Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

I discovered when I graduated from Computer Science I prefer people to programming.

I do stuff with Librecast (npub1qky…mckc) a #HumanRights project masquerading as a FOSS project. Trans Rights are Human Rights.

#PHPledge. #CovidIsStillHere #LongCovid

Pronouns: she/her
Avatar: cis white woman blue eyes , chestnut hair, glasses, headphones
Banner: George Orwell and Ovid standing in a Panopticon
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Been on the Fediverse since 2017

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag: (npub17ux…329m)">https://justmytoots.com/Esther Payne :bisexual_flag: (npub17ux…329m)

website: https://onepict.com
Links: https://yrtree.me/@onepict
project: https://librecast.net
cobbles: https://dotart.blog/cobbles/

Public Key

npub17uxpdhz0kqqwej08g36e40hzxc6ceg5yp4m7yq70qhs5hjj2ej9ssh329m

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs0wrqkm38mqq8ve8n5gav6hm3rvdvv52zq6alzq08stc2tef9vezcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dszxv9qz

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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npub17uxpdhz0kqqwej08g36e40hzxc6ceg5yp4m7yq70qhs5hjj2ej9ssh329m

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Published at

2026-04-24T15:03:51+02:00

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Last Notes

2026-04-24 16:24:14 CEST

@npub1p09…m5vl fyi :
https://mastodon.social/@franco_vazza/116459049191900624

2026-04-18 09:06:23 CEST

I get annoyed when folks say that technical solutions to age verification are fine and somehow I don't understand the technical implementation. Which has already been found to have holes.
I do understand.
Technologists who believe in Free Software should not be encouraging this. You will get a block.
Age verification to access the internet is breaking Freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.
We should not be making the mechanisms of surveillance easier by normalising the process.

2026-04-06 21:04:24 CEST

I distrust the kind of discourse when folks are being asked to be "reasonable".
The DARVO on that discussion raises my hackles.
In my bubble there's a lot of folks who are vulnerable.
Reasonable is the call for the status quo.
So no I won't be reasonable. This network exists because of coders who weren't reasonable, folks shaped this network and pushed hard for moderation and safety. They weren't reasonable.
I look at the world at the moment and I don't want to be "reasonable"

2026-04-06 18:34:42 CEST

Yeah....
Your need for engagement and cheerleading for AI boosting isn't my thing.
This is our space. We want to hang out and I don't feel like being polite. LLMs are intruding into my ecosystem.
Just because I want a space that's free of this, doesn't mean it's an echo chamber.
I just don't want to communicate with you about your harmful and extractive technology.
This is a freedom of association issue, not free speech.
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/ai-and-that-guy-at-the-bar

2026-03-29 13:10:53 CEST

- reply

this struck me:
"Over time, people learn where those edges are. They avoid them. Not necessarily because they agree, but because pushing against them comes at a price. This creates a subtle but powerful effect. It shapes not only what is said, but what is explored internally. "
It's how the status quo is enforced. We see this with the UK at the moment and how folks are getting locked up for protesting genocide.
Folks not quite at the edges have something to loose so they look away.

2026-03-28 18:54:26 CET

When I was a teen and starting at university, I remember the browser wars seemed lost in the 1990s.
Microsoft and Internet Explorer seemed to dominate. Nowadays I'm on Linux and there are other options.
That's thanks to folks not accepting the status quo and being unreasonable. It's thanks to the folks who built the software we use and who supported them.
Things can change, but it takes people and community.
It takes will and intention.
You need to be honest about where you stand.

2026-03-28 18:48:31 CET

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But then you know how I feel about AI and LLMs.
Particularly with the arguments some LLM boosters love to make.
Framing it as an inevitability is a rather pickup artist way to manufacture our consent to just accept it.
I don't accept that we do have to accept it. We can express dissent and organise to find alternatives and mitigate the damage in our communities.
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/ai-and-that-guy-at-the-bar

2026-03-28 18:44:17 CET

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I don't think it's great for anyone to have fatalism about this or frame it as it will always be everywhere.
If we accepted that kinda thing then Free Software wouldn't have got started. We need to be unreasonable.
Where we find hope is where we can fork what we can. Linux is a huge undertaking because of the mass of developers that contribute to it.
In our ecosystems all we can do is try to limit the damage. Every little thing we do helps

2026-03-28 15:31:04 CET

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yep been aware of that one for months since the LLM that the stable kernel folks use for selecting patches bungled up networking in stable which broke multicast.
We can still be open about our dissent.
There's a lot to think about what it takes for a forking. Intention as much as code.

2026-03-28 12:33:21 CET

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Logging on today and looking at the homepage, up front and centre was copilot.
I didn't realise how bad it had got. I'm fed up with all of the attempts to tell us that "codes not scarce", and it's democratising development.
It's locking away our collaboration and hooking us into a token system for code production. Screw you, I want my artisanal coders, I want care to go into the systems I use.
Trying to argue for LLMs just makes me distrust you.
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/ai-and-that-guy-at-the-bar

2026-03-28 12:27:24 CET

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Truthfully it was harder deleting my matrix.org account. This was merely part of getting myself slowly off big tech. Little by little.
But having been working in FOSS since 2007, there's no excuse for me being on a Microsoft Owned centralised social network, that centralises our collaboration and code while sucking our imagination and vitality away from us.
Our values demand sacrifices.

2026-03-28 12:21:13 CET

I've not used either of my GitHub accounts in a long time.
Both accounts deleted.
I should have done this years ago.

2026-03-28 08:56:48 CET

I never thought we'd be in a time where "seize the means of computation" may be a radical concept.
We need to share the means of communication.
The billionaires are hoarding it.
How we share our resources and communicate is what makes us human.

2026-03-25 21:11:59 CET

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It sure does explain Mozilla's attitude as it engaged in consent theatre and AI at the moment though.
It's a shame that the Organisations don't want to listen to their community who don't want AI, we wanted an alternative browser.
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/ai-and-that-guy-at-the-bar

2026-03-25 20:33:11 CET

- reply

If you still aren't sure why see here:
https://goblin.band/notes/ak9wrlzwgqsvbj9y

2026-03-20 10:51:08 CET

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this thread is brilliant.
Please make it a blog post.

2026-03-17 12:52:12 CET

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Folks also tend to not be that great at acknowledging power and responsibility.
We have a bad habit of bigging folks up because they expressed our frustration well without consideration about if we should have given them that power.
Power is a responsibility and it should be shared.
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/the-spiral

2026-03-17 12:37:33 CET

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I started out on the Open Source side and gradually moved over to the free software side.
Although at times I'm not sure either side fits anymore. Especially with the definition of freedom, and the desire to not acknowledge the political influences and ramifications of what we code and how we act within our communities.
I'm at a stage now where I distrust folks who are apolitical.

2026-03-17 10:27:57 CET

Perhaps the uncritical use of LLMs in our FOSS ecosystem is a symptom of burnout in our maintainers and projects.

2026-03-16 19:42:57 CET

I really hope rsync is free of slop.
#NoToAI

2026-03-15 12:56:10 CET

- reply

That also goes for what we put up on our social networks and the debris we leave as we walk the paths of the web.
Digital Poppets - How the Modern Fae Hold Power Over You
https://www.onepict.com/digitalpoppet.html
Fair warning, this is a long read.

2026-03-14 21:48:22 CET

You know you should never invite the fey.
I distrust any witch who says you should.
Same for Devs using LLMs, especially those from the unseelie court.

2026-03-11 19:06:12 CET

- reply

I need to figure out crumpets as well.

2026-03-11 18:11:59 CET

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I've always found the teacakes a bit sweet, but the wafers are perfect.
I miss having them. Although french salted caramel anything does make up for the lack.

2026-03-11 18:05:16 CET

Hmm Tunnocks caramel wafers

2026-03-08 11:44:42 CET

- reply

The encouragement needs to start from an early age. Little boys of my generation got Amigas and Commodore 64s and learned coding from typing in the code from magazines, fixing bugs. In some cases from the age of five.
Whereas many women had obstacles put in their way, or had never had that grounding as their parents had no idea.
Girls need that encouragement and support. But STEM education is still highly gendered.

2026-03-07 11:03:38 CET

- reply

Tech is a dark mirror of our society. Our current technology will further the ills. That lack of consent is everywhere in big Tech.
So when we can we must point it out.
I'm glad you agree with the article. ❤️

2026-03-07 11:01:32 CET

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I think many of us in Tech, who aren't the default of privileged cis white men have a very different experience of existence in our fields. The same for those of us outside of tech.
Tech merely can enable our society ills at scale. Especially when the people who shout loudest in our fields are privileged cis white folks. So it's very easy for me to see the harm as I've experienced it in different ways in different industries. But it comes from the same system our society runs on.

2026-03-06 21:24:19 CET

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I think we're at a point now where we all need to state our values openly and enforce our boundaries.
Because I'm seeing an overlap in attitude vibes with some folks. I think we're going to see more mask off moments.
There's a reason why I wrote my AI and the guy at the bar post on my cobbles blog.
I think some folks don't see collaboration as a good thing. Or Governance.
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/ai-and-that-guy-at-the-bar

2026-03-06 20:33:54 CET

You know when I was a kid, anti social behaviour like cheating at a game got you ostracised in a friend's group. No one would play with you anymore.
Perhaps other anti social behaviour like using LLMs to licencewash and use an existing project name should have the same outcomes. This feels like cheating, it takes the joy out of our game.
FOSS was meant to be about collaboration as much as creating software. It is play, it should be joyful.
The LLM Bro's are stealing our joy.

2026-02-21 11:06:37 CET

It occurs to me that there are other voices we should be listening to that aren't European or American in our internet spaces.
So Fediverse who else should we be reading when we worry about Internet Freedom?
About the centralisation dangers and censorship on the internet?
Who are we drowning out?
EDIT: :BoostOK:
Like seriously, if you have a suggestion please reply. I'm enthusiastically asking.

2026-02-13 17:41:46 CET

- reply

I think there's a point where artists become isolated from what drove them, when they get really successful.
It's what happens when you become part of the establishment. You're comfortable and now you've got something to loose.

2026-02-13 17:20:33 CET

Oh look, another industry where Men who support the status quo, don't think politics should be part of art.
Louder for the back of the room.
"Art is political. "
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/feb/13/arundhati-roy-quits-berlin-film-festival-over-stay-out-of-politics-comment

2026-02-13 16:18:47 CET

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oh wow, @npub1cg5…5rad is in it. Thank you. 😊

2026-02-07 13:48:55 CET

I am mutating into my crone form. I have just started a small tin of buttons.
Send Danish Biscuits.
#RepairReuseRecycle

2026-01-30 12:51:07 CET

Wear a mask at these Events folks.
You protect you and others when you do. You encourage other folks to consider protecting themselves as well.
Otherwise at some point down the line you'll be where I am. Desperately trying to preserve my energy and feeling very sad, angry and worried about the folks attending.
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/foss-conferences-and-covid
#fosdem #WearAMask

2026-01-22 21:26:31 CET

- reply

Once you've read that, here's some more posts from my cobbles blog.
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/on-bears
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/ignoring-boundaries
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/reflections-on-fedicon-and-foss-guilt-by-association
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/the-others

2026-01-22 21:25:44 CET

A woman who I follow on the fediverse just had to delete a post due to sexual harassment.
Men if you want more diversity on the Fediverse you need to speak up and call in your peers. You need to educate them and if they persist ban them. Make it clear they aren't welcome.
Otherwise you're making it clear we aren't welcome.
It shouldn't just be us doing the work
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/the-silence
#sexism

2026-01-02 13:47:20 CET

Is there an creative commons/public domain photograph of the Tech billionaires behind Trump during his second inauguration?
Need it for a thing.
:BoostOK:

2025-12-12 17:56:42 CET

- reply

well FOSDEM pretty much demonstrated their values last year.
https://www.onepict.com/20250119-cobbles.html
About that time they picked Jack Dorsey as a headliner.
https://www.onepict.com/20250122-mirror.html
I called for some transparency.
https://www.onepict.com/20250206-mirror.html
No Dorsey, Matrix got to talk instead. Oh and no transparency.

2025-12-08 07:38:26 CET

- reply

It honestly still stuns me when people think like that.
Yet we're expected to sacrifice our safety to be around family and to not mask because it makes them uncomfortable.
🤦‍♀️

2025-12-08 07:22:14 CET

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Yeah if they think that's bad luck it's ableism at best and they are on the road to eugenics at worse.

2025-12-08 07:15:03 CET

TIL how to get to the about config page on Firefox mobile if about:config is disabled:
chrome://geckoview/content/config.xhtml
Handy if you want to disable the AI features on there.
#Firefox #Mobile

2025-11-21 11:20:02 CET

As a cis woman I've been misgendered at a distance for having short hair and wearing a hoodie by two older cis women. That's all it takes, a glance.
No one should be policing the toilets or common areas, because of how they dress. This makes me feel unsafe.
Trans women and Trans men have never made me feel unsafe. Non binary folks have never made me feel unsafe.
Just because I'm choosing to present as feminine doesn't mean I always will. This is transphobic bullshit.

2025-11-21 10:42:58 CET

This article from 2023 by @npub1hr7…jxyc is really good.
Reading this today after a conversation with my brother as we tried to make sense of why folks are using the AI chat bots. The framing of the psychics con is brilliant. Because that is what those bots are doing.
Which makes various governments AI nonsense even more frightening.
https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/

2025-11-14 18:46:08 CET

I'm still of the opinion that we need an organisational fork of Mozilla, preferably not domiciled in the US.
We have technical forks like librewolf, that's not what I'm asking for. I'm asking for new stewards of the upstream code. Although perhaps if the forks want to consider how they'd become a hard fork, with an organisational structure that would work too.
Mozilla is a product of it's surroundings. It's surroundings was silicon valley and well 🤷‍♀️
https://mamot.fr/@thibaultamartin/115548809564345011

2025-11-05 10:36:07 CET

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Not letting the Nazis in the bar seems like community safety 101.

2025-11-05 10:35:07 CET

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Not 24 hours after the admin of mas.to wrung his hands about Nazis in his bar, there was another one.
That one was replying to the visible activists on our community and posting death threat memes, using racist language and Eugenics.
There is no ironic posting of the Nazi flag or usage of Nazi dog whistles.
I've reported and blocked but the only way to stop it is close the open signups.
Stop performatively wringing your hands. It does nothing to stop the wave.

2025-11-05 10:30:04 CET

About threads, but feels kinda relevant.
"I often feel that being a community mod or a community leader should not be seen as power but a responsibility. You have a duty of care to ensure the safety of your members who choose to let you have some power over a part of their lives.
I don't think some of the admins of the larger instances get this. I think some admins are salivating more over getting the celebs over, rather than caring for their existing community.
https://www.onepict.com/consent-fediverse20230627.html

2025-11-02 11:36:45 CET

As someone who campaigned hard to bring back Nominet (dot.uk) to the public benefit, I can see that our infrastructure ( including our domain names) needed to be managed by cooperatives rather than our VC backed landscape.
Public commons, rather than rentiers. Which the majority of our domain name landscapes are.
Vint Cerf trying to rehabilitate his reputation via the Internet Archive and Libraries is just 🤦‍♀️
You built this landscape not just physically but you allowed this. 🤷‍♀️

2025-11-02 11:27:17 CET

- reply

yeah I saw that and my first impulse was swearing.
Pretty disappointed in general with Tim Burners Lee as well.
I should not have been surprised as Robert Calliau (Berners Lee's collaborator) was happy to front for closed source natural language company Run Rev in 2010
https://www.onepict.com/20101104-closed.html

2025-11-02 11:23:24 CET

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Here's the overall timeline of the save .org campaign.
I forgot it was so recent. But I do remember being incredibly disappointed in Vint Cerf.
But our internet now is the outcome of desires like this. When you see our infrastructure as something to sell rather than maintain or be a guardian of.
I mean granted the internet is not the web.
https://www.nten.org/change/savedotorg-campaign-history

2025-11-02 11:18:16 CET

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Here's Kieran McCarthy's article from that time as well.
https://www.theregister.com/2020/01/14/icann_org_redacted/

2025-11-02 11:15:53 CET

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I point you to Cerf's own words at the start of 2020 when many of us were vocally against the sale of the .org registry to Ethos Capital.
Our walled gardens were always going to expand Vint, especially when you helped to encourage that mindset.
https://medium.com/@vint_4444/a-stronger-future-for-org-and-the-internet-52002a8268cf

2025-11-02 11:12:15 CET

The warning is timely. But some of the folks like Vint Cerf became part of the issue when we remember how we had to fight to keep .org affordable.
But again it's a reflection of big tech. Our early internet pioneers flirted with VCs and capital not that long ago.
So it's on us to save the open web. No one is coming to save it. So we must try.
https://mastodon.archive.org/@brewsterkahle/115478416083147772

2025-10-30 10:02:49 CET

I hadn't even heard of DNS0.EU
Europe's privacy-first DNS pulls the plug overnight
European DNS shutting down
European public DNS service DNS0.EU has shut down its operations immediately
https://cybernews.com/news/european-public-resolver-shuts-down/
#DNS

2025-10-27 11:37:07 CET

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It's a reflection of the bigger picture really. The general public hasn't been offered the knowledge to able to understand roughly how our internet works.
Or the implications of the walled gardens most folks access.
So it's no wonder our politicians don't understand or ultimately don't want to understand it.
So it's a good thing when more of us seek to teach folks outside our specialisations. Computing used to be a lot more accessible to the general public.

2025-10-27 10:22:17 CET

While the article is about what I expected, I am pleased @npub1afm…5gp4 was interviewed for this.
I do wonder what the reporter left out from Michal's comments.
"Could the internet go offline? Inside the fragile system holding the modern world together"
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/26/internet-infrastructure-fragile-system-holding-modern-world-together
#Internet

2025-10-23 18:06:02 CEST

It's probably safer to assume anyone using the Meta branded Raybans is a non privacy respecting glasshole, who doesn't understand consent.
"A $60 Mod to Meta’s Ray-Bans Disables Its Privacy-Protecting Recording Light"
Available to Zuckerbergs customers via a hobbyist.
https://infosec.exchange/@josephcox/115423606706984519

2025-10-22 13:48:13 CEST

Thinking about it, I do quite like the terminal.
Not quite ready to abandon the gui entirely, but for git, using ssh to access remote systems or plain distraction free writing in base Vim there's nothing like it.
I prefer simplicity because I want the spare brain cycles for other stuff.
My computer should be under my control, not another source of anxiety or pain.

2025-10-17 21:29:01 CEST

- reply

That was a really interesting response thank you.
I've been trying to think about the math and game theory and you've given a really good insight there.
I love the term asset bubbles in politics.
I feel that should be a blog post because it's the first time I've read that perspective.

2025-10-17 19:04:19 CEST

There's a common problem in our politics in Europe and the US. Tactical voting for the status quo.
The centrists cry oh but "consequences", some folks have already had the state come down hard even with "centrist governments".
Those of us on the sharp edges that you ignored. Suddenly Fascism raises it's head and you're asking us to prop up governments that will ensure we don't have a livable environment for humanity.
No I won't facilitate your status quo because you're scared.

2025-10-16 12:56:02 CEST

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This was the announcement by Mozilla. We really do need a new Organisation, preferably not headquartered in the United States.
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-144/

2025-10-16 10:57:23 CEST

We really need an org forking of Mozilla. Especially with #Firefox plonking in #perplexity without our consent.
https://hachyderm.io/@davidculley/115377002571305266
Firefox is used by a lot of folks outside our space, we develop for it, so the answer isn't just insert [alternative] here. So if you're gearing up to suggest your alternative. Please don't, I'm aware.
I have them installed.

2025-10-09 10:27:35 CEST

Technology and protocols may seem to be neutral.
In reality people are not neutral, our politics influence how we see the world and the change we want to bring into the world. We encode those beliefs.
It's why I don't trust projects that choose "No Politics" or "We have a big tent" .
Being nice to each other and framing it as kindness means you can ignore the Fascist in the dev teams. After all if you never talk about your politics in the open, you can claim you never knew they were harmful.

2025-09-28 12:55:17 CEST

Over a year ago I wrote this about long term community sustainability issues.
"We have systematic issues with recruitment into STEM in general. To be clear when we are talking about toxic communities and discrimination we aren't criticising specific individuals. We are criticising the systems of community that encourage that toxic behaviour."
https://www.onepict.com/20240512-elephant.html
I do think it's better to signal our values widely and openly. Freedom of association in Safety is as important as free speech.

2025-09-26 14:08:42 CEST

The thing to bear in mind with any centralised biometric ID system in the UK is:
1) Do you really want palantir (Peter Thiel) whose secondary market is insurance to get their grubby paws on it?
2) Do you want Farage and his group of nerdowells to get their grubby paws on it?
3) Bad actors including The US and criminals around the world?
They aren't qualified to handle that data.

2025-09-25 08:49:38 CEST

- reply

As I've said elsewhere:
"Like if your attitude is: "It's begging, how do I know they deserve this money?"
Dude take a long hard look at yourself. If you're worried about the idea of someone just demanding money without contributing at all and like grifting.
We have those in society. They are called Billionaires."
Thank you both for your work creating Gaza Verified.

2025-09-20 12:13:42 CEST

I wrote this on November 6th after the results of the US election were announced.
Movements can't really be mobilised unless you have a sense of community and the support that comes with that.
You have to find solidarity. When folks went on strike, the community around them supported them and kept them and their families fed. We've been socialised in the last 50 years to be isolated.
Now's the time to start building, that starts with kindness and mutual aid.
https://www.onepict.com/20241106-solidarity.html

2025-09-11 20:33:28 CEST

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look EU commission, there is no magic way to only scan for CSAM, all messages will be scanned.
Here's a document about cryptography and backdoors written round about the time of the clipper chip. TLDR:
A backdoor is a backdoor.
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1984
#ChatControl #NoChatControl
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/115/187/601/633/796/115/original/6848b46d365ebb34.png

2025-08-27 12:27:45 CEST

I need to find a new Domain Registrar preferably in the EU but the UK will work too.
We used to use Gandi, but then they turned Evil. I'm on Porkburn but I don't approve of them putting domains we release out to auction. It encourages Domain squatting.
Any suggestions for an ethical registrar?
:BoostOK:

2025-08-14 11:17:50 CEST

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I was discussing this with Brett yesterday, we have forks, but what we need is a fork of the foundation.
I was reminded of open office and the document foundation for libre office.
I think Mozilla's mindset is very Silicon Valley, plus everytime folks mention forks, some smug person pops up with the fact the forks rely on Firefox for the base. Also the foundation is based in the US.
You need something to ensure Devs can eat and there's an organisation around them to support them.

2025-08-13 09:14:42 CEST

It's bad enough that LLM and the industry that pushes it are trying to alter the perception of reality on-line.
When we do it to "fight against ai" by suggesting that we poison alt text it's a harmful fucking move.
It's ableist as fuck and you are trying to distort the perception of reality for those folks who need alt text. Just to "fight against AI".
Readjust your logic FFS.
Don't leave folks who need that alt text in the dust in your crusade.
Fuckers.

2025-08-10 08:05:51 CEST

"By supporting the fedipact we are signalling that we don't consent to interacting with a known abusive actor who revels in their power. Mark Zuckerberg revealed that to us over a decade ago. He revealed what he can do with his power again and again.
You should not trust a company he owns with anything of you. Not your posts, not your contacts, not your metadata." Me - 2023
https://www.onepict.com/consent-fediverse20230627.html
#fedipact #threads #AI

2025-08-09 09:49:49 CEST

Our world and our societies at the moment seem to be doomed. It is changing drastically, however we do have hope.
Where that hope is, starts in us and the communities we build. But we must have solidarity with each other. Which is something that it takes a lot of us in Tech some time to learn.
We can't save the world with code. We build solidarity which changes us and what we code.
We build community and code to reflect our communities needs.

2025-08-03 08:49:55 CEST

I have to admit I get nervous when I see Devs on here being obsessed with scale and reaching billions of people.
Yes we do need to share information.
But we can't scale context or the complexities of language. We can't really understand the scale of billions.
Sharing information and translating is an art and takes some empathy.
Scale does matter for the transport, but the message? 🤷‍♀️
You need to consider context, that takes people.

2025-07-31 19:50:44 CEST

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are awesome.
When I remember why libera.chat was started after the ashes of freenode, I'm so thankful to everyone there.
The same folks who kept freenode going for so many years keep libera.chat going now.
Thank you all.

2025-07-30 11:05:56 CEST

A very long overdue network for me to leave. It's been owned by Microsoft for a long time. It's corporate culture filled to the brim with AI slop is repellent.
But their bending of the knee to allow hate speech against transgender folks finally did it for me.
I've given the one month warning to folks who know me on LinkedIn.
If you're still on #LinkedIn perhaps consider leaving as well?
https://www.onepict.com/20250730-linkedin.html

2025-07-29 21:17:15 CEST

Getting awfully crowded in my sky.
I know Matrix.org is protecting itself in the UK as that's where it's based. Age gating a chat server isn't right.
I really hate all this because of the online harms act. I hate the fact that UK services feel they have no choice but to comply.
At least I still have IRC.
🙇
https://assets.chaos.social/media_attachments/files/114/938/103/441/406/828/original/3a4fd6c955b05024.png

2025-07-25 10:55:33 CEST

Some folks particularly in the #NoPolitics #FOSS crowd want everyone to work together for the greater good. To discuss politics would open a can of worms.
Politics are an integral part of culture, it forms cultural norms, weither folks choose to explicitly acknowledge it or not.
Our personal politics will always be in the background. Our views on humanity and who's #HumanRights are respected.
Being able to ignore politics shows a level of comfort and privilege in a culture, the status quo.

2025-07-24 16:38:06 CEST

Like what's wrong with ORCID and perhaps universities making the degrees available?
Saying that my degree is public information. It was published in May 2002 along with my fellow classmates in the local newspaper.
I do not want my degree award in the blockchain FFS.
It's like a Zombie and I wish someone would put the whole concept of the blockchain out of it's misery.
https://ec.social-network.europa.eu/@EC_DIGIT/114908520969086551

2025-07-09 20:15:54 CEST

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The thrilling adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua is an awesome comic book, with a plethora of real life information about Lovelace and Babbage and their time in the footnotes.
It's one of my favourite books for the Steampunk alternate universe fun and the real life facts.

2025-07-09 20:03:36 CEST

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Ada brought context and support to Babbage.
She could see what it could be useful for.
She had the mathematical background to understand what Babbage was trying to do.
Centuries later you still get folks trying to minimise her contributions.
🤷‍♀️

2025-07-09 20:00:36 CEST

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From the article.
“The notes of the Countess of Lovelace extend to about three times the length of the original memoir,” Babbage wrote later. “Their author has entered fully into almost all the very difficult and abstract questions connected with the subject.” Her comments highlight the link she found between the machine and the Jacquard loom. This loom used punched cards to automatically create images and Babbage’s Analytical Engine would do the same with numbers."

2025-07-09 20:00:00 CEST

Over a decade ago, I had a male colleague who reduced Lovelace's contributions to computing as "oh she just translated stuff."
https://www.the-good-times.org/people-2/ada-lovelace-weaving-algebraic-patterns-like-looms-weave-flowers-and-leaves/
Given the respect Babbage had for Lovelace she did more than that.

2025-07-06 09:39:22 CEST

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clearly he'd have been disturbed by agit prop in art.
Art is politics. What a useless wall of words in that article.

2025-06-28 10:44:37 CEST

So I had some more thoughts about FOSS sustainability. I've had them for some time. But this weeks issues reminded me of them.
So here's a mild spruik for some of the orgs who make my digital spaces for myself and my project and also package @npub1qky…mckc
https://www.onepict.com/20250628-plussustain.html
#FossSustainability #Matrix #ReproducibleBuilds #Outreachy

2025-06-23 10:04:48 CEST

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I think it's partly because we don't have the vocabulary to talk about making space for each other and having healthy communication.
You have to have the will for that.
My husband and I have never understood the relationships some folks appear to have with their spouses. We don't understand why you'd be in a relationship where you don't seem really like that person or respect them.
Like I married my best friend. Why wouldn't you do that?

2025-06-10 09:25:49 CEST

I think that with LLMs and generative AI, there's no creativity partly because there's no play.
When I write, I have fun, I play with words and with worlds.
When I paint, there's a play with what I mix and the strokes of the brush.
With code, the coder in my life creates and plays with that code
I get this sense that some AI folks never really got to play as an active creative thing to do. No make believe.
So of course they steal our work and copy it. They never got to do creative play.

2025-05-06 09:31:22 CEST

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I feel like the [@vagina_museum](https://masto.ai/@vagina_museum ) could weigh in here.

2025-05-05 21:23:14 CEST

Reading that Rolling Stone article, I think LLMs are just fancy ELIZA with add-ons.
#LLMs

2025-04-30 09:00:22 CEST

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I think the most revolutionary act many of us can do is help people to learn if they want to.
To make spaces where people can access learning.
Education is rapidly becoming a radical act to enable.

2025-04-29 12:33:20 CEST

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Ok, this isn't really an essay. It's just some thoughts.
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/the-end-of-an-era

2025-04-29 09:17:31 CEST

I had some thoughts, but this should be a blogpost

2025-04-26 19:37:10 CEST

Look folks I know that the idea of federation is scary.
But it's not going to break FOSS or the fediverse. People do. By the political choices they want to make. Choosing FOSS is a political act. Wanting to have nothing to do with Fascists is a political act.
On here it's not just about free speech, it's freedom of association.
We don't need to connect to every single person on the planet. We have that choice.

2025-04-24 07:27:05 CEST

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Yeah we got it as well.
Although the subject line was a massive clue as it was a slur.

2025-04-20 20:21:38 CEST

I have signed the Petition to the Open Source Initiative: Publish the Full 2025 Election Results.
Organisations that are meant to safeguard our licence definitions for the commons should be open.
This petition is as much a signal to let others know they aren't alone in their disquiet with the direction of the OSI.
It's not pointless, or a waste of time. If you feel the same about the lack of transparency with the election. Now's the time to sign.
#OpenSource #OSI
https://codeberg.org/OSI-Concerns/election-results-2025/commit/445cbe7b7fa35d2bd08cef3f5872e4f90448567b

2025-04-19 12:32:56 CEST

Friends don't let friends use what 3 words
https://w3w.me.ss/
#what3words #w3w

2025-04-19 09:59:16 CEST

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I still remember all the stuff that Caster Semenya had to go through and still is.
Biology is complex but how you identify is still important.
I sometimes think about the human rights abuses some intersex folk have had from birth including my ex.
But it's not in a bigots interest to think about that. They have their of notion of feminity.
It's not on me as a cis woman to dictate to others. But I can sure as heck state JK Rowling and her ilk don't speak for me.

2025-04-16 15:19:17 CEST

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So when you see who's being cast in that new series, you have your answer about how politically engaged the actors are.
You have your own answer for how politically engaged you want to be.
If you're feeling unfairly judged because you like HP and you feel the artist needs to be separated from their work.
Take a moment to understand that discomfort.
Understand she funds hateful organisations with political and legal power.
Then please look elsewhere for your jollies.