It’s been a while since I’ve blogged last - I’ve been so busy, it’s been difficult to keep up! However, I am not dead, and hopefully, in the new year, I will blog more (and on a better platform).

However, that’s not what this post is all about. We’re now in the ‘giving season’, where we’re supposed to give people gifts and share joy. However, there are many out there who need our generosity now more than ever. One of these is a project that’s particularly important to me: Kontalk. Cutting a long story short: they need donations to keep working into 2017, and you should donate to them. If you want to know why, read the rest.

I’ve been away from this blog far too long, for a range of reasons: PhDs use a lot of time, I haven’t had much useful to say, laziness, and many other reasons beside have kept me from my keyboard. However, today, something came to my attention that prompted me to shout from the digital rooftops to anyone who cares to listen. So here it is:

There’s a crowdfunding project for a libre software, libre hardware, eco-friendly, easy-to-repair computer.

I don’t think more needs to be said - go here and support them if you’re already convinced. If not, read on while I make my case…

So, a bunch of you may have heard about severe issues with many npm packages recently, over an author becoming upset with how he had been treated by the people who host and manage it. Now, I could bathe in the schadenfreude regarding the fact that NPM is practically designed to induce dependency hell, how the number of dependencies in packages on NPM is typically beyond ridiculous or how badly the whole thing is administered (and remind you all that there are better ways, ranging from Cabal to Guix) - however, today is not that day.

No, today I will showcase the absurd amount of cognitive dissonance and corporate bullshit in the statement released by the company who started it all, by way of this post on Medium. It made me so angry that, even in the wake of an angry rant just a few days ago, you’re about to get one more, where I will pour scorn where scorn is due, hopefully in a hilarious fashion.

Happy 2016, if somewhat belated! I haven’t had a chance to blog much recently - a lot has happened since. I’m likely going to do a ‘where in the world is Koz Ross’ post at some point in the future, but right now, I have a fever that only angry ranting can cure. Seriously angry ranting! So grab your popcorn, settle in, and enjoy!

So, as some of you may or may not have heard, Swift is finally free. I gotta give it to Crapple - they are procrastinators of the highest order; we were told that they would free Swift this year, and they did do so, while leaving it as late as sanely possible. As the title of this blog post may suggest, I feel that not only do I not give any fucks about this, but that nobody else does (or should) either. Obviously, this is a strong claim to make, especially coming from someone who has never had the unique joy of developing for Crapple products. Let’s see if you’re any more convinced by the end.

Today, I had a reminder that I should still have some faith in humanity, and his name is Eric van der Vlist. I’m writing this blog post to draw attention (primarily) to this man’s actions, and (secondarily) to the fact that people can be kind, and that more is gained through kindness than not. Hopefully, reading this will make your day as much as what I describe here has made mine.

Well, if you didn’t already know, Jamendo have decided to change their site, in my opinion, decidedly for the worse. This used to be a site from which I would source a lot of my music, and as it stands right now, this becomes very difficult-to-impossible, because of the weird and frankly pointless changes imposed by Jamendo to their site design. I have, of course, given them some feedback, but I reckon this needs wider acknowledgement and reporting, so here goes.

Well, after much painstaking work (read: me slouching around on IRC), I have finally migrated this blog to my home server, which it is now hosted from. Now, I don’t have to pay a hosting provider to hold my data, and can do whatever the hell I like, which is rather neat.

This post is mostly a test that this is working correctly. With any luck, it should be.

As you may (or may not) know, today (in US time), the Free Software Foundation turns an impressive thirty years old! Thanks to a recent win for freedom of culture, I can now sing (textually, at least), the following without fear of having copyright lawyers breathing down my neck:

Some months ago, I submitted my Master’s thesis. Today, the examiners have spoken, and decided to grant me my Master’s degree. I dunno if anyone even reads this, but if they do, here’s some news.

No go, hack and be happy!