@Downes hmm. The big problem, of course, is that they've put all their eggs in the 100% Microsoft basket. That's a fragile monoculture, and due to it being Microsoft, a poorly implemented one. I consider any "Microsoft shops" to be examples of woefully negligent governance. (you've probably seen it, but I explain why here: https://davelane.nz/mshostage) Many "Microsoft shops" have already rued that decision, but the herd continues to move in the same direction. One day, only the outliers will be left.

Given the plethora of at-least-as-good #libre messaging platforms (see Matrix, Rocket.Chat, Zulip, Mattermost, NextCloud Talk, etc.) that aren't
* exploiting your data,
* pestering you to pay more,
* reducing 'free tier' features (to get you to pay $),
* blocking integrations you want,
* failing to live up to their security promises, or
* simply being painful to use.

Why does *anyone* bother with MS Teams, Salesforce Slack, or Discord? Just doesn't make any sense to me.

@alcinnz yes, pleased to see TPM making gains for sure!

As for the results of the main election, I'm embarrassed by how voters clearly don't understand people, society, or how gov'ts work. Most seem to lack perspective.

I'm just pleased the Greens had their greatest support yet. They've got some fierce new MPs joining their team in opposition.

I really hope a few smug Nat'l candidates, like the one in my electorate, who won Saturday's election by vanishingly slim margins... get their asses handed to them when the Special Votes are counted. And yes, Maureen Pugh, you're one of them.

I am reminded, once again (as I require timely output), that inkjet printers, as a class of devices, are almost entirely useless. What a snare and delusion.

@brianokken I wrote a blog post about Slack and communities that purport to like 'open' things... https://davelane.nz/notslack I know someone who used Slack for a 'startup bootcamp' during Covid lockdown. I offered to build him a #FOSS alternative pro bono, but he said "nope, everyone already knows how to use Slack." So I left him to it. A couple months later, he had to pay $10k to get access to their old posts for the final reports. Whoopsie. Choosing closed can be costly & embarrassing.

@simplicitarian yes, his win was a big deal. We need to call out all interaction between local (and central) gov't and lobbyists - most of it is justified as 'more trade and a stronger economy is better for everyone'... but it's not necessarily true. Much of that is just implicit 'trickle down economics' . And it's bullshit that needs to be kicked to touch at every occurrence. @alpinefolk

@pkboi
the other force we need to discredit is the 'temporarily embarrassed' vote - the folks who vote for policies that they aspire to be affected by, e.g. tax breaks for the rich. A lot of poor folks buy into the prosperity gospel and related mythology. But they vote accordingly. We need to show people how daft that is. And how counter productive. @simplicitarian @alpinefolk @dznz

@alpinefolk so many missed opportunities to be sure. I also feel it's tragic that we showed a tantalising glimpse of a 'better us' and then we fell right back into our bad old ways @simplicitarian

@simplicitarian having lived through #eqnz here in Christchurch, too, I was heartbroken by the missed opportunities to build our city back better than it was. The lack of vision was staggering, along with the dogmatic (ignorant) 'conservatism' and general lack of grace of the local land-owners/power brokers (who have substantial influence in our city council and exerted it on the Cant'y EQ Recovery Authority, too). @alpinefolk

@simplicitarian seems that, like Gibson's "future" an informed, empathetic, Common Good-focused world view is already here... it's just very poorly distributed. It's largely absent from those with clout in society. @alpinefolk

@dznz @simplicitarian I share your discontent. The hypocrisy and inherent cognitive dissonance we all accommodate is staggering. And some of us have done a lot of work to be true to our values. In the end, all we can do is provide an example of the behaviour we want to see. And rant a bit, given the opportunity.

@bsmall2
Happy to help with an initiative like that using the NZOSS infrastructure... https://events.nzoss.nz @simplicitarian @dznz

@bsmall2 @simplicitarian ah, oops - sorry, didn't notice that. I'd be happy to help someone set up the equivalent to what we have close to home for you...

LinkedIn is a steaming pile. No wonder Microsoft was falling all over itself to acquire it: it fits right into their offerings.

@irix @donkey I was a research scientist at what is now Scion. I was in a small research team in Chch & did all my work on Linux (from '94-'99). No one in Rotorua realised I wasn't on Windows except a few jokers in IT. For fun, I set up a $0 Linux server in the SI office which ran rings around the services their multi-million$ Netware & increasingly MSFT setup in Rotorua. My SI colleagues skited to their NI colleagues about how much better their local IT was. 1/2

@irix @donkey so I quit my job to avoid Lotus Notes, and turned out it was the start of pretty good things :)

@narF I've written about the hopelessness and complacency here: https://davelane.nz/darkages and a suggested remedy here: https://davelane.nz/nethui-insight-open-about-intent

@woodrow you reckon? How so? All their data's on OneDrive or GoogleDrive or iCloud. Accessing most of their data requires a paid up license for MS Office 365 or Google Docs or Adobe Creative Suite, or whatever. Most of their email is routed through MSFT or Google services. Their connection to everyone else is via Facebook. Almost everything of value they buy comes from Amazon, or via servers hosted on Amazon AWS or MS Azure or Google Cloud Services... assuming they're not pwned by Apple.