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Just realized I never did a proper introduction here, so here we go:
My name is Gerd, I'm a student who currently lives in China. I do the IB, with finals in May 2019. My hobbies are rock climbing and coding. And of course, procrastinating. I'm :gay: and if you don't like that, please unfollow and block me. My cute boyfriend is @soren.
~Gerd

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Gerd boosted

🔥 Nextcloud bookmarks app disabled 🔥

Due to a bug causing server crash in connection to bookmark app usage, we have disabled it temporarily. We do have an idea on what might be going on and will investigate the issue asap.

state.disroot.org/incident/182

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Opinion on filter bubbles 

Really, if you people know what I could do to burst my filter bubble without getting depressed about how bad/stupid some people are online; and how these people ruin the fun for everybody... Please tell me.

An option for me would also be to just get off social media for some time (I do it unintentionally all the time anyways), but that probably wouldn't affect my mindset that much. [3]

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Opinion on filter bubbles 

but I think it's also quite dangerous. I feel like it's less likely to be radicalized within this LGBTQ+ "echo chamber", but then... I really have no way of judging how extreme my opinions are from inside here, where a lot of people share these opinions.
I feel like I should expose myself to other opinions as well, but I don't know where to start, especially since I now think differently of certain groups online and IRL...
Honestly I have no idea what to do. As usual.[2]

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Opinion on filter bubbles 

Honestly, I've recently noticed how much I'm stuck in this LGBTQ+ filter bubble, and I'm not sure if that is a good thing. Yes, I do get tons of positivity from the people around me, but then... I don't see many other opinions anymore. I've in the past been pretty successful in bursting this bubble on twitter (well, not this specific bubble), but I'm honestly not sure if I want to. It feels somewhat good to have your own opinions confirmed over and over again, [1]

wooops i'm really bad at social media

but i have an excuse: Finals are coming up.

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"dudes with German accents beating Mario games without touching coins" is now one of my favorite YouTube genres

Whew. I think I am through the worst phase of senior year. Also, I got a nice senior jacket now (might post picture later)

trying out mastodon features 

didn't know doodling in masto was a thing. Uhm... Okay i guess?

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what is "free software"? why do people say software isn't free, even though you can download it for free from the app store? (long, serious) 

there are a lot of ways you could define "free software". for example, you could say candy crush or CCleaner is free software, because you can install it for free.

when people say that software is "free as in freedom", or "libre", they mean something else. under these definitions, neither candy crush nor CCleaner would be free software. in order to be free by these definitions, software needs to fulfill these four criteria:
- the ability to run the software for any reason, without restrictions. this means that the free version of teamviewer is not libre, as it tells you that you must purchase a license to use it commercially.
- being able to study and modify the program's inner workings. this requires the source code being available. software that doesn't provide the source code thus cannot fulfill this term, and software like snapchat, which bans users for running modified versions, is definitely not one of these.
- being allowed to redistribute the software. if you buy a macbook, you can install updates for free, but you certainly aren't allowed to redistribute these updates.
- being allowed to distribute modified versions to others. if you're not allowed to download the app, make some changes, and send that to people, it breaks this rule. the youtube app is free, but google wouldn't allow you to do this.

all of the software mentioned in those four basic rules is "free", but not free. this distinction is often used by saying "gratis" or "libre" - gratis software is free as in "free donuts", but libre software is free as in "freedom".

as with anything, it's hard to make clear cut rules to define what is and isn't an example of libre software. the cooperative software license prohibits most companies from using the software, but is otherwise entirely libre. this violates the first rule above, but i would say it's still a free software license, although the free software foundation would disagree with me on that.

here's a link to the cooperative software license: coinsh.red/c/csl.txt - check section 4 for the restrictions mentioned above.

and finally, here's a link to the FSF's article on what is and isn't free software. this is where those four rules came from - the FSF calls them the four essential freedoms. gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.

neither of these links are necessarily an endorsement of the contain contained within.

#LynneTeachesTech

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tired: nuclear power is dangerous, look at the accidents
wired: nuclear power accidents get a ton of press, but they are very uncommon when you look at how many reactors have gone through their entire service lives and never seen trouble
inspired: nuclear power could fail catastrophically once a week and it would still kill fewer people and damage the environment far less than our current fossil fuel power infrastructure does without any accidents at all
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Computer Fairies

Computer Fairies is a Mastodon instance that aims to be as queer, friendly and furry as possible. We welcome all kinds of computer fairies!