Windows93
Just give it a try, you won’t regret it.
Give Up Interview
I read this way back in the 2010’s, but I recently remembered it so it found its way here.
‘No one else is saving it’: the fight to protect a historic music collection
The Archive of Contemporary Music, which houses more than 90m songs and is supported by names such as Martin Scorsese, is in need of a new home
Car allergic to vanilla ice cream (2000)
For those of us who understand that the obvious is not always the solution, and that the facts, no matter how implausible, are still the facts ...
40 Jahre TUWAT
Vor 40 Jahren trafen sich etwa ein Duzend Hacker in Berlin im Rahmen des TUWAT-Kongresses. Damit begann die Geschichte des Chaos Computer Clubs – oder auch nicht? Um die (Gründungs)Mythen der Hacker wird es in diesem Vortrag gehen. Wir blicken kursorisch auf die Etablierung und Inszenierung von Narrativen sowie auf den Umgang mit Geschichte in der Hackergeschichte.
Linear feeds are a dark pattern
I like alternative, community-owned, social media. They have the potential to be much less user-hostile, and can be more mindful of the well-being of their users. Yet, pretty much all of them still copy one of the worst features of corporate social media – the linear feed. Let me explain.
Tangible Cloud Oracle
The Tangible Cloud Oracle is a modified publication of the famous Smith-Waite Tarot cards, designed by Pamela “’Pixie”’ Colman Smith (1871–1951).
The Old Computer Challenge
For some time I wanted to start a personal challenge, after some thoughts I want to share it with you and offer you to join me in this journey.
The point of the challenge is to replace your daily computer by a very old computer and share your feelings for the week.
A Different Internet
Today’s internet is largely shaped by a dialog between two ideas. One position considers personal data as a form of property, the opposing position considers personal data as an extension of the self. The latter grants inalienable rights because a person’s dignity - traditionally manifested in our bodies or certain rights of expression and privacy - cannot be negotiated, bought, or sold.
Networked Thought
“Gardens … lie between farmland and wilderness … The garden is farmland that delights the senses, designed for delight rather than commodity.”
Author: “The Internet Archive is the most useful library.”
The ability to quickly search the full text of the books I borrow from the Internet Archive is amazingly useful.
Joining the Fediverse with honk
Self-hosting a Fediverse server with honk.
https:// is broken for this URL.
How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain
Feelings of loneliness prompt changes in the brain that further isolate people from social contact.
In praise of Alpine and apk
Since the change of year, I’ve been using Alpine Linux on my main computing device (a new desktop PC that I assembled in December). These are some notes on in, some niceties and caveats.
I used ArchLinux for over a decade before, so keep in mind that my main point of reference/background is using Arch+pacman. However, this is not an “Arch vs Alpine” article.
The internet is already over
Our God is a devourer, who makes things only for the swallowing.
Explorers are bad leaders
In praise of Plan 9
Plan 9 is an operating system designed by Bell Labs. It’s the OS they wrote after Unix, with the benefit of hindsight. It is the most interesting operating system that you’ve never heard of, and, in my opinion, the best operating system design to date. Even if you haven’t heard of Plan 9, the designers of whatever OS you do use have heard of it, and have incorporated some of its ideas into your OS.
Fact of Fiction? The Legend of the QWERTY Keyboard
What came first: the typist or the keyboard? The answer may surprise you
What the World can learn from Hongkong
The Tangible Cloud Oracle is a modified publication of the famous Smith-Waite Tarot cards, designed by Pamela “’Pixie”’ Colman Smith (1871–1951).
Names should be cute, not descriptive
A long-standing debate between me and a peer at work has been how we should name services. His position was always that services should be named something descriptive, so that you can infer from the name what it does. My position is that the name should definitely not be descriptive, but should be something cute and wholly disconnected from the purpose. And I think this applies more broadly to projects and companies, too.
Write plain text files
Standards: Defending $HOME
The XDG base directory specification defines the locations where applications should store application-private files on Linux, instead of dumping them into $HOME.