I have had a few direct inquiries, and seen even more, asking about the origins of the CaneAndAble.social Mastodon instance, which for some seems to have sprung up from nowhere. So, I’ll answer the question in this post, which I’ll pin to my profile so people can refer to it in future.

For some time, I had been considering setting up a Mastodon instance of my own, not due to any dissatisfaction with the one I was using, but because I wanted my posts in the Fediverse to come from a domain that said something about me. I almost hit the button on setting up a subdomain of Mosen.org, but it just seemed like a boring way out. It felt right to keep searching for a domain name that didn’t just reflect who I am, but also what I stand for.

At the end of my now discontinued podcast, Living Blindfully, I had gotten into the habit of saying, “when you’re out there with your guide dog, you’ve harnessed success, and with your cane, you’re able”. I suddenly realised I had the instance name right there, CaneAndAble.social. It is a pun. For those unaware, there is a story in the Bible, Genesis to be precise, chapter 4 to be preciser, OK that’s not an actual word, of two brothers, Cain and Abel. But changing the spelling to Cane, as in the white cane blind people use for travel, and Able, as in ability, reflects my own values, and I think the values of many blind people, even those who don’t go all in on the “blind pride” thing like I do.

So often, we are limited not by our blindness, but by other people’s perceptions of it. This manifests itself when we’re passed over for a job, because an employer closes their eyes and can’t imagine how they would do the job if they couldn’t see, and concludes that we can’t do it either. Limited perceptions result in us struggling to get the accommodations we need to succeed in education, to function optimally with technology, and so many other pursuits. CaneAndAble.social is a slightly tongue-in-cheek way of making an important statement. Our blindness doesn’t mean we’re not capable of living the life we want.

Like some of my other projects, this has all been accidental. I set this instance up for me to use, and sign-ups were closed. Soon after, I started hearing from people who wanted an account. I didn’t want to get into that. I had just started my dream job and it was super busy, and I knew I didn’t have the time to do the kind of community monitoring a responsible instance owner needed to do.

But some things are meant to be. I have huge admiration and respect for the work @lynessence has done in the community building space, and for the way she conducts herself on social media in general. I read on Mastodon that she was looking for something new to do, so I asked if being the Community Manager for a new blindness-focussed Mastodon instance took her fancy. Not only did she say “yes”, she jumped at the chance. Lynette devised the rules, and we just quietly opened it up for registration.

For me at least, I’m not especially marketing this instance, or hoping for world domination. It’s here if you want to be on it. If you don’t, then groovy, we can all communicate with one another, that is the beauty of the Fediverse.

But what is great is that since I mentioned it on Living Blindfully, we are seeing a few sign-ups from people who weren’t on the Fediverse before, because the name appealed to them. I’m delighted by that.

I have tried to create something that I am happy using, and here are some key characteristics.
First, while there are other instances where blind people hang out, CaneAndAble.social is a domain that is up-front about our blindness, much like there are other communities on Mastodon that directly identify with many other minorities. It clearly speaks to the kind of people we serve. That was important to me.

Second, I have always been of the view that Twitter substantially poisoned the public discourse through its 140 character tweets. 280 characters didn’t improve things that much. It caused people to talk in sound bites. People were rewarded for pithy little messages that put people down or were otherwise snarky. It didn’t easily allow us to discuss the nuances of more complex issue, so it tended to cause people to demonise one another. I love good debate. That’s why we have a 10,000 character limit for posts on CaneAndAble.social. Most of the time, you won’t come close to filling that limit, but it’s there if you need it. We may even increase it some more.

Third, I wanted an instance that is reliable. It isn’t self-hosted, which is a perfectly valid option, but again, I didn’t want this to take up too much time. So we’re with a dedicated mastodon hosting provider with reliable systems and bandwidth. You can tell, this is the fastest instance I have ever used.

Fourth, I am not part of the school of thought that wants to block people from accessing Threads. For me, being able to follow interesting journalists, political figures and others on Threads has made mastodon something I come back to more frequently. We’ll investigate other bridges as well that connect us with a wide range of people.

So, that’s how and why we got here. The little community we’ve created is cool. Like I say, we’re not pitching for sign-ups. But since people were asking about the backstory, now you have it. Happy tooting, from wherever you toot.

And BTW, this post only took up just over half of our character limit. Nice, eh?

Štve mě to politikum, které maximálně ovládlo diskusi a vývoj ohledně digitalizace státu.

Společně s kolegy z oboru jsme dali dohromady náš odborný postoj k budoucímu směřování digitalizace služeb veřejné správy.

Míň nás zajímá, kdo za co může, ale víc to, na co je teď potřeba se soustředit, abychom pokračovali v započatém trendu a zachování stabilní a kontinuální priority digitalizace na nejvyšší politické úrovni.

Podepište nebo sdílejte, prosím.

portal.gov.cz/e-petice/882-vyz…

#digitalizace #dsr

No he visto opiniones en el fedi, así que pregunto: ¿que os parece la idea de Rueda (presidente de la Xunta de Galicia) de crear una empresa pública comercializadora de energía?

xunta.gal/es/notas-de-prensa/-…

Buenos días desde la Administración Pública.

En fin, en el trabajo haciendo cosas pero sigo algo chungo.

SEEKING A NEW VOCABULARY TERM

So you know how you ask for an email (not an SMTP, yahoo, google, aol, or etc)? You can also ask for a call or text (not a telephony, SIP, T-mobile, ATT, Voynage, or etc). So XMPP works the same way, but we don't have a word for it.

I need a word that means contact me over #XMPP, without using XMPP; which is a protocol, or Jabber, which has been intrusively trademarked. Put your thinking hats on. What word would work? It might need to be a new one.

Vice President Harris will appear on the show, "60 Minutes," the highest-rated news program on TV, airing Oct. 7.

And although the invitation to Trump stands

Trump has turned down the offer of back-to-back conversations with both presidential nominees,
-- his campaign says he didn't want interruptions for fact checks.

axios.com/2024/10/01/trump-har…

Tim Walz made sure the kids in his state got free lunches at school.

JD Vance made sure the kids in his state received death threats and had to be evacuated from school because of lies he told so he could pander to racist MAGAs.

#MozillaThunderbird je konečně v Obchodě Play ✉️ 📱

🔗 infoek.cz/mozilla-thunderbird-…

@thunderbird

Extremism always brings violence. No matter what you're pushing - ends don't justify the means. It's natural for humans to want to enact "righteous" violence. We want to be part of a group and feel like we're making the world a better place. The feeling is so enticing, we're letting ourselves slip into it. We want to be "right" about something and it feels amazing to be on the "right side" of a conflict. It's empowering, it tickles our ego, makes us feel supreme.

It's a trap of hubris. Don't.

Live from New York. It's Tuesday night.

Don't try to adjust your television. It's all normal.

Not the onion.

The Pentagon and NORAD Respond to Danielle Smith: Nope, We’re Not Spraying Chemicals Over Alberta

pressprogress.ca/the-pentagon-…

(Danielle Smith is the Premier of Alberta for those not following)

I feel I have lost sanity just reading this.

Something no one talks about enough:

CPU cycles aren't free.
Memory reads and writes aren't free.

That shit takes power. A miniscule amount per instance, yes, but it adds up quick if it's from an app that everyone uses constantly. All that power comes from somewhere, and right now that's mostly fossil fuels.

When people complain about software bloat, it's not just a UX problem, it's an environmental one too.

I have had a lot of people ask about the test to becoming a ham radio operator, one resource is hamstudy.org/

The test is a multiple choice test, with the answers already published, plus a few simple math formulas. I have heard of people studying for a week or two and cramming the question/learning the formulas and getting their license immediately. I personally recommend getting the license FIRST before worrying about operating the radio/etc., as it's a lot easier to have a license and have someone guide you through the actual operation after you can transmit on the air.