Jim Fulner jimfulner@identi.ca

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_from_Space

I was finally able to catch a live broadcast of this! Today was the only day after the 13th where they broadcast this in a time that worked for me: https://nitter.net/dairycola/status/1712657180606800097, https://nitter.net/dairycola/status/1717228147790213225

It was worth planning to catch this live just like the old days when you needed to rely on scheduling guides! Fortunately, I was at least able to pause on my streaming player but whenever I heard abrupt cuts, I was worried that I lost my stream.

Apparently, the 20th anniversary edition was played as confirmed in the end credits.

"Why is Debian the way it is?": A blogpost by Lars Wirzenius on both organizational and technical aspects of Debian: https://blog.liw.fi/posts/2023/debian-reasons/

This week I get to wrap up the fifth installment of teaching "Computer Applications and Concepts" at my college. Next week I get to start all over again with another eight week round of teaching the class. It can be very hard work at times but I do think some good is being accomplished through this.

For those using Debian oldstable, don't forget the 11.8 release image is also available for download! https://www.debian.org

It is a joyful thing to teach this subject but it does take quite a bit out of you. I get to wrap up with my fifth group in a few hours. Next week I get to start with my sixth group. Apparently I might just be doing something right, it seems.

Debian 12.2 image release available for download! https://www.debian.org/

On Wed, 16 Aug 2023 (next week) Debian will celebrate its 30th birthday. Parties will take place in Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Germany (CCCcamp), Portugal and Turkey. You're invited to join us! https://wiki.debian.org/DebianDay/2023

Gomuks (Terminal based Matrix client written in Go) accepted into unstable https://tracker.debian.org/news/1442864/accepted-gomuks-030-1-source-amd64-into-unstable/

Pensions are really deferred wages, deductions from income from work to pay for a decent income when people retire. After decades of work (and exploitation), workers, male and female, should be entitled to stop and enjoy the last decade or so of life without toil without being poverty.  Literally, they will have earned it.

(...) ignored is the huge disparity in life expectancy between lower income people retiring and very dependent on state pensions and better-off people with additional company pensions. For example, almost eight years separates the life expectancy of retirees living in exclusive parts of London like Kensington and Chelsea to those living in Glasgow. A 60-year old man in the Scottish city might live a further 19 years. For his London contemporary that rises to 27 years.

(...) the pensions deficit in France is tiny compared with the cost of measures introduced in response to the pandemic (€165bn) and the energy shock (around €100bn), as well as President Macron’s commitments to invest more in nuclear power (€50bn) and defence (€100bn by 2030).

“There are enough resources if they are properly organised and fully used. (...) Does a country want to use its resources so that people can stop work at the age of 60 or 65 and have enough income to live on in reasonable comfort, or not? It can be done.”
(...) decent pensions can be provided by cutting out other calls on government revenues i.e. such as bailing out the banks; increased arms spending; more subsidies for private corporations to invest in fossil fuels; and lower taxes for top earners and corporations etc.

As one French sociologist put it: “For 40 years, successive governments have been asking the French people to accept ‘reforms’ reducing social rights. These have degraded public services in health, education, transport and so on, while eroding purchasing power and worsening working conditions … The French are fed up.

I teach computer & information systems at a local community college. I should have more of a presence here. With Twitter becoming a grand dumpster fire I can't really stay put there.

I am blogging at https://kellat.me/. Hopefully that goes well.