h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

🗓️ Tomorrow is 'SoPN day': close of nominations for the general election, when councils will publish the final candidate lists ('Statements of Persons Nominated').

We'll be collecting all of these documents and entering the data into our candidate database. The tracker on the front page of our candidates site will display our progress: https://candidates.democracyclub.org.uk/

You can help crowdsource this information, including contact details for candidates, by creating an account: https://candidates.democracyclub.org.uk/volunteer/

My latest tech history column is now up on Every!

In 1981, Don Estridge broke every rule IBM had to create the IBM PC. He invented an entire industry and gifted it to the company he loved.

IBM never forgave him for it. This is his story. #technology #history https://every.to/the-crazy-ones/the-misfit-who-built-the-ibm-pc

The NHS ate my wife again.

She started work at 07:30… she got home at 22:00, exhausted, in tears.

And that’s normal.

Because there are not enough staff.

There are not enough staff because the conditions are shit. And the pay is jokes. And the expectations insane.

And the answer from Starmer… “cut waiting times by efficiency savings”. My dude, there is nothing left to squeeze.

#SaveOurNHS #VoteGreen

Coolest video I've seen today: an electronic scanner-paint plotter from 1970!

#Chromium (and #Chrome) begins phasing-out Manifest v2.

https://blog.chromium.org/2024/05/manifest-v2-phase-out-begins.html

This means, among other things, that uBlock Origin is about to be disabled in Chrome. Google will choose a different extension to recommend but it can not be as effective as #uBlock Origin.

Following #Google's example, may I instead recommend you switch to #Firefox.

Firefox will continue to support Manifest v2, and consequently uBlock Origin and other extensions that can not be implemented with Manifest v3.

Happy browsing.

papering over the bot cracks https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-44/essays/human_fallback/

used cement is an effective substitute for lime flux, which is used in steel recycling to remove impurities & normally ends up as a waste product known as slag. But by replacing lime with used cement, the end product is recycled cement that can be used to make new concrete.

The cement recycling method developed by the Cambridge researchers, reported in the journal Nature, does not add any significant costs to concrete or steel production & significantly reduces emissions
https://scitechdaily.com/absolute-miracle-new-recycling-method-could-help-solve-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-climate-challenges/

If you miss 'em, they end up here: https://www.youtube.com/MCFrontalot

"Time bombs" in Debian.

#Linux #Debian
https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/592cc2a4-4f1b-4830-8304-a8b55db0b111@debian.org

📢 Calling All Sponsors! 📢

🌟 OGGCamp 2024 is back after a 5-year hiatus! 🌟

🤝 Why Sponsor? While we strive to keep OggCamp as accessible as possible, it takes significant resources to organize. From venue hire to technical equipment, transport, and more, we rely on the support of wonderful sponsors like you! 🙌

❤️ Whether you're an individual, a company or an open source project, we'd love to hear from you!

🔗 Learn more and review our sponsor pack: https://oggcamp.org/sponsors/

Yesterday I presented at the NL-NCSC / @SURF / @ACCSS symposium "Cyber Security & Society". According to Donald Tusk we are entering a new pre-war era, and I fear that he is right. I also fear that we do not have anything near a "war-time resilient" level of control over the IT infrastructures that our societies depend on utterly. We are sitting ducks & it is getting worse. Transcribed presentation, with slides, is here:
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/cyber-security-pre-war-reality-check/

Microsoft Open-Sources the original source code for GW-BASIC from 1983 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/microsoft-open-sources-gw-basic/

Remember Ebola? If you're wondering why you don't really hear about it anymore, it's because scientists came up with a vaccine, and there are now over half a million doses in the global stockpile. https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/376605/WER9917-196-202.pdf

🆕 blog! “1,000 edits on OpenStreetMap”

Today was quite the accidental milestone! I've edited OpenStreetMap over a thousand times! For those who don't know, OSM (OpenStreetMap) is like the Wikipedia of maps. Anyone can go in and edit the map. This isn't a corporate-controlled space where your local knowledge is irrelevant compared to the desire for profit. You can literally go…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/1000-edits-on-openstreetmap/
⸻
#OpenStreetMap #ReDeCentralize

📣 Delighted to announce that we've been given a grant by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust to revamp https://electionleaflets.org/. EL is our digital archive of physical election literature, founded in 2010.

👩‍💻 We're looking for a contract Python developer for this work. See the summary doc below for more info, and do please pass it on to anyone you thin might be interested.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q8PtcU8JfsaaZQhEU8Jz_IeLiSekdTL1eu5-CyDqd9w/edit?usp=sharing

#civictech