HexesofVexes
@HexesofVexes@lemmy.world
Why, a hexvex of course!
- Comment on Criminal court ditches American software giant– Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft? 2 days ago:
I think there is another alternative to plain government spending, and that’s inter-university cooperation.
It’s pushing FOSS options for education on the comp sci departments, and collaborating to make it work there.
It’s is then gating every advance behind a “non-commercial, education only” license a bunch of law departments glue together.
From there, it’s universities actively allocating staff workload to help maintain key FOSS infrastructure.
From there you’ve laid the foundation on which things can be built.
- Comment on Criminal court ditches American software giant– Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft? 3 days ago:
Yes and no; the main issues are:
initial disruption (e.g. ditching teams is harder than it looks, you also need to retrain all your IT staff)
User training (most staff can barely use Microsoft products - even light terminal use is seen as magic)
Industry demand (your average CEO conflates “computer competent” with “can you use ms office?”)
Functionality loss (mostly in easy document collab and cloud storage)
Existing 3rd party software contracts (yeah, DRM software hates Linux, also most are locked into azure)
Accountability (if OneDrive gets hacked, Microsoft pays out (i.e. no-one pays), if your cloud server gets hacked you pay out)
I’ve scratched the surface there, there are a lot more issues. The truth is that universities need to take this step, however the barriers are just too high during the perpetual crisis academia currently exists in - it would mean years of disruption they simply cannot afford.
- Comment on The age verification effect: adult site traffic plummets, VPN use soars 4 weeks ago:
All such laws fail to appreciate one key point - if little Timmy wants titties, little Timmy is going to move heaven and earth to get them.
Credit card for id? Sorry mum, the call of the boobies was too great.
Scanned photo id? Sorry dad, just borrowing your license - you understand.
Facial age estimation? Time to buy a grandpa facerig and voice morph with my pocket money!
On the upside, the next generation is going to be very very very tech literate, for necessity is the mother of invention. Sadly, they’re also likely to be into some dark shit as only non-conforming sites are easily accessible.
- Comment on X's new 'encrypted' XChat feature seems no more secure than the failure that came before it 5 months ago:
I saw xchat and felt hope…
- Comment on Discord Begins Testing Facial Scans for Age Verification 7 months ago:
Sounds like an excuse to move my community elsewhere!
- Comment on Amazon’s killing a feature that let you download and backup Kindle books 9 months ago:
Hi ho, hi ho, it’s back t’sea we go. We’ll wave our flag and loot some swag…
- Comment on Nintendo DMCA nukes 8,535 GitHub copies of Switch emulator yuzu 1 year ago:
I wonder what the suyu folks are saying, might be worth looking at their linked comment in the article ^_^
- Comment on Headteachers in England tell of worsening behaviour of pupils – and parents 2 years ago:
It isn’t just schools - behaviour in universities isn’t stellar at the moment. The fees system has helped create a lot of entitlement (students assume they’ve paid for the pass), and a lot of students have missed that key formative experience of how to learn in a group due to COVID disruption.
What is interesting is even international students are acting out, which suggests a problem beyond the UK’s awful living conditions. What is notable is that students are (measurably) weaker in terms of basic ability when entering university, and the resulting frustration from this may explain some of their part in this tragedy.