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Mike P

@FenTiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
6 followers 1 following 52 posts

Mid-40s techie living in #Ely, #Cambridgeshire, UK. Player of #Ingress, under the name "Wrongfellow" (and I've used this name elsewhere, too). #Dog and #cat lover […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ mastodon.social/@FenTiger, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/09/2026
An unexpected bonus of the AI revolution: Sometimes it is useful to give your idiot coworkers enough rope to hang themselves. Today, #GenAI is capable of producing huge quantities of rope, at a very high speed.
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Erlend Sogge Heggen @erlend.writing.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026
A great deal of work is being done by folks like @goto and @thisismissem to support a decentralized login experience in the browser that's on par with the closed-system status quo. notes.erlend.sh/3mpodece2qk2g The fediverse can be a part of this by adopting the OAuth+FedCM (and […]
writing.exchange
Original post on writing.exchange
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026
Translation: "Maybe you'd consider eating something that's not on the brink of extinction?"
A sign on a supermarket shelf reads: 

"Where's my mackerel gone? 

There's no easy way to say this: mackerel's been overfished and no longer meets our strict responsible sourcing standards. So we've swapped it for just-as-tasty alternatives."
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silverpill @silverpill.mitra.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026
We've introduced a new metadata field for FEPs: `tags` codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/pulls/885 Tags are free-form and should be specified as a YAML array: tags: ["groups", "permissions"] #fep
codeberg.org
Meta: Define `tags` metadata attribute
Discussion: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-tracker-tool/8806/3 Resolves https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/issues/520
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Mike P @fentiger.wtf · 14/09/2026
Self-hosting Mastodon be like...
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/09/2026
Today's job: Trying to explain to hardware engineers that it is possible for the customer to boot up the machine first and only plug in the cable afterwards. Shockingly, it is even possible for them to unplug the cable and then plug in a different one! Who'd have thought such #witchcraft could […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Sophie Schmieg @sophieschmieg.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 31/08/2026
Has anyone written a "things developers misunderstand about probabilities" guide?
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2026
Today's job: Try to understand some documentation that assumes I already know all the things it's trying to tell me. At least I'm getting paid to do this. #BangHeadHere
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026
Some interesting rumbles and flashes coming from the sky... Storm incoming! #feniverse
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/08/2026
Interesting to find that the National Disposable Barbecue Alert goes quiet if you take a screenshot of it. I think this idea could usefully be applied to social media, too.
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Licho @licho.kolektiva.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/08/2026
I've put 18°C PCM (sodium sulfate+table salt in water with thickening agent) package in a hat. It cools my brain now. Can I be overclocking with that kind of CPU cooling? #solarpunk #pcm #lifehack #chemistry #phasechange #phasechangematerial
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2026
Somehow I've managed to get a bit of stock cube in my coffee. I have no idea how, but I can tell from the taste. I think I actually quite like it.
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Tatjana Scheffler @tschfflr.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 17/07/2026
🧐 #AMA on #emojis for #WorldEmojiDay ❗ #linguistics
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silverpill @silverpill.mitra.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/07/2026
The NomadPub intro page now includes a "Research" section: codeberg.org/ap-next/ap-next/src/br… I listed the most important open research problems there: key management (alt-DIDs), alternative transports, E2EE and generic servers. #NomadicIdentity
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David Penfold :verified: @davep.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 11/07/2026
A fortune teller told me I'd suffer devastating heartbreak in 15 years' time so I got a puppy to cheer myself up.
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/07/2026
www.change.org/p/overturn-the-chat-… #ChatControl #EU #EuropeanUnion
change.org
Petition unterschreiben
Overturn the Chat Control 1​.​0 decision by the European Parliament
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/07/2026
www.change.org/p/overturn-the-chat-… #ChatControl #EU #EuropeanUnion
change.org
Petition unterschreiben
Overturn the Chat Control 1​.​0 decision by the European Parliament
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Johannes Ernst @j12t.j12t.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2026
RE: indieweb.social/@tchambers/11675522… I've long thought #chatbots are the perfect #disinformation delivery vehicle. Tim Chambers and Will Robinson have the proof that this is so, based on a recent election. This may not even be intentional at this point, but it's bad […]
j12t.social
Original post on j12t.social
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/06/2026
Oooh, this could be interesting. www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/769… #Cambridge #feniverse
computinghistory.org.uk
Synthesized - Saturday June 27th 2026 - Event Ticket - Computing History
Synthesized is a two day festival celebrating the computer and synthesiser and how the two technologies grew up together. Synthesized is a two day festival celebrating the computer and synthesiser ...
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/06/2026
Bloody thunderstorm just rebooted my dev server. Note to self: Must buy new battery for UPS. On the bright side: Woohoo! Thunderstorm!
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/06/2026
Oh no! RADICAL LEFT TERRORISTS have INFILTRATED my home town! ;) #Ely #feniverse
A sticker on a bus stop reads: "We will never look away. Gaza will live."
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/06/2026
It's Pride Month, so here's some WOKE ribbon cable. ;)
A reel of IDC (ribbon) cable. This isn't the normal boring grey kind - it's coloured according to the resistor colour code.
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Saskia @saskia.newsmast.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/05/2026
Ever thought about how we make this place sound cool to other people? Spoiler: It's not 'Fedi'-anything. forbetter.ghost.io/the-normal-respo… #SocialWeb #Blog #Fediverse #Mastodon #Tech
forbetter.ghost.io
The 'normal' response to the Social Web
How (mostly) 'normal' people respond to the ideas of the Social Web Marketing the Social Web is a headache. Only heightened by the clashing of heads as everyone offers an opinion. Picture those dinosaurs that have their skull on the outside. That's us. No wonder it's a headache. But even
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Adrian Sampson @adrian.discuss.systems.ap.brid.gy · 26/05/2026
This blog post is an extended metaphor that serves as an excuse to complain about Verilog. www.cs.cornell.edu/~asampson/blog/b…
cs.cornell.edu
Back to the Building Blocks’ Building Blocks
Verilog is the foundation of all hardware design, and it is fatally flawed. We should all be worried about a glut of hardware bugs caused by Verilog’s unpredictable semantics and simplistic type system.
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/05/2026
Right now I'm honestly feeling very grateful towards Domino's Pizza for setting a minimum delivery amount. If they hadn't done this, I wouldn't have a substantial stockpile of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and I'd be feeling a lot less comfortable right now. #heatwave
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Ky @ky.fyi · 14/05/2026
obsessed with this US department of agriculture zine about snail farming from 1986 openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/c...
Drawing of a snail on the soil. Drawing of a snail in the soil.The text “see what snails eat at night” above two people observing plants under a crescent moon.Each pen you build must also keep the snails safe from their enemies.
Snails have many enemies.
You must be careful to protect them from
• mice and rats
• shrews and moles
• walking insects that live on the ground such as ants and beetles
• slugs and other snails that eat snail meat
• birds that eat snails
• frogs and toads
• thieves
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/05/2026
Starting the long and arduous journey to #CambridgeBeerFestival. (Well, sort of arduous. Just a little bit.)
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Daveybot @daveybot.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 11/05/2026
Another big boat in Leith. For a sense of scale, observe the light house in the first few shots, and perhaps the people under the yellow hook on the deck, in the later shots. This is the Seaway Alfa Lift, and it’s picking up bits of wind turbine to be […] [Original post on mastodon.scot]
Looking along a shoreline towards the rear end of an enormous heavy-lifter ship featuring a gigantic crane. In the bottom right of the frame is a tiny silhouetted lighthouse in the foreground, dwarfed by the huge ship behind.People look across a stretch of water towards a ship in the distance. On the deck of the ship we can see a raised platform on which several people inspecting the bottom of a large house-shaped crane hook, dangling from an unseen crane high above. The hook is bright yellow, and painting on the side indicates it can lift 3,000 tons.One end of a huge crane ship dwarfs a small light house, in the foreground. The clouds are heavy with cloud but sun is shining on the light house and part of the ship. The enormous crane looms in the shade of a cloud, high above.Zooming in on part of the crane on an enormous floating heavy lifter vessel. It’s all cable and drums and trusses and girders, and it’s so big that a sense of scale is hard to grasp. Occasionally if you peer very close you’ll notice a flight of stairs, and there are some windows and doorways if you look closely enough. Vast.
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/05/2026
Translation: "We like you a bit, but not enough to give you a pay rise" ;)
An "AMD Spotlight Award" for Q1 2026, which consists of a silver hexagon which attaches magnetically to a black plastic base.
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/04/2026
fuckoffaimusic.com
fuckoffaimusic.com
fuckoffaimusic
fuck off ai music
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/04/2026
Another morning, another #AI #slop pull request to review. Sigh...
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✧✦Catherine✦✧ @whitequark.treehouse.systems.ap.brid.gy · 03/04/2026
come to think of it, i've never tasted ATP before. i wonder if i could taste ATP. i wonder what it tastes like i don't have the right taste receptors to do it _properly_ but i'd absolutely lick pure ATP powder
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Emelia 👸🏻 @thisismissem.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 09/03/2026
I'm super hyped to announce that Bluesky Socal PBC has given me a grant to work on the Federated Credential Management (or FedCM) standards to make them really work for all decentralized web applications. This is why I stepped up to be an Invited Expert with the W3C FedID Working Group earlier […]
hachyderm.io
Original post on hachyderm.io
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/03/2026
First meeting of the day. Title: "Review Software Test Plan". Actual topic of meeting: "Review this thing my LLM spat out, which looks a bit like a software test plan, but completely fails to include any details of how we actually do things, or even what the project is about." #AI #LLM […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/02/2026
Ooh, shiny!
A newly installed Fibre-to-the-Premises ONT, showing a red light because the guy who installs the fibre hasn't reached the other end yet.
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bryan newbold @bnewbold.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 25/02/2026
free software folks: what design/org patterns are there for publishing community software to mainstream app stores these days? eg, is there an umbrella org/institution that publishes free software apps to the app stores, on behalf of community projects? could be an org like ASF. I'm not […]
social.coop
Original post on social.coop
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/02/2026
Customer: "Hey, we found a bug in your stuff. Here's a .pcap which triggers it. Can you fix it?" Us: "Sure, we fixed it, and we added your .pap as a test case!" <repeat several times> <years elapse> Me: "This .pcap looks like a capture from a live network. Are we sure we're don't have […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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silverpill @silverpill.mitra.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/02/2026
In previous years, I published two "fediverse tech roadmap" posts: - Fediverse tech roadmap 2024 - Fediverse tech roadmap 2025 However, I didn't publish such post this year because not much has happened in 2025. Many problems I talked about require complex solutions, but unfortunately proposed […]
mitra.social
Original post on mitra.social
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mx alex tax1a - 2020 (6) @atax1a.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 09/02/2026
www.reuters.com/investigations/ai-e… > Most allegedly involved errors in which the TruDi Navigation System misinformed surgeons about the location of their instruments while they were using them inside […]
infosec.exchange
Original post on infosec.exchange
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/02/2026
March marks my 5 year #Fediversary, which I think I'll celebrate by moving this account away from mastodon.social. Anyone have any #instance recommendations? Key considerations: Big enough that it's not going to just disappear overnight, like my first instance did, but small enough that it's […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/02/2026
#WebDev question on session management: Some people put a session ID in the cookie and the session data in the DB. Downside: a compromised DB exposes all the session data. Some people put the encrypted session data in the cookie. Downside: this limits the size of the session data. What about […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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✧✦Catherine✦✧ @whitequark.treehouse.systems.ap.brid.gy · 01/02/2026
one thing that i really dislike about Unix is the zealous adherence to semi-accidental design elements that ends up interfering with the utility of the underlying useful principle for example: * early Unix could not run too complex a program due to hardware restrictions, so programs were […]
social.treehouse.systems
Original post on social.treehouse.systems
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Strypey @strypey.mastodon.nzoss.nz.ap.brid.gy · 30/01/2026
One simple change to copyright law that would make a huge difference is making exclusive licenses unenforceable. Here's an example. After decades of consolidation, an oligopoly of 3 corporations control licensing for the majority of the world's recorded music (Universal, Sony and Warner). If an […]
mastodon.nzoss.nz
Original post on mastodon.nzoss.nz
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Medieval Illumination @medieval-illuminations.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/01/2026
Useful creature. book of hours, Flanders c. 1300-1310. Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.37, fol. 187v. #medieval #MedievalArt
Useful creature. book of hours, Flanders c. 1300-1310. Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.37, fol. 187v.
#medieval #MedievalArt
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/01/2026
Starting to wonder why I ever chose to look into #OAuth in any detail. I don't think I've ever seen another protocol which attracts so many blowhards and reply guys. Tip: When an RFC starts with a section labelled "1. Introduction", it's a good idea to read that section, to get some idea of […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/01/2026
It looks like @aaisp changed something, and now I can update my DNS in seconds rather than hours. Nice one :)
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/01/2026
The #Whittlesey #StrawBear is a quaint yet somewhat #pagan custom in a small town near where I live, in which a man and a boy dress up in straw costumes and parade through the streets, accompanied by various #Morris and #Molly dancers, and a few thousand […] [Original post on mastodon.social]
Two people, dressed head to toe in straw, lead a procession along the road. A brightly adorned crowd follows them, carrying folk instruments and a banner.A closer view of the straw-costumed bear, dancing vigorously among the crowd.Onlookers gathered outside a traditional British pub, waiting for the bears and their retinue of followers to make an appearance.The banner carried at the front of the procession is titled "Whittlesey Straw Bear". It features a cartoon image of the dancing bear and reads "Cambridgeshire, England" at the bottom.
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Mike P @fentiger.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/01/2026
My first week for work for #2026 draws to a close ... and most of the discussion with my boss has been on the topic of "what do we do about this bloody #idiot #slopmonger we've ended up with on the team"? I hope the year takes a turn for the better, ideally very soon. #AISlop #AICoding #NoToAI […]
mastodon.social
Original post on mastodon.social
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