Japan now has their first female PM, who will sway the country further to the right.

Do you know why women who get the most politically powerful roles often come from the right?

Because they're not accepted by default in a patriarchal political structure, and thus have to be more cutthroat and demonstrate a willingness to put forward the most harmful ideas and enact the cruelest political moves. Right wing men love to see women willing to put their face on things so they can claim some degree of progressiveness and deflect criticisms of sexism while still upholding patriarchal values.

It is not "progress" just because a woman is in the driver's seat.

Very excited to announce that @dinum is now a silver member of the Matrix Fdn to support the project backing Tchap, the secure msging app for the French gov. 🚀

Hoping this will encourage others as we start a Matrix for Public Sector working group at the Matrix Conf. 🚦

Check out the blog: matrix.org/blog/2025/10/dinum/

Matrix for Public Sector: DINUM joins the Foundation as we launch a new forum!

Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications

^{Amandine Le Pape (matrix.org)}

It feels like the major tech companies have followed a Journey of discovering The Hardest Way Possible why quality assurance is so important, gradually ramped up quality assurance, dramatically improved the quality of their software, until the senior engineers who pushed for this retire, and then a guy who thinks he knows everything because he's read both "What They Teach You At Harvard Business School" and "What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School" says to himself "why are we paying for all this quality assurance? the quality is clearly fine, we don't need it!"

theregister.com/2025/10/16/win…

Windows 11 update breaks localhost, prompting mass uninstall workaround

Updated: Microsoft's quality control department caught napping again

^{Owen Hughes (The Register)}

complete the sentence:

semantic versioning is so passé, today I'm all about ".......ic versioning, which is when ...."

I was at a Schnauzer dog group meetup over the weekend and it was a little surprising to meet Giant Schnauzer owners who had no idea what toe cancer is.

And then before we left, I'm pretty sure I spotted toe cancer on another owner's dog. I urged them to get it checked immediately because if you don't amputate it's a death sentence as it will metastasize.

There's not a whole lot you can do about it, it's a type of skin cancer that seems prevalent in black coated dogs that have a blue-ish tint to their skin. The silver and black or pepper-and-salt Giants don't have it.

A funny case study of the 21st century “software engineering” at its best.

As result of #AWS failure, a number of commercial products stopped working that relied on AWS hosted services. Such as the Eight Sleep Pod beds.

Yes, physical beds for sleeping relied on AWS to work. And it was not some kind of extremely sophisticated “AI” processing, but simple schedule “make warmer”, “make colder”, “raise/lower” etc. All that was controlled through AWS.

When AWS stopped working users started complaining that their beds got stuck in weird positions and users were unable to control them. So yes, a bed say in Netherlands stopped working because it could not retrieve instructions from US server which were sent there by the person physically present on said bed.

And the bonus: each bed sent 20 GB of telemetry data to AWS each month.

Source: x.com/zimm3rmann/status/198049… (on Twitter, sorry)

Not taking Venture Capital money means:

- No pressure to maximize monetization of usage (for every million of VC funding you need to find ~100+ Million in value later).

- No prioritization of growing fast with PR campaigns that promise the moon and stumble on the ground

- No billionaire who ultimately profits

Instead, we seek public funding and private contributions for #chatmail #deltachat and #webxdc developments.

Thanks to everyone who is helping and already test-driving things :)

cleaning up some old files and found a Csmith poster from 2011

cc @eeide

El PP monta escándalo por los contratos de Huawei con el Estado.

🤝 Mientras, donde el PP gobierna, contratan y ensalzan a Huawei constantemente.

Su demagogia esconde servilismo a Trump...para que España contrate productos de peor calidad y más caros de empresas de EEUU.

I've got weirdly specific news for you if you're reading this and:

- work in cybersecurity
- really like birds
- need a job

RSPB is hiring a cybersecurity head , remote UK £70-84k app.vacancy-filler.co.uk/sales…

#FediHired

Head of Cyber Security | RSPB

We are seeking a proven cyber security leader to take full ownership of the RSPB’s cyber security strategy and operations.

^{app.vacancy-filler.co.uk}

Say whatever you want about YouTube, but the repair videos that people make... 💯

(just fixed my chair's armrest in 5 minutes)

Good morning! I am looking for contract work. If you have 10-15 hours a week of work on a well defined technical project (‘we need to move 6 websites by this date’, ‘we need to hire a team to do an infra migration’, ‘we need to complete an accessibility audit and figure out next steps’, ‘we need to improve our docs / our onboarding process’), let me know.

I am a technical product manager who likes to be the ‘glue’ in sticky technical situations and figure out how to come out of it with useful and usable software. I’m based in San Francisco but I also have years of experience working in Asia and Europe, and can navigate time zones / remote teams / cultures / communication styles. I have experience in working in open source.

Send me an email: adrianna@futureethics.ai

If you also need help getting to ‘well defined technical project’, I can also help!

#GetFediHired #Califorrnia #Asia #europe

I'm a bit late to this, but as always, @pluralistic is a crucial and clear voice on the issues we face today.

These anti-jailbreaking laws were designed as a tool of economic extraction, a way to protect American tech companies' sky-high fees and rampant privacy invasions by making it illegal, everywhere, for anyone to alter how these devices work without the manufacturer's permission.

pluralistic.net/2025/10/20/pos…

"Introduction to Web Accessibility" is a free course designed for people of all roles and all experience levels, so regardless of your background, there's something you can learn here.

edx.org/course/web-accessibili…

W3Cx: Introduction to Web Accessibility | edX

Get a strong foundation in digital accessibility to make your websites and apps work well for people with disabilities, meet international standards, and provide a better user experience for everyone.

^edX

"Today, another mad dictator is threatening the world's infrastructure. For the rest of the world to escape dictators' demands, they will have to accelerate their independence from American tech – not just Russian gas."

As you might have come to expect and astute as ever, @pluralistic laying down the facts on American tech subservience.

pluralistic.net/2025/10/20/pos…

#tech #technology #FOSS #policy

Sensitive content Reveal/hide

👁

Amazon wants me to verify my identity as a developer for the Amazon appstore, all because of a failed attempt at launching an Amazon Alexa skill a few years ago that I wouldn't personally use myself, because I have no Alexa devices.

"Verification should only take a few minutes. Please have your government-issued ID readily available."

The correct answer is nope.

Thunderbird 144 is out now! Exchange support is closer to officially landing, dragging and dropping your folders is easier, and we're adding new ways to keep your email safe!

#Thunderbird #OpenSource #Email

blog.thunderbird.net/2025/10/t…

Thunderbird Monthly Release 144 Recap - The Thunderbird Blog

In Thunderbird 144, we're preparing Account Hub for Exchange, improving folder reorganization, alerting you to certificate issues, and more!

^{Monica Ayhens-Madon (The Thunderbird Blog)}