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Cake day: August 28th, 2023

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  • (Linus leans back in his chair, a glint of amusement in his eyes, and gestures toward Richard Stallman who is seated across from him. Richard, ever the passionate advocate, is already gesturing with his hands.)

    “Well, if you’re talking about the revolution in computing, you can’t forget about this fella right here, Mr. Stallman.”

    (He gives Richard a playful nudge.)

    “He’s the one who really gave us the framework, the ideals, the whole ‘free software’ movement.”

    Richard, his eyes gleaming with conviction, jumps in.

    “It’s not just about code, Linus. It’s about freedom, about users having control over their own technology. It’s about sharing, about building on each other’s work, and refusing to be locked in by proprietary systems.” (He leans forward, his voice gaining intensity.)

    "We had to fight for that freedom, against the corporations who wanted to control every bit of software, every line of code. But we won, and GNU is proof that free software can not only work but thrive. "

    Linus nods in agreement, a hint of respect in his voice.

    “He’s right, you know. Without the GNU tools, without Richard’s vision, Linux wouldn’t be what it is today. It wouldn’t be as powerful, as flexible, as truly free.”

    (He turns back to you, a mischievous glint in his eyes.)

    “But don’t let them fool you, we weren’t always the best of friends. We had our disagreements, our battles over licensing, our philosophical differences. But hey, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”

    (He grins, leaning back in his chair.)

    “In the end, we were all working towards the same goal, a world where software is free for all to use, share, and improve. And that’s a goal worth fighting for, wouldn’t you say?”




  • bro you need to wake up. this is not how software works with government. NHS is not going to write their own Linux distro. that’s crazy even for a company to do. its gonna take them a recurring budget every year just for maintaining the system. it’ll balloon way past the Microsoft number easily. 163mm pound is a tiny TINY budget for an undertaking like building a healthcare OS that they plan to maintain forever. they’ll have money to hire contractors once, then they’ll pass it to their internal teams that are staffed with people trying to pass time until they collect pension.

    also no way will any agency take the liability of building a custom OS for their health infra. health tech is honestly one of the hardest, most expensive things to dev just due to all the regulation and red tape behind it. you can’t just build health tech for the hell of it, even if you’re the NHS. it takes years and years and crazy money to have your systems certified to handle health data even if you’re building internally.







  • I’ve worked extensively in SK marketing and analytics before, and for whatever reason Koreans by and large have accepted chaebols. most do not want them gone.

    we used to have a saying at work that SK took all the worst parts of American capitalism and ran with it. the society is heavily encouraged to look up to chaebols as examples of success. Korea’s marketing heavily emphasizes materialism in an on the nose way. societal elitism in Korea is part of their culture and they make it known they’re better than you if they’re in a higher social position than you.

    you can see the chaebol dream if you’ve ever consumed any Korean media before. the trope of meeting a random person who ends up being a down to earth chaebol is one of the most typical, overplayed story lines in kdramas ever. and even before that, the trope of running into a random person who ends up being some down to earth prince trying to escape royalty was super common. more people fantasize about that kind of stuff there than despise it.

    all this to say the chaebols almost aren’t the problem. they’re practically a symptoms of a society who glamorizes them. it feels like how the US felt about the rich in the early 2000s.





  • there’s a bit more minutiae to it. doctors across the board there are concerned that they’re increasing intern Dr headcounts while having no solid plan to support that financially. while at the same time, care to patients in Korea (a place known for having advanced healthcare from elite doctors) is already declining due lack of funding. intern doctors across the world are already underpaid as a unit as a whole, so intern doctors would probably just rather see their pays increase than have headcount increases. and senior doctors would rather just see their interns have better lives. so I wouldn’t say the doctors are the bad guys necessarily either. they have legitimate concerns and government has been wagging them for years now too.

    the Korean media has largely portrayed this as greed or that the medical students being salty they studied their asses off to get into med school, but that’s not the largest issue for the medical workers in korea (although it is also a part of it too). the general public would just love available, cheaper healthcare and increasing headcount sounds like the easiest way to do that (which it is), so the tune the media is putting out sounds pretty nice.

    this system happens here in the US too. the US medical system does not churn out enough people for required positions, and interns here are getting destroyed as a result of policy. I’m almost positive if the US did something similar, US doctors would react the same way.