Atheist, technopagan and vegan.

Today I closed my oldest twitter account. Over 12 years worth of time there, gone. And it's good. Twitter was and is getting more radical, hate-prone and right-wing by the day. I spent less and less time there, as it was a waste of time, energy and emotional well-being. It's a strange feeling, after all that time, but also liberating. Reason to pull that plug now is Musk's announcement to take twitter out of the…

Please join atheists who have chosen the date of May 5th to remember our nine million sisters of the burning times; the 500 year period also referred to as the Holocaust of Women. Women were burned alive along with their children after being sexually assaulted and tortured by the Catholic Church. - Julia Bruno and Karen Ruth Jungwirth

A new post on the Mastodon tag. Ilja was very quick to respond, and soon I had my own instance up and running. It involved a few technical steps: deciding on the subdomain of a domain I already own (I have several, so that was a bit of a dice game), and adding a "CNAME" DNS record to that domain. That was basically all. Well, that, and making sure Ilja gets reimbursed for the cost…

It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the bible.

Keeping Mastodon friendly for others There are many vision-impaired people on Mastodon / the Fediverse. Just like in the real world out there. For those, there are special screenreaders that read out the posts and toots, which is great. For that reason, Mastodon instances offer the option to add text to images, and everyone's encouraged to do so. If a screenreader only says "image" or not even that when going over your post, that takes…

I've discovered a few wonderful search engines. Most of the world goes to Google or Bing, but for those who don't like the tracking: Displays good results and each search lets you help in planting trees. Find them at https://ecosia.org Family-friendly results, fast responses. SwissCows also has an add-on for Firefox, and other browsers. They also offer email, VPN and a phone protection system (didn't go into that). About the 'family friendly results': Swisscows doesn't…

Last week I got the Bluetooth antenna in. Connecting it to the NAD amplifier was very simple, and setting up the Bluetooth connection to the tablet was simple as well, after installing the NAD Remote App. Then it was showtime. The audio quality is impeccable. I switched between BT and the SONOS a few times, but there is no difference for my ears. Check. 1 for each. Switching on the tablet and connecting Samba Network…

I own Sonos equipment. A Sonos port is on the stereo and that is a good thing. I also have a Sonos Play:1 and, when it works, it is a good thing. Lately, I have to update that Play:1 nearly each time I want to use it, so that's putting up with the download/update/restart, and some 5 minutes later it's operational. That's not what I want when I switch it on. Sure, it boots, like…

“You're comprised of 84 minerals, 23 Elements & 8 gallons of water spread over 38 trillion cells. You're built from nothing by the spare parts of the Earth you've consumed according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix, small enough to be carried by a sperm. You're recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf fur & shark teeth, broken down to their smallest parts & rebuilt into our planets most complex living…

I'm a stoic. At least I think I am. I want to be one. I follow one of America's most productive and clear Stoics, his name is Ryan Holiday. Today, in the mailing list I subscribe to, I found this (again): “When you realize that as you are killing time, time is killing you—it changes your relationship with your life itself. That’s what Memento Mori is supposed to do. It’s not supposed to be morbid…