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Andy Piper
@andypiper@macaw.social
mastodon 4.7.2Developer Relations @matrix@mastodon.matrix.org
freelance technologist & #PenPlotter artist.
I do things with code, & tinker with gadgets
• co-runner of #Maker meetup 🛠️ @hackwimbledon@mastodon.org.uk
• one-third of a weekly #Podcast 🎧 @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social
#3DPrinting #MicroPython #PlotterArt #LEGO #OpenSource #DoctorWho #fedi22
7600 Followers
3961 Following
50 Posts
Joined November 12, 2022
✍🏻️ blog:
🎧 podcast:
🎨 studio:
🔐 keyoxide:
aspe:keyoxide.org:JQTSX3JMH2G6U6UAUH5VPUP4SE
I’m hearing good things about this talk (from other places around the internet), so I’m sharing here and adding my friend @scottjenson@social.coop talk to my watchlist for later! 👀
The Digital Design Weekend at the V&A is great (still on, and free, tomorrow). Soil-powered microcontrollers, tactile synths with fabric, generating font glyphs with facial expressions, a very interesting physical model demonstrating LLM secret instructions and bias, augmented reality tales from the US/Mexican border, and drawing robots (the last being one reason we went over!). Lots of Pi and microcontroller and other #maker things of interest for all ages.
Best museum in London by miles.
Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe
I'm appalled to see the European Commission apparently embracing closed source, commercial, ID and age verification mandatory, social media today - in the very face of the technology sovereignty and online freedoms debates.
I think they've just thrown away the greatest opportunity to be the champion of all things open and collaborative, and to live and demonstrate their own values. Incredibly disappointed.
🔥 🔥 from @_elena@mastodon.social who nails it, and asks crucial questions.
https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/
Tonight, I am mourning the death of Optimus Prime, 40 years on. It’s the Transformers The Movie 1986 apology tour, at the Odeon. 🎟️
RE: https://mastodon.me.uk/@realcainmosni/116851535259923026
This is not OK - there should be free software solutions for these mandatory situations. [edit: specifically they should be compatible with free operating systems like Linux, and open source so a vendor can’t later decide to lock you in] Another thing to shout at Parliament about...
Quoting
UK Tax returns have gone digital, which is fine in principle. What is not fine is that pretty much only paid solutions are acceptable for submitting a return.
If electronic tax returns are mandatory, the government should be providing a cost-free means. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/769610#action
(Hats off to a couple of people I follow that first raised this.)
Open quoted postThis weekend I will be at @lpoolmakefest@mastodon.social and I will also be experiencing FOMO from #FediDay @berlinfediday@berlin.social and I will also be mentally continuing to plan the Matrix Conference #MatrixConf
😵💫
Oh, Jack Dorsey has a new app thing?
Well he can do what he likes - I have no interest in ever going anywhere near him or anything he created, again.
RE: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix/116810828012019038
Happy to be working with the Matrix.org team - I look forward to becoming more connected with the Matrix community 😃
Replying to
(I will observe that this piece led me to learn what a state of tech debt Evernote was in at time of acquisition; that said, I’ve seen these leeches destroy Meetup, StreamYard, Vimeo and more, so I wouldn’t stick around on Airtable)
Boosted by @neatnik@social.lol
Replying to
- met young (c. 7-8yr old) fans of my Pigs in Space badge app (this made me 😊)
- saw folks running my Buckaroo Banzai badge app, and the animated spiders background, which made me happy
- shared over 200 duck stickers
- left zines about the Fediverse, and Celebrity Ducks, in the Lounge
- got choked up in both the opening and closing ceremonies with gratitude for everything and everyone
- enjoyed the spectacle of a burning Musk.
Boosted by @tchambers@indieweb.social
RE: https://mamot.fr/@thibaultamartin/116817244999773443
I've only worked with @thibaultamartin@mamot.fr for 2 days, and he's been truly generous and supportive - thank you to him, and the Working Groups at The Matrix.org Foundation, for setting up a solid process, keeping the community updated every week 🙏
This was a fun conversation 🙂
Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe
Reading the @EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu press release on strengthening tech sovereignty.
Something missing here 🤔
Replying to
@Floppy@mastodon.me.uk EXCELLENT.
You have my sword. And my bow. And my axe!
(and mostly, my support)
Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe
RE: https://techhub.social/@Techmeme/116776642066428790
This is way, way too long in even *starting* to happen.
The writing has been on the wall ever since Twitter was sold. X is anti-govt, anti-people, and no-one should believe that they have "an audience" there. It's a megaphone for hatred.
I'll just note that I wrote this almost 2 years ago.
https://andypiper.co.uk/2024/08/15/fediverse-for-freedom/
Replying to
So many phone numbers still to call...! #EMFCamp
This weekend:
- three full nights as @forgeandcraft in the Night Market
- helped with drop in workshops at our village
- the amazing @heidigoseek@mastodon.social gave a talk on Stage C 😍 and ran a meetup for genealogists, we were both repping Free UK Genealogy where we volunteer...
Replying to
- I hosted a meetup for the Society for Hopeful Technologists to talk about hope, joy, and uplifting one another in dark times
- deployed phone apps for @theindiebeat, and Society for Hopeful Technologists, and some other silly fun things
- did two surface mount solder workshops
- gave out ~30 NFC-enabled Matrix hexpansion for the badge
- traded hexpansions
- dropped in to Badgefest and talked about #DuckFacts
Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe
RE: https://techhub.social/@fedicon/116665644723775770
I’m no longer funded to work on #Fediverse stuff and won’t be able to attend this, but I know last year’s FediCon event was great and I hope a good, international cross-section of the community and developers are able to meet there this year!
Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe
RE: https://mastodon.social/@MastodonEngineering/116687014689391748
Congrats to my friends @MastodonEngineering@mastodon.social for getting the 4.6 beta up for folks to try out! There's a lot of nice stuff coming in the next release. 👏🏻 @renchap@oisaur.com @imanijoy@mastodon.social & teams!
Replying to
@pikesley@mastodon.me.uk 👏🏻
Someone told me recently that WE ARE THE EVENT, and I think you are and were, and we all did it, and it was wondrous.
Incredibly frustrated. Ireland wants someone (from a list of specific professionals) to witness some signatures and photographs as being me. The professionals - bank managers! From two different banks! - are telling me they are “not allowed” to sign, by their employers.
🤬
Come and shelter from the British winter - the #WimbledonArtFair kicks off tomorrow, and you can come and talk to us about #PenPlotter art and algorithmic creativity @forgeandcraft
Boosted by @tchambers@indieweb.social
I see the learned @brucelawson@social.vivaldi.net is doing that thing again. You know, where he gets very smart people (like in this case, Wolfgang Oels) on to his podcast to talk about how to make the open web, remain open and be better.
https://vivaldi.com/blog/wolfgang-oels-ecosia-for-a-better-web/
🚐 #EMFCamp
Stopping for provisions, but eta early afternoon 🤞🏻
So I learned of a remake of Cholo (BBC Micro game from the 1980s) via @felimwhiteley@mastodon.social on @latenightlinux@mastodon.social - assuming you grab the 2000s remake Windows app from archive.org, you drop in the files from ovine.net and then tinker around with Wine to stop it from running in a tiny corner of the screen and yep, I am still very bad at this game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholo_(video_game)
Replying to
@leberschnitzel@existiert.ch this is something called Buzz, not bitchat. And I don’t care about either of them, *and most importantly* nor will I ever trust the guy who failed me and my coworkers.
Replying to
@plwt@mstdn.social showed up in a newsletter I receive. Along with a list of alternatives (like Zulip), which I appreciated.
Boosted by @dansup@mastodon.social
@phlash@mastodon.me.uk I have a stack of Mastodon stickers I would like to donate to your AP meetup this evening - I will be in the night market at the time. Where can I get them to you?
Boosted by @_elena@mastodon.social
RE: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix/116837705747675582
Final hours to submit a talk for consideration for The Matrix Conference ⏳
I'm looking forward to getting into the review process with the rest of the event team. So many great submissions already!
See you in Malmö 🇸🇪 !
The episode of Linux After Dark published this week is accidentally an episode of 2.5 Admins.
Replying to
@dev@discuss.systems that presentation as a whole is quite a ride.
He does actually compare himself to a goose here, right?
Storytelling par excellence.
Replying to
@blog @Edent@mastodon.social thanks for sharing this! Although, I'm still hoping for a Fedi-native location app at some point...
Replying to
@neutronstar@infosec.exchange I usually use SearXNG hosted locally; I'm in the middle of setting up something new so this was a temporary fallback 🙂
Replying to
@leberschnitzel@existiert.ch PromptQL and Twist. All different use cases, I guess. I certainly don't have an interest in Dorsey's thing when he's continuing to lay people off and treat humans as collateral damage to his whimsy.
Replying to
@ben@bluetoot.hardill.me.uk created a new VM to install 26.04 and it seems to be doing its thing just fine. It wasn't that issue where Canonical was DDoS'ed the other week was it?
We had a nice @hackwimbledon@mastodon.org.uk meetup today, and helped a younger tech enthusiast to get Linux Mint installed on an older laptop - he was very excited!
Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe
We need to move on from the obsession with growth as a proxy for “better”, or “success”; and instead dig in on, just improving.
It doesn’t need millions of people to make something better, it needs a few, or just one.
We make better communities by helping one another, fixing things; seeing things that need some love, and finding new ways to give that to them.
I’m not going to stop participating, or making things, or encouraging others, just because a thousand people don’t show up tomorrow.
Replying to
Boosted by @fedicat@pc.cafe
Looking for a new #Bookwyrm instance, since the @bookrastinating admin has ignored efforts to contact / support them. I'd donated in the past; I guess that data / profile is lost.
Boosted by @tchambers@indieweb.social
Replying to
@dansup@mastodon.social @Mastodon@mastodon.social I've also been leaving #FediverseForFreedom zines and @theindiebeat posters about the camp 😊 thank you!