newspeak

This is not a reiteration of “Information is free” or something like that. The call to share knowledge—data that’s been obtained using verifiable means—is for the seemingly radical notion that we, as a people, can best address existential (or even less dramatic) threats by pooling resources—establishing a commons—and not by privatising everything under the glamorous banner of free market.

The Zika data-sharing pact has given scientists and journals good press for doing something they really should be doing already.

Source: Zika data-sharing should be the norm, not the exception

Source: Data Privacy Project – Initiatives to inform and support libraries and librarians

Every now and then I find myself using more scripts—and thus having to edit, tweak them. Apple’s own has plenty of competitors and there are also extant formulations that save a lot of time. (And also actually put one in the position of being able to do serious work, and not just that late-night fallback, iterated idiocy.)

Custom Computer is a probably just a single person; I don’t know him or her, only the scripts he or she has devised for Alfred, a very nifty tool (and one I prefer over others). I also like—at least so far—the recommendations on the site.

As to why I’m doing more scripting? Ultimately to save time and frustration. Faster to deploy a local script that, say, hides obtrusive data or organises it the way one wants than to go through the numbing preferences of an application, even if it is open source. Apps are designed for generic people. Even if they have myriad options (which is too many), the process of selection, and then the dread of anxiety lest it all go away, all that takes time, and worse, saps energy, leaving one to iterate, idiotically. Much better and also more satisfying, to script one’s scenario directly.

Source: Custom Computer Tools