This is the most exciting week on the Fediverse since the beginning of November 2022.

To be honest, not much happened in 2024. Sure, there were a few interesting developments, but compared to 2022 and 2023, last year was quiet. In fact, I didn’t spend much time talking about the Fediverse at all. Most of 2024, I focused on markets, video games, and music. Occasionally, I shared some news, but it wasn’t my main focus.

But today? Wow. A lot of major developments happened in a short span of time.

Eugen Rochko Resigning

The most shocking news: @Gargron is stepping down as CEO of Mastodon and transferring all trademarks and copyrights to the Mastodon nonprofit. That’s huge.

Pixelfed & Meta Drama

There’s been a rush to Pixelfed due to recent moderation changes at Meta. Meta got caught removing links to PixelFed on Instagram, sparking an uproar. This backlash even caused PixelFed to trend on BlueSky.

Meta tried to walk back their actions, claiming it was a “mistake.” Let’s be real: they only backpedaled because people noticed. If Meta throttles PixelFed links while boasting about Threads joining the Fediverse, they undermine trust. They know this, so they reinstated the links.

Elon Musk & TikTok Rumors

Another major story: Reports suggest Elon Musk might buy TikTok. If the U.S. government bans TikTok, ByteDance will have to either shut down U.S. operations or sell. Increasingly, Musk looks like the buyer. Of course, nothing is certain until the deal is signed, but if it happens, expect a mass exodus from TikTok.

Loops.Video is Coming

The final bombshell: @dansup, the mind behind PixelFed, announced the website for loops.video will go live this week.

I started using Loops today through TestFlight, and I’m blown away. It’s smooth, intuitive, and genuinely fun to use. Many were skeptical that a TikTok-like experience could work on an ActivityPub-enabled service, but I’m telling you: loops.video is amazing.

Here’s how I know it’s not just me: I gave it the “kid test.” I handed my phone to my 11-year-old daughter and said, “Have fun.” She was riveted. If an 11-year-old gets this excited about Loops, this platform has serious potential.

The Future of Video on the Fediverse

I’ve said this for a long time: video is critical for the Fediverse to succeed. Text-based platforms work for older generations, but kids live in the world of video. If we want the Fediverse to thrive with future generations, video has to be a major component.

PeerTube is great and has its fans, but it doesn’t hit the same way loops.video does. This is a different experience entirely.

A Huge Day for the Fediverse

Today, I’ve posted more about the Fediverse than I have in months. Between Mastodon’s leadership change, the PixelFed drama, the TikTok-Musk rumors, and the launch of loops.video, it’s been an incredible day.

And I believe the best is yet to come.

Loops by Pixelfed

Loops, explore and share short videos on the fediverse. Available soon!

^loops.video

#Dino #StreetArt #Bratislava:

Slobodná a žiadna iná

Interesantísimo y con muy poquitas fórmulas: el modelo matemático que da una cota superior del rendimiento de una hélice y por qué los eVTOL llevan implícita una penalización de rendimiento… aparte de la de las baterías.

#qt @sandglasspatrol
tkz.one/@sandglasspatrol/11382…

Secure Transport support in #curl is on its way out

daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/01/14…

Secure Transport support in curl is on its way out

In May 2024 we finally decided that maybe the time has come for curl to drop support of older TLS libraries. Libraries that because they don't support the modern TLS version (1.3) for many users are maybe not suitable to build upon for the future.

^{daniel.haxx.se}

P.E.I. homeowner captures sound and video of meteorite strike on camera, and scientists believe it's a first

cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edwa…

115-year-old Vancouver building at risk of 'catastrophic' collapse

cbc.ca/news/canada/british-col…

tl;dr developers bought and let it degrade so they can build condos.

If only there was a legal requirement to maintain buildings under the penalty of at least expropriation...

We are back for day 2 of #SPEVI2025. This morning we started with an inspiring keynote presentation by Mr Michael Sheppard, a solicitor who shared his experience growing up blind. The conference is on today and tomorrow at 293 Queen Street Brisbane, Australia

Pictured is NV Access founder Michael Curran chatting with Michael Sheppard after the presentation about how he uses NVDA.

#spevi #SpeciConference2025 #keynote #Conference #Brisbane #NVDA #NVDAsr #Accessibility #A11y

Welcome to the RB family, NoWakeLock 🥳

apt.izzysoft.de/packages/com.j…

NoWakeLock allows you to get control over Wakelocks, Services and Alarms. It requires the Xposed framework on the device.

As an app with elevated privileges (root) it's especially good we can now certify it was really built from the source it claims

Note the app had a transfer of ownership and uses a new signing key, so this update requires you to uninstall/reinstall the app.

#reproducibleBuilds #IzzyOnDroid

„NoWakeLock“ – IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository

control Android wakelocks with open source

^{IzzyOnDroid App Repo}

Nice debugging story: Why is my CPU usage always 100%? (Upgrading my Chumby 8 kernel part 9)
downtowndougbrown.com/2024/04/…

It reminds me of when I was an embedded developer. I also did one of my studies projects with the Chumby, so that was fun.

#LinuxKernel #Chumby #Debugging #EmbeddedSystems

Zvukový popis na #ČT má různé formy. Na jedné straně je pořad Branky, Body, Vteřiny, jehož celý popis je odbyt přečtením názvu pořadu během znělky.

Opačným extrémem je něco, co by se dalo parafrázovat jako: „Stěrače stírají, ostřikovače stříkají, klakson troubí!“

Chudáci všichni vidící diváci, co se nikdy nedozví, jak se tahle písnička jmenuje a kdo ji zpívá.

#Limity #AudioDescription

Mark Zuckerberg, free speech warrior, has *so much form* for suppressing the free speech of his employees. Here's some free speech from 2020...

gizmodo.com/free-speech-champi…

Free Speech Champion Mark Zuckerberg Announces Plan to Censor His Employees

Facebook employees have recently been wondering if perhaps Facebook—which lets politicians lie in ads, festers with extremist movements like QAnon, and by

^{Tom McKay (Gizmodo)}

On a whim when Christmas shopping I bought a tea towel with lovely illustrations depicting the full moons of 2025. Though now I have my ‘fancy tea towel dilemma’ of whether to use, display or keep safe in a drawer. Of course I totally forgot about it until realising that tonight was the first full moon of the year.

It’s too cloudy here to see the Stay Home moon, aka Wolf Moon or Moon after Yule, so enjoy this photo of the tea towel instead!

#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today brings you 17 updated (with 11 RB) and 1 added apps:

* Stay Put - Unplug Alert: prevent casual theft of your device while charging in public spaces 🛡️

Told you we'll fix the 404, right? OK, RB status now: 405 apps (32.6%) 🥳

At apt.izzysoft.de/magisk 1 #Magisk module was updated.

Enjoy your #free #Android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repo

IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository

This is a repository of apps to be used with your F-Droid client. Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github, GitLab, Codeberg).

^{IzzyOnDroid App Repo}

Eep, just 2 days to raise $34k to meet our match challenge - we've been working so hard this year with great results.... did you see our recent news about the AVM enforcement action? Check out the OpenWrt One? Hear about the DMCA exemptions we secured? Heard the success stories of our @outreachy alums? Played with a source candidate on Use the Source? Not only is that just some of our recent work but there's more news coming soon!

*please* donate and spread the word:

sfconservancy.org/sustainer/

Support Conservancy!

Software freedom is critical to many of today’s most pressing social issues, but it’s only effective when FOSS is for everyone. Support Conservancy today to help make that happen!

^{Software Freedom Conservancy}

#ČT24 má na webu "Evropský pohled," kde publikuje české překlady zahraničních médií začleněných v EBU.

Bohužel se zdá, že ty překlady nikdo nekoriguje, takže třeba v tomhle článku (který se dost záhadně načítá pomocí JS window.location.replace()🤔) je vlastní jméno Christian přeložené jako 'křesťanství.' 🙄

ct.social.ebu.io/K28UCH8QI1

Nejznámější švýcarská transsexuálka už nechce být ženou

Když se Chris Brönimann těsně před přelomem tisíciletí stal Nadiou, celé Švýcarsko to fascinovaně sledovalo. Nyní se nejznámější transsexuál v zemi veřejně potýká s lítostí nad touto volbou. Není to příběh o vykoupení, ale o prosbě po probuzení.

^{Pilot News}

Die Welt ist voller Messenger und gefühlt nutzen die allermeisten #WhatsApp, #Telegram oder #Signal.

Alle haben ihre individuellen Vor- und Nachteile und wer sich dann noch die die üblichen Sicherheitsseiten anschaut, z.B. @kuketzblog , wird schnell feststellen: Es gibt nicht DEN einen Messenger, den alle gut finden.

Warum ich unter den verfügbaren Alternativen neben @signalapp @matrix nutze, habe ich hier zusammengefasst:

bsdbox.de/matrix

I woke up this morning to a slew of text messages pointing me towards an article on Vulture about Neil Gaiman. Most of the messages were people saying they were sorry they didn’t believe me in the early 90s when I first started warning people that he was a “missing stair”, a fake feminist, and a dangerous man in a closed room. I’m so fucking tired of being Cassandra. I warned you people. Over and over. Nobody fucking believed me. It was a large part of why I walked away from a career in that industry.

Trigger warning: this article is brutal. I wish I had not read it unprepared. This is very much a strap on your protective armor and maybe plan on quiet time, read. It is nightmare fuel. It probably still won’t be enough for him to see any real consequences.

(Archive link to avoid paywall, I support Vulture, but this story needs to be widely disseminated.)

#neilgaiman #abuse #rape #missingstair

archive.today/tvfHX

"It’s not really enjoyable to make music now… it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you have to get really good at an instrument... I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of time they spend making music."

404media.co/ceo-of-ai-music-co…

CEO of AI Music Company Says People Don’t Like Making Music

"I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music.”

^{Emanuel Maiberg (404 Media)}

I thought i should re-share a picture of the Red Tin since I moved servers. This is my dj ing system built into a red metal toolbox.
It has an intel NUC dual booting Windows and Ubuntu at its core and midi controller powered by an Arduino. Here it is running Mixxx. It also runs Traktor

#mixxx #arduino #NUC #DJ #Traktor​ #RedTin

Quebec spends money on this instead of healthcare:

montrealgazette.com/news/artic…