Dear fediverse,
does anybody know of instructions on how to light an oil lamp (the kind with vegetable oil) with flint and steel, and no matches (not even the old, non self-igniting, type with sulfur)?
I've found how to light fires (lots of resources), a couple of instructions on how to light candles that aren't going to work with a lamp, articles and videos about oil lamps in general, but nothing on the combination.
I can't believe that before the invention of sulfur matches people had to light a full fire (or ask some fire to the neighbors) in order to be able to light a simple lamp…
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These days I'm re-reading a book on the history of math I had read ages ago.
The aim of the book is to present an overview of current (at the time it was written, in the 1970s, plus an appendix from the 1990s) modern math and it's pretty good at it (that's the reason why it was recommended to me when I was in high school and my math teacher found out I had plans to study math at the university).
Because of this, it is reasonable that it's skipping all math development from cultures that didn't have a direct influence on modern math: it claims so in the introduction, apparently recognizing that those developments were significant, just outside the scope.
But then, every. single. time. the author gives a judgement on something, it's cringeworthy. When the europeans in 1600 and 1700 developed calculus with no formal basis and without even recognizing the need for one it was liberating; when arabs did the same with algebra it was a lack of formal capabilities. No. just no. did you even *read* what you're writing???
Luckily, most of the book is maths and that part is enjoyable, I should just skip the end of most chapters…
@Charles Stanhope it's “Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times” by Morris Kline
(in an italian translation, and I've just realized that the original book only reaches the 1930s and the appendix written in the 90s that brings it a bit more up-to-date is from the italian editor. It was ages since I read it, and right now I'm still at the 1700s :) )
Bad picture is bad, but...
I didn't exactly lit a #fire, but at least I got some embers from #FlintAndSteel (I was indoors, so I couldn't light kindling)
I watched the following two videos to get from "one spark every 100 strikes" to "one spark every 5-10 strikes, and sometimes they even get on the char cloth" (sorry for the youtube links)
youtube.com/watch?v=CRR8fQbVYT…
youtube.com/watch?v=3pzGMQkdeF…
The big hints from those videos were:
* keep the flint at 45° to the striker
* if you're missing the flint often, you are using the right movement :)
I'd recommend following the link to read the full thread
Developer-driven software distribution is a bad idea, which is why I dislike things like Flatpak.Having distro maintainers involved in the process and installing your software from a free software distribution like Debian or FreeBSD is a much better distribution of power. The packages can be tuned to suit their environment without the developer having to repackage it for every distro, and the distro maintainers can keep out anti-features like telemetry and advertising.
The middleman may seem annoying to developers, but embrace the model and it'll work for you. Landing packages in your favorite distro isn't actually that hard, and the rest of the distros will follow. If you're an end-user who wants to see some software available for your distro, look into packaging and volunteer - it's easy.
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I don't see any technical reason why there couldn't be a trustworthy source of curated flatpacks, but wouldn't that be basically a distribution repository?
Yes, programs wouldn't have to be patched to work with different versions of their dependencies, but flatpacks would have to be regenerated every time a dependency has a security issue, so I'm not convinced it would be easier for the maintainers.
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We’ve been challenged by a group of amazing individuals and Private Internet Access to raise a total of $113,093 during this fundraising season -- renew or begin your Conservancy support today! sfconservancy.org/news/2019/no…
Opening raw images with feh
Up to debian buster, feh was able to open the thumbnails inside my .cr2 files using Imlib2 directly; this has stopped working in debian bullseye, but I've found that there is a way to open them properly using dcraw: it only requires adding --conversion-timeout 5 (or any other suitable positive number) to the command line to enable the use of external programs.
so
feh 141140-img_5195.cr2
results into various errors including feh WARNING: 141140-img_5195.cr2 - No Imlib2 loader for that file format
while
feh9 --conversion-timeout 5 141140-img_5195.cr2
prints 141140-img_5195.cr2 is a Canon EOS 1100D image. and shows you the preview you wanted :)
And this shaves the neck of the yak, now I can proceed with the original task...
In the last few years I've been adding little boy blue and similar shades to my clothing (beside black, which remains the main me-colour).
Last week I suddenly realized that I “needed” a #fountainPen ink in a similar shade., asked for recommendations on a forum and ended up buying two (online, looking at pictures, because I don't have a shop that keeps a variety of inks nearby :( ): Noodler's Polar Blue and Herbin Bleu Myostosis.
The Herbin is more periwinkle, which is not really me, but I love it and it's very me-playing-old-lady (only missing some lavender scent…), and the bottle with a pen holder is very nice.
The Noodler's is a problematic ink, but the shade is just as I wanted (and I've managed to make it behave with #dipPens by adding some gum arabic: that's the sample in the middle of the picture).
Also, I've managed to open a Noodler's bottle without spilling ink everywhere, and I consider this a personal achievement :) (there is a reason why other producers leave some air in their bottles…)
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And I would never give ink samples to friends with the subtle aim of starting an ink sample exchange and end up with even MOAR inks to try.
NEVER!
(sometime I just give ink samples with no other reasons :D )
I'm hearing more people at coffee shops ask "Do you take cash?"Every time I hear it, I scream into my head, "What kind of world are were creating FFS where only people with access to the right technology can buy shit!!!"
I know of one restaurant in town that is cashless. They're completely fucking proud of it, how futuristic it is. And, honestly proud of how it keeps certain people out.
Know what's super futuristic? Technology that doesn't enable discrimination.
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Of course, part of the reason for that is that people are terrible.
Holding cash on site opens you up to the possibility of being robbed, sometimes violently.
If people weren't terrible, that wouldn't be a concern.
It isn't all that though, there is, at least in Australia, laws stating you MUST be paid into a bank account (not cash) for your labour. That is the Tax Dept making sure they keep their fingers in your pie.
I live in a place where luckily armed robberies are rare (although extortion isn't, but that doesn't depend on the amount of cash kept on-site).
OTOH, places with a lot of cash flow do have ways not to keep too much inside the premises, at least not in a way where it can be accessed on demand (time-based deposit safes, people regularly moving cash away to a bank, etc.). Maybe it's helped by the fact that those who have that need really have a lot of money around (and thus can afford paying to keep it safe).
OTOH, since recently we also have laws that state that payments above a certain amount can't use cash, but at least that's quite above a typical restaurant bill, even for large groups.
> Bits were stored as sound pulses sent into a nickel wire, about 50 feet long. The pulses traveled through the wire and came out the other end exactly 5.5545 milliseconds later. By sending a pulse (or not sending a pulse for a 0) every 500 nanoseconds, the wire held 11,008 bits. A pair of wires created a buffer that held the pixels for 480 characters
That is so punk.
Watts also suggested that the police should wear baby blue uniforms because, he asserted, this would make them less likely to commit acts of police brutality than if they were wearing the usual dark blue uniforms. This proposal was never implemented.
from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_blu…
I guess it can't hurt?
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Publishers Should be Making E-Book Licensing Better, Not Worse
eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/publ…
#hash(0x187a550) #hash(0x187a628)
Macmillan, one of the “Big Five” publishers, is imposing new limits on libraries’ access to ebooks—and libraries and their users are fighting back.
Starting last week, the publisher is imposing a two-month embargo period on library ebooks. When Macmillan releases a new book, library systems will be able to purchase only one digital copy for the first eight weeks after it’s published. Macmillan is offering this initial copy for half-price ($30), but that has not taken away the sting for librarians who will need to answer to frustrated users. In large library systems in particular, readers are likely to experience even longer hold queues for new Macmillan e-book releases. For example, under the new Macmillan embargo, the 27 branches of the San Francisco Public Library system, serving a city of nearly 900,000 people, will have to share one single copy right when the demand for the new title is the greatest.
The harms to libraries and their patrons during these two months go far beyond wait times. E-books are a critical resource for library users with vision impairment, dyslexia, and other physical or learning needs. An embargo on new e-books disproportionately harms these readers who rely on digital formats, and violates the principles of equitable access at the core of library services.
After the two-month embargo period ends, libraries will be welcome to purchase additional copies of the e-book under normal terms, which aren’t great to begin with: typically, a $60 price tag for an e-book that can only be lent out to one user at a time for two years or 52 lends, whichever comes first. After that, the library has to license another e-book. On top of that, libraries tend to have different agreements with each of their publishers and vendors, all of which are subject to change.
This is a significant mark-up over what a consumer might expect to pay for a new e-book, and a falsely restrictive model compared to libraries’ rights for physical books. When a library purchases a physical book, the purchase is covered by first sale doctrine, which means the library can lend it out freely, repair it, give it away, or resell it. But libraries don’t have any of those protections when it comes to e-books.
So why is Macmillan imposing additional burdens? In a July memo, CEO John Sargent says the publisher’s move is motivated by “growing fears that library lending was cannibalizing sales” of new e-books and a need to “protect the value of your books during their first format publication,” but fails to present any evidence to back up his claims. (He also ignores existing, consistent evidence to the contrary.)
In response, libraries across the country have boycotted, or at least strongly denounced, Macmillan e-book purchases. In another extraordinary step, the American Library Association has invited library users to sign onto a petition against the new embargo. The campaign, called #eBooksForAll, had over 160,000 signatures before the embargo started last week. Since then, the signature count has climbed to nearly 200,000.
All of this does not mean that Macmillan has it wrong on e-books across the board; for example, Macmillan publishes Tor Books, the only DRM-free imprint in the Big Five.
But of all the Big Five publishers to change e-book terms in the past year, Macmillan’s e-book embargo for libraries is by far the most contentious. The other four—Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster—are surely watching the backlash. We urge readers, and authors who like to be read, to sign the ALA’s petition and let Macmillan know that the embargo is a mistake.
#esperienzeDiVita: andare a farsi fare dei panini da un macellaio¹ granata con un vegetariano juventino, poche ore prima del derby.
la mattina dopo ci ha incontrati, salutati, e anche augurato buona giornata a noi altri tre, ad esclusione del suddetto, quindi credo che nei nostri panini non avesse sputato :)
¹ del tipo che è anche negozio di alimentari generale
While in front of the wacom stand at Lucca Comics I realized that what this world needs is a crowdfunding to pay for a stand for #Krita and the rest of the Free Software comic toolchain.
With @David Revoy and paper copies of Pepper and Carrot, of course.
No, I'm not volunteering to run it, sorry.
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Debian Donates to Support @[url=https://floss.social/users/gnome]GNOME[/url] Patent Defense bits.debian.org/2019/10/debian…
@Gruppo Linux Como @LIFO anche Debian ha donato alla campagna che citavo durante il #LinuxDay
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Klaus wrote the following post Mon, 14 Oct 2019 18:23:17 +0200
The-Open-Book
joeycastillo/The-Open-BookTHE PREMISE: As a society, we need an open source device for reading. Books are among the most important documents of our culture, yet the most popular and widespread devices we have for reading — the Kobo, the Nook, the Kindle and even the iPad — are closed devices, operating as small moving parts in a set of giant closed platforms whose owners' interests are not always aligned with readers'.The Open Book aims to be a simple device that anyone with a soldering iron can build for themselves. The Open Book should be comprehensible: the reader should be able to look at it and understand, at least in broad strokes, how it works. It should be extensible, so that a reader with different needs can write code and add accessories that make the book work for them. It should be global, supporting readers of books in all the languages of the world. Most of all, it should be open, so that anyone can take this design as a starting point and use it to build a better book.
Calibre replacement considerations anarc.at/software/desktop/cali…
I'd recommend reading both the article and the mastodon thread, as there are a number of useful pieces of software in both.
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Two companies have begun a fight regarding GPL compliance, yet neither complies with GPL's most basic provisions. sfconservancy.org/blog/2019/oc… #gplcompliance
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A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to get a small branch of bamboo, and of course I did.
Yesterday I found the 10 minutes to try to cut it into a couple of pens, following the instructions on static1.squarespace.com/static… : I think that the branch was probably thinner than what is usually recommended, but the pens seem to work just fine, in the picture there are a couple of lines written with the two pens, and they aren't significantly harder to use than regular metal nibs.
There is also a closeup of the points: I tried to make the cut more or less perpendicular, as they are going to be used for western-style calligraphy and I'm used to nibs with just a bit of slant.
And yes, the slit on one of the pens is definitely off center: I'll fix it when it will have worn down and I'll need to trim it.
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I was working on #3dprinted #enclosure for @olimex #Lime2The SATA port does not fit as neatly as it could and the board is actually attached to the box with just one screw, but it works. 🙂
If anyone would like to print their own box or even better improve it, move the holes for ports and screws by a few milliliters, so they will fit more tightly, let me know and I will upload the #STL and #OpenSCAD files on GitLab, FramaGit or somewhere.
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mostly yes: it is using an A20 SoC, for which support is almost complete: linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlini…
(it is missing e.g. HDMI audio, but HDMI video does work)
The ones I have around all run standard debian, from the official installer (not a precooked image), and that must be able to run from the upstream kernel.
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![When clicking a link to a HuffPost article I was presented with this overlay where I had to agree to their terms or "manage my options". No, thanks!](https://social.gl-como.it/photo/link/222 "When clicking a link to a HuffPost article I was presented with this overlay where I had to agree to their terms or "manage my options". No, thanks!")
the link to the thread is indeed that one, and it is linked from the date of the post, below the author.
Not very visible, I agree.
The same petition, in German:
openpetition.eu/it/petition/on…
The TooItalian;Didn'tRead is that the province of Bolzano has decided to stop paying to develop FUSS, a Debian based system¹ that has been used since 2005 in the italian language schools of the province and move towards a microsoft-based solution.
¹ not just a distribution, the project also includes tools for both classroom management and teaching.
Strategies for sustainable phones
On the Tinkerphones mailing list, Paul Boddie expressed some interesting thoughs about (lack of) sustainability of modern mobile phones. Things got worse lately, it seems.It's a longer text, but we are on Diaspora, not Twitter. Our attention span is not limited to 280 characters. So here is the complete text.
Hello again,Recently, having found myself needing to buy a fairly cheap Android smartphone
to keep communicating with the rest of the world, I found myself reviewing
what the options really were for buying something that would be (amongst other
things)...
- Viable for a reasonable amount of time: the featurephone I retired lasted
15 years but was wearing out and obviously couldn't do smartphone things.- Designed not to become obsolete purely because of cynical corporate
decisions: for example, having a removable battery instead of something
sealed in that may either spontaneously decide that it wants to burst out
of the phone or that will eventually fail to hold a decent amount of
charge, making the whole device useless.- Running Free Software under my control as an end-user.
Obviously, the phone I ended up getting doesn't fully satisfy (3) even though
the manufacturer does provide something claiming to be the source code. It
does satisfy (2), being something of a rarity now. Time will tell how
successful it will satisfy (1).Being aware of various initiatives, it was therefore interesting to read the
following review of Fairphone 3:"Fairphone 3 review: the most ethical and repairable phone you can buy"
theguardian.com/technology/201…I dislike the tone of technology reviews, especially when they talk of "last
year's" technology. They start to sound like fashion industry gossip ("last
season's collection") with largely the same implied level of regard for the
planet, workers' rights, and so on, unless carefully worded and qualified.Fairphone have clearly refined their process of getting products to market
that satisfy their ethical goals, and they appear to be improving with regard
to software support, but even with their resources it appears difficult to
convince others that their premium (£200 according to the article) is worth
paying or that their longevity goals can be realised. Will the phone still be
usable in five years?Coincidentally, another article approaches this latter problem from a
different angle:"To decarbonize we must decomputerize: why we need a Luddite revolution"
theguardian.com/technology/201…Although it is perhaps not a central observation of the article, one reason
why something like the Fairphone might not be usable in five years is down to
the ongoing escalation of end-user hardware requirements by software and
services. This is rather like the way Microsoft and Intel worked in concert to
make people upgrade their computers every few years, but now things like
"bloat" in Web and online services are factors, too.Making a top-end device can mitigate obsolescence to an extent, but this
raises some worthwhile questions about where less well-resourced efforts for
making genuinely open phones might be best directed. Smaller initiatives
cannot hope to be using the latest chipsets because these are all exclusive
things for the largest companies. And sadly, "consumers" are programmed to
obsess about specifications and how new the technology is.I wonder, and think that others have also wondered before, whether it isn't
worth concentrating on making more modest devices instead of supposedly
competitive smartphones where openness is the differentiator. I recall
discussions of the Fernvale kit, the Zerophone, and maybe Nikolaus considered
a featurephone design at one point.One aspect that will always detract from considerations of featurephones is
that their capabilities are maybe limited and do not appeal to all kinds of
users. That some Web sites or services may be too demanding, for instance, and
that the hardware just cannot deal with modern things.It certainly seems to be the case that there are systemic issues involved
here: the people writing software and deploying platforms need to stop and
consider their effect on the end-user, on device longevity, and on the planet.
But there must still be a core region of functionality that could
satisfactorily be addressed by a featurephone design (or something relegated
to that category by whatever it is that passes for a "proper" smartphone these
days).Anyway, I think I have now written enough on this topic, but I hope that it is
worthwhile to air these thoughts in the hope that they help to inform any
future directions of the efforts undertaken in this community.Paul
#tinkerphones #letuxos #sustainability #openhardware #freesoftware #fairphone #smartphone #featurephone
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We (my SO and me) made a first attempt at firing some #clay objects in a fireplace.
To reach the fireplace they had to be carried for a bit of a walk, so for the first attempt we only brought 3 different whorls, one tiny vase and a round sample bit; one of the whorls (the thickest one) broke near the beginning (and we could only find one piece), but the rest came out decently, even if we accidentally let the fire slow down earlier than planned (they remained at temperature for something like a hour and a half).
The mini-vase is currently sitting on my kitchen sink, half-full of water and at 5 °C less than its surroundings. Before the next summer I want to make one of those refrigerating flasks…
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whooops, you're right
(I still don't understand when friendica uses the iframe preview and when it uses the snippet of text from the description in the editing window, but it's not like I've ever made an effort to understand it).
it depends on what the site offer as data. It this case the oembed endpoint offer html code to use as embed which contains the iframe (see here). Note that the blockquote with title and link is also in oembed reply.
If the site don't support oembed, friendica tries other systems: opengraph meta tags, "description" meta and title tag. As a fallback, it tries to extract first lines of body text... (I'm describing this from memory.. I could be wrong)
uh, my edit didn't appear on mastodon? when I realized that the preview looked pretty empty I added a short description.
ouch
The fight for diversity, equality and inclusion is the fight for software freedom. Our movement will only be successful if it includes everyone. RMS does not speak for these values.
sfconservancy.org/news/2019/se…
TFW you are on a commuter train between Varese (Italy) and Como (Italy) and an announcement warns you that you are now leaving the European Union!!1ONE!!! (and if you are carrying about a truckload of money or valuables you should leave the train at the next station to declare them)
(I knew I was going to leave Italy for part of the trip, I just didn't expect the EU bit)
tilo.ch/en/Collegamenti/Colleg… ---> this is the line, going through Switzerland.
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Filed under: reality oversteampunking fiction.
Today I saw a flogo-pneumatic gun (wikipedia article in italian only, but it has a picture) built by Volta in 1776. The museum guidebook mentions that he commented “feel free to laugh, but don't be afraid of that word”. There is no mention whether the phrase continued with “you fools! BUAHAHAHAH”.
Oh, and it was inside the Volta Temple, which was designed to be a (small) museum, but it's in the shape of a temple, inspired by the Pantheon (so, if this was the discworld, there would now be a god called Volta)
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I think it is worth visiting, but you should either read up on Volta's activities (beyond the battery) in advance the visit or buy the guide when you get there and plan to have time to read it while you visit the museum.
It's full of interesting-looking devices, but the descriptions in the museum only give you their names, with very little hints on what they do. You can probably guess a lot (we did), but deeper explanations would be better.
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Vanilla @debian is installed/running on my @olimex TERES-I laptop via debian-installer. If you experience a black screen upon bootup, there is a workaround: remove the installation media at the debian-installer boot select menu. What does this mean? You can easily create your own installer media (a ~90MB image) to install the operating system the way it was designed to be installed. You don't need a custom image sourced from a vendor.
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rae
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to rae • •oil lamps require a flame to start burning, the small ember you get from char cloth isn't enough, so you need some kind of intermediate kindling.
Most instructions show how to light a full fire, so for kindling they use big-ish bundles of dry grass, vegetable fibers etc., sulfur matches were used in recent time as a smaller alternative (and I know they were used to directly light lamps), I'm wondering if there is another relatively small alternative.
rae
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •...which is why my answer to you was "Lighting a candle or lamp with flint and steel often involves lighting char cloth or very slim tinder and then using that to light the wick."
Having watched videos of people doing this online, I'm not seeing them using large bundles of dry grass.
Algot
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
Unknown parent • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •e.g. these are replicas, with a picture of the original below; from Italy, Spain (both 2nd century AD) and Belgium (generic “iron age”).
riproduzionistoriche.com/accia…
riproduzionistoriche.com/accia…
riproduzionistoriche.com/accia…
Elena ``of Valhalla''
Unknown parent • •I'm not that sure about fire pistons: from what I've seen they seem to also involve the same steps as flint and steel, except with the tinder being ignited by heated air instead of sparks.
I've only seen fire pistons online, but they don't seem that much faster than flint and steel, assuming that somebody is trained in using them.
Tarbuck Transom 🌹
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •Fire is the shared blood of community. You generally would ask some lit coals of a neighbor and carry them home in a jar ("to heap coals on their head") and light your fire from that. Lanterns etc were lit from a spill, straw, or noodle (spills preferred) because bootstrapping fire suucks. But if you must:
Charcloth or char moss on top of flint, striking w/ sparks that catch and glow, place lit cloth into tinder and blow into a flame, light the lantern from that.
Tarbuck Transom 🌹
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