paleBlue @paleBlue@qoto.org

Some of you may have heard about the proposed chat control law. A similar atrocious proposal has been put forth regarding seeds, making heirloom seeds (the OG's of seeds before GMO) illegal to sell, grow or trade.

Write to the EC and learn more at:

https://www.no-patents-on-seeds.org/en/campaign

If anyone needs a UX design team manager, head of UX or VP-level position, please let me know. My boss is sadly being made redundant and they’re genuinely a great person to work for, have crafted a fantastic team and grown our UX design and research capabilities across the business. Not to mention being great fun on social outings too. 💔

Hybrid positions in the North East of England or remote positions would be perfect.

#UX #UXdesign #UXjobs #designjobs #userexperience

my friend that i introduced to old computers and gifted a soldering iron a couple years back just fixed her headphones with her soldering station without my involvement. So proud of her and happy that she's confident enough to do stuff like this completely self directed.
And I don't even know what other projects she might get up to when we're not talking.

Soldering irons and pumps and screwdrivers can be so empowering.

The antidote to materialism isn't minimalism; it's maintenance. Keep things. Fix them. Mend them. Grow old with possessions you know well because you've cared for them.

Dammit Robin, get your head on straight!!

So one thing I notice about #blind Internet culture: even back on Twitter, and now here in the #fediverse, blind people tend towards having discussions in giant threads, sometimes with as many as 10-12 people in them, that can often stretch on for days. I rarely (if ever) see sighted culture do this. I wonder why? It's not a criticism, it's just interesting to me. Maybe because Discord and other chat apps were historically less #accessible, so blind culture tends to use the fediverse more as a discussion platform? Or maybe it's something UI related that makes it easier for blind folks to track giant threads of doom? The few times I've been involved in this style of discussion with sighted folks, they've become confused and begged for everyone to move to Discord or Slack or somewhere. On the other hand, I rarely see blind people do a single, lengthy post broken up and threaded the way sighted people do, with (1/N) at the end. We tend to just move to instances with longer character limits, or put our long form thoughts on a webpage or something.

Hearts at the PSF are full today from the responses about the recent grant turn down news we shared. All of your kind words of support & solidarity, as well as your donations & new memberships, mean the world to us. We're so grateful to be in community with each of you 💛 🐍 💙

The question isn’t "why does Signal use AWS?" It’s to look at the infrastructural requirements of any global, real-time, mass comms platform and ask how it is that we got to a place where there’s no realistic alternative to AWS and the other hyperscalers. 3/

Do you work for a company using Python? Is your company turning a profit? Show this blog post to coworkers and managers. Support the PSF!

https://hachyderm.io/@nedbat/115447331754295617

People used to argue, straight faced with sincerely held good intentions, that you couldn't trust free software or wikipedia, because who would you call if it breaks? You don't really know where it all comes from!

But the answer is "people". The answer was always people, and no matter what you've heard from governments, media outlets or corporations, people are far more trustworthy than the average government or the typical media outlet or any corporation.

Bet on people who bet on people.

If someone creates something, whether it's written or painted or animated or sung, if that thing affects you and means something to you, I urge you to tell them.

There are days in any creative career where the bills are late and the pantry is bare and none of it seems like a viable path. Those comments can keep someone going. I have seen and felt it. Knowing that it matters to a stranger is sometimes enough.

After making a page for tools that I like, I decided to create an anti-tools page.

In addition to specific things or vendors I don't touch (e.g. Meta, Twitter, Microsoft), I have a section devoted to rent-seeking (Adobe, Avid) and cocaine autocorrect.

https://www.soundslike.pro/anti-tools/

#GoHugo #MusicProduction #Software #AI #LLM

The Python Software Foundation shows more spine than every single tech giant in just one single decision.

> Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core to the PSF’s values

https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-funding-statement.html

The one thing I am trying to say is that it is time to stop being a consumer, stop supporting the fascists that disregard all of humanity and cut them down to size.

And boycotting is the easiest, simplest way to do it. The one thing we have and that the oligarchs still need is money. And we have, collectively, a lot of money. And we can refuse to give them that money.

This is simple, effective, and it is one thing they are terrified of: boycott.

5/x

Is the internet today the internet you want for future generations? What if instead of for-profit greed, rampant privacy violations, and pervasive government spying, we could have a different relationship with the internet?

Join us in building a free and open internet – free from the chains of surveillance and censorship! ⛓️‍💥

https://blog.torproject.org/2025-fundraiser-donations-matched/

🚨⏳One week left to prevent Microsoft from using your LinkedIn data to train AI.

Act now 👉🏼 You have until November 3, 2025.

Remember, you're opted in automatically, unless you take action and turn it off.

Here's how:

Go to your account → Settings & Privacy → Data privacy → Data for Generative AI Improvement & toggle the switch off to opt out.

Find out more: https://tuta.com/blog/linkedin-ai-user-data

#LinkedInAI #MicrosoftAI #BigTech

"Write accessible code or get sued!" This ain't it

"Write accessible code for SEO." No

"Write accessible code for AI." Nooo

"Write accessible code for blind people." ...better

"Write accessible code cause you're a god-damn professional that takes pride in their work." Now we're talking.

I'm old enough to remember when having your photo and fingerprints taken by the authorities was reserved to convicted criminals.

Now it will eventually be all of us.
All of us constantly tracked by governments and corporations alike, requiring our biometric data for anything they feel like.

Our privacy rights are going down the drain under the pretext of security.

But it will not make us safer, on the contrary.
Don't believe their authoritarian lies.

#Privacy #MassSurveillance #Authoritarianism

If anybody knows businesses that must upgrade to Windows 11 and has to "dispose" of their computers, please let me know. I want to refurbish them with Linux and give them back to people who might want them and cannot afford a new computer.

If you're in the NYC tri-state area or PA, please let me know.

@Endof10 #EndOf10

ending quote from "The Martian" (2015) that i think is relevant for not just space being difficult but for life in general:

At some point, everything's gonna go south on you... everything's going to go south and you're going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That's all it is. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem... and you solve the next one... and then the next.

there is a tendency online (especially here) to revel in pessimism

now i actually love the pessimist philosophers and agree with them that life is kinda,,, suffering

but/and that doesn't mean we can't build a world based on hope and optimism; in fact i believe this is necessary to achieve leftist goals and true queer liberation: only minds and hearts full of hope can bring this forth into the world

to work the problem, we have to stop being our own worst enemies and work the problem together

so when the negativity bias seeps in, take a moment to reorient your heart toward that world we all want to see: where all beings everywhere are loved, at peace, safe, and at ease

<3