Forest @forestjohnson@pixie.town

My local library has started a seed library!

They already created a tool library.

If you think this kind of thing is only for affluent or leftist places, let me assure you, if our poor town of 10,000 in a poor, red, Southern state can do it, your town can do it too.

The Linux Mint installation was refreshing, everything that Win11 wasn't. It asked my language and keyboard type then asked to connect to WiFi and it ACTUALLY TOOK "NO" FOR AN ANSWER. It asked for timezone and local account name and info and spent 10-20 minutes installing the base system.

It found my printer without asking.

I cannot express how happy amd relieved I am that I successfully installed the operating system and features I wanted AND THE COMPUTER DID EXACTLY WHAT I TOLD IT TO.

That is such a rare experience anymore. The OS does the one thing it needs to do - act as a layer between application software and my hardware. Machine setup asked for the absolute minimum information to configure a usable system. One reboot and I have what I want - a fresh working system.

It's like going through the McDonald's drive-thru, ordering a cheeseburger, fries, and Diet Coke, paying, driving away, opening the bag and finding a cheeseburger, fries, and a Diet Coke plus a straw, napkins, and a few ketchup packets. Nothing in that bag is unexpected or unwanted or out of place or actively disruptive to the enjoyment of a cheeseburger, fries, and Diet Coke. So simple a well-trained and attentive teenager could do it.

It's so weird and so comforting to use software not steeped in dark patterns and twee designer excess.

Introducing oavif: faster target quality image compression

https://giannirosato.com/blog/post/oavif/

oavif can be up to 63% faster than traditional target quality encoders. Learn how in the attached blog post!

#av1 #avif #compression

Ingenious

okay so I have no stake in this particular game beyond being a sicko but this is so funny from the bluesky CEO

looking at her other posts, her wider point is that bluesky is "neutral" and they won't ban troublemakers simply because the userbase want them to (and get on her case about it). which would be defensible, if not for the fact they do ban some (legal) speech, like people making fun about charlie kirk...

so it's just the ol' "cloudflare special" where they're a neutral conduit but only for the kinds of speech they personally think are acceptable (or that they think will result in continuing to get funding, I guess)

(and the CEO is having an extreme CEO moment posting through it instead of behaving like a grownup)

I don't know how wild this is to ask, but, is anyone looking for small-scale hosted email, for some small-ish, sliding-scale price?

I've been running my own mail server for myself for around 10 years successfully, with good deliverability, TLS support on IMAP/POP3 and SMTP, and little to no downtime. I'd love to support friends who'd also like to get away from GMail or other corporate providers.

I'm dealing with chronic illness & am basically looking for ways to give to my community and make a few dollars to ease my own challenges.

i've been out here in the open social network so long that periodically, when a new boat of bedraggled thought leaders washes up & starts saying things like "it's so cool that you can say the word 'tree' without bleeping it!" or "isn't it weird how nothing smells like sulfur?" ... i legitimately don't know how to react.

Apropos of absolutely nothing 👀

cloudflare = nazi collaborators

im still seething

https://www.osnews.com/story/143376/dark-patterns-killed-my-wifes-windows-11-installation/

@pollute_my_lungs

The most interesting thing about the Charlie Kirk shooting is how the unredacted Epstein files still have not been released.

#nokings #epsteinfiles

LZ Config Day v2 and Grilling

<p>Layer Zero, Sunday, September 28 at 01:00 PM CDT</p><p>Round 2 of LZ/Cyberia configuration day and grilling</p><p></p>

https://calendar.layerze.ro/event/lz-config-day-v2-and-grilling

https://voidfox.com/blog/payment_processor_fun_2025_making_your_own_msp/

good writeup of the rock-and-hard-place that itch is stuck between

i've worked in ecommerce, it fucking sucks and nothing works right