Rob Hardware

Liberal living in North West Wales, but originally from Birmingham. Dysgu Cymraeg. Metalhead.

2026-02-06

🤘 Today's #BandcampFriday #metal purchases from my wishlist are:
- Hellripper - Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags (Speed/Black/Heavy Metal from Aberdeen, Scotland)
- Cold Night for Alligators - With All That's Left (Alt Progressive Rock/Metal from Copenhagen, Denmark) 🤘

hellripper.bandcamp.com/album/
coldnightforalligators.bandcam

Album cover for Hellripper's 'Warlock Grim & Withered Hags'. Shows an illustration by Adam Burke of Nightjar Illustrations showing a faceless robed being riding on the back of a demonic-looking goat, with a full moon behind and to the left.Album cover for Cold Night for Alligators 'With All That's Left'. Picture taken from low down, showing a group of people with their hands raised in unison with trees above.
Rob Hardware boosted:
2026-02-06

another for my adultbel series

adultbel stuck in trafficadultbel working late at his job with plummeting customer satisfactionadultbel watching television with the curtains closed at 3.30 (is that AM or PM?)adultbel taking the wheelie bin to the only place the bin men will empty it which is farther away from his front door than is reasonable
Rob Hardware boosted:
Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩benroyce
2026-02-06

did anyone want to hear a speech castigating nativist cruelty against ?

of course such a speech exists: bigoted malice against is not new. the wicked have long yoked the ignorant and indecent for power

it refers to a real event: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_May

it is called "The Strangers' Case" speech

from the play "Sir Thomas More"

here delivered by from memory

(, , etc)

on "The Late Show With "

Rob Hardware boosted:
2026-02-05

It is hard to see more people saying that they are being harassed, or otherwise don't feel safe, in the fediverse.

I am *not* on the receiving end of abuse here, which makes it even harder to see others having such a rubbish experience.

Especially because of what I suspect to be the reasons for such a different experience.

Rob Hardware boosted:

Adtech companies flaunt cookie rules because the UK data regulator doesn't enforce them.

So why might the ICO weaken them further?

It'd make it even easier for advertisers to target people based on mental health, addictions or other vulnerabilities.

Read more ⬇️

openrightsgroup.org/blog/the-f

#adtech #dataprotection #gdpr #privacy #advertising #StopStalkerAds #ukpolitics #ukpol #ICO

Rob Hardware boosted:
2026-02-04

"Where do you think our name comes from, Greg?"

[drawn nudity]

Watercolour sketch of two great tits (little yellow and black birds) sitting on a branch. Each has a magnificent set of knockers.

One asks the one 'where do you think our name comes from, Greg?' to which Greg responds 'fucked if I know, mate'
Rob Hardware boosted:
James Smith 💾floppy@mastodon.me.uk
2026-01-31

Great news from @Mastodon at #FOSDEM: they're going to change the default server recommendation away from mastodon.social, to a geographically and linguistically appropriate instance for all new users.

It'll be opt-in for server admins, too, which is great. ❤️

Rob Hardware boosted:
Rob started reading Mistborn
Brandon Sanderson: Mistborn (EBook, 2010, Orion)
Rob Hardware boosted:

Review of "Enshittification" (4.5 stars): Insightful analysis and practical prescription to tackle enshittification

ramblingreaders.org/user/robha

Cory Doctorow: Enshittification (EBook, 2025, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Rob Hardware boosted:
2026-01-23

Are you interested in rewilding? Do you have some spare time to study?

Open University are offering a free introductory course to rewilding. As far as I can tell it's available worldwide too.

It's self-study so you can go at your own pace: open.edu/openlearncreate/cours

Boosts welcome.

#Rewilding #OpenUniversity #Environment

2026-01-23

@davidoclubb I'm definitely considering something like Pikapods or Yunohost for some of the things I want to 'just work' without having to worry about too much admin. Not sure I could ever bring myself to try to self-host an email or chat server!

2026-01-23

Finally got #Wallabag working through Docker! For some reason that was completely opaque to me, it was a complete ball-ache to get working with my proxy manager, but finally it works!

I've been using #Karakeep up until now as my article bookmark/read-it-later app, which works really well, but I really wanted to make use of the #KOReader Wallabag integration to read saved articles on my eBook reader.

Was it worth it? Almost certainly not.

Anyway, next on my list to figure out - FitTrackee.

Rob Hardware boosted:
Velocirooster adminensis :bc:theropologist@beige.party
2026-01-21

Such a relief to learn that all of my problems are in my head. The thing that I am trapped in and can never escape.

Rob Hardware boosted:
Veronica Explainsvkc@linuxmom.net
2026-01-21

Yes, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. Definitely a throwback to the "please don't print this email" days and makes a tiny statement about who I am as a person.

Plus it encourages everyday folks who want to resist so-called AI but don't know how to get started.

Thank you so much for the idea @mntmn !

An email signature for me (Veronica) with a "no AI" emoji at the bottom (a sparkle emoji with the prohibited emoji on top of it). Between my name and the emoji is the following text (in green):

Did you know? Using AI wastes a lot of energy and contributes to climate change. I'm happy to just receive your raw bullet points instead of a formal email if you're short on time. Let's save some energy!
2026-01-21

Very much a #Kreator music day today. Listened to Hate Über Alles, followed by their new album Krushers of the World, and now on Gods of Violence. Might need to go for something that isn't #Thrash after this just for some variety!

Rob Hardware boosted:
Gul DukatrealGulDukat
2026-01-21

No single person, Prefect, or Emissary has done more for Bajor than President Gul Dukat. If I didn’t come along, there would be no Bajor right now!!! It would have been in the ash heap of History. Sad, but TRUE!!!
President Gul Dukat

Rob Hardware boosted:
2026-01-19

honestly the best countermeasure the EU could take right now without any losses or monetary requirements, is to remove all the USA-mandated anti circumvention laws, and severely reduce the legal power USA companies have here, as @pluralistic suggested.

I wish there was a way to amplify that message towards EU leaders right now, because as he says, "it's much better than retaliatory tariffs; it's a targeted response"

youtube.com/watch?v=3C1Gnxhfok0

#eu #europe #tariffs #eupol #uspol

2026-01-14

@tamsin
Unsure if a rhetorical question or not... but having worked for an MP, I can say as long as it's a genuinely thought out and personalised, as many times as you wish, as long as you're not beating a dead horse if they've made their view clear. If it's a copy and paste job though, those emails just came across as lazy and meant less time being able to provide detailed responses to those personalised ones we received. The inbox was often completely swamped by template emails.

2026-01-12

@elena @404mediaco @Em0nM4stodon Absolutely agree. I imagine there are quite a few politicians who instinctively feel they should be off X being advised by their political parties comms teams that they are losing a huge advertising opportunity, especially during elections, if they leave, and that they would be at a disadvantage to their opponents. Until the stigma of using X outweighs the electoral cost, I'm just not sure how much change we'll see.

2026-01-10

May have gone a bit crazy by getting stickers made to cover up the logo on my jailbroken #kindle to instead advertise the awesomeness that is #koreader.

KOReader running on a jailbroken Kindle, showing the About page. There is a sticker on the bottom of the device covering the Kindle logo which instead says "Powered by KOReader".

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