ajroach42

ajroach42, 9 months ago to random

Did you play in a band in high-school?

Were your parents in a band in highschool or college? Did they know people in bands?

I wanna hear the cassettes those bands recorded in their basement, or the see the VHS tapes they have of the time they played a show in the highschool gym or whatever.

I'm working on a documentary about the history of independent music and local music, and I need examples and interview subjects from the last 75 years.

ajroach42, 9 months ago to random

Hey Writers! We're now accepting submissions for the first issue of Fight The Future: an anti-fascist genre magazine.

Submissions can be of any genre. We're partial to science fiction, fantasy, adventure, mystery, and romance, but don't let that limit you.

Accepted submissions pay a rate of 10 cents per word.

Submissions are encouraged to use a cc-by-sa license, but I will consider alternatives.

Learn more and submit at the link.

https://ellijaymakerspace.org/fight-the-future/

ajroach42, 7 months ago to random

Songtradr fired half the staff at bandcamp, and that signals a dark future for bandcamp as a company.

So we're going to do something about it:
https://ajroach42.com/the-uncertain-future-of-bandcamp/

ajroach42, 9 months ago to random

Will we ever have solar panels that can be built sustainably? Will we ever have solar panels that can be assembled without a clean room?

Low Tech magazine posted a thing about Zinc/Antimony solar cells a few year ago, and I found that there were some schools working towards zinc cells more recently.

I've even seen some rumbling about nickel oxide cells, which look interesting.

If we could reasonably produce solar cells with materials and tools available to regular people or community workshops, makerspaces, etc it could legitimately change the world.

ajroach42, 1 year ago to random

Google is not your friend.

ajroach42, 5 months ago to random

It's nearly Public Domain Day (my favorite holiday, since the US started celebrating it again a few years back) and I'm eagerly and excitedly collecting materials which will enter the public domain in 2024 to repackage, share, remix, and otherwise defile.

There's so good stuff coming to the US, and it will be transformed in to even better stuff.

But! this Public Domain Day is also a time for sadness (small thread)

ajroach42, 5 months ago to random

Hey, boycott the Washington post today. Don't cross the picket line.

ajroach42, 1 year ago to random

Here's your irregular reminder that:

Twitter was a multi-billion dollar company with thousands of employees.

Mastodon is a niche hobbyist product run by volunteers

The fact that we're being seen as a viable alternative to them is an admission that a federated, decentralized future is not only possible, but desirable.

Mastodon is not one thing, or one place. It's a network of many things and many places. We don't have a spokesperson (I mean, there's me. I'm the official spokesperson for 💯 of the fediverse, but beyond me there is no spokesperson) we don't have consensus on moderation or blocking or tools or what is good and what is bad. Some of us are professional SREs and Sysadmins, some of us aren't. Some of our instances have been around for 5+ years, some won't be here in six months.

And that's good! All of it, every last bit of it is good.

We're wrestling power away from the billionaire class, in real time, and reclaiming it for the People.

ajroach42, 3 months ago to random

This is intriguing:

"When shipping clerk and former musician Frank Johnson died in Chicago in 1979 at the age of 67, his family was shocked to discover 2,300 pages of comics in bound notebooks that apparently nobody knew about."

https://boingboing.net/2024/02/06/when-he-died-his-family-discovered-50-years-of-cartooning-output-the-secret-comics-of-frank-johnson-are-published.html

Now some of them are available in a collection (600 pages!) from Fantagraphic.

ajroach42, 6 months ago to random

Google is shuttering google podcasts in favor of a youtube thing.

I don't want my podcasts on youtube.

Leave it to google to attempt to encapsulate podcasts.

ajroach42, 4 months ago to random

This is going to get interesting.

From Tom the Dancing Bug // @rubenbolling

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/01/meet-tom-the-dancing-bugs-newest-character-mickey-mouse.html

ajroach42, 1 year ago to random

You know how there's a bunch of critical infrastructure powering the internet (and presumably a lot more than the internet) is badly maintained and underfunded (often by just a few people)?

We know about several examples in the open source world, but I'm sure we all also know about several examples in each of our personal lives, in each of our places of business.

ajroach42, 7 months ago to random

I believe that Youtube's warnings about adblockers are the beginning of the end for Youtube as a citizen of the Open Web, and the latest volley in the fight that will end with the death of youtube-dl, invidious, etc.

This road leads to DRM powered by EME, and that would be the fulfillment of the promise made by EME when it was launched.

https://ajroach42.com/the-grim-future-of-youtube/

ajroach42, 27 days ago to random

Some ad network has served me some ads for a website that sells Space Age/Atomic themed bowling shirts and button downs.

They're expensive, and a cursory google indicates that they're a drop shipping operation, reselling low quality sweatshop clothing.

I don't want low quality sweatshop clothing resold at a premium by a dropshipper, but I would wear the hell out of these clothes.

Any suggestions as to a reputable place to find goofy atomic age looking shit like this?

ajroach42, 4 months ago to random

What? Forcing people to return to office was never about productivity and was always about power?

https://fortune.com/2024/01/13/managers-scapegoating-workers-return-to-office/

ajroach42, 5 months ago to random

I'm on the fediverse because I consider Facebook to be a threat to the future of humanity.

ajroach42, 6 months ago to random

https://ajroach42.com/the-grim-future-of-youtube/

The short version: Corporate sponsored video sharing platforms are always going to disappoint you, so try something else. Today, the something else that I’m offering is Community Media Video, this is paid peertube hosting with 10GB for storage for $15/year. What follows: a discussion of the way youtube is bad, and will likely continue to get worse.

ajroach42, 7 months ago to random

It drives me crazy that there's no way to reasonably buy or sell something anonymously on the internet, and that the thing everyone says will enable anonymous payments is instead an absolutely permanent ledger of all transactions that have ever happened that also boils the ocean.

ajroach42, 5 months ago to random

The world is on fire. It is full of scary and bad things.

But there is also joy.

Find time today to do something that brings you joy.

ajroach42, 10 months ago to random

Saw this while out today. We've escaped in to the real world.

ajroach42, 4 months ago to random

Last illegal mickey

ajroach42, 5 months ago to random

I'm seeing the phrase Eternal September bandied about with some frequency again recently, so I want to talk about that for a minute.

The legend goes that, at a time when most people got access to the internet through a university, every September the net would be flooded with new users who didn't know how things worked, needed to be helped, made a fool of themselves, etc.

But, over the coming weeks, they would learn conventions, figure out how things work, assimilate in to the existing culture or build themselves a new one.

And then AOL let the whole world on to usenet, and "September never ended" or whatever.

But it's bullshit.

ajroach42, 11 days ago to random

Guess what? There's a big ol' hole in the ceiling at the bookstore.

Guess why? A goddamn rat.

ajroach42, 21 days ago to random

I'm working on a little portfolio site to make it easier for people to know that I am accepting freelance work.

It's a work in progress right now.

https://impractical.computer/

I am accepting productive feedback, if you have any.