@mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Who else is noticing AI-generated illustrations in the real world appearing at new hairdressers, ice-cream parlors, kebap shops, butcheries, everywhere? Sure, there's no reason why AI slop should be confined to the online world. But as long as I will still be able to distinguish AI signs from non-AI signs, I will consider these AI stores/restaurants as inferior quality. Is that wrong? #AI

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 2w ago

Replying to

@MuseeOrsay@reseauculture.fr Welcome to the fediverse! I try to visit you IRL every time I'm in Paris :) Feel free to reach out if you need help to get your profile verified. @_elena@mastodon.social @cercle@reseauculture.fr

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 3mo ago

I just created my first collection on history. Which historians or other history-related accounts in the fediverse am I missing? #history #collection #collections https://mastodon.social/collections/116843436442889237

mastodon.social

History - Mastodon

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

We’re still an absolute skeleton crew of 14 people, competing with teams sometimes 100x as large as ours. To get to our humble team size was only possible through the less than 1% community members who donate to Mastodon, a handful larger donations, & EU grants, all of which we are forever grateful for. We still have a large funding need for 2026, so please consider making a donation before the year-end if you’d like us to continue building and improving Mastodon https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors#donate (12/13)

joinmastodon.org

Donate to Mastodon

Donate or become a sponsor and help us build the social web for everyone!

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 6mo ago

We're hiring for a part-time position in Finance & Operations at @Mastodon@mastodon.social. Fluent German and English language skills are a requirement. In terms of location it's a hybrid role so we're looking for candidates in #berlin or #vienna. I believe this is a rare opportunity to learn about the organisational side of technology non-profits and open source.

https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/mastodon/6c969533-e00e-468a-959c-e3c366ff10a4/

#fedihire #job #jobs

jobs.ashbyhq.com

Jobs

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

The problem with Meta’s business model is that they’re beholden to shareholders, not their community. We are not publicly traded, we are publicly FUNDED. Mastodon has no incentive to keep you addicted. Our incentive is to make you happy, and help you build friendships, because it’s the right thing to do for you, and it's the right thing to do for humanity. If you believe in a better way forward for our digital social spaces, please help support us by donating: https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors#donate (2/2)

joinmastodon.org

Donate to Mastodon

Donate or become a sponsor and help us build the social web for everyone!

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 3mo ago

RE: https://mstdn.social/@TechCrunch/116850275195134577 This feels so weird. I've heard about AI in dating from a close friend already (sending an AI-generated rejection DM...). Using AI to suggest date locations also reminds me about the movie "Her" where it happened exactly like this. Brushing up profile pics with AI is probably also already super prevalent. While it's kind of obvious people use AI for things closest to their heart, it feels also like the very worst use because won't you want and have to show your true self in dating?

mstdn.social

TechCrunch: "Ben Guez has "a bunch of potential international …" - Mastodon 🐘

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

Most importantly, thanks to everyone here, to the whole community. I promise to always put the humans here first and to keep this a safe space for you, no matter how you express yourself and where you come from. I will treat my new position with the most respect. Let’s make Mastodon and the Fediverse even more beautiful than it already is <3 (13/13)

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

Thanks @Gargron@mastodon.social for allowing us to do this the pure non-profit and FOSS way by saying no to earlier offers, some of which would have given you more than 10x the payout. I have been inspired by your vision about this project from the moment I met you 5+ years ago. It takes a lot of courage and greatness to let this project go. Super excited for continuing to work with you! (10/13)

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

I have huge respect for everyone contributing to the Fediverse: the larger-than-life architects like @cwebber@social.coop @evan@cosocial.ca (without whom we would literally all not be here), implementers like @dansup@mastodon.social bringing photo & video to it, new projects like @newsmast@backend.newsmast.org @michael@backend.newsmast.org @FreddieJ@backend.newsmast.org @saskia@backend.newsmast.org @bonfire@indieweb.social @ivan @mayel orgs like @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mike@flipboard.com @john @ghost @activitypub.blog @pfefferle@mastodon.social bringing the media over to the Fediverse, and @rileytestut@mastodon.social @altstore@fosstodon.org for trying out completely new things. (6/13)

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@steltenpower@social.edu.nl This feels like an uphill battle. Bricks-and-mortar margins are probably already razor thin and any marketing budget these stores have during their startup phase is probably below 500€. The subsidised prices by GenAI companies must look very attractive for these types of SMEs right now. I worry for junior designers who previously probably did these tasks on a part-time basis to learn the ropes of design to move to larger projects.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

But Mastodon wouldn’t be where it is without so many more people than Eugen. I’m incredibly grateful to be able to work with the best team we’ve ever had. Each one of you brings so much value to the Mastodon project and I want to thank you for making our mission your day job while you could certainly earn double or triple at one of our for-profit competitors. (11/13)

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

Many of us would also not be here if it weren’t for patient and forward thinking people in media and civil society like @Sarahp@mastodon.social @laurenshof@indieweb.social @leonido@chaos.social @janboehm@edi.social @markus_netzpolitik@chaos.social @samvie@chaos.social @Sascha@bonn.social @melaniebartos@chaos.social (7/13)

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

Thanks to amazing people like @jaz@toot.wales @iftas@mastodon.iftas.org @swf @mallory@techpolicy.social @bjoernsta@eimsbuettel.social @j12t@j12t.social we can see through topics larger than us related to policy, regulation, protocol development as well as how to deal with spam attacks, how to design a safer product for everyone, and how to deal with occasional interpersonal conflicts in our beautiful part of the internet. (8/13)

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

I want to send my heartfelt thanks @karienbez@mastodon.online @alshafei@mastodon.social for their wisdom and emotional support during this crazy journey so far, to @codinghorror@infosec.exchange @biz@me.dm for your visionary strategic & financial support without which this restructuring would not have been possible, and to the team of Paul Hastings for your pro-bono legal advice. (9/13)

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@Tutanota@mastodon.social I've never looked back after switching from macOS. Linux is just so much better for my usage and I have a pretty "pedestrian" one (emails, calls, documents, a bit of gaming). I'm pretty sure in an organisational context, where a country and its agencies, ministries, etc. move over, this feeling must be even stronger. Imagine how happy people must be at work if they had to use an ad-infested Windows version before and then suddenly have the calm, beauty, and simplicity of Linux? :)

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 5mo ago

I will be in Perugia again this year with @Mastodon@mastodon.social with @bjoernsta@eimsbuettel.social @PaulNemitz@eupolicy.social @saskia@backend.newsmast.org @michael@backend.newsmast.org

Who wants to meet up?

https://www.journalismfestival.com/programme/2026/managing-the-open-social-web-for-media-companies

#perugia #ijf26 #IJF

International Journalism Festival

Managing the open social web for media companies

Open social web platforms present both opportunities and challenges for media organizations seeking new ways to distribute content, engage audiences, and maintain editorial autonomy. As traditional social media becomes increasingly dominated by opaque algorithms and closed systems, media companies are looking to participate in and help shape emergi...

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@kraftner@mastodon.social Good point. I also think that if machine-generated "perfection" becomes commoditised we will start to value human mistakes and small sloppiness (in the original meaning) here and there more. There's an interesting analogy in The Expanse series. Plastic surgery is available to almost everyone so the rich people use their imperfections as a status symbol.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Great panel at the event series "Debating Europe" at Vienna's Burgtheater with @francescabria@mastodon.uno calling out Mastodon as a positive counterexample and explaining EuroStack, @marietjeschaake@mastodon.nl making excellent points on Palantir and AI infra, sponsored by @erstefoundation@mastodon.social & @derStandard@mastodon.derstandard.at, attending with @simonilse@mas.to

mastodon.uno

Francesca Bria (@francescabria@mastodon.uno) - Mastodon Uno Social - Italia

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@fosstodon I'm trying to coordinate with their admin to find a solution swiftly.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 9mo ago

Boosted by @Gargron@mastodon.social

Thanks to everyone contributing to our community, through contributing your work, giving back financially, by providing advice, or by using Mastodon and other fedi services. Wishing you a good end of the year and see you all in 2026

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@simonzerafa@infosec.exchange I think calling Blacksky a clone is too limiting as they do a ton of good and original work from what I can tell. @_elena@mastodon.social

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@Tutanota You slightly misquoted me, it was "you hacked the non-algorithm" which is even more impressive :)

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@iftas This is correct.

A server-level announcement from @TheAdmin has been shared a couple of hours ago:

Regarding version updates: The source code for this server has been modified from the original version, so updating may be slightly difficult. The operations team is currently evaluating the feasibility of a server version update. Please follow @TheAdmin for future updates on progress.

This is actively being worked on now with @MastodonEngineering team.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@melaniebartos Danke für den tollen Vortrag. Ich komme ja aus Graz und lebe in Wien - gebt mir also gerne Bescheid, wenn ich bei Gesprächen mit Gemeinden, Bundesministerien, o.Ä behilflich sein kann. Generell allokieren wir da mit Mastodon wenig Zeit, weil Österreich eben ein kleines Land ist, allerdings zeigen die Erfolge in den Niederlanden, dass es gerade in kleinen Ländern gut funktionieren kann! @wir @FediverseFoundation @momentum @radiohelsinki @freirad @radioorange940 @Freier_Rundfunk

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social One thing I would love new trains to lean in on more heavily are dedicated compartments whether it's child playground areas, a nice cafe/restaurant, sleeping areas (sleeper trains are nice but is there maybe a daytime lounge version of it?), or dedicated call booths for people travelling for business. These things partially exist already but reliable internet still appears to be a utopia. If they can be fixed, train as default means of transport might become an inevitability.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@tcb Not a dumb question at all. We are actually considering SEPA payments and Direct Debits! It's not completely trivial because of some accounting complexity. I believe as a business you would have to issue invoices or at least payment confirmations anyway so if there are more than a handful of such donations per month you would have to get some sort of processor again to deal with the operations.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Kdude That's a fair point of criticism. Financial infrastructure is indeed very American, especially if you try to tap into the reach of existing sponsorship platforms like Patreon. We have been looking into WERO lately to offer an alternative.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@fabiscafe@mstdn.social That's indeed a very good point and a common problem: Big Tech social media has provided us state-of-the-art UI/UX for c. 2 decades "for free" (I think 50% of users still don't know or even care that their data is sold). This has created a user expectation whenever they open new apps (like @Mastodon@mastodon.social) which is almost impossible to meet. It unfortunately boils down to a resource problem: we need more funding, from the user base, from public institutions, from wealthy people, etc.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@hyc@mastodon.social Probably a better phrasing would be to say new users come to Mastodon and the fediverse with expectations from polished products like Instagram. The teams working at Instagram are probably 100 times as large as the core team of Mastodon. We obviously stand on the shoulders of giants in form of volunteer OSS contributors. But the point still stands: New users come here with expectations from other social network apps huge dev teams have built financed by data harvesting & ads

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@quattrocchi @warning @Sujiyan @Linux @haubles

A server-level announcement from @TheAdmin has been shared a couple of hours ago:

Regarding version updates: The source code for this server has been modified from the original version, so updating may be slightly difficult. The operations team is currently evaluating the feasibility of a server version update. Please follow @TheAdmin for future updates on progress.

This is actively being worked on now with @MastodonEngineering team.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@wir Servus, ich bin ja gebürtiger Grazer, bin also gerne mit dabei, wenn das hilft :) @offene_netzwerke

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@ombremad@mangezdespomm.es Thanks for clarification. One misunderstanding potentially: I tagged the Ghost account (which is on Threads, you're right) but I did not thank Threads. The Ghost account just happens to only be there, unfortunately.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@ombremad@mangezdespomm.es There's an obvious limitation by character limit when creating such a post. I just happen to only know Meredith at Signal. I'd love to include all the engineers and ops people behind it but I think the way this post was phrased it's quite obvious I admire the products/projects as much as the leadership. Or where did I do wrong in your opinion?

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@benroyce Would you mind taking me out of this comment thread? Doesn't seem very relevant to me (anymore). Thanks.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@acb@mastodon.social @codeinabox@hachyderm.io Yes, absolutely - in many countries it requires to incorporate with an entity in that jurisdiction, so there's a bit more setup work involved and it needs to be justified in terms of recurring admin expenses

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@rsx@mastodon.social Sorry to hear that. If SEPA Direct Debit is an option, you can use it here (via our fiscal sponsor WE AID). https://donate.stripe.com/14A4gAfACaLg76zfKB1ZS07

donate.stripe.com

Stripe Checkout

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@mainz_de@mastodon.social Super Entscheidung! Wenn ihr Hilfe bei der Verifizierung eures Accounts braucht, gebt Bescheid!

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@ben Is there a shortlist of publications / reports which you consider most important? Both networks are of course very small compared to the incumbents but I'm pretty sure the writers of those are probably just unaware of aspects like decentralisation or what good data sources are for reliable metrics.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@meyltje@beige.party Thanks! @phistorians@kolektiva.social Could you activate the discovery settings under "Privacy and reach" so I can add you?

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@tml@mementomori.social That's wild!

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@delta Congrats! @deltatouch @sovtechfund

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to on socialhub.activitypub.rocks

@observer@socialhub.activitypub.rocks That's good thinking - thanks for sharing this and explaining TCO so clearly. We certainly have ideas on how to reduce the technical, moderation, and legal cost. FASPs are probably part of this. Our future Belgian foundation could help on legal and compliance topics. I believe the grandma-one-click-Gmail analogy is not perfect, though, because the exemplary grandma doesn't start their own email server on Gmail.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@quattrocchi @warning @haubles

A server-level announcement from @TheAdmin has been shared a couple of hours ago:

Regarding version updates: The source code for this server has been modified from the original version, so updating may be slightly difficult. The operations team is currently evaluating the feasibility of a server version update. Please follow @TheAdmin for future updates on progress.

This is actively being worked on now with @MastodonEngineering team.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to on hachyderm.io

@jamesbelchamber@hachyderm.io I think @samvie@chaos.social did.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 2mo ago

Boosted by @GroupNebula563@mastodon.social

Replying to

@llamasoft_ox@toot.wales Have you seen the movie? I would be curious to know what you think about it :) @Gargron@mastodon.social

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@alexandrageese@bonn.social Thanks for joining me on the panel on DSA at #FOSDEM. At EU Tech Stars you will meet our technical director @renchap@oisaur.com.

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@nlnet Will the call be recorded? If not, is there another formal or informal way to reach out to potential collaborators interested in a consortium via NLnet? @EUCommission @EC_NGI

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Felix Hlatky @mellifluousbox@mastodon.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@alexanderyildiz@infosec.exchange Thanks, but we don't have a physical office :)

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