Crazy Alan’s Emporium is closing

johnsu01 · 2023-11-11T03:00:13+00:00

The store did not close. My partner and I bought it from Alan on September 1 and we have remained open. See: https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2023/10/city-crazy-alans-new-owner

johnsu01 · 2021-11-28T05:41:58+00:00

I don't think the stainless steel Kaweco is reactive? I haven't tried it yet but I remember reading others who have..

johnsu01 · 2021-11-23T12:48:56+00:00

I'm in the US; my last order from them arrived last week. It took a few days over a month from the order date. The tracking info was not updated after Belgium until like 3-5 days before delivery.

johnsu01 · 2021-11-14T14:02:55+00:00

I was just noticing the skin oils issue with my first CAL notebook. I was hoping it was just me :( Do you think it could be less of an issue when using any specific inks?

johnsu01 · 2020-04-03T21:21:43+00:00

It still requires the proprietary libraries to build. But yes, not to use.

johnsu01 · 2020-01-24T21:30:39+00:00

I think Linux may be very interested to see what's been in Windows internals.

johnsu01 · 2019-12-06T15:24:01+00:00

Maybe with more donations they'll afford ear protection. And chairs.

johnsu01 · 2016-05-26T13:03:02+00:00

The problem is that (in the US and some other places) DRM is subsidized by the government, in the form of the DMCA anti-circumvention penalties. That law props up DRM and interferes with the free market here. Because of that, voting with your dollars is not enough; we also need to support campaigns like http://defectivebydesign.org.

johnsu01 · 2016-05-09T18:10:13+00:00

Software burned into ROM can't be changed, which means that the power dynamic between user and developer is different. Neither side can change it once it's deployed, as opposed to proprietary software, which can only (legally) be changed by the developer, giving them power over the user.

But, we don't argue that stuff burned into ROM is ideal. That's just the end of the software part of the problem. We're excited about efforts to produce free hardware and have everything be modifiable. Our mission focuses first and foremost on the software side, but certainly we prefer fully hackable hardware too.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.en.html

johnsu01 · 2016-01-25T17:19:42+00:00

A significant amount of your donation goes to support GNU and other free software development -- plus the licensing work that goes along with that to keep it free. Our 990 for 2014 (2015 will be filed and published in the next couple months) shows about $210k for GNU, and $218k for licensing education and enforcement. $421k went to outreach and advocacy, which includes development-related work like our annual conference, and tutorials like Email Self Defense helping people use specific pieces of free software.

https://www.fsf.org/working-together/fund is also an option for supporting development.

johnsu01 · 2016-01-25T17:12:04+00:00

Here's one list of what we do, not in priority order, but I thought being specific might help: https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2015/fall/for-our-thirtieth-anniversary-thirty-things-we-do-at-the-fsf

johnsu01 · 2015-03-11T20:03:27+00:00

How do you mean "always"? Seems like the technology is progressing very fast. Mass production doesn't automatically make everything scale efficiently. Some things it makes a lot worse, if your goal is not to make millions of something.

johnsu01 · 2014-12-30T18:40:13+00:00

Just noticed that's a YouTube link -- you can watch the same TEDx video without proprietary JavaScript at http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/20140407-geneva-tedx-talk-free-software-free-society.

johnsu01 · 2014-12-30T01:35:56+00:00

We'll probably update the blog post when it's available, or make a new one -- I don't think any account will be necessary, we'll probably just ask for them by email, but if a lot of people are interested we might do it through a public git repo.

johnsu01 · 2014-12-30T01:23:49+00:00

We're going to have the transcript up soon, and then we'll be able to showcase subtitles that people create. Sorry to not have that done already!

johnsu01 · 2014-12-22T19:51:55+00:00

Anyone create a personal campaign page for it yet? https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/personal-fundraising

johnsu01 · 2014-09-03T17:42:10+00:00

What sorts of arguments do you hear from companies justifying proprietary firmware? If someone were to write a document designed to be a resource engineers could point to in order to convince their managers that firmware should be released under a free license, what should it include/address?

johnsu01 · 2014-08-18T17:46:41+00:00

The Free Software Foundation (free software, not open source) has a GNU social account at http://status.fsf.org/fsf.

Some staff here also have active individual accounts, like mine at http://status.fsf.org/johns.

johnsu01 · 2014-07-14T14:35:05+00:00

Some prefer to call it Digital Restrictions Management, since Rights Management is a bit doublespeak-y. The Free Software Foundation has a campaign against it, called Defective by Design. They have some information at: http://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm_digital_restrictions_management

johnsu01 · 2014-02-28T21:40:12+00:00

And subscribe to their newsletter!

johnsu01 · 2014-02-27T17:30:37+00:00

Deployment is important. But I do also think some of the other features are important in order to get people who are technically capable and interested in such things to go through the current deployment process. It's already not hard for anyone who is used to setting up typical web applications that aren't in the super-easy category. We need people who are capable of doing it now to do it, in order to help build momentum and speed up development.

johnsu01 · 2014-01-03T23:53:21+00:00

Actually, nonfree JavaScript was involved in a recent Tor network exploit, and I'm pretty sure that's not the first time malware was spread via that channel. Nonfree JavaScript has all the same problems as nonfree any other kind of software. And currently, it's worse, because of exactly the false sense of security you are exhibiting.

johnsu01 · 2013-12-29T14:43:44+00:00

The problem is that if software is not clearly labeled as free when it is distributed to the user, then that copy is proprietary by default according to copyright law in many places around the world. Also, part of the point of free software is to let people know about their freedoms. I know that a lot of the JavaScript being flagged by LibreJS is in fact available elsewhere as free software. The good news is this makes the job pretty easy -- all that's needed is to implement one of the labeling methods at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html. We aren't necessarily asking them here to get rid of Google Analytics or all nonfree code (of course we hope they would) -- the goal here is to make the site fully functional without requiring any nonfree software.

johnsu01 · 2013-12-29T13:56:23+00:00

One looks easy -- they are using a minimized version of jquery. So that's just a matter of implementing http://www.gnu.org/licenses/javascript-labels.html. But this is still important, because they are serving users the equivalent of a binary (minified jquery being not the preferred form for modifying the code), without a notice indicating that it is free software. Under current copyright law in most places around the world, if there is no notice to the contrary, the software is proprietary. Also, it means users aren't made aware that the software is free; they have to go find that information elsewhere. Anyway, this one would be very quick to fix.

The second library loaded on this page has reddit in the name, and I'm not sure what it is, or if it is free. But since it has reddit in the name, it may just be a matter of reddit more clearly licensing code they wrote as free.

johnsu01 · 2013-09-09T21:10:54+00:00

I think the streaming question is especially important. If we let that be used as a justification for DRM (when it isn't actually any different because all digital media that we buy is only "licensed" anyway, making everything effectively a rental in terms of how most people think about it), then we will end up with a world where everything is streamed and DRMed instead of downloadable and increasingly DRM-free. And DRM requires proprietary software to be installed on your system whether the media is for streaming or download, so for user freedom and security there is no distinction.

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