My old phone finally became unusable after four and a half years—a record lifespan for me—and I had to replace it. Now I'm discovering all the programs that have disappeared from the Android ecosystem in that time and need to be replaced with something new. I'm really going to miss my podcast […]

I'm sad to write that Jon Lasser passed away on September 23, 2025 after six years living with cancer. I'm writing as his partner of 21 years, and wanted to make sure that I posted in the places he specified in his wishes. His colleagues are working on an anthology of his stories, and he still […]

https://www.clarionwest.org/2025/09/25/in-memory-of-jon-lasser/ Jon was, at least to my newcomer's eyes, a central person in the Baltimore Linux/sysadmin community in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I have many memories of him hosting Old Bay Sage meetings. I think he was involved in organizing […]

I got nerd sniped by an abandoned building I saw while I hiking. It turned out to be relevant to the local history of rail and power infrastructure, which are area of particular interest to me. So I found out everything I could in a couple of days about the building. Now you, too, can read […]

Today's long hike: 17 miles along the C&O Canal near Great Falls, including side trips to the falls overlook and the (pretty strenuous) Billy Goat Trail.

Big protests and marches don’t change things by themselves magically. But they do help show solidarity that may be able to eventually be tapped into if and when things escalate.

I've been meaning to compile this for a while. I've collected the various resources I use when deciding on a color scheme for a project or data visualization. Picking good colors is hard, y'all! https://aperiodic.net/pip/archives/Geekery/color-data-viz/

I definitely feel like I pushed myself to my limits today. I set out to hike all of the east side of Catoctin Mountain Park. I didn't finish. After about 17 miles, I was too worn out to try to do any more slope climbing. My tracking app estimates I had about […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

For my long hike yesterday, I hiked Calvert Cliffs State Park. All of it. Every foot of every trail, including several that weren't on any map I had. It took me 10 hours and 24 miles. That works out to an overall average pace of about 25 minutes per mile. I […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

Every March 31 is a Trans Day of Visibility. This year's TDoV marks a year since I came out publicly, but of course my transition isn't defined by a single day. By last year's TDoV, I'd been out at work for months, out to friends for months before that, had a year+ working with a therapist […]

The German government has issued a travel advisory for its trans citizens about travel to the US. Let me repeat that. Trans European citizens are being warned that travel to the US might not be advisable. What does that say about those of us already living here? […]

[Politics, USpol, hate, LGBTQ] Mother Jones: LGBTQ Federal Workers Brace for a McCarthyist Purge “They’re not asking people, ‘Are you gay? Are you lesbian?’ They’re asking, ‘Who is participating in DEI?'” […]

The one thing I wish everyone to understand about trans people is: Trans people just want to live the truth of their own identities. https://aperiodic.net/pip/archives/General/what-to-know-about-trans-people/ There's more—far more—of course, but I feel like that's really a core facet […]

Our power's back! BGE got it fixed a little after 9:00 this morning. The furnace has been running continuously since then and the temperature's now up to 60°F, from a low of about 40°F. All told, the power was out for roughly two days and 18 hours. Most of the fallen tree is still there, but […]

Documentation of the erasure of trans people and LGBTQ+ people more broadly across thousands of government pages. https://www.madycast.com/p/not-just-stonewall-analysis-shows They want to remove evidence of the existence of trans people, and they want to remove resources that help us keep […]

BGE briefly updated our estimated time to restoration of power to be 11:00 pm tonight; they said they expected to have taken care of 80% of their customers by that time. They they later revised their estimate for us back to Wednesday, so I guess we're in the other 20%.

Thefh wind knocked down a tree in the neighbor's hard that took out our power. BGE's been notified, but who know how long it'll be until power's back. We should be fine n the meantime.

How is anyone at NSA supposed to explain cryptography with two Bobs?

Been thinking about Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" lately.

Thinking that my employer’s ambiguous relationship with the Federal Government maybe puts us in the crosshairs. Wondering what else is out there. Python, Go (several years out of date on the latter), and umpteen flavors of shell. Longtime #linux and #unix hack. Cattle not pets, but you […]

If you're in the US and want to oppose the many things the federal government is trying to do, from erasing trans people to Elon Musk effecting a coup and so much else, here's a guide. https://open.substack.com/pub/epolitics/p/epolitics-a-quick-guide-to-personal

I was too tired to post at the time, but last Monday I took a use-it-or-lose-it vacation day and went hiking. I did the northern 9.7 miles of the NCR trail, plus a little ways into PA, for 20 miles out and back. I took 6 hours and 15 minutes, for an average […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

Really tired of waking up to "How is my existence and that of people like me being attacked today?" This morning: Probably not allowed to use the bathrooms in federal facilities without either risking legal consequences or outing myself and risking my physical safety. Passports being […]

I’ve been thinking about this anonymously produced RPG for practicing anti-authoritarian tactics since I ran into it last week. https://survivethetyrant.infy.uk/?i=1 It dovetails well with my general sense that acting extremely normal online and off is probably a strong move for most people […]

Today's hike. 😁 Eight miles, 2200 feet elevation gain in Shenandoah National Park. Not quite as rough as last weekend's 20 miles on flat ground, but I'm still tired. The ground was a mix of slippery rocks, packed ice, loose snow, and mud. The views were […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

I did a 20 mile hike today. It's a new distance record for me, but it also might have been a bit much. Everything hurts. I hiked on the NCR Trail, in about an inch of snow. The snow made it all even harder. I'm not doing another long hike in the snow if I can […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

"It's an older meme, sir, but it checks out..." #schrodingerscat #chekhovsgun #occamsrazor #murphyslaw #sciencehumor

I was going to do a 10 mile hike with a group today, but it was canceled because of the weather. So instead I did a 14 mile hike around BWI on my own.

Fun facts, illustrated: Pluto is about 1,500 miles across. Australia is about 2,500 miles across.

Slides of the #foss4g2024 talk "Shortbread - the new OpenStreetMap vector tile schema" are available online: https://pka.github.io/customizing-shortbread-vector-tiles/

Here's the simplest way for anyone on BlueSky to set up a Mastodon account: Follow @ap.brid.gy. That's it. That's all you have to do to make all your BSky posts visible on Mastodon. No instances. No futzing around with clunky UIs. Just follow @ap.brid.gy.

I recently finished a small organization project with my 3D printer. I took a jumbled pike of stuff in a drawer and organized it with Gridfinity bins. It's a small thing, but I'm happy with it. Longer write up at […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]