News
Welcome!
Welcome to the 24Steven Newsletter and thank you for subscribing.
My goal here is to share what I've been thinking about and working on with those who want to hear about such things. A place to aggregate all of my various projects and thoughts.
The content will vary, as my interests do, but you can expect to find some recurring themes: software development, modern agile practises, software licensing, retro computing, right to repair, sustainability. Really, anything that I find interesting enough to share with others.
And of course, you'll get offers of early access, and special pricing to products and services that I currently offer and will offer in the future.
Steven's Activities
Remote Working for Workers
I've been working on a book about Remote Working called Remote Working for Workers.
There are many books on the subject of remote working, but they're usually from the perspective of business owners who would like to make the move to remote working. Remote Working for Workers, as the title implies, is for workers: how to make working from home work for you, and how to be happy and effective while doing so.
You can learn more and sign up for updates on the LeanPub page: https://leanpub.com/remoteworkingforworkers/
Streaming Schedule
The streams have been carrying on our new updated schedule: Graham and I will stream on Thursdays at 19:00 UTC for two hours. The format is the same: we talk shit for an hour, and then get down to working on the respective projects.
The change is that we are alternating weeks: DosAmigans is one week, and [objc-retain]; is another. On stream night in week 10 (10th of March) we streamed DosAmigans, so you can expect [objc-retain]; to take place on the 17th.
Copyright and Licensing
A Bug in Early Creative Commons Licenses Has Enabled a New Breed of Superpredator | Cory Doctorow's craphound.com
Copyright trolls have found a new way to use our best tools against us. If you have or use content under Creative Commons licenses, beware of the differences in versions and how it can affect you or those who use your content.
Right to Repair
Farmers Fight Back
Walking through a museum in Brussels with Graham, still high on fumes from FOSDEM, I told Graham about the shady things that John Deere was doing to farmers with their clown connected tractors.
"This is great news for the right to repair. You don't fuck with farmers, Graham," I explained excitedly.
For those of you that are out of the loop, John Deere has been one of the most aggressive actors in the fight against the Right to Repair for over a decade. These days, John Deere tractors are just fancy case mods for closed computers which upload all of a farm's data to John Deere's proprietary clown service.
Not only do farmers have to pay to read their own data: they can pay to read other farmers' data that was uploaded by other tractors.
Graham wasn't as optimistic about the implications of Deere's overreach as I was at the time. But last week he send me a message and said "Looks like there are two John Deere suits over right to repair in flight. You weren't wrong, you were just impatient ;)" The links are below.
These things take time, but I'm more optimistic than ever. One of my most deeply held beliefs is that when you use something, you should have the freedom to use it for any purpose. The farmers are finally standing up to the behemoth in green, and I am excited to see what happens next.