cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/6097110

Here is our regular update that explains what we have been working on for the past two weeks. This should allow average users to keep up with development, without reading Github comments or knowing how to program.

We are slowly getting closer to the 0.19 release, although there is still a lot of work left. Client developers should read this post with information about breaking changes to update their projects.

Edit: You can test the latest 0.19 code on voyager.lemmy.ml, or by installing 0.19.0-beta.8 on your server. Be sure to report any bugs on Github.

@nutomic has closed over 100 issues, most of them duplicates, invalid or already resolved ones. He also made numerous pull requests to fix minor bugs and implement small enhancements. This includes a bug fix for federation of admin actions which was released as 0.18.5. He is also changing the way HTML escaping is handled to avoid broken texts.

@dessalines is working on redesigning the join-lemmy.org website, adding the apps and instances pages. Also worked on rewriting the Docker images to use Debian as base instead of Alpine. Additionally he is adding support for new backend features to lemmy-ui (scaled search and cursor-based pagination).

@SleeplessOne1917 has implemented support for new block instance feature, finished implementing the remote follow feature, and updated 2-Factor-Auth to account for a backend rework. He also implemented some bug fixes. He has also been working on adding authentication to lemmy-ui-leptos.

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I read this book per a local book club who reads banned books exclusively, and I was unfortunately not shocked to hear that it was the most challenged book in the US in 2022. This touching graphic novel about the authors lived experiences and journey with their gender identity was challenged a total of 151 times last year.

This book was specifically one of the catalysts last year that propelled the book challenges to the national mainstream as it was used to amplify their platform. It was surreal reading before it reached national attention as well.

I've been copying over Wikipedia censorship info, but there is legitimately too much to copy over to here that I would likely go over the post word limit. Don't believe me?

See for yourself here. (some artistic sexuality depicted in the Wikipedia article, you'll get what I mean)

I have this book on my bookshelf.... but I am ashamed to admit I have yet to read it due to the intensity of it. (Yes, it was required school reading but I was sick when they read it) I will pick it up someday, but unsure when.

What are you thought's on this book? I know it's iconic as hell for obvious reasons, and the irony of banning it is honestly quite funny.

Per Wikipedia:

In the years since its publication, Fahrenheit 451 has occasionally been banned, censored, or redacted in some schools at the behest of parents or teaching staff either unaware of or indifferent to the inherent irony in such censorship. Notable incidents include:

• In Apartheid South Africa the book was burned along with thousands of banned publications between the 1950s and 1970s.[77]
• In 1987, Fahrenheit 451 was given "third tier" status by the Bay County School Board in Panama City, Florida, under then-superintendent Leonard Hall's new three-tier classification system. Third tier was meant for books to be removed from the classroom for "a lot of vulgarity". After a resident class-action lawsuit, a media stir, and student protests, the school board abandoned their tier-based censorship system and approved all the currently used books.[78]
• In 1992, Venado Middle School in Irvine, California, gave copies of Fahrenheit 451 to students with all "obscene" words blacked out.[79] Parents contacted the local media and succeeded in reinstalling the uncensored copies.[79]
• In 2006, parents of a 10th-grade high school student in Montgomery County, Texas, demanded the book be banned from their daughter's English class reading list.[80] Their daughter was assigned the book during Banned Books Week, but stopped reading several pages in due to what she considered the offensive language and description of the burning of the Bible. In addition, the parents protested the violence, portrayal of Christians, and depictions of firemen in the novel.[80]

First to the UK & Australia, but will later expand to the US.

This is one of my favorite books, and it still haunts me. Every detail of it feels like it could be a reality, and even a decade later after it was written it still feels like its about the present. It's like it a story suspended in time, increasingly more relevant. I read this book as a teenager in school and it solidified my ideals as a feminist. The ending after the epilogue is especially haunting.

Every time I hear about this book being banned, it feels like a cruel irony. The sexuality of the book is not erotic, it is saddening.

Have you read this book or seen the show at all?

Copied from Wikipedia, it's censorship information:

The American Library Association lists The Handmaid's Tale as number 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000".[56] In 2019, The Handmaid's Tale is still listed as the seventh-most challenged book because of profanity, vulgarity, and sexual overtones.[57] Atwood participated in discussing The Handmaid's Tale as the subject of an ALA discussion series titled "One Book, One Conference".[58]

In 2009 a parent in Toronto accused the book of being anti-Christian and anti-Islamic because the women are veiled and polygamy is allowed.[59] Rushowy reports that "The Canadian Library Association says there is 'no known instance of a challenge to this novel in Canada' but says the book was called anti-Christian and pornographic by parents after being placed on a reading list for secondary students in Texas in the 1990s."[60]

A 2012 challenge as required reading for a Page High School International Baccalaureate class and as optional reading for Advanced Placement reading courses at Grimsley High School in Greensboro, North Carolina because the book is "sexually explicit, violently graphic and morally corrupt". Some parents thought the book is "detrimental to Christian values".[61]

In November 2012, two parents protested against the inclusion of the book on a required reading list in Guilford County, North Carolina. The parents presented the school board with a petition signed by 2,300 people, prompting a review of the book by the school's media advisory committee. According to local news reports, one of the parents said "she felt Christian students are bullied in society, in that they're made to feel uncomfortable about their beliefs by non-believers. She said including books like The Handmaid's Tale contributes to that discomfort, because of its negative view on religion and its anti-biblical attitudes toward sex."[62]

In November 2021 in Wichita, Kansas, "The Goddard school district has removed more than two dozen books from circulation in the district's school libraries, citing national attention and challenges to the books elsewhere."[63]

In May 2022, Atwood announced that, in a joint project undertaken with Penguin Random House, an "unburnable" copy of the book would be produced and auctioned off, the project intended to "stand as a powerful symbol against censorship".[64] On 7 June 2022, the unique, "unburnable" copy was sold through Sotheby's in New York for $130,000.[65]

This book came out in 2007 and was Jodi Picoults first book to debut at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. The book is an unpacking of a school shooting, following the events that lead up to it and the impact after. It's really really really heavy, so heavy that although I have the book on my to read shelf I haven't touched it yet.

Have you read this book at all? Do you have any thoughts about it?

This book was banned over 7 times last year alone by different school districts across the US. But ironically.. it's because it discusses sexuality and teen dating violence.

Object storage cost: $6.22 (was $6.20 last month) and this will unfortunately probably go up next month by like a dollar...

So we have two lemmy specific servers, we transferred over to hetzner and to a new dedicated server no less! I have two other smaller VPS's I pay for out of pocket (for my blog, my gotosocial alt, some storage and tinkering, and the uptime status page)

Server cost: $16.76 in total, the main dedicated server is $12.69, and the smaller for the alt web front ends are $4.07. Those are loosely converted from Euros hence the weird

I have two other personal servers (one mega tiny, another slightly larger), which I pay out of pocket leading to the overall cost being $26.70 for all the servers on hetzner combined.

Last month we had $20 in donations, this month we had $37.73 (!!!!!) so thanks so much for that as well! It is seriously appreciated! The next two months are basically paid for in advance.

Right now an extra cost that hasn't been added on here but likely will be next month is the backups, I am still taking manual daily backups (yes, daily LOL you read that right), encrypting them and placing them into my proton drive. I am switching over to automating things and moving backups to backblaze sooner rather than later with Arthur figuring out the best way to set that up.

Thank you for your patience and sticking around yall. I seriously appreciate it. It feels so good to be back :)

This book was adapted into a film of the same new, and I had never actually seen nor read it until I volunteered to be on a committee to review the book after it was challenged within my local school district.

It's been a year since I read it. The book stuck with me in more ways than one, probably the biggest being the way it so succinctly captured the way trauma manifests as a child. The 20th anniversary edition contains an extra letter that wraps things up to a much more... "happy" ending.

Have you read this or seen the film at all? What are your own thoughts?

Per Wikipedia:

Reasons for censorship include content considered to be anti-family, sexually explicit, and content involving homosexuality, offensive language, drugs and alcohol, nudity, descriptions of masturbation, and suicide.

I will be pulling from the ALA as well as other sources, as well as listing reasons why it was challenged or banned if I can. I've read quite a few, and I have some thoughts.

Seems very interesting, but just a heads up this book is about cancer.

Seems extremely interesting and might pick this up myself, but know that it is about homelessness.