Neal Wilson ✅ @neal@social.typica.us
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- https://typica.us
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Author of Typica software for coffee roasters.
Joined Apr 2018
The down for maintenance page has been updated. It no longer indicates a date when they expect it to be back up. This seems pretty amateur hour.
Neal Wilson ✅
boosted
On leaving the politics out of hacking
So I guess that sufficient time has passed that I'll tell the story.
At a company I once worked at one of the managers sent out an email. Could anyone volunteer to give some programming classes at one of the local schools? It sounded ok: a bit of outreach and a chance to educate the next generation. Until I looked up what school it was. Turned out it was one of the elite private schools for rich kids only.
One of my co-workers replied, saying that they had also looked up the school and that they were affluent enough that they could just hire a hacker for a few evenings. There are plenty of hackers around who could use a bit of extra income. They also said that volunteering for this would merely help to perpetuate special privileged access to skills or knowledge by the rich, and I agreed. I said it's not a feedback loop that we should be helping to reinforce. If it were a state school it would be a different proposition.
It later turned out that the school in question was where the manager was sending their own children, and this pulled the rug out from their previous often repeated statements about "believing in meritocracy". It made them look like a hypocrite - claiming that anyone could rise while trying to give an already over-privileged class yet more advantages.
In a later meeting when the hypocrisy was pointed out the manager went on a rant about "there will be no more politics at this company". Everyone just looked at them as if they had just said something really unintelligent. Which of course they had.
There is always politics in hacking. Many of the hackers of my generation didn't come from elite schools. They were not "toffs" with special tutors. Most attended state schools and were self-taught on home computers. The "apolitical hacker" is just someone who thinks that their own politics should be hegemonic.
At a company I once worked at one of the managers sent out an email. Could anyone volunteer to give some programming classes at one of the local schools? It sounded ok: a bit of outreach and a chance to educate the next generation. Until I looked up what school it was. Turned out it was one of the elite private schools for rich kids only.
One of my co-workers replied, saying that they had also looked up the school and that they were affluent enough that they could just hire a hacker for a few evenings. There are plenty of hackers around who could use a bit of extra income. They also said that volunteering for this would merely help to perpetuate special privileged access to skills or knowledge by the rich, and I agreed. I said it's not a feedback loop that we should be helping to reinforce. If it were a state school it would be a different proposition.
It later turned out that the school in question was where the manager was sending their own children, and this pulled the rug out from their previous often repeated statements about "believing in meritocracy". It made them look like a hypocrite - claiming that anyone could rise while trying to give an already over-privileged class yet more advantages.
In a later meeting when the hypocrisy was pointed out the manager went on a rant about "there will be no more politics at this company". Everyone just looked at them as if they had just said something really unintelligent. Which of course they had.
There is always politics in hacking. Many of the hackers of my generation didn't come from elite schools. They were not "toffs" with special tutors. Most attended state schools and were self-taught on home computers. The "apolitical hacker" is just someone who thinks that their own politics should be hegemonic.
Web site for one of my suppliers is down for maintenance until January 2. I suppose it doesn't say what year.
Latest video was a PeerTube exclusive for a few hours but hasn't seen much attention there. Over on YouTube it took about 24 hours for that to become the most watched/liked episode in the series, mainly because someone shared the book announcement over on a forum. When I start doing videos that are just related to the book I'll be preferring those PeerTube embeds there.
I've also gotten a few people who have worked with me on education projects previously offering to provide feedback as I work through the editing process. I was hoping I'd be able to get that sort of help from exactly these types of people.
On my latest video I shared more info on the coffee roasting book I'm writing and so people are starting to ask to be informed about things like when the ebook version will be available. I think that means I really need to put up a proper web site for the book and let people sign up for a mailing list for that sort of update. Just registered a domain for that and I think I've got an underutilized server that I can put that on once I decide what to put there.
Latest total from yesterday's fundraiser is $832.66. I'm rounding that up to an even $1000 plus a $100 check someone left. Any other post-event donations will go separately if there are any. Not bad for 4 hours.
Had two good phone conversations today in response to my letter resigning from regular committee work and a few email exchanges. Also had a good event. I don't remember the exact total but in the 4 hours the shop was open we raised about $900 for the local food bank. We usually get a little more over the next few days so I won't have the final total until later.
The cat had stuff on her face.
Neal Wilson ✅
boosted
Roman History. Stabbing.
I had never heard this translation before but it is now my favorite thing.
Neal Wilson ✅
boosted
Michael W Lucas¹
@neal Oh, I'm highly confident of that. I expect to be all 
inside a week...
Neal Wilson ✅
boosted
In the latest video I talk about my experience with System76 technical support, my exit from work related to the Coffee Skills Program, the book I'm writing, and a preview of stuff that I needed to push to the next episode.
https://video.typica.us/videos/watch/f61e0b48-5cce-4d43-8da4-6a3bde1e4f7c
Neal Wilson ✅
boosted
2019-01-01 Coffee and Code https://video.typica.us/videos/watch/f61e0b48-5cce-4d43-8da4-6a3bde1e4f7c
This time I'm guessing it's some idiot shooting. Ugh.
12:01AM, time to play everybody's favorite ghetto game, guess the sound: fireworks or gunfire!
Render went faster than estimated, but audio levels were bad. Let's fix that and try again.
Waiting for my next video to finish rendering. It's estimating an hour and thirty-eight minutes using 6 cores, which seems excessive. Now I'm going to eat chocolate and wait for midnight while replaying Virtue's Last Reward and petting the cat.
- Software
- https://typica.us
- Send Money
- https://typica.us/payment.html
Admin
Author of Typica software for coffee roasters.
Joined Apr 2018
