because of the pandemic you can only enter with a reservation and it was great. Outside was a blue skies and 33 degrees and hot. Inside was cool and dark and just a few families. A great escape from the heat.
Leo's reaction when first seeing the dinosaurs was great โ "Wooow...sugoi~". Iโm pleased he expressed himself in English before Japanese. I was afraid he might be afraid of towering dinos but thankfully that wasn't the case. - We got to ride the Odakyu Hakone Touzan Line, which is marked by the red trains, which Leo thoroughly enjoyed.
Odakyu Hakone Touzan Line
On the way there and back we also saw some 3-car One-man trains on the Gotenba line.I love the white face combined with the silver body. Wikepedia tells me, the Gotenba line, which connects Kozu and Namazu in Shizouka, used to be the Tokaido line, until they could route through the Hakone moutains in 1934. At which point it got renamed to the Gotenba line and the Tokaido.Gotenba Line. - I got a haircut. First time in the longest time and well overdue. I always like the result of getting a haircut, but hate the process, so I avoid them for as long as possible, pandemic or not. Thankfully the place I go to now gives us a card and they write down our preference on the card, so I never have to remember how to describe how to cut my hair, which is an issue even in English.
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by JamesThe Framework laptop, a laptop designed to be upgraded and repaired has shipped. I really want one as I love the idea of being able to fix my computer again. The two things that give me pause are the hot/loud mess that is Intel (compared to the M1) and jumping to desktop linux (which doesn't have the experience I'm used to on my Mac). ๐ค
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๐ Free is a Lie (2014)
by JamesPrivacy is between me and myself. Privacy does not mean between me and Google. Privacy does not mean between me and Facebook...Violating privacy violates the United Nations of Human Rights.
I don't have a specific quote, but I quite enjoyed this talk from Aral (of Small Tech). The premise of the talk is something that most people are familiar with, free (ala Google/Twitter/FB) silos aren't free, but you pay with your privacy. ( This blog respects your privacy and doesn't track you).
But what really made me think was the chart quadrant chart comparing Open Systems and Closed Systems on Features and Experience. In the upper left Closed / Features you have the leader: Microsoft. Next to that is Closed / Experience, where Apple and Google lead.
What's in the bottom half where open systems preside? Open source can compete with features, but they often can't compete on experience. Most people care about experience more than they care about features. An entire quadrant of the chart has no competition from open systems!
And since there's no competition in from open systems on the experience front, the system is going to arch closed. In order to have an open future, open systems must compete not only on features, but also on experience as well.ย
Competing on experience is increasingly difficult as more systems have some kind of hosted server component. I think about this in regards to Tanzawa on a regular basis, but I haven't figured out a model that I think would work.- Tagged with
- video
- computing
- social media
- privacy
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Response to
by JamesSelf hosting is about freedom, you can choose what server you want to run, which version, which features and which configuration you want. If you self host at home, You can also pick the hardware to match your needs (more Ram ? More Disk? RAID?).
Excellent post about the importance of self-hosting. It also rightfully points out that buying new hardware isn't necessarily ecological to save 20 wants. ( As we learned in Frugal Computing the lifespan of a server needs to beย 10 - 20 years to offset the energy used to manufacture the computer).ย
More people should self-host. I'm self-hosting where it makes sense (my blog) and paying for hosting where it doesn't (Fastmail).I have a strong opinion on the subject, hosting your own services is a fantastic way to learn new skills or perfect them, but it's also important for freedom.
Amen. (Which reminds me, I was planning on moving my server to a BSD. I should really get around to doing that). -
Checkin to Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History (็ฅๅฅๅท็็ซ็ๅฝใฎๆใปๅฐ็ๅ็ฉ้คจ)
Dinosaurs! ๐ฆ ๐ฆ โค๏ธDino bones!
I miss workstations like this classic one. And mousepads!(Fujitsu rebadged?) Sun IPX and Sparcstation 5
