8 billion followers, huh? Seems legit, lol. Who TF is Todd?

I'm pleased to say that my Mastodon server is unaffected by the CloudFlare outage, and continues doing its business as usual. I do, however, also have to say that this is entirely irrelevant for anyone reading this, as I'm the only person on this server 😁

Just saw another one of those posts expressing that they wouldn't want to read blog posts, if they contain AI generated images for illustrations. I'm gonna be a controversial here, and strongly disagree. Look, not everyone here is an artist. We cannot all make our own illustrations by hand […]

I've just added a new post to my blog: “Configuring a Custom Block Page for Pi-hole” Yes, the HTTPS warning doesn't make for a great experience, but it’ll work for some domains, and, as they say in this country: Every Little Helps… […]

Here’s something surprisingly fun to do: I dyed my wife’s hair today. Not something I thought I’d ever do, but she talked me into it, and it was actually fun. Kids were busy so it was some alone time without devices just chatting about whilst I was doing. And apparently I “didn’t do a bad job” […]

mastodon should fix the bug where typos are invisible in the editing box but obvious on the timeline

TIL I’m a whole 10 years older than #mysql

I so hate these attendance targets! My kid had surgery earlier this year and needed to stay off school for two weeks because of that. The amount of hoops we had to jump through to have the school accept this as 'authorised absence' was insane! And this is a primary age pupil. Before that due […]

RE: https://mstdn.thms.uk/@michael/115516132854472913 Kind of makes me wonder: is that still a thing in Germany? Are schools still largely open? Or are they all gated now?

Anyone here happen to know anything about #vodafone #fttp? I recently upgraded to their 1Gbps package but only got about 600 mbps on WiFi, and only just under 100 mbps on the Ethernet. I’m using their power hub. Is this a limitation of their router? Any chance I can get the wired connection […]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8x19k50dlpo I hate this online system like the plague. At least the way my practice has implemented it: They make you fill in some asinine form for everything. Where you have to tell them every time, regardless of whether you are booking a routine asthma […]

@Gargron https://9to5mac.com/2025/11/05/ios-26-1-makes-alarms-use-a-slider-heres-how-to-get-stop-button-back/

I just wanted to give a huge shoutout to the @MastodonEngineering team: you guys really do write the best release notes. Full of detail, including very reliable upgrade instructions. You even include upgrade instructions for upgrading from beta or RCs! And updates have so far always been […]

Ah that feeling when the troll calls you a troll and blocks you. Saved me the effort I guess 🤷‍♂️

thanks to @paige for the very flattering and in depth video largely about the #fedialgo project! https://video.fedihost.co/w/a1522517-704e-44a3-aa0e-5c4e7d49e7d1 #activitypub #algorithm #algorithmicfeed #algorithmictimeline #fedi #feditips #feditools #Fediverse #feed #foss #gotosocial #hashtag […]

“Blithering Idiots” seems like a very kind and polite way of putting it… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLGwBWxDCsg

RE: https://mstdn.thms.uk/@michael/115490727655152193 Gettign back to this: The interesting fact is that both Safari, Chrome and Firefox handle this in the same way: Copy and paste the URL into the address bar, and it works. Copy the URL from the address bar and paste it into a doc and you get […]

That’s rather unedifying

Oh the joys of parenting: Having spent the last 6 months trying to teach the dog that, no, he cannot lick the baby, we now have to start teaching the baby that, no, she cannot lick the dog either 😂

If you write "We work with Chrome, Edge and Safari. Sorry, we don't support the browser you're using. For the best experience, we recommend using Chrome." Then all I am reading is "I don't know how to make websites or applications".

Looking at my employer: yes, a lot. But SEO has changed. It’s much more about content than it used to be.

I know I’m at risk of sounding like the old man I am now, but I hate trick or treating. When I was a kid growing up in Germany we had Glowesabend. We’d dress up as something nice (princes, lion, whatever). We’d then learn a short rhyme, and that’s how we’d scour the neighbourhood: visually a […]

Who on earth signed off on this graph and its axis? 🙈

The first release candidate for Mastodon 4.5 is ready for testing! We expect to release the final version early next week, but please test it out and provide feedback! Full release notes and update instructions are available on our GitHub release page […]

Time for a reality check: My son (12) is currently using an old MacBook. Its software support (security fixes) apparently ends in a month time. My son is adamant that that means continued use of the laptop is too dangerous. Whilst he is saving up for a new laptop, he reckons he won’t have the […]

One thing that really annoys me with iOS 26 is the zoom level on Apple Maps: when following driving directions (on CarPlay) using Apple Maps the zoom level is now so close that the map only ever shows a few meters ahead of you. Very rarely can you actually see the next turn in advance. Has […]

One of @kagihq ‘s absolutely beat products is their translation service. The quality is amazing, they allow you to pick multiple variations (which is particularly helpful if you actually speak the language you are translating to, to some extent), and they sound really quite natural, especially […]

https://www.dezeen.com/2025/10/21/aldi-jacket-potato-jacket/ Please tell me it isn’t 1 April already?!

Meanwhile, der Hersteller vom Möbelaufzug, der neulich am Louvre stand.

LOL. Thames water pouring tons and tons of raw sewage into rivers and sea: that’s OK. A lady pouring some coffee down a drain: a criminal offence. What a ridiculous country this is sometimes… https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg435gg66gpo

With all due respect to my British friends, but as someone who grew up up without Cadbury’s & co, I’ve got to say: I’m not sure English ‘chocolate’ should ever have been described as chocolate… https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86737yg3jlo

OK, now if the Louvre heist had involved exploiting a flaw in a burglar alarm that depends on AWS, I could get behind that. But they were a day early.

I'm a bit disappointed that the jewel heist at the Louvre just involved a truck and some mopeds. It should require at least a helicopter, secret tunnels, and lasers.

Following Rishi Sunak and Nick Cleggs' move to advising tech companies, let's all wish Liz Truss well on her first day at Amazon Web Services.

> Aviation enthusiasts have speculated that the cause could have been space debris or a small meteorite, based on the scorch patterns and impact marks That seems unusual 🤔 https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2025/10/18/united-airlines-737-max-pilot-injured-as-windshield-cracks/

I just sold my car. It’s the first car I ever owned, and I’ve had it for 13 whole years (well, actually for 12 years and 361 days). I never thought I’d get sentimental about it, but it does feel kinda strange...

RE: https://mastodon.social/@MastodonEngineering/115378848435180844 The update to the 4.5.0 beta went very smoothly for me. Had to test the quote feature, of course 😆 #mastoadmin

Something's happening 🤔

With #ivory sadly stagnating I’m looking for a new #mastodon app. Can I get some recommendations? Here is my wish list: * saves and maintains scroll position, and syncs it across MacOS/iOS. This is probably my most important non-negotiable feature. * renders HTML in posts * looks […]

Today is a day of shame for me. Had to write an email in German. I failed. I ended up using AI to translate my English 😩

Working with the Facebook Graph API has to be the single most frustrating experience of all my ~ 30 years of software development. Such spectacularly poorly designed API, that is so poorly documented that you rely on trial and error more than anything. And due to the need for trial and error […]

I need some help: I've got php8.3 on a server installed via ppa:ondrej/php I need to install a pecl extension (specifically excimer) and that requires the php-dev extension. But it doesn’t seem to be available to me. Why would that be? (Yes, I did run `apt update`) #php

I need some help: I've got php8.3 on a server installed via ppa:ondrej/php I need to install a pecl extension (specifically excimer) and that requires the php-dev extension. But it doesn’t seem to be available to me. Why would that be? (Yes, I did run `apt update`) #php

I've been playing around with #kagi's news app for couple of days now. Here are my observations: Here is what I like: It looks really pretty. The layout and design and very pleasant. I also really like the way the summaries are done with a brief summary, followed by some relevant bullet […]

Been battling with the German Tax Office for about a month now. Many calls back and forth. But one thing that really stood out to me: Never once have I been asked to 'verify my Identity' when calling them, or when they called me. Here, when calling or being called by bank, tax office, or […]

As I’m battling a nasty tooth infection I realised: we’ve had antibiotics for less than 100 years. We take them for granted, but I do honestly thank God for them!

Can someone explain to me why a website would need almost 2 GB of memory?!

I have long been sceptical of the notion of Britain as a Christian country, but I think Tim Farron put it really well in a recent inteview: > “I'm always quite wary about referring to anything as a Christian nation. Nations aren't saved. Individuals are. I don't think we are ever encouraged in […]

Looks like Starmer is really determined to lose the next GE… (To be clear: I'm very much in favour of national ID, but sadly the vast majority of Brits aren't ...) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g54g6vgpdo

🆕 blog! “Targetting specific characters with CSS rules” You can't. There is no way to use CSS to apply a style to every letter "E". It simply can't be done. At least, that's what they want you to think… What if I told you there was a secret and forbidden way to target specific characters in […]