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A Geordi aye nay meme
Geordi rejects "banning teenagers from using social media"
Geordi approves "banning billionaires from owning social media"
Everyone wins!
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A variation of the "Epic Handshake" meme from the 1987 sci-fi movie Predator, showing a close-up of four men (instead of the original 2) greeting each other with an arm-wrestle handshake.
Each arm is labeled with the following text:
- Blind and vision-impaired people
- People with temporarily impaired vision
- People with slow internet connection
- People wondering WTF they're looking at
The words "alt text" are shown in the center where all four hands meet.
- Date: Saturday 16th May 2026
- Time: midday - 4pm (London time)
- Location: Corner Corner (OpenStreetMap)
- RSVP: Reply to this message, email me, or message me here on the fediverse, so we know rough numbers.
[Fairbuds XL]> .quit
Invalid command in menu main: quit
beanquery> ,q
beanquery>
scheme@(guile-user)> exit
$1 = #<procedure quit args>
matthew@matthew@fennell.dev-laptop:~$ quitIf only using
-bash: quit: command not found
C-d for everything didn't feel so wrong.pdb while writing some stuff in #Python, and it's really nice to interact with!I like that:
breakpoint() function, making conditional breakpoints very natural:if [condition]:
breakpoint()
In other languages, I slightly dread starting a debug session because I have to remember the flag to pass extra args, add all the breakpoints on startup etc. This leads to long sessions because I don't want to lose the investment I've put into my breakpoints.
But in Python, I have much shorter debug sessions and I can get right to a point of invocation really quickly, verify something, and close the debugger straight away.
I use the repl much more because I can end up in a repl right with the context and variables that I need.
Defining more breakpoints within the repl is really nice to unpack nested datastructures in the same way it would be done in the code:
>>> for key, some_list in some_dict.items():I end up writing things in the repl first, but within the context that the code would be written in reality.
... for value in some_list:
... breakpoint()
It's really thoughtfully designed - thank you to the people who made it so!
RE: https://chaos.social/@sleepyowl/116126002122086149
A must read thread from @sleepyowl, particularly for anyone laughing off the "oh they're trying to enforce age verification at an OS level, well I'll just change my open source operating system settings"
Y'all, this is the game where we get LOCKED OUT of having ANY real FOSS operating system we control AT ALL
The steps have been being put in place for this for over a decade now. And who controls the supply chain?
We have to fight this stuff tooth and nail.
"Want transactions for the whole of Jan, without any transactions from 1 Feb?"
Bank 1: Export 1 Jan to 1 Feb 😎
Bank 2: Export 1 Jan to 31 Jan 🙂
Bank 3: Export 1 Jan to 30 Jan!! 🤦
How does that happen?! It must be inclusive on both ends, plus the 1 Feb transaction happens at midnight? All I know is, if you go to 31 Jan, it will pull 1 Feb into Jan's export!
silly free software joke [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as digital sovereignty, is in fact, software right to repair/digital sovereignty, or as I've been taken to calling it, software right to repair plus digital sovereignty. And what you're referring to as software right to repair/digital sovereignty, is in fact, free software/software right to repair/digital sovereignty, or as I've been taken to calling it, free software plus software right to repair plus digital sovereignty.reverse-i-searches: I wanted find Maildir -type f -mmin -10 | mthread | mseq -S, and I got find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -delete!!Thank goodness for -maxdepth 1!
Baroness Kiddon has tabled an amendment that would require client-side scanning on every device. That would include all film cameras. https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/65150/documents/7938 #MassSurveilance #scanning
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Screen shot of amendment 239A to Crime and Policing bill
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Screen shot of amendment 239A to Crime and Policing bill
How spicy do I like my food? Well...
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Photo of a Pad Thai food order with 15 lines of Spicy food modifiers with *Spec Prep* notes:
MAKE HIM REGRET
BEING BORN
So you probably don't want to reject AI generated content not because "AI generated content Is incompatible with your license if it has no copyright" but because "whether or not AI generated content is subject to copyright is not a settled matter and ESPECIALLY NOT INTERNATIONALLY" (and not everywhere has a public domain). If you accept something, its status may not be the same internationally, and *legal decisions about AI output could change soon*, leading to an integration of something very hard to undo later.
And the OTHER reason to not integrate it is that most of AI generated output has subtle bugs and tends to result in an erosion of your community. So yeah, that too.
Can you run Signal with basically no iOS or Android devices right now and still do the (mandatory) prove-your-phone-id steps?
It feels like very near future I, and everyone else who cares about computing autotonomy, we're all gonna have to start runnin' the Linux phones, no matter how non-ideal that user experience is right now
As a person who is running Matrix from 2018 until now, it seems I made my choice to switch to xmpp.
Currently in a process of migrating people to the new platform.
As someone here stated about Matrix:
"wait another 2 years and see if it's gotten any better. Well, this hasn't expired yet".
I'm tired of waiting too.
Also, xmpp is far from being perfect, but
- it works stable
- lite weight (both clients and server),
- works pretty well on poor network conditions.
- better for 1:1 chats
- AV calls are flawless.
I am stressed over online safety act shit extending to VPNs, and keep running through the rant in my head and not making the video because I'll sound insane.
The world is going mad in so many ways.
ICYMI: Finally blogged about an old paper (led by @groceryheist) that explains why people often engage in multiple groups with overlapping topic and membership, and which helps explain why competition between online groups seems to be rare. https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/why-do-people-participate-in-similar-online-communities
Thank you, #OnlineSafetyAct for failing to regulate #AgeVerification in any way at all. Now Discord users must hand their data to a Peter-Thiel-of-Palantir-linked system.
“We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,”Quoted from an internal memo by Meta about their surveillance glasses.
Wow!
We welcome today's UK High Court ruling on Palestine Action.
The proscription not only criminalised political #protest but had far-reaching consequences for free speech online and counter terrorism programmes like #Prevent.
The government must change the Terrorism Act so future ones don't make similar proscriptions with worse consequences.
With the ban still in place, we need to hear how Ofcom expects platforms to remove #PalestineAction content.
@bureaucrhaj my friend the professor solved that problem a while ago! Even @rosahaj in her younger days liked bikes!
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Shak in back basket in backpack on bike
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Blahaj lying on bike
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Rosahaj in bag on bike sneaking our
RE: https://mastodon.social/@sovtechfund/116056808593765766
If you're a FOSS maintainer working on standards or following them, we would love to hear from you! Please share and boost in your circles.
Wanted to see me speak at #FOSDEM but couldn't make it? Here's the two talks I gave!
How to Level Up the Fediverse
(co-presented with ActivityPub co-author @tsyesika !) https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/HVJRNV-how_to_level_up_the_fediverse/
Lisp is Clay: the Power of Composable DSLs https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/HDE7JZ-lisp-is-clay/
Can't get enough? Need more #spritely talks? We gave a bunch... 🧵
Another FOSDEM and hackathon are in the rear-view mirror, and it is hard to find words to describe how amazingly productive and fun the experience was! We met so many people at the postmarketOS stand, in the FOSS on Mobile devroom and at dinners in the evening. As always it is fun to put faces to nicknames and to talk about the Linux Mobile ecosystem, and figure out how to improve it in person.
Find photos and what we got done in the blog post:
https://postmarketos.org/blog/2026/02/10/fosdem-and-hackathon/
Thanks to all who came by or contributed towards making this possible! 
How Australia’s social media ban is having a negative impact on children with disabilities https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/06/ive-lost-my-friends-advocacy-groups-warn-australias-social-media-ban-risks-isolating-kids-with-disabilities #exclusion #authortarianism #socialmedia
Loads of FOI requests going into Ofcom about how they are monitoring VPN use. They are refusing to answer most of them. We know they are paying Apptopia and the contract is here https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/affd2903-bba4-42fa-a96a-f65e7ff23329
FOI responses can be read
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/freedom-of-information/foi-responses
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Screen grab of Ofcom’s FOI response page
The first step forward 👀
#librem5 #mobilelinux #linuxmobile #linux #shotonlibrem5
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A Librem 5 phone displaying a terminal app with the output of "uname -a" command showing that it's running a 6.12.68-based kernel tree.
Following the Railways and Open Transport track at #FOSDEM 2024 #Transitous got started. Just two years later Transitous is mentioned in more than a fourth of the talks there today.
https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/track/railways-and-open-transport/
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Isabelle de Robert presenting the Mobility Database
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David Koňařík presenting the state of open data in Czech public transport.
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Adam Pioterek talking about Bimba.
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Jonah Brüchert talking about crowdsourcing delay information.
We're excited to share that we have just $$26,594 left to raise in our match challenge!
We're in the stand at FOSDEM today, keeping track of the number, so you can give online or even just give some cash in person and we'll keep updating the number throughout the day!
Donations made to lower that number will be doubled!! Can we get to our goal here at #FOSDEM?
https://sfconservancy.org/sustainer/
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Karen Sandler and Tracy Homer standing at the FOSDEM stand. The table has a green tablecloth and you can see an OpenWrt One and various stickers and informational materials on the table. Tracy and Karen are pointing towards a sign that says "Your donation matched! Left to go: $26,594, with a higher number crossed out.
We had our social in Manchester last night, catching up with supporters.
Fancy another one?
We’ll be in London next Monday. Come along, chat on and hear about our campaign for UK digital sovereignty.
🗓️ 2 Feb
🕕 6:30-8:30pm
📍Newspeak House, E2 7DG (UK)
Sign up now ⬇️
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/events/org-london-meet-up-2/
While unfortunate to have a cancellation, I'm excited to announce that we will have an "audience choice" session in the Legal & Policy Devroom at #fosdem. You can either fill out the online form to suggest a topic, or just write it on a piece of paper and hand it to one of the Devroom organizers. We want to hear from you!
https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/RJPLXP-hot_topic_audience_choice/
Where do I apply for one of these "paid agitator and insurrectionist" jobs I keep hearing so much about? I keep doing it for free so it would be nice to get a pay check.
The only relevant feature for any instant messaging app (or social app, for that matter) is: Are my friends using it? People will gladly overlook minor inconsistencies or missing features as long as they can communicate with their friends. We shouldn’t recommend #Signal as a stepping stone before Jabber/XMPP becomes "good enough," if goodness is defined by the number of people using it.
help I've been programming in lisp for too long, I don't remember how to put commas after arguments anymore. I can't add a semicolon to the end of a line
Rip up trade deals with the US. They're not worth the paper they're written on anymore.
Repeal anti-circumvention laws; allow companies in every nation to reverse engineer US tech, and sell better, cheaper alternatives, even to Americans - this would create leverage over the USA.
Cory Doctorow raised this idea at his 39c3 talk, recently. I agree. Those trade deals promise low/no tariffs and we let US tech walk all over us. Well now there is nothing to lose (never was).