"Leonard Peltier will be welcomed home today, and greeted with signs along the roadway and a community feast. 'In The Honor Of' meal will be held at the Sky Dancer Casino Event Center in #BelcourtNorthDakota, on February 18th, 2025. The meal will start at 6:00 p.m. 'Let's celebrate Leonard with the honor and glory that he deserves,' Peltier's family said.
"'As Leonard arrives on home to the Turtle Mountains, supporters of Leonard's are welcome to come and join the celebration in giving Leonard a warm welcome home by holding signs, honking, cheering and clapping with cars lined up starting from the reservation line coming from Rolla stretching into Belcourt.
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BREAKING! #LeonardPeltier Left Prison on Tuesday Morning
"Leonard Peltier will be welcomed home today, and greeted with signs along the roadway and a community feast. 'In The Honor Of' meal will be held at the Sky Dancer Casino Event Center in #BelcourtNorthDakota, on February 18th, 2025. The meal will start at 6:00 p.m. 'Let's celebrate Leonard with the honor and glory that he deserves,' Peltier's family said.
"'As Leonard arrives on home to the Turtle Mountains, supporters of Leonard's are welcome to come and join the celebration in giving Leonard a warm welcome home by holding signs, honking, cheering and clapping with cars lined up starting from the reservation line coming from Rolla stretching into Belcourt. Please stay safe, no standing on the highway and stay on the shoulder. Please do not leave any signs behind, take them with you.'
"'As Leonard passes through, we are not allowed to follow him, please respect this. Following Leonard's welcome home at the reservation line everyone is welcome to gather for a meal in the honor of Leonard at the Sky Dancer Casino Event Center for stew, bangs and gullet as this is the first meal that Leonard requested for when he returns home.'
"'We do not know yet as of this post of Leonard's restrictions if he will be able to attend the meal.'
"Leonard is an 80-year-old elder with health problems and his first day of being released after nearly 50 years of incarceration will be a lot for Leonard to comprehend. If Leonard cannot attend, we are trying to set up for him to be on FaceTime or a phone call during the meal.'
"'The exact time of Leonard's arrival to Belcourt is still unknown.'
"'Everyone is welcome to come and celebrate this historical day of honoring our elder Leonard Peltier,' Peltier's family said today.
"Please check back for the livestream on Censored News on Tuesday."
"Since getting re-elected in Nov., Trump has repeatedly called for Canada to join the US as the 51st state but has said he wants to use economic, not military force, to make that happen"
“After we destroy their economy their will to resist will erode. We will then march in unopposed & deliver Canada to its rightful place as a territory of the U.S. with no political representation.” -- US right-wing influencer Tim Pool, on X, in a post that got 2.2 mill. views.
Goodness this man and his ilk make me embarrassed to live in this country and be from here! I understand why Canadians are angry and the only thing I can do is apologize and tell you that this was not my choice and I will continue to protest as much as I can. This is such shit.
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My page would set the record straight on whether homosexuality is a sin. It’s not. In fact, ONLY LGBTQ+ people go to Heaven when they die. Cis straight allies work their way up from Purgatory. Everyone else goes right to Hell.
New year, new big art thread! The place for my almost-daily posts featuring art I love, usually modern and contemporary since that's my thing! First up:
Paintings by American artist Lynne Drexler, 1960s, who studied under Hans Hofmann and Robert Motherwell and was associated with second-gen Abstract Expressionism, but her work was overshadowed by her (then) more successful husband, artist John Hultberg.
Paintings by American artist and illustrator Ellen Emmet Rand, 1900s-30s, known for her portraits of politicians, creatives, and wealthy society figures.
Sculpture by American artist Cathy Lu, 2020s, whose practice "manipulates traditional Chinese art objects and symbols as a way to deconstruct the assumptions we have about Asian American identity and cultural authenticity."
Landscapes by American artist Eyvind Earle, c 1980s-90s, who was a background and concept artist for Disney in the 50s and 60s, working on films like Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, and Sleeping Beauty.
Works by Italian illustrator Cecilia Sammarco, 2020s, who after a spinal cord injury created her "Tetrapride" project to explore disability experience and representation.
Sculpture and installation by American artist Portia Munson, 1990s-2020s, whose work explores environmentalist and feminist themes through masses of consumer objects.
Baskets by Passamaquoddy artist Jeremy Frey, 2020s, who comes from a long line of Native weavers, and whose work combines traditional techniques with contemporary aesthetics.
Mixed media works by American artist Kim Tateo, 2020s, who combines acrylic, blacklight paint, glitter, fabric, neon, and other elements in meditative works exploring "interconnectedness to ourselves, our environment, and the universe".
Scenes from the Civil Rights Movement by American photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks, 1960s, who shot for Life, Vogue, and Ebony, saying "I chose my camera as a weapon against all the things I dislike about America—poverty, racism, discrimination."
Ink drawings by Palestinian artist and educator Abdelrahman Al Muzain, 2000s, whose activism seeks to preserve Palestinian history and culture, and whose work stresses resistance, liberation, and "sumud" or steadfastness under oppression.
Paintings by Argentinian artist Martha Boto, 1970s-80s, a figure in the Op Art and Kineticism movements whose painting and sculpture explored the interplay of light, color, and shape.
Works by Italian trans and interspecies artist Agnes Questionmark, 2020s, whose sculpture, performance, and installations "examine the self's boundaries through genetic experiments, surgical operations, and artificial reproductive processes whereby identity becomes unsettled."
Poster designs by Argentinian artist Edgardo Giménez, 1960s-70s, known for his bright colors and use of photomontage, as well as his self-promotional imagery often boldly referencing his queer identity.
Mixed media works by London-based artist Christina Kimeze, 2020s, who often works on suede mat board to "to explore how texture and luminosity help to investigate themes of interiority, oneness, and belonging."
"Vodunaut" sculptures by Beninese-French artist Emo de Medeiros, 2010s, inspired by Fa, a West African philosophy and geomancy system describing multiple futures, in which cowry shells symbolize a voyage and offer protection.
Works on paper by British artist Linda Wallis, 2020s, who uses automatic drawing techniques to pull forth abstract forms, organic motifs, and general impressions from her unconscious mind.
Works by Hong Kong photographer Nancy Sheung, 1960s, who ran a construction company before turning to photography when she was in her forties, becoming known for her bold images of women and girls, patterns, and architecture.
Mixed media works by Brooklyn-based Puerto Rican artist Nora Maité Nieves, 2020s, whose visual language combines elements from her Caribbean roots as well as her current NYC surroundings.
Drawings from the "Blind Pigs" series by multidisciplinary American artist Edgar Arceneaux, 2010s, whose practice explores connections between historical events and present-day, with subjects often inspired by Detroit, such as these images of burnt-out pubs seen in the city.
Sculpture by multidisciplinary Ugandan artist and writer Acaye Kerunen, 2020s, whose work incorporates natural, locally sourced materials to examine the "intricacies of natural systems and the impact of climate change."
Works by Iraqi artist Rafa Nasiri, 1980s, whose early style was influenced by traditional Chinese calligraphy. He later became an influential writer and teacher to a new generation of Iraqi artists, especially printmakers.
Paintings by self-taught Korean Australian artist Haejin Yoo, 2020s, whose "Woman in the Bath" series explores the bathroom as a place of private sanctuary, inspired by her own experience with postpartum depression.
Sculpture by American artist and activist Raphael Montañez Ortiz, 1960s, who was a key figure in the Destruction Art movement, and founded El Museo del Barrio in Harlem in 1969.
Works by American artist Kumasi J Barnett, 2010s, who paints over comic book covers, changing their narratives into satirical critiques of police brutality and systemic racism.
Works by self-taught German Jewish photographer Aenne Biermann, 1920s-30s, who began her practice photographing mineral specimens for a geologist friend and then turned to still lifes, architecture, and double exposure experiments in images influenced by the New Objectivity movement.
Mixed media works by German Ghanaian artist Zohra Opoku, 2020s,whose practice "examines the politics of personal identity formation through historical, cultural, and socio-economic influences, particularly in the context of contemporary Ghana."
Works by American artist Don Suggs, 2010s, painting concentric circle motifs over grayscale photos of national parks, canyons, and natural landmarks, which each color representing different elements of the landscape.
Self-portraits by multidisciplinary American artist and filmmaker Tourmaline, 2020, whose work centers Black queer and trans subjects and histories. This series was inspired by Black-owned pleasure gardens in Lower Manhattan in the 1820s.
Paintings by Iran-born British artist Samira Abbassy, 2020s, whose work explores her Persian-Iranian heritage and traditions as experienced at a distance, having grown up in a Western environment.
Works by Japanese photographer Nayao Hatakeyama, 1990s-2000s, whose imagery explores landscape and cityscapes, and especially human intervention upon the land.
Ceramic sculpture by Italian artist Luca Staccioli, 2024, whose "Multifunctional queue eliminator kit (prickly pears)" works are inspired by snail-shaped ticket dispensers used at market counters, the shape repeated and turned into organic cacti-like forms.
Paintings by American artist Stephen Towns, 2020s, whose practice elevates Black American figures often left out of mainstream histories, such as miners, service workers, and prisoners.
Textile pieces by Canadian artist Zadie Xa, 2010s-20s, whose work "is informed by her experiences within the Korean diaspora, traditional folk tales, and mythology as well as the environmental and cultural context of the Pacific Northwest."
Works by American artist and occultist Marjorie Cameron Parsons (aka Cameron), 1950s-60s, who was introduced to Aleister Crowley's Thelemic religion through her husband, rocket scientist Jack Parsons. She was affiliated with the LA avant-garde, working w/ Curtis Harrington and Kenneth Anger.
Sculpture by Helen Pashgian, 2000s-20s, who was a member of the Light and Space Movement in the 60s, known for her use of industrial and semi-translucent materials that capture light.
Collages by NYC-based Bahamian artist Tavares Strachen, 2020s, whose "The Encyclopedia of Invisibility" is a research-based project that combines art, science, history, and cultural critique while exploring invisibility, displacement, and loss.
Works by German American photographer Uta Barth, 1990s, whose practice explores the ephemeral qualities of light and its destabilizing effect on vision.
Sculpture by American artist Hugh Hayden, 2010s-20s, whose practice often incorporates salvaged wood into metaphors for the Black American experience, exploring how human interactions with the environment connect to class, race, and identity.
Works by German artist Rudolf Schlichter, 1920s, a member of the New Objectivity movement known for his portraits depicting urban life in Weimar Berlin. In the 30s he was denounced as "Degenerate" by the Nazis, and his studio was destroyed by Allied bombs in 1942.
Works by Puerto Rican NYC (Nuyorican) artist Glendalys Medina, 2020s, who created these abstract works as exercises in gratitude, a practice they started in the early days of the pandemic.
Sculpture by American artist Greer Lankton, 1980s-90s, whose distinctive dolls and installations reflected her own experiences as a trans woman and drug user, along with odes to icons like Candy Darling, Diana Vreeland, and Divine.
Abstract paintings by Walla Walla artist James Lavadour, 2000s-10s, who grew up on the Umatilla Indian Reservation and whose work is inspired by the Blue Mountains and landscapes of Western Oregon.
"Fiori Futuristi" (Futurist Flowers) sculpture by Italian artist Giacomo Balla, 1918-25 (reconstructed in 1968). Balla was a founding member of the Futurist movement, which celebrated industrialization, machinery, speed, and movement, often showing objects from multiple perspectives.
Vessels by Welsh potters James and Tilla Waters, c 2010s, whose collaborative process typically has Tilla designing and coloring and James hand-throwing and forming the pieces.
Works by NY-based Japanese photographer Kunié Sugiura, 1990s, known for her experimental approach to the medium, often incorporating aspects of painting and sculpture.
Drawings by German entomologist, naturalist, and scientific illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian, 1670s-1700s, who published several illustrated volumes about insects and flowers.
Paintings by American artist Karl Wirsum, 1960s-70s, a member of the Hairy Who group of Chicago artists known for their playful sense of humor and often maximalist, colorful styles.
Works by Palestinian artist Kamal Boullata, 1970s-80s, whose imagery often incorporates Kufic script embedded in geometric compositions, with themes relating to displacement and cultural identity.
Photo assemblages by American artist Todd Gray, 2010s-20s, whose photographic practice "aims to provoke reconsiderations of long-accepted norms and beliefs surrounding the medium", exploring themes of African diaspora, colonialism, and societal power structures.
Paintings by Serbian artist, illustrator, and poet Milena Pavlović Barili, 1930s-40s, who was associated with the Surrealist movement and became a fashion illustrator and society portrait painter after moving to America in 1939.
Sculpture by London-based French artist Marguerite Humeau, 2010s-20s, whose practice explores evolution, biology, and relationships between humans, animals, and plants.
Fair Park Lagoon landscaping project by American artist Patricia Johanson, 1981-86, who reinvigorated a dying swamp in Dallas into an ecologically rich habitat with indigenous plants and sculptural coral walkways, using art as a form of bioremediation.
Works by Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, 1970s-80s, who documented life in Czechoslovakia during the repressive "normalization" period, including the queer community.
Paintings by transnational (ethnically Chinese, born in Vietnam, raised in Canada, now based in Britain) artist KV Duong, 2020s, whose acrylic and latex works explore Vietnamese queer identity, migration, and cultural assimilation.
Paintings by Danish Surrealist Rita Kernn-Larsen, 1930s-40s, who was the focus of the first Surrealist exhibition curated by Peggy Guggenheim in London in 1938.
Sculpture and installation by Lingít and Unangax̂ artist Nicholas Galanin, 2010s-20s, whose practice "aims to redress the widespread misappropriation of Indigenous visual culture, the impact of colonialism, as well as collective amnesia."
Textile works by Iranian artist Alireza Asbahi Sisi (aka "CC"), 2020s, who learned how to sew from his tailor father and works as a taxi driver to support his art.
Attached: 4 images
Works by American artist Mickalene Thomas, 2000s-10s, who often turned to her mother Sandra Bush, a former model, as a muse in her rhinestone-studded paintings and photographic portraits.
#art #ContemporaryArt #BigArtThread
Works by German artist Hans Bellmer, 1930s, who photographed his own doll constructions in strange, often violent tableaux and was eventually labeled "Degenerate" by the Nazis. He fled to France, joining the Surrealists and the French Resistance.
Paintings by Chinese artist Yu Hong, 2010s, who came of age at the end of the Cultural Revolution, among the "New Generation" of artists in China exploring new modes of creative expression.
Sculpture by Venezuelan American Pop artist Marisol, 1960s, known for her distinctive assemblage figures often incorporating her own image. She would have celebrated a birthday today.
Paintings by English artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan, 2020s, whose large-scale botanical paintings incorporate motifs inspired by Blackness, queerness, femininity, healing rituals, and carnival culture.
Drawings by self-taught American artist Timothy Wehrle, 2010s-20s, whose dense, intricate compositions pull from a range of visual sources including Persian miniatures, comic books, mandalas, quilting, and the works of Adolph Wölfli.
Paintings by American artist Dorothy Hood, 1970s-80s, who lived in Mexico for 20 years and associated with artists like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and later became a major figure in the Texas avant-garde.
Sculpture by LA-based Canadian artist David Altmejd, 2010s-20s, whose practice "explores the constitution and disintegration of the self" through a range of materials. The artist says, "A perfect object for me is something that is extremely seductive and extremely repulsive at the same time."
Paintings by Seoul-born, Montréal-based artist GaHee Park, 2020s, whose compositions often incorporate human figures, fruit, and seafood - the latter inspired by her grandma's fish market in Korea.
Paintings by Polish artist Michalina Janoszanka, 1920s, whose "reverse paintings" were made of layers of pigment built up behind a pane of glass, a technique typically used in religious folk art. Sadly, in her time she was more known as the muse and model of symbolist painter Jacek Malczewski.
Photo tableaux by queer American counterculture pioneer Steven Arnold, 1970s-80s, whose films and artworks were known for their maximalist costumes and sets exploring mysticism, psychedelia, sexuality, and gender.
Works by American artist Lisa Oppenheim, 2010s-20s, whose practice "appropriates photographs from diverse sources such as government files and online photographic archives to investigate collective memory, loss, and forgetting."
Works by English artist Sena Shah, 2020s, who composes geometric abstractions with felt and sometimes incorporates mirrored material to create optical lenticular effects.
Drawings by multidisciplinary American artist and activist Andrea Bowers, 2010s, based on photos the artist took documenting political protests in Los Angeles.
Paintings by American artist, curator, and professor Vivian Browne, 1970s, who moved into abstraction after spending time in West Africa in 1971. She was involved in several women's groups and activist movements, advocating for representation for Black woman artists.
Oil on linen paintings by American artist Mary Henderson, 2020s, whose hyperrealistic works capture "impromptu portraits of people in public spaces, seen in unguarded instances of personal connection or synchronicity."
Works by multidisciplinary American artist Dindga McCannon, 1970s-2020s, an activist within the Black Arts Movement who fuses fine art forms with traditional craft techniques. In 1971 she co-founded the collective Where We At Black Women Artists, Inc.
Sculpture by American artist Young Joon Kwak, 2010s-20s, whose practice "questions conventional notions of representation and visibility while imagining new ways for racialized, trans, and nonnormative bodies to exist and thrive in spaces that surveil and police them."
Mixed media works by NY-based Canadian artist Stephanie Temma Hier, 2020s, combining photorealistic paintings and ceramic frames, typically with images of human consumption and the natural world.
When I opened up Lemmy this morning I could not believe my eyes. The top story was a headline from Forbes stating: « ‘Open Source And Ethical’ TikTok, WhatsApp And Instagram Alternatives Could Transform Social Media ».
The article mostly focused on #Pixelfed and did a fairly good job explaining how #ActivityPub works. But they spelled #Mastodon « Mastadon » over and over again with no links to it. Yikes.
Bookshelves in front of your bookshelves, suspended on barn door hardware with castors at the bottom. The individual shelves can be moved to access those at the back.
Not that I'm trying to give you all ideas, or anything.
@isol Why stop at three dimensions? Store your books in different times and pocket universes. Populate entire worlds with your books 🥳😉 @golgaloth @bookstodon
@SeaFury @dunedinmouse @isol Yeah, it’s called L-space. Libraries (and those quirky bookshops that are filled to the brim with books) bend time and space so much that it creates an entire new dimension. #ook
@SeaFury @madjo @dunedinmouse Nooo - Time is a thief like Baggins, and will steal your precious! Start reading them now, otherwise you may never know important parrot facts like:
"Parrots were used in Moving Pictures to add sound to movies. This failed miserably, in part because the handlemen (cameramen) taught them to say things like "show us your knickers"... and the Discworld wasn't *quite* ready for films like that (yet)."
“Think of grief, anger, worry as bricks or planks of wood. Stop staring at the materials, half believing they were delivered to you by mistake, half expecting a truck to haul them away. Accept that these are your materials right now. Start building.”
I’ve been feeling a lot of grief, anger and worry since the morning of November 6th 2024, when the results of the US presidential election were announced. Never in a million years I would have expected a convicted felon, an openly xenophobic, racist, transphobic misogynist and insurrectionist to be voted by half the country and allowed to ascend – yet again – to the most powerful
“Think of grief, anger, worry as bricks or planks of wood. Stop staring at the materials, half believing they were delivered to you by mistake, half expecting a truck to haul them away. Accept that these are your materials right now. Start building.”
I’ve been feeling a lot of grief, anger and worry since the morning of November 6th 2024, when the results of the US presidential election were announced. Never in a million years I would have expected a convicted felon, an openly xenophobic, racist, transphobic misogynist and insurrectionist to be voted by half the country and allowed to ascend – yet again – to the most powerful job in his country. All this aided and abetted by a group of tech billionaires.
Four years is a long time. But it can also go by fast: ask this to any parent of a small child. As they say: the days are long but the years are short.
Instead of wallowing in this grief and anger, I have resolved to make this time – these four years – matter. It makes me feel better and more empowered to set some high goals, so that by January 2029 I could look back and think to myself: I have grown and helped others during these tumultuous four years. I made good use of that time.
Thus, “my so-called sudo life”.
What does “my so-called sudo life” mean?
sudo (short for “superuser do”) is a command on Unix systems that grants “superpowers” to a user, allowing them to execute commands with elevated privileges, like an admin.
This cartoon by xkcd was the first Linux joke I ever got:
I found it apt to name a blog about my new journey of (mostly tech) resistance and empowerment after that command line.
4 Goals for the next 4 years
In the days following November 6th I sketched a plan – for my own self care: set 4 goals for the next 4 years – 2 internal (self-improvement) and two “external” (helping others).
Goal 1: learn Linux, a free, open source operating system to set myself free from Big Tech monopolies. Sub goal no. 1: become so proficient in Linux that I could create a Linux computer, a Linux tablet and a Linux phone for my child (when the time comes, she’s 3 now). Sub goal no.2: become so proficient I can host my own Fediverse instance.
Goal 2: learn a new foreign language. I’m already fully fluent in Italian (my mother tongue), English and French. I love how learning a new language feels energizing and allows you to better understand new cultures. Well, I haven’t officially picked a new language yet. It’s currently a toss-up between Spanish (which I already understand well, because it’s similar to Italian) and Japanese (my favorite country to visit and added bonus: I could interact with people on MissKey). For the challenge aspect I’m leaning towards Japanese… yet I acknowledge Spanish would be a more realistic goal.
Goal 3: start doing presentations in high schools and universities about the Fediverse and FOSS projects, in order to raise awareness about the toxic side of Big Tech and the free, open-source alternatives that already exist and are much better from an ethical / digital sovereignty point of view.
Goal 4: help make the Fediverse a more diverse place, safer and more welcoming for people of color.
What do billionaires and kleptocrats want? Uninformed, impulsive citizens driven by emotions (fear, rage, anxiety) instead of critical thinking. This way, they are so much easier to manipulate – for the gains of kleptocrats.
And:
A healthy (in body and mind), active, frugal, sociable, mostly offline citizen who is highly educated and informed, in full control of their data, avoiding Big Tech’s platforms and algorithms, with a positive self-esteem and self-image, is probably persona non grata for [these] tech billionaires.
I found goals that will propel me forward for the next four years – with a sense of hope. And that feels awesome (amidst all this chaos and sorrow).
4 Years
I’m in the unique position of being able to measure time in comparison to a US presidential term: I was heavily pregnant during the January 6th 2021 U.S. Capitol attack; my child was born during the early days of the Biden presidency and will turn 4 after Trump is sworn in as president.
Over the course of 4 years I have seen my tiny human grow, get stronger and develop new intellectual and motor skills. So many skills! I remember when she could barely hold a spoon in her hand. Now she builds impossible structures with LEGOs. She went from being non-verbal and communicating through cries to… speaking two languages fluently. She actually loves correcting my French pronunciation from time to time (“rue” “en dessous”). We figured out she understands a bit of English, too, but keeps that knowledge secret from us.
You can grow and learn so much in four years.
Power
This is my so-called sudo life, where I am giving myself superuser privileges… and I look forward to seeing what kind of person I will be in four year’s time. More than anything, I hope I will be part of a community of like-minded people, working towards the same goals.
This blog – or journal – is for accountability… to keep me motivated on these goals. And to share lessons I learned, hoping to inspire others to take steps towards greater digital sovereignty.
It feels very Wizard of Oz like: “You’ve always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.”
We already have so much power. There has never been a better time to take on superuser privileges (with care).
My friendica <-> Bluesky config yesterday had something wrong but today it appears to be functional. I think I've learned something for the reference on configuring this integration.
Cool! I can see the post in Bluesky. I also see posts from folks I follow on Bluesky here in my friendica feed. I liked a Bluesky post in my friendica feed and that like was mirrored on Bluesky... I think this thing basically works!
In 2019, Jadyn released her first album at the age of 13. Recorded out of Clarksville TN with Curt Ryle (George Jones/Taylor Swift). Since that time Jadyn h...
[LYRICS BELOW] "To Be a Man" is making an IMPACT. I truly believe there are millions more to touch with this song. I travelled to Nashville to complete this ...
Time for coffee. I made the mistake of reading so many Fediverse posts I actually read “the news”. Which, if you are in the US, is unremitting in horrible things. So I will be retreating with my coffee cup to caffeinate before coming back to look for the friendly and calm folks. 🏳️ 👋
I'd been thinking about going to a protest Monday in Nashville but I'm REALLY turned off by the group's messaging. We are in a Constitutional crisis and supposed to be fighting for American democracy, but the poster doesn't even have an American flag, only Mexican and Palestinian flags. I care a lot about helping people in other countries, but first we need to save America. Democrats are so bad at messaging and outreach. I think events right now that don't focus materials entirely on Trump, Musk, DOGE, and our Constitution will just make protests seem like liberal whining. I will probably go but I wrote to the organizers and begged them to focus on our flag. #50501movement #50501protests
I think that liberals are hesitant to use the American Flag because it's kind of been weaponized by the right to mean MAGA and adjacent things. At least thats what I think of any time I see our flag on someone's car or tshirt, I worry about them and I don't feel safe. Because they're probably MAGA.
@Pawpower well we need to take it back. I don't want to go to a protest right now focused on other countries. I want to go to protests focused on saving America from fascists.
I completely agree and I think this is something that the Democrats need to take into account when they consider their messaging which has been shit for the last… 10 years basically since Obama left
Happy Valentine's Day from a gypsum heart in a cave.
Speaking of hearts, let's have some Real Talk! About hearts! Today I re-certified in CPR & First Aid. Did you know that socialized as female folk are far more likely to die from a heart attack / cardiac event than men? It's true! A large cause of this is due to the fact that symptoms are often not as-seen-on-TV; instead being brushed off as nausea, acid reflux, or indigestion. And what do we do when we feel ick? We go to the bathroom. So when we collapse, no one is around to see, much less administer CPR. So: check on your friends who disappear to the bathroom for a long time!
Sadly, there is also a huge disparity between races in survival as well. Not only does lack of medical access and environment & social factors mean there is higher risk (systematic racism), but overt racism also prevents bystanders from stepping in to help. Black & Latinx people suffer the most. (
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Happy Valentine's Day from a gypsum heart in a cave.
Speaking of hearts, let's have some Real Talk! About hearts! Today I re-certified in CPR & First Aid. Did you know that socialized as female folk are far more likely to die from a heart attack / cardiac event than men? It's true! A large cause of this is due to the fact that symptoms are often not as-seen-on-TV; instead being brushed off as nausea, acid reflux, or indigestion. And what do we do when we feel ick? We go to the bathroom. So when we collapse, no one is around to see, much less administer CPR. So: check on your friends who disappear to the bathroom for a long time!
Sadly, there is also a huge disparity between races in survival as well. Not only does lack of medical access and environment & social factors mean there is higher risk (systematic racism), but overt racism also prevents bystanders from stepping in to help. Black & Latinx people suffer the most. (newsroom.heart.org/news/cardio…)
CPR is not that difficult! It is more the mental challenge of being prepared to step in and help. If you can't get to a class (hands on with the training manikins is certainly recommended if you can!) still learn about it. All 50 states have Good Samaritan laws.
I personally know two people who are alive thanks to a normal everyday person knowing CPR, and intervening. This is community building, y'all! Take care of each other out there.
Some additional tips: 1. If someone has a medical emergency and you end up leading the way, always point and directly tell people what to do (ex: you in the blue shirt *pointing at them* call 911). If you just shout things, people will not jump into action. Be specific & direct.
2. Always check for a pulse on the same side you are kneeling on, you don't want to reach across their neck.
3. If there are enough people, direct folk not involved in helping to form a circle looking *out*. This gives some privacy, very important in these days of cell phone cameras and the fact that say, once the AED shows up, their chest will be made bare. Help protect the patient's privacy!
4. Good Samaritan laws generally have caveats such as never accept anything as a thank you (not even flowers, *nothing*) and stay with the person until someone of equal or greater training arrives. So if you say, start CPR then just get tired and stop with no one equal or higher taking over, then you are liable.
DALLAS, Feb. 7, 2025 — The American Heart Association's 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistical Update reports that while progress has been made in reducing cardiovascular and cerebral health disparities, Black communities in the United States ...
Bird flu is infecting more people than we think. We need to stop it now before a new pandemic begins
Right after President Donald Trump took office, amid the flurry of executive orders and agency upheavals, the administration told the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not to release any reports or communications until one of Trump’s people could take a look at them. Among the many reports not released that week was a study on how many veterinarians had gotten bird flu.
Day after RFK Jr. becomes health secretary, layoffs roil HHS agencies, including the CDC, global leader in disease control, and NIH, top research funder.
@PeterLG Trump is just tired of other countries getting credit for the really big pandmics. "Spanish flu"? "Chinese virus'? What ever happened to good old American know-how?!
We should name the imminent bird flu pandemic after him. Well, maybe not directly. We could call it the Orange Shitgibbon Flu or something.
JD Vance delivered a disturbing speech here in Munich today. So, here's a reminder: Harassment is not "free speech". And racism is not an "opinion". theguardian.com/us-news/2025/f…
And unless you're a straight, married, working white man you're an expendable extra. It is just infuriating to see where we're headed after so many decades of progress.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been unleashed on federal agencies. ProPublica is attempting to document who is working with him and what they are doing.
Bringing this highly requested feature to #Mastodon and the fediverse is not as trivial as some might think, but quote posts are coming. Here is our latest write-up about our progress:
I'd rather we have something like the ability to share a post but with a pointer to a reply. So it looks like a QP but only to your followers. To everyone else, it is a reply. And this means it stays attached but subservient to the OP.
I'd also like to see all replies rankable ala reddit. This would give us something like Community Notes, where the top responses are show up right under the OP. And the worst stuff for popular posts would be easily ignored.
@BeAware I assume you'd still be able to link to a post, it just wouldn't show up like a QP. You'd still be able to do what you do now when QPs don't exist on mastodon.
@φ @win vim is a successor of ed. It uses ex internally. Though ed is a line editor and vim is a screen editor. I use vim daily though I would not wish ed on someone I don't like. Though sed is a stream editor and I use that regularly as well. All three are related. And both sed, vi and vim were based on ed.
@φ @win I have no idea as I have only used friendica and mastadon. I am using a modified scheme on frio called bookface though that would not effect anything unless you were on my server. I believe.
@🌸 lily 🏳️⚧️ θΔ ⋐ & ∞ @φ @win that is weird. I would expect some consistency though I released when I installed the scheme that it would mainly effect my server.
@🌸 lily 🏳️⚧️ θΔ ⋐ & ∞ @φ @win Fedi is full of css. Look in the source to the many interfaces. Now, I can only speak of friendica as that is what I have installed on my server. Though the template files for Smiley3 (the template engine used by friendica) strongly uses css. They are in the themes and schemes to those themes.
Now, yes, you could write an app that accessed the api and never process any css. And not be a webui at all. Though most of what I have seen uses a webview and does use the css that is available for theming. Personally, I do not like any of the apps I have found and use a browser to access my instance. The
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@🌸 lily 🏳️⚧️ θΔ ⋐ & ∞ @φ @win Fedi is full of css. Look in the source to the many interfaces. Now, I can only speak of friendica as that is what I have installed on my server. Though the template files for Smiley3 (the template engine used by friendica) strongly uses css. They are in the themes and schemes to those themes.
Now, yes, you could write an app that accessed the api and never process any css. And not be a webui at all. Though most of what I have seen uses a webview and does use the css that is available for theming. Personally, I do not like any of the apps I have found and use a browser to access my instance. The apps just leave so much out, they are barely functional.
Now the transport layer of course does not use css. Because css is for the view. If you look at the attached screenshot from a terminal instance of my ssh connection to my VPS you will see that there are plenty of css files and more than those be sure. Those are just the basic css files for frio and the others are for the schemes for enhancing frio (a friendica theme).
@🌸 lily 🏳️⚧️ θΔ ⋐ & ∞ @φ @win Thank you, I am well aware of that. I am a developer. What I was trying to explain to you is that as @φ @win mentioned they could see the changes that the schemes caused to the tags, and you could not. So they are obviously using a client that uses a webview. So the css propagates. You are likely not using a client that uses a webview, or the webview in your client supplies its own css.
This is not uncommon at all.
Now, as I mentioned, of course the transport does not use css. That is not were the view is established or maintained.
Now anything that I view from other sources on my view will only be rendered against my theme. Though this obviously was not the case for the akkoma client being used by the person that asked me why the tags looked like that. The only thing that makes the tags look like that is the css files in the scheme I added.
i'm also a developer and you seem to have woefully misunderstood how fedi clients work. i'm pretty sure we're all using the web frontend of our respective server software (if we weren't, why would a client use a webview, and if it did, where would this css be propagating from, what??). fedi posts have a text content in a specific format—on friendica, probably html, and on akkoma and misskey, markdown. usually, the markdown parsers parse @-mentions and turn them into links that link to the user's profile, however, since friendica uses html and not markdown, the anchor tags stay as they are. for some reason, on misskey, they don't. this is why i'm confused, because last time i checked, they did show like that.
There is limited markdown support in fediverse implementations but if i remember correctly it's expected that a Note's content is actually in HTML unless it's declared as something else. I have yet to see that in the wild though, I know misskey converts everything to html and then has their own misskeysummary (and other related fields) that are the RAW version without any formatting (so mentions just look like @x@whatever instead of being converted into href.)
2) kitsunes.club for some reason does not have authorized fetch enabled for requesting objects. it only signs requests to fetch stuff from other instances. i should probably fix that
@🌸 lily 🏳️⚧️ θΔ ⋐ & ∞ @φ @win Yes, fair enough. It would not be the actual css files that would propagate. It would be the generated markup. And to tell you the truth I do not know what actually exchanges in the transport layer. As 3 weeks ago I had no idea that Fedi even existed and I just put this server together last week. I have not had time to examine the code base.
Though what I do know is that the only thing that influences the appearance of those tags is the css in the bookface scheme. Some how that propagated to the other users client. So the client had to have received the generated html from my server. Unless you c
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@🌸 lily 🏳️⚧️ θΔ ⋐ & ∞ @φ @win Yes, fair enough. It would not be the actual css files that would propagate. It would be the generated markup. And to tell you the truth I do not know what actually exchanges in the transport layer. As 3 weeks ago I had no idea that Fedi even existed and I just put this server together last week. I have not had time to examine the code base.
Though what I do know is that the only thing that influences the appearance of those tags is the css in the bookface scheme. Some how that propagated to the other users client. So the client had to have received the generated html from my server. Unless you can think of some other way a client for another server would see changes made by a css file of a theme's scheme?
After I have had time to actually examine the code base it will be apparent. For the moment that is the best explanation I can think of, can you think of a better one?
It really does not make sense. As why would anything besides the content make it to the transport layer? Though, as I said I am tired and I am going to get some rack now.
@🌸 lily 🏳️⚧️ θΔ ⋐ & ∞ @φ @win There is more than one way to implement a webview. In one case a person developing a client might use an electron approach that internalizes everything and just uses what is baked into the app. On the other hand you could use a gtkview, or the Qt equivalent, that would parse the html and css though you would have to incorporate a JavaScript engine to handle that, if you needed or wanted to. It would basically be a special purposed browser.
Though I agree with you, it would not make sense for the html, css and js of the frontend to be bounced around on the transport layer, unless the api gives tha
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@🌸 lily 🏳️⚧️ θΔ ⋐ & ∞ @φ @win There is more than one way to implement a webview. In one case a person developing a client might use an electron approach that internalizes everything and just uses what is baked into the app. On the other hand you could use a gtkview, or the Qt equivalent, that would parse the html and css though you would have to incorporate a JavaScript engine to handle that, if you needed or wanted to. It would basically be a special purposed browser.
Though I agree with you, it would not make sense for the html, css and js of the frontend to be bounced around on the transport layer, unless the api gives that option for client developers? And as I have not looked at the friendica api at all I have no idea what it offers.
So I guess it is just back to the beginning. The style propagated somehow and I have no idea at the moment how. I am good with that. I will look more into it when I actually have time to examine the code base.
The other thing that gets me is that if it was a friendica the gtkview idea could make sense though why would a akkoma client be using the friendica api?
Yeah, it all pretty much does not make sense 😁 but that is okay. There is an answer though at the moment I am not sure what it is. I was surprised to hear that someone not on my server actually saw at least some of the effects of that scheme.
i think we're just misunderstanding each other. i thought we were talking about css files on your server that style the posts.
On the other hand you could use a gtkview, or the Qt equivalent, that would parse the html and css
you wouldn't need to. there's no point loading the entire frontend just to parse a post when you can use the api
The other thing that gets me is that if it was a friendica the gtkview idea could make sense though why would a akkoma client be using the friendica api?
it's not, it's using its own api. it could be that akkoma's html sanitiser just left the html that your server federated pretty much as is, whereas misskey's did something more drastic to it (i haven't seen you use post formatting, i'm not sure what it would do in that case)
@🌸 lily 🏳️⚧️ θΔ ⋐ & ∞ @φ @win Well over my weekend (which is Saturday to next Tuesday) I will be looking more at the code base and api. If I find anything interesting I will bounce it off you ;).
@🌸 lily 🏳️⚧️ θΔ ⋐ & ∞ @φ @win I just got off a 12 hour shift that I have a 1 hour (one way) commute to. So forgive me if I am doing a horrible job of explaining what I mean. I am exhausted, so I am going to get some rack.
Every time I log into Fedi, I see another post with a guide called something like "Activist's Guide to Smartphones" or "Phone Security Guide for Protesters," and every single one of these assumes that the threat model is the kind of police force that exists under liberal democracy where the law will afford significant protections to protesters. The world is changing, and these guides not only fail to address the threat of an actively hostile fascistic anti-democratic occupying force (I refer here to the police), but such guides generally are limited to "what" and "how" but miss the more critical "why."
If you believe that you are facing fascism (or even something close to it), can I please please please convince you to read something written by anarchists who have faced serious repression and are trying to convey just how much phones can lead to the imprisonment of you and your friends for even things that are allegedly "legal."
(like that one screenshotted page, i can read all the way down, compare it to my own knowledge of how stuff works, and know it's not bullshit or obsolete or overruled by some later court case and boost)
Happy Valentines Day to everyone on Fedi. I want you to know that I love you all in a deeply weird and sexy way. Let's get married and run away together and live on an island and feed each other coconuts. Or hide in an abandoned library and read long lost moss-covered books to one another. I hope you are better than TERRIFIC today and am beaming you all the very best. You can't avoid it I'm afraid. It'll find you and it's going to get you. Hurrah!
Hahaha. Shelly you know it's meant figuratively and always gives me a little laugh to say stuff like that. But I am full of love and light for everyone here and I would whisk you all (AND JONATHAN) away to live in paradise if I could. Given the wealth of some of those guys we hear so much about I would create a real actual Fediverse. An archipelago - perhaps the Hawaiian Archipelago - of 137 'instances', with a complex series of bridges built between them depending on who they choose to federate with. And we'd all live happily ever after, free from the shackles of capitalism and the horrors of humanity. Hooray!
my solution to every problem is to just switch to linux
computer too slow? switch to linux networking not working? switch to linux unable to find driver for HP deskjet printer? switch to linux bleeding? switch to linux
We haven't quite covered Jan bills but it's time to start fundraising for Feb rent + survival. Y'all have pledged $279/mo which is a fantastic start! A monthly gift, one-time donation, or boost can help our lil family + support my activism/advocacy work.
Y'ALL. In the past 6 weeks, you've more than tripled monthly donations from $70 to $230, from 12 supporters! It is **so meaningful** to see the impact of my work + to feel what it's like to get tangible, long-term support.
The average monthly gift is $19. If you'd like to chip in as well, I'm hoping to see the monthly gifts triple again in the next couple of months—goal is $5k.
$2240 rent + utilities due TODAY. I'm a Black #Seattle activist + cybersecurity expert; my partner @nat is a genderfluid writer who is 5 months postpartum. Raising a baby in an expensive city is super tough but we're committed to important local work.
Rent is covered! The goal for the month is $5k to cover bills + expenses w a cushion.
THANK YOU for the outpouring of support in the last couple of days! Update: Rent is covered!! Also up to 18 monthly patrons totaling $317 in ongoing gifts.
Happy Valentine's, aka halfway through Feb! Hoping to complete our goal for the month this week so that we can start fundraising for March. Every boost + donation helps us escape the stress cycle of last-minute scrambling for rent—especially important bc @nat is struggling w postpartum anxiety + our capacity for work is limited.
Big milestone: we're at $3k, which is 60% of the Feb goal! Immensely grateful to every single one of you who's been on our team and helped us out with boosts and donations.
I'm asking for monthly pledges of $11 a month (though any amount is awesome). If you appreciate my work and activism, including the extensive citizen journalism that I bring to this platform, your commitment can make everything I do more sustainable by supporting me and my family.
Only 4 days left of Feb and we haven't been able to start fundraising for March yet. We still need $1880 to hit our goal for this month!
As @nat gets their business off the ground and recovers from a postpartum mental health crisis, we need to start paying for childcare. As it is my work has been largely on hold in recent weeks.
TWO DAYS left of Feb and we need almost $2k to reach our goal.
💵 $200 credit card bill due today 💻 $100 for internet setup ASAP
After 8 months in our apartment, we finally have an opportunity for affordable, reliable internet at home. It's been a nightmare relying on phone hotspots! But after paying March rent we're completely broke.
I am retired and extremely frustrated at the current state of political affairs in the #USA. I know there are many currently motivated to leave commercial social media and as part of my #resistance I have set up this #friendicasite as a place for FB expats to call home. (I'm still configuring the friendica site so it isn't quite ready for new users yet - check back soon)
@Ken Gahagan Welcome aboard fellow FB expat! And congratz on your budding Friendica instance!! Always great to see more admins 🥳 Are you thinking of making it just a home for folks you know or also to other people? I’m always looking for more Friendica instances to recommend to ex FB friends so we’re not all stuffed in one giant mega domain.
Thank you for the warm welcome. You are getting to the heart of what I see as one of the challenges to the growth of the #fediverse. Open Source apps are great for those who can host their own - but that somewhat limits adoption. Single-instance deployments are, by definition, not highly-available. Single administrator instances cannot be highly-available. My goal is to start with folks I know to see how many are willing to contribute to the overall costs. Can I offset the cost of hosting? Are people willing to trade the value of their PII which is being taken and leveraged by corporate social media for actual currency to have a service that is reliable, easy to use, and grows with their needs.
I've joined fediverse instances in the past that - even in light of very well intentioned admins - were not reliable and where the performance was so bad that the site was not attractive for use because I couldn't do what I wanted to do without terrible response times and / or error messages coming back.
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Thank you for the warm welcome. You are getting to the heart of what I see as one of the challenges to the growth of the #fediverse. Open Source apps are great for those who can host their own - but that somewhat limits adoption. Single-instance deployments are, by definition, not highly-available. Single administrator instances cannot be highly-available. My goal is to start with folks I know to see how many are willing to contribute to the overall costs. Can I offset the cost of hosting? Are people willing to trade the value of their PII which is being taken and leveraged by corporate social media for actual currency to have a service that is reliable, easy to use, and grows with their needs.
I've joined fediverse instances in the past that - even in light of very well intentioned admins - were not reliable and where the performance was so bad that the site was not attractive for use because I couldn't do what I wanted to do without terrible response times and / or error messages coming back.
fiscal constraints are everywhere and I'm hoping to find a model that provides a meaningful service to folks who do not want to learn about DNS, postfix, dovecot, linux, DMARC, security, PKI and the list goes on... Since most folks have no idea the long list of details that must be respected to provide a reliable and secure service AND they also do not realize how much 'big tech' knows about us as individuals / how much money they make trading in the details of our lives to serve up advertisements... I wonder how many will be able to contribute at a level that will be meaningful.
My goal is to start small and to not grow beyond what I can reliably support. If I find that folks are willing to offset costs and if I find others who are willing to tag-team the administration then we might be able to (as a community) grow to the point that fediverse apps become popular among the mainstream (if that is a desirable thing? IDK...) but it won't happen if we can't find a way that the software and access to the service are not barriers to adoption.
Sorry this is a very long answer to a simple question. I'm sure I'm not the first to have considered these things. I'm not deep enough into the fediverse culture to know where these concerns are discussed and resources and options are shared to know how many others might be looking to provide a service that may be commercial in the sense that it requires some form of payment or subscription but doesn't steal the value of individual identities.
I am very interested in any connections you could facilitate. Given that I am retired and didn't budget for an on-going expense in this area I can't pull this off on my own 😀 I am very interested in working with others to see what we might accomplish together.
@Ken Gahagan Don’t sweat a long reply, I find we Friendica using folks are far more interested in long form conversations haha! You’ll fit right in.
In terms of hosting and such I enjoy following @Elena Rossini ⁂ (that’s her Masto but she’s also trying out a Friendica soon). She’s someone going at it from a beginner flow and it is informative to see how long/which steps she’s gone through learning to host from complete scratch. Many Fedi guides are focused on end user members and not as much on aspiring admins, so I think it’s valuable to see and share the hosting journey because surely one of us will be clever enough to simplify that process for end users (she’s using yunohost which is a step closer).
I think admin mentorship/continued simplification will be key, and I think pos
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@Ken Gahagan Don’t sweat a long reply, I find we Friendica using folks are far more interested in long form conversations haha! You’ll fit right in.
In terms of hosting and such I enjoy following @Elena Rossini ⁂ (that’s her Masto but she’s also trying out a Friendica soon). She’s someone going at it from a beginner flow and it is informative to see how long/which steps she’s gone through learning to host from complete scratch. Many Fedi guides are focused on end user members and not as much on aspiring admins, so I think it’s valuable to see and share the hosting journey because surely one of us will be clever enough to simplify that process for end users (she’s using yunohost which is a step closer).
I think admin mentorship/continued simplification will be key, and I think possible too. Cuz remember back in the day when nothing was SaaS and each individual had to install software and there was no GeekSquad? This is kinda bumping into the growing pains of that same era. But it’s possible! Because enough ppl did those manual installs for the general population to go first “what’s the internet” followed a time later by “I want that too that (insert neat thing here) is cool”. Keep building innovating and iterating 🥳
This last bit is more philosophical which is: I’ve come to believe that it’s negligent, unhealthy, and cruel of us to just not bother understanding how tech works under the hood. We crave uptime and max network effect, but it wasn’t until I had some datacenter and SaaS friends that I realized wow these are grueling jobs keeping these massive resource heavy digital operations afloat. Remember the brief pangs of ethical qualms people had over “Nike shoe sweat shops”? People give zero thought to what it takes to run 24/7 services holding millions of people. I guess people think “internet” = high pay, or that “computers” = not real because you can’t see it. But running this stuff in a centralized manner brings real harms to those who do it. Like do ppl think the social barons wanted to become Bond Villains? (Ok bad analogy, some did, but I digress…) it takes massive resources to keep it up and to hold everybody’s activity. Every time humans do one thing at critical scale, it’s always unwieldy, and that always results in exploitation to try and keep it working. Billions of people all doing the same thing from a single point of failure is destined to enshitify. Social, internet, monocrops of food, personal cars causing traffic jams, electricity coming from a single transmission line from a single type of energy source, the list goes on. When a billion people are concentrated together in one spot doing the exact same thing, it’s not manageable. Spreading out is what works. But in this case that’s gonna require us to take some personal responsibility and learn his stuff works OR help others to.
It’s like Fire. Imagine there were no safety PSA. That no local fire departments were going around teaching kids fire safety or checking on senior’s smoke alarms. Nobody knew how fire worked AT ALL. Like they couldn’t even see it or know when they were being burned by it. And that’s what we’ve done with tech. Each of us plays with fire and never learns even any basic fire safety like how to not leave a candle burning or how not to put out a grease fire or how to use a fire extinguisher. That’s kinda what we need is lots of ppl trained on how to use fire extinguishers. Yes, learning to operate a fire truck and use its equipment is a specialized skill (a hosting service). But holy smokes is it expensive to operate fire trucks!! So someone needs to keep doing the work of figuring out how to right side and distribute easy to use fire extinguishers and teach lots of ppl to use them (small scale and self fedi hosting). And some of us lay people are gonna have to step up and learn how to be volunteer fire fighters until that happens.
If I think of any other good folks to follow I’ll let you know, and you’re welcome to follow me! About 90% of the time I’m talking about fediverse newbie stuff and opportunities to try and make fire extinguishers so to speak lol
@Ken Gahagan Welcome, I emigrated from facebook a few weeks ago myself. First I found Mastodon though micro blogging just is not for me. I am a bit too verbose 😃.
The only reason that I was on facebook in the first place was to keep up with family and friends. So I am trying to encourage as many as I can to migrate or at least participate here on the fediverse as well. I see many obstacles though. So, instead of whining about them I decided to do something about them.
Shortly after finding Mastodon and finding it not quite what I was looking for I discovered friendica. Friendica is exactly what I was looking for. Yet, of course there are issues. For instance I love the fact that I can use BBcode and Markdown in posts and comments. The interface (editor) is a bit old school though. It is fine to me though I can see a lot of my friends and family finding it not useful. I have worked on many projects that have a fully web-based WYSIWYG Editor.
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@Ken Gahagan Welcome, I emigrated from facebook a few weeks ago myself. First I found Mastodon though micro blogging just is not for me. I am a bit too verbose 😃.
The only reason that I was on facebook in the first place was to keep up with family and friends. So I am trying to encourage as many as I can to migrate or at least participate here on the fediverse as well. I see many obstacles though. So, instead of whining about them I decided to do something about them.
Shortly after finding Mastodon and finding it not quite what I was looking for I discovered friendica. Friendica is exactly what I was looking for. Yet, of course there are issues. For instance I love the fact that I can use BBcode and Markdown in posts and comments. The interface (editor) is a bit old school though. It is fine to me though I can see a lot of my friends and family finding it not useful. I have worked on many projects that have a fully web-based WYSIWYG Editor. Though how am I going to ask busy admins to add this to their instance? Many of them are good admins and know enough to get the stack setup to install and configure Friendica. They are not developers though. So unless someone makes that WYSIWYG Editor an addon. It is not going to see the light of day on many instances. There are other issues but they vary depending on our needs or expectations.
I have obstacles myself. I am primarily a systems developer and though I can do full stack development it has been years since I have bothered to. So it is going to take me a while to get familiar with the code base of friendica. I also work full time so I have to do this in my spare time. There are going to be entire weeks that I will have no time to commit to the project. Then there is the larger issue that the current core is buggy. No matter how high I set the memory for php guzzlehttp/psr7/src/Utils.php manages to keep requiring more. I have allocated 8gb so far and it keeps exhausting it. I smell a memory leak. Then my log is full of Exceptions not being handles. Mangled filenames that are too large to fit into the 255 char limit of the db. I could go on, or you could just look at your own logs 😀. In short there is no small fix. The code base is still unstable, I am using the stable branch on my server not develop. There are many aesthetic issues as well. I am going to address them one small task at a time. The most critical, server performance, first. The time I can spend developing is limited so it is going to require patience.
My third day after I discovered friendica I found a reasonably priced VPS at IONOS. It was only $15 a month for 3 months and then up to $28 after that. It has 8 processors, 16gb memory and 256gb ssd. Not bad at all compared to what I have seen. I first installed the tarball version and was not happy, so removed tar ball instance and installed from github. I am considering forking, and working from my fork though that is not important until I have done something significant. For now I can work off the friendica github instance.
I agree that we could use a meet up for Admins. A place were admins can share success and failure. Perhaps one of us will start a group on our server (instance) or we can elect to use a discord server. Whatever those that choose to participate find most useful.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. This is all great input. I've never found great value in X / Twitter / Mastodon myself so your comments really resonate with me. Just comparing notes re: VPS and hosting provider. I went with a VPS from netcup. Since I'm just setting the thing up at the moment I have a 4 vCPU / 8 GB / 256 GB SSD which bills at about 8 euros a month on a month-to-month agreement so for now I'm pretty happy.
I think your suggestion of a group for admins to collaborate is a GREAT IDEA!! I've created friendicaadminsupportgroup@friendica.unicorns.social. Please join. I'll also send an invitation to the admin of the other server I've been using. He seems like a great guy with some battle scars and doesn't seem to mind answering questions. This will be a great way for me to put a little extra load on the server without opening up the floodgates.
My server is currently by invitation only but I don't think that will create any concerns with folks joining / participating in a group.
I'm also working on a series of posts in a substack that
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Thank you for your thoughtful response. This is all great input. I've never found great value in X / Twitter / Mastodon myself so your comments really resonate with me. Just comparing notes re: VPS and hosting provider. I went with a VPS from netcup. Since I'm just setting the thing up at the moment I have a 4 vCPU / 8 GB / 256 GB SSD which bills at about 8 euros a month on a month-to-month agreement so for now I'm pretty happy.
I think your suggestion of a group for admins to collaborate is a GREAT IDEA!! I've created friendicaadminsupportgroup@friendica.unicorns.social. Please join. I'll also send an invitation to the admin of the other server I've been using. He seems like a great guy with some battle scars and doesn't seem to mind answering questions. This will be a great way for me to put a little extra load on the server without opening up the floodgates.
My server is currently by invitation only but I don't think that will create any concerns with folks joining / participating in a group.
I'm also working on a series of posts in a substack that I hope will facilitate folks moving from Facebook to friendica. Currently I'm accumulating all of these as drafts and hope to publish them as a group so I can cross-link them... There is a reason I'm going to that pain on substack for now... but I may ultimately opt for a different strategy... We'll see how it goes. Once I push the publish button I'll post a link back for your feedback.
let's see... more thoughts as I randomly select some of your comments to respond to... 🙃 I'm running from the latest tarball. I wanted to start with something that I assumed should be "the most stable." So far I'm the only user and I've only followed a few folks across the fediverse as well as enabled the integration with Bluesky. The server so far has barely registered a blip in terms of load. Some of the nightly cron jobs to update clamAV and whatnot show a few bumps in utilization but nothing near a concerning load.
Thanks for the engagement. I look forward to working with you as we both learn more.
"In recent months the Harvard Law School [@harvard_law] Library Innovation Lab [@harvardlil] has created a data vault to download, sign as authentic, and make available copies of public government data that is most valuable to researchers, scholars, civil society and the public at large across every field. To begin, we have collected major portions of the datasets tracked by data.gov, federal #Github repositories, and #PubMed...."
Related: Also see the End of Term Web Archive, which routinely scrapes and preserves US govt web pages before new presidents take office. Launched in 2008 and still going strong. To supplement its archive, it welcomes URL nominations of sites to save. eotarchive.org/
The End of Term Web Archive is a collaborative initiative that collects, preserves, and makes accessible United States Government websites at the end of presidential administrations.
"In the first few days of Donald Trump’s second term as president, the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s #Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (#CEJST, for short) disappeared from government websites. It was an interactive map of U.S. Census tracts that are “marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution,” as the pre-Trump federal government put it—something researchers and the public could use to quickly locate and zoom in on specific communities and analyze the problems they face. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine stored a copy of the webpage, but even there, the map was gone. However, thanks to a team of researchers from multiple universities and other organizations, a new working version was posted online Friday."
Related: "The #Trump administration is scrubbing the #CDC’s website of documents on #ReproductiveRights issues, sexual health, intimate partner violence, and more. We’re saving them. 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘋𝘢𝘺 will publish and host these vital documents for as long as necessary. To share deleted documents with 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘋𝘢𝘺, email tips@abortioneveryday.com. " jessica.substack.com/p/cdc-bir…
Related: "The #Trump administration is scrubbing the #CDC’s website of documents on #ReproductiveRights issues, sexual health, intimate partner violence, and more. We’re saving them. 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘋𝘢𝘺 will publish and host these vital documents for as long as necessary. To share deleted documents with 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘋𝘢𝘺, email tips@abortioneveryday.com. " jessica.substack.com/p/cdc-bir…
The Trump administration is scrubbing the CDC’s website of documents on reproductive rights issues, sexual health, intimate partner violence, and more.
Related. "Researchers rush to preserve federal health databases before they disappear from government websites" journalistsresource.org/home/r…
"Tips for preserving websites: * To find the missing websites, go to Wayback Machine and type in the website’s URL in the search bar. * If you’re concerned that certain websites or web pages may be removed, you can suggest federal websites and content that end in .gov, .mil and .com to the End of Term Web Archive. * You can suggest federal climate and environmental databases to Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. * You can suggest databases to The Data Liberation Project, which is run by MuckRock and Big Local News. * Tell science journalist Maggie Koerth what CDC data you've downloaded and whether you've made them publicly available...."
Journalists have long relied on federal health data for their reporting. We include several tips that they can use to help researchers preserve the data.
Surveying a range of initiatives with good clarity on the obstacles.
"There are questions about whether scraping the data will really be enough. Restoring websites and complex data sets is often not a simple process.…'The repairs and attempts to recover are sometimes insurmountable where we need continuous readings of data.' 'All of this data archiving work is a temporary Band-Aid,' says Gosnell. 'If data sets are removed and are no longer updated, our archived data will become increasingly stale and thus ineffective at informing decisions over time.' "
Amid takedowns of various government sites and databases, several organizations are working to preserve vital climate, health, and scientific data before it’s gone for good.
Update. "The Public Environmental Data Partners [#PEDP] are committed to preserving and providing public access to federal environmental data. We are a volunteer coalition of several environmental, justice, and policy organizations, researchers across several universities, archivists, and students who rely on federal datasets and tools to support critical research, advocacy, policy, and litigation work. To gather insights on what data to preserve, we reached out to our networks, which consist largely of environmental justice groups and networks, state and local government climate offices, and academic researchers. We compiled a large list of federal databases and tools, and prioritized them based on their relative impact, our confidence that we could archive them, and the relative effort it would take to obtain and archive them." screening-tools.com/
Update. "This is Version 2 of the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, released by the Council on Environmental Quality [#CEQ] in December 2024. Although the tool remains unchanged, public access through the White House was discontinued on January 22, 2025. We re-created Version 2 and made it publicly accessible." screening-tools.com/climate-ec…
Update. "Today we [Harvard Law School @harvard_law Library Innovation Lab @harvardlil] released our archive of data.gov on Source Cooperative. The 16TB collection includes over 311,000 datasets harvested during 2024 and 2025, a complete archive of federal public datasets linked by data.gov. It will be updated daily as new datasets are added to data.gov. This is the first release in our new data vault project to preserve and authenticate vital public datasets for academic research, policymaking, and public use." lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/…
Update. "Federal data is disappearing. On Thursday, meet the teams working to rescue it and learn how you can help. Join the Internet Archive [@internetarchive] and the Library Innovation Lab [@harvardlil] on Feb. 13, 3pm Eastern for a special event exploring the terabytes of data they have already saved and how to access it." muckrock.com/news/archives/202…
Since the start of the new Trump administration, hundreds of federal data sets and government websites have gone offline without warning, sometimes returning with major changes and sometimes not returning at all. On February.
Update. If you're following this thread, you should also follow the Data Rescue Project by visiting its web site and subscribing to its email list. It aims "to serve as a clearinghouse for #data rescue-related efforts and data access points for public US governmental data that are currently at risk." And it's #crowdsourced, which gives it fighting chance to be comprehensive and up to date. datarescueproject.org/about-da…
I'm very aware that a solo effort, like this Mastodon thread, doesn't scale to the size of this task and I welcome the arrival of a crowdsourced effort. I will use it and refer people to it.
The Data Rescue Project is a coordinated effort among a group of data organizations, including IASSIST, RDAP, and members of the Data Curation Network.
Update. "As the US government removes health websites and data, here’s a list of non-government data alternatives and archives" journalistsresource.org/home/a…
"There’s no perfect alternative to the government databases, but some non-governmental organizations have their own datasets, which can be useful to journalists. Several #journalism associations have also been downloading government data and making them available to their members. To help journalists with their continued reporting, we have curated a list of non-government websites that have health data, although some use government data to create their reports. We’ll continue to update this list. If you have a suggestion for a database, please email us."
Update. "Here’s why and how Public Environmental Data Partners [#PEDP] and others are making sure that the #climate science the public depends on is available forever." theconversation.com/how-to-fin…
Several groups are working to preserve webpages, tools and data – some of which have already gone missing from government webpages since the start of the Trump administration.
Update. "While we at the #PEGI Project [Preservation of Electronic Government Information] have been aware of the potential for a crisis like this since the start of our project in 2017, both the pace and extent of the removals and changes have been astonishing to witness. What has also been astonishing (and heartening!) is the willingness of a broad community to join together in quick action to save content, particularly data that cannot be easily captured as part of the End of Term Archive. The Public Environmental Data Partners, a project launched by the Environmental Data Governance Initiative (EDGI), has been working on collecting and preserving hard-to-crawl environmental data for the past couple of months. In the past two weeks, a coalition has formed to launch the Data Rescue Project, which then debuted its Data Rescue Tracker. They also have a helpful (and well-vetted!) list of Resources that can guide individuals and organizations wanting to contribute to this work."
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Update. "While we at the #PEGI Project [Preservation of Electronic Government Information] have been aware of the potential for a crisis like this since the start of our project in 2017, both the pace and extent of the removals and changes have been astonishing to witness. What has also been astonishing (and heartening!) is the willingness of a broad community to join together in quick action to save content, particularly data that cannot be easily captured as part of the End of Term Archive. The Public Environmental Data Partners, a project launched by the Environmental Data Governance Initiative (EDGI), has been working on collecting and preserving hard-to-crawl environmental data for the past couple of months. In the past two weeks, a coalition has formed to launch the Data Rescue Project, which then debuted its Data Rescue Tracker. They also have a helpful (and well-vetted!) list of Resources that can guide individuals and organizations wanting to contribute to this work." pegiproject.org/blog/2025/2/14…
"The directors of the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research (#ISR) and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (#ICPSR) are emphasizing the critical need for preserving government data that may be at risk due to recent policy shifts....Through #DataLumos, an ICPSR archive for valuable government data resources, ICPSR is helping the data community to preserve, document, and disseminate thousands of files from agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control [#CDC] and the Department of Education [#DOE]."
Librarians are great at quickly pulling together resources to support their patrons, and in the face of recent data loss, this need has become more urgent. Our patrons rely on access to public government data.
"Jack Cushman, director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab [@harvardlil], has been preserving sites and data that went dark after executive orders from President #Trump. He underlines the importance of keeping digital copies or risk parting with “our cultural memory.”
Update. "Federal data is disappearing. Meet the teams working to rescue it and learn how you can help." youtube.com/watch?v=hiZuKA-o4V…
"Since the start of the new #Trump administration, hundreds of federal data sets and government websites have gone offline without warning, sometimes returning with major changes and sometimes not returning at all. On February 13th, #MuckRock hosted an event with organizations that are helping lead the efforts to preserve the public’s data."
Since the start of the new Trump administration, hundreds of federal data sets and government websites have gone offline without warning, sometimes returning...
"Despite the Trump administration restricting access to these government sites and its underlying data, organizations and individuals have been working to preserve this data. Here are just a few of the efforts that part of an ongoing effort to preserve public information."
Multiple organizations are fighting to preserve access to government data and websites that have been removed after President Donald Trump took office.
"The #WaybackMachine is helping preserve the record of government websites before they were changed by the TTrump administration. CBS News Confirmed's Rhona Tarrant reports."
The Wayback Machine is helping preserve the record of government websites before they were changed by the Trump administration. CBS News Confirmed's Rhona Tarrant reports.
Update. "Wayback Machine Saves Thousands of Federal Webpages Amid Purge of Government Data Under Trump" democracynow.org/2025/2/28/int…
"Thousands of informational government webpages have been taken down so far in the second #Trump administration, including on public health, scientific research and LGBTQ rights. Amid this mass erasure of public information, the #InternetArchive is racing to save copies of those deleted resources."
Thousands of informational government webpages have been taken down so far in the second Trump administration, including on public health, scientific research and LGBTQ rights.
"The destruction of knowledge and cultural heritage has happened, and therefore it can happen again. We are in the middle of that happening, whether it is caused by human action or natural causes…Safeguarding Research & Culture (#SRC) is creating an alternative #infrastructure for archiving and disseminating of cultural heritage and scientific knowledge…Together, we can ensure that our cultural, intellectual and scientific heritage exists in multiple copies, in multiple places, and that no single entity or group of entities can make it all disappear. Our archive is built according to the principles of #FAIR and #
"The destruction of knowledge and cultural heritage has happened, and therefore it can happen again. We are in the middle of that happening, whether it is caused by human action or natural causes…Safeguarding Research & Culture (#SRC) is creating an alternative #infrastructure for archiving and disseminating of cultural heritage and scientific knowledge…Together, we can ensure that our cultural, intellectual and scientific heritage exists in multiple copies, in multiple places, and that no single entity or group of entities can make it all disappear. Our archive is built according to the principles of #FAIR and #CARE, based on open technologies and standards, and resilient against loss via meaningfully distributed storage…Everyone, from individuals to institutions, can participate by accessing, contributing, and supporting these archival infrastructures."
"A team of volunteer archivists has recreated the Centers for Disease Control website exactly as it was the day Donald Trump was inaugurated. The site, called RestoredCDC.org, went live Tuesday and is currently being hosted in Europe."
"It's our contribution to the ongoing effort to rescue, preserve and make open endangered government materials at risk of disappearing…Our focus will be on policy and technical reports, papers, documents, blogposts, videos, and podcasts but we're open to suggestions for other content types - except for datasets. There are a number of excellent ongoing efforts to rescue data so there's no need for us to replicate them…Our goal is to make these materials easy to find and permanently available…We’re calling on librarians and researchers to help identify endangered materials from government agencies and suggest at-risk websites and repositories. We're also inviting those who have been working closely
"It's our contribution to the ongoing effort to rescue, preserve and make open endangered government materials at risk of disappearing…Our focus will be on policy and technical reports, papers, documents, blogposts, videos, and podcasts but we're open to suggestions for other content types - except for datasets. There are a number of excellent ongoing efforts to rescue data so there's no need for us to replicate them…Our goal is to make these materials easy to find and permanently available…We’re calling on librarians and researchers to help identify endangered materials from government agencies and suggest at-risk websites and repositories. We're also inviting those who have been working closely with agencies to send us copies of previously open materials they may have on their hard drives and laptops."
After some weeks of scrambling after government content that's either disappeared or is now at risk, we're very pleased to announce the Policy Commons 2025…
"Lynda Kellam, a social scientist and data librarian,…who’s served in leadership positions at two Ivy League universities, described the vulnerable data as “irreplaceable.”…Kellam told me that she’d participated in a small data-preservation effort during Trump’s first term, but had never seen anything like the frenzy that ignited in late January, when the #CDC began removing information from its website. Kellam was encouraged, but worri
"Lynda Kellam, a social scientist and data librarian,…who’s served in leadership positions at two Ivy League universities, described the vulnerable data as “irreplaceable.”…Kellam told me that she’d participated in a small data-preservation effort during Trump’s first term, but had never seen anything like the frenzy that ignited in late January, when the #CDC began removing information from its website. Kellam was encouraged, but worried about a lack of coördination. What if the backups languished on private hard drives? What if archivists duplicated one another’s work? She created a Google Doc to centralize information about preëxisting initiatives—an archive of archives, with detailed instructions on how to contribute to each…Kellam met with the heads of other data-librarian organizations, and together they founded the #DataRescueProject."
"The Data Foundation's SAFE-Track portal provides a secure, encrypted channel for documenting changes to federal evidence and #data activities. As a trusted, non-partisan authority on government data and evidence policy, the #DataFoundation maintains this platform to systematically understand and analyze impacts on America's evidence infrastructure…SAFE-Track enables confidential reporting through: * Complete #anonymity for submissions * End-to-end #encryption of all data * No requirement for email or personal identification * Option for secure follow-up communication through anonymous conversation codes * Protections against collection of personally identifiable information."
"#KnowledgeCommons has applied for a significant grant from Lever for Change to build, implement, and sustain a digital preservation network that will be free from the US government’s, and any other single government’s, interference…KC is a #nonprofit, community-governed, #OpenAccess platform for creating and sharing knowledge world-wide…But, in the present moment, our US-centeredness is a significant threat to that mission. We propose to establish three linked but independent nonprofit public-benefit companies incorporated in the US, Europe, and South Africa, all dedicated to the social and technological processes of gathering, preserving, and ensuring the public accessibility of academic research."
"Scholars have attempted to safeguard their work by turning to sites deemed to be beyond the reach of the US government…However, even these safe havens may be at risk if a seemingly innocuous tax bill completes its course through Congress. H.R. 9495, the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act”, was passed by the US House of Representatives in November 2024 and is currently before the Senate. It proposes…to strip non-profit status from organisations deemed to be “supporting terrorism”. But its broad language, lack of evidentiary requirements, and potential for political weaponisation should send a chill down the spines of all higher education professionals. After all, who is to define terrorism? History is filled with examples o
"Scholars have attempted to safeguard their work by turning to sites deemed to be beyond the reach of the US government…However, even these safe havens may be at risk if a seemingly innocuous tax bill completes its course through Congress. H.R. 9495, the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act”, was passed by the US House of Representatives in November 2024 and is currently before the Senate. It proposes…to strip non-profit status from organisations deemed to be “supporting terrorism”. But its broad language, lack of evidentiary requirements, and potential for political weaponisation should send a chill down the spines of all higher education professionals. After all, who is to define terrorism? History is filled with examples of liberation movements and resistance groups initially labelled 'terrorists' by powerful states. And who is to define 'support'?"
Update. "A group of US researchers funded through federal grants who wish to document the damage to our scientific #infrastructure. Our #data #archive is for use by journalists, academics, and the general public." theresearchwelost.com/
"After President Trump's inauguration in January, some federal web pages vanished. While…were removed entirely, many came back online with changes that…officials said were made to conform to Trump's executive orders to remove "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies." Thousands of datasets were wiped — mostly at agencies focused on science and the environment…Information about climate change, reproductive health, gender identity and sexual orientation also have been on the chopping block…The #InternetArchive [@internetarchive] is among the few efforts that exist to
"After President Trump's inauguration in January, some federal web pages vanished. While…were removed entirely, many came back online with changes that…officials said were made to conform to Trump's executive orders to remove "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies." Thousands of datasets were wiped — mostly at agencies focused on science and the environment…Information about climate change, reproductive health, gender identity and sexual orientation also have been on the chopping block…The #InternetArchive [@internetarchive] is among the few efforts that exist to catch the stuff that falls through the digital cracks, while also making that information accessible to the public. Six weeks into the new administration, #WaybackMachine director Graham said, the Internet Archive had cataloged some 73,000 web pages that had existed on U.S. government websites that were expunged after Trump's inauguration."
Update. Speak up to help #AED reduce the odds that valuable public US govt datasets will be taken down. essentialdata.us/
"Demonstrating the broad real-world value of federal data is the most strategic path to ensuring its continued flow. The goal of America's Essential Data is to make it easy for: … federal agency data stewards and their leadership to better understand the true value of their data, especially as it relates to administration priorities. Do you use a federal dataset that delivers important benefits for the American people? Help us tell the story of that dataset!"
Update. "#SciOp is part of Safeguarding Research & Culture (#SRC). The bits must flow: let us resurrect the ancient art of #Bittorrent to ensure that our cultural, intellectual and scientific heritage exists in multiple copies, in multiple places, and that no single entity or group of entities can make it all disappear." sciop.net/
Update. "With the recent announcement that numerous datasets — such as those from #NOAA — are scheduled for decommissioning in May, #PANGAEA has opened its archive to help safeguard these valuable resources. If you become aware of any endangered datasets, please don't hesitate to contact us. PANGAEA data!" pangaea.de/
From Google's English: "The German National Library of Medicine (#ZBMed) has announced its intention to create an "open, reliable, and sustainable alternative" to the #PubMed database, one of the most important and comprehensive resources for biomedical literature worldwide. The meta-database, with references to relevant articles and over 38 million citations, is operated by the National Library of Medicine (#NLM), a division of the National Institutes of Health (#NIH) in the United States. ZB Med is responding to concerns that the US administration under Donald Trump is cutting funding for the NIH. There are also fears that political influences could compromise PubMed's scientific integrity."
Ein deutsches Informationszentrum will eine Alternative zur PubMed-Datenbank in den USA entwickeln, um die Informationsversorgung in der Biomedizin zu sichern.
Hell's Kitchen Bitches! 🦮🔥
in reply to Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦 • • •