Alex Vranas @Alex@vran.as

Theory: At any given point in time, there is at least one smartphone screen breaking.

I feel pretty upgraded today!

Got my new #System76 Lemur Pro laptop, a 9 year jump in hardware over my last laptop.

Figured out that I can switch my Pixel 7 Pro into high-DPI mode, which my eyes are still capable of enjoying.

Feels like the future!

I was going to visit my parents for Christmas, but decided that I'd just go visit them the first weekend into the new year because "I have a bad feeling about holiday travel this year".

I love being right.

Now, I know, I admin my own private instance, I have the unilateral power to defederate, and I definitely wield it

But anyone can block an instance from the account level, and more people should take the liberty of doing so.

I see the discourse about QTs is roiling right now, and just some food for thought:

QTs already exist on the Fediverse. Pleroma implemented it a while ago. Getting QT'd has lead to me having to play whack-a-mole with malicious instances telling me to unalive myself, because they weren't happy with my antifacist takes.

The most powerful tool I have here is the block function. This alone has halted dogpiles, and I never had to involve my followers in it.

Die Hard is a story about a cop that murders an unarmed 13 year old, and regains the confidence to kill again when a fellow cop's life is at stake.

Your friendly holiday reminder that the Whos in Whoville get freaky this time of year.

My new laptop has shipped!

I haven't had a *new* laptop in a decade. I always end up buying refurbished Thinkpads. My daily driver is a 2014 Lenovo T440p that I bought in 2018.

Before that it was a 2012 Dell XPS, my last actually new Laptop.

Decided to buy a fully spec'd-out System76 Lemur Pro for the New Year.

Excited to go from 2 CPU cores to 10. 8GB of RAM to 40. 1TB SSD to 4TB NVMe!

With art, traditionally, once the artist finishes their work, the piece is complete. They can go on to produce less admirable art, and their past art remains static.

With software, a lead developer will remain involved to influence future versions of the software. They are an integral part of the project, tasked with informing those who develop and use it.

Their leadership attracts like-minded contributors who will remain even if they are ousted.

They have the power to control and corrupt.

The mantra “Separate The Art From The Artist” does not work for Open Source Software.

The philosophies that developers hold will always have a direct effect on the future of the software they develop.

This is why Codes of Conduct are so important.

ALWAYS research the people leading the development of FOSS products you use, and decide carefully what you choose to work with.

This overwhelmingly applies to social software, where people will be the most directly affected by the software.