NASA's switch to Linux in space was driven by reliability, flexibility, and security concerns. The International Space Station (ISS) originally relied on Windows, but astronauts frequently encountered crashes and instability. In 2013, NASA announced that all laptops on the ISS would transition to Debian, a Linux-based operating system, to improve stability and control over software.

This change wasn’t just about reliability. Windows was much more vulnerable to malware, and in 2007, a worm named W32.Gammima.AG spread to the ISS. With Linux, NASA gained the ability to modify and customize the system for mission-critical applications without depending on proprietary software. Today, Linux powers much of NASA’s space infrastructure, from ISS systems to Mars rovers and beyond.

#Linux #NASA #Debian #OpenSource #SpaceTech #TechHistory

As JD Vance delivered his speech about “European overregulation” and criticized “endless compliance costs imposed on the US companies by GDPR” I have seen some voices from Europe who said something to the effect “I don‘t know a single EU company happy about #GDPR either”.

Well, it’s kind of obvious companies aren’t happy because GDPR was not made to make companies happy but to protect the privacy of consumers 😄

This regulation is based on fundamental differences between US and EU legal systems. In EU, you own and control your personal data. In US it’s owned by whoever managed to extort it from you, and then aggregate, personalise and resell to any other entity anywhere.

For example, if you want to pay higher insurance premium because you have genetic tendencies to diabetes or obesity - well, that’s the US way of doing business, but it’s not the only one, nor it’s somehow axiomatically “better”. And yes, high insurance premiums also have the effect of increasing overall country’s GDP, just as a house burnt and rebuilt also does this magic, yet somehow few people celebrate it 😉

Then someone asked me if I really “feel that my data is better protected thanks to GDPR”. And yes, as a matter of fact the most invasive behavioural profiling aren’t being rolled out by companies like Twitter or Facebook to EU specifically because of GDPR, while in US they just roll them out without asking anyone.

Anyone… of course except for the states which have regulations very similar or even more restrictive than GDPR, such as California. Yet, because California is “their”, these companies and their CEOs with high media presence simply shut up and make their apps compliant with CCPA without all this barking about “how GDPR kills out business”.

It’s the same with EU VAT, about which Vance also whined, whereas US sales tax accounting rules are not even harmonized across states. But hey, you know what? An US business that has to emply a tax consulting company to get multi-state accounting right also increases overall GDP! 😄

So effectively what in US is perceived as each state’s fundamental right, sign of their diversity and key part of their autonomy, in the EU is portrayed as something equivalent to Soviet Union style central planning. And when they post all the memes about “bottle caps” in EU, they of course never mention a gazillion of state-level archaic or absurd regulations which are nonetheless binding, especially if someone likes to build a class lawsuit around them.

And now as Tesla opened a new factory in #China, I’ve never seen Musk make a single critical remark about the overregulation in China, even though it’s even more complex than EU and US taken together due to its vast geographic and administrative diversity.

Wetter Online ist nicht nur Deutschlands populärste Wetter-App mit mehr als 100 Mio Downloads und eine notorische Datenschleuder, sondern auch extrem intransparent: Auf eine Auskunftsanfrage nach der DSGVO verweigerte man mir eine vollständige Kopie meiner Daten. Begründung: Zu viel Aufwand. Ich lege deshalb heute zusammen mit @noybeu Beschwerde gegen Wetter Online ein.

noyb.eu/de/wetteronline-sees-d…

WetterOnline sieht “unverhältnismäßigen Aufwand” in Einhaltung der DSGVO

WetterOnline teilt die persönlichen Daten ihrer Nutzer:innen zu Werbezwecken mit mehr als 800 Drittunternehmen. Darunter befinden sich auch höchst präzise Standortdaten

^noyb.eu

Any drummers out there? We've an album written, but I can't find a drummer for love nor money because I've been somewhat scene-adjacent for many years.

We're in #dublin

It's 4/4 punk along the lines of Cock Sparrer.

#music #punk #mastodaoine

Neuer geiler Scheiß von @sjpiper145 im Onlineshop.

Nähbare LEDs!!!1!! Wie geil ist das denn?

shop.blinkyparts.com/de/Glow-S…

Achtung wir haben vorerst nur wenige auf Lager. Mehr ist unterwegs.

... A pole for y'all ✅

I was thinking of replacing #GhosTTY with #Ptyxis in the #Gnome edition of #XeroLinux. What are your thoughts on that ? Plz boost for reach. I will act according to results of this poll. #FOSS #Linux #OpenSource

• Yes, Please ! (56%, 9 Stimmen)
• Nope, don't care ! (43%, 7 Stimmen)

The Internet is mostly shit these days, but every once in a great while I stumble across an incredible, passion-project website.

This one is hand-animated weird art and it is worth your time as a fun decompressing thing in between your doomscrolling sessions.

floor796.com

I don't even know what hashtags this deserves, so it's not getting any. Boost to your friends!

Floor796

A huge animation scene with many references to memes, games, films, series, anime, music groups

^Floor796

GNOME Has No Czech Translators

For at least the last 15 years, the translations of GNOME into Czech have been in excellent condition. With each release, I would only report that everything was translated, and for the last few years, this was also true the vast majority of the documentation. However, last year things started to falter. Contributors who had been carrying this for many years left, and there is no one to take over after them. Therefore, we have decided to admit it publicly: GNOME currently has no Czech translators, and unless someone new takes over, the translations will gradually decline.

Personally, I started working on GNOME translations in 2008 when I began translating my favorite groupware client – Evolution. At that time, the leadership of the translation team was taken over by Petr Kovář, who was later joined by Marek Černocký who maintained the translations for many years and did an enormous amount of work. Thanks to him, GNOME was almost 100% translated into Czech, including the documentation. However, both have completely withdrawn from the translations. For a while, they were replaced by Vojtěch Perník and Daniel Rusek, but the former has also left, and Dan has now come to the conclusion that he can no longer carry on the translations alone.

I suggested to Dan that instead of trying to appeal to those who the GNOME translations have relied on for nearly two decades—who have already contributed a lot and are probably facing some form of burnout or have simply moved on to something else after so many years—it would be better to reach out to the broader community to see if there is someone from a new generation who would be willing and energetic enough to take over the translations. Just as we did nearly two decades ago.

It may turn out that an essential part of this process will be that the GNOME translations into Czech will decline for some time.Because the same people have been doing the job for so many years, the community has gotten used to taking excellent translations for granted. But it is not. Someone has to do the work. As more and more English terms appear in the GNOME interface, perhaps dissatisfaction will motivate someone to do something about it. After all, that was the motivation for the previous generation to get involved.

If someone like that comes forward, Dan and I are willing to help them with training and gradually hand over the project. We may both continue to contribute in a limited capacity, but the project needs someone new, ideally not just one person, but several, because carrying it alone is a path to burnout. Interested parties can contact us in the mailing list of the Czech translation team at diskuze-l10n-cz@lists.openalt.org.

#gnome #l10n #translations

Sei wie #falco!

Falco über Politik
youtube.com/shorts/8FW9BfE4pYM…