Andy Piper

“Sovereign doesn’t mean alone” cool demo of NATO, France, Sweden, and Germany separate #Matrix installations and operations exchanging fully secure messages. #MatrixConf - this was the demo I’ve been most excited to check out! Great team effort.

Heading to watch the Encore for Avengers Endgame to catch myself up for the Doomsday setup.

... I'm well and truly suckered into the hype, I'm afraid.

since likes became (often) an acknowledgment that you saw or read something more than a bookmark mechanism - across social - I use bookmarks for meaningful things I want to come back for. What’s missing is an accessible way to search and browse them at scale. At Twitter my former boss built a bookmark tagging and searching app that I loved, I kept meaning to rebuild it on the Mastodon API but never got around to it yet.

tl;dr yeah I use the feature

I regret to inform you that Miro has had its spoons bent, and joins Meetup, Evernote, Eventbrite, Vimeo, Airtable and others on the fast track to full enshittification

https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/10/bending-spoons-to-buy-collaboration-tools-maker-miro-for-1-36b-90-less-than-its-2022-valuation/

OPTIMUS PRIME NOW?

2026 sucks. ☠️

today's sticky phrase is "a culture of generosity"

That's my kind of organisation.

"you come to an event like EMF and you wonder, why can't everything be like this..." @kestral #EMFCamp

I have a stack of Mastodon stickers I would like to donate to your AP meetup this evening - I will be in the night market at the time. Where can I get them to you?

Inevitably, I am far too busy / engaged in / running around at #EMFCamp to post much.

It is lovely here. First night in the night market was fun. Two more to go.

Oooh, I have Mastodon 4.6.x powers now... I should use them responsibly...

starts considering Collections

Let's talk about joy and hope at #EMFCamp

We'll have stickers and badges. And a badge app.

https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2026/438-society-for-hopeful-technologists

RE: https://mamot.fr/@thibaultamartin/116817244999773443

I've only worked with

for 2 days, and he's been truly generous and supportive - thank you to him, and the Working Groups at The Matrix.org Foundation, for setting up a solid process, keeping the community updated every week 🙏

This was a fun conversation 🙂

RE: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix/116810828012019038

Happy to be working with the Matrix.org team - I look forward to becoming more connected with the Matrix community 😃

I'm appalled to see the European Commission apparently embracing closed source, commercial, ID and age verification mandatory, social media today - in the very face of the technology sovereignty and online freedoms debates.

I think they've just thrown away the greatest opportunity to be the champion of all things open and collaborative, and to live and demonstrate their own values. Incredibly disappointed.

🔥 🔥 from @_elena who nails it, and asks crucial questions.

https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-public-institutions-and-the-theater-of-european-digital-sovereignty/

Is this the phone that

has been dreaming of? https://www.androidpolice.com/commodores-the-80s-computing-legend-has-made-a-flip-phone-and-its-hugely-exciting/

Oof.

has WORDS about Apple in the latest Cycles Hyped No More.

(great newsletter btw; worth subscribing, if they are your thing)

https://buttondown.com/theinternet/archive/apple-has-officially-stopped-caring-about-accuracy/

Reading the

press release on strengthening tech sovereignty.

Something missing here 🤔

The fact that Flipper Devices is sharing updates about their Flipper One on X as their social channel, tells me everything I need to know about the fact that I'm not going to be engaging with them / it.

(I do have a Flipper Zero, but I rarely do much with it)

Day 3 of the #WimbledonArtFair - come and talk about #PenPlotters and other drawing machines with us!

"get access to our public API - upgrade!" ... so, not really a public API then, is it. :facepalm:

The tech sector is massively failing older people.

I just spent over an hour trying to assist an elderly neighbour with her home phone. The provider’s website and contact phone number make it as difficult as possible to speak to a human, defaulting to mobile phone based text workflows.

The earliest the provider can have an engineer visit is in 3 weeks.

Very friendly humans when you talk to them, but a completely broken system.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Mastodon/116494494476404684

The Fediverse is nice, and my friends at Mastodon are nice. 🙏🏻

Missing the team already - there are exciting things ahead, so I'd encourage you all to keep cheering (and donating) for their mission.

Our

piece for the #WimbledonArtFair pre-sale is available in the "mini-masterpiece gallery" now.

Painted using a pen plotter with acrylics. Amazing work by

(although, I may be biased) and she is working on more of this style in different materials. #PlotterArt

https://www.wimbledonartfair.com/mini-masterpiece-sale-may-2026/p/forge-craft

It’s happening!! #oggcamp2026

There is another DDoS happening against mastodon.social, status information is here and the team is working on countering it -> https://status.mastodon.social/cmobau3jq000p4zzkke9kub6d

The latest victim of #enshittification is #BirdBuddy

Backed two of their kickstarters - the original feeder, and the bird bath. Good products.

Today, they took away the species recognition and put it into the premium subscription (unless you tap to identify, and then get an ad for premium in the app, and tap again).

Note that their “advanced AI” pre-dated today’s LLMs and was traditional machine vision / learning, with human training (ie we helped them, now they rent back to us)

Angry. 😡

I see

is still down.

If I was using it to run a business, I’d be incandescent.

mastodon.social is currently undergoing a major Denial of Service (DDOS) incident. The team is working on this as a matter of priority. Thank you for your patience!

#Mastodon #Mastoadmin

https://status.mastodon.social/cmo730jrm05ailojla22drifc

Some personal news... after an amazing 3 years working with the Mastodon team, first in developer relations and then as communications lead - it’s time for me to move on (after April 28). It’s been a privilege to work on something as meaningful and important as the Fediverse. 🧵👇🏻 (1/4)

Nice to see a Mastodon shout-out on The Daily Show last night, thanks to

Executive Director Cindy Cohn!

It's a longer segment, with some interesting nuance around social media and censorship later in the conversation.

(disclosure: I am an EFF Member / sustaining donor)

YouTube link (I don't think there's a Peertube version)

Travel update!

Berlin airport strike -> rebooked to travel to Leuven via train.

Booked ICE train (with reserved seat) to Köln was cancelled.

Follow on ICE train to Köln inevitably very busy; I’d allowed up to an hour for the connection, so it was theoretically possible to catch still pick it up… except that this train is now also late, as well as packed 🤦

Will get there, eventually! 💪🏻

“Meshtastic and ActivityPub integration for seamless off-grid messaging” - interested to know what this means exactly! 👀

https://www.beagleboard.org/boards/beaglebadge

Tell your MP: No to ID checks for web access https://action.openrightsgroup.org/no-id-checks-web-access

Hey

remind me where the source for Fedi Iconography is? Looking to add some logos (stegodon, ties, activitypub, fedi logos themselves).

Special guest appearance from

for the #TootWales Tŵt app launch event!

I saw the cover of the current

“Streaming in the Fediverse”, and I’m a bit disappointed at the actual coverage of #Fediverse music services and the community of musicians - it is primarily a feature on Navidrome (which is great, but not federated) with a mention of Funkwhale. It could have covered Bandwagon, Mirlo, The Indie Beat Radio & TV, PeerTube and more. I’d be happy to submit a piece on this at some point if the editors are interested…!

Robin action shot #BirdBuddy

This is neat, one of the actors from #StarTrek Starfleet Academy doing an AMA in the #Fediverse on Lemmy tomorrow -> https://startrek.website/post/35769143

Testing MastoBlaster. Seems to be working. 📱

Nice,

says that Friendica 2026.01 now supports consent-respecting quote posts (FEP-044f) - and much more #FOSDEM

Some nice themes running through the #SocialWeb Devroom at #FOSDEM: storytelling from different national and international contexts (Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Europe); new apps and ideas (badgefed, splinter, FASPs, Spritely); building infrastructure and foundational tech (Bonfire, Fedify, Emissary). This is really great momentum! The speaker list today has been wonderful.

RE: https://social.wake.st/@liaizon/115989067770322256

Start here to follow the official Social Web Devroom liveblog, post-by-post #FOSDEM

RE: https://social.wake.st/@liaizon/115989848243268135

This project has a cool name and logo so I want to try it.

I like this "simply by copying the same stacks and calling them European, doesn't change anything" - we have a stack, and it is open and commons-oriented

#FOSDEM #SocialWeb

RE: https://macaw.social/@andypiper/115864851606201165

I think I found a way to keep within the same framing as the original, but to not veer to nihilism at the end.

So why choose any of this, when it’s easier not to?

Because caring is the point. Because building together beats shouting alone. Because the best places don’t trap you - they let you choose.

(for those that remember the "Choose Life" monologue from Trainspotting)

Choose Mastodon. Choose the Fediverse.

Choose curiosity over virality. Boost because you care. Follow because you’re interested. Be niche. Be human.

Choose Freedom.

#FediforumFriday

Letting domain names expire is my new year’s jam, apparently. Going to attempt (!) to be more mindful about what I’m actually using. Wish me luck!

Happy 2026. MTV is gone, long live

🔊 #FediverseForCreativity

This is distressing. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp39kngz008o

Today is my mother's funeral. My toughest public speaking gig - the final thing I can do for her.

Hey! I'm talking about Mastodon and the Fediverse at #EmpoderaLIVE on Wednesday. Sadly, I do not speak Spanish, and I'm not very familiar with Spanish-language Fedi spaces. Can you lovely people recommend me some servers to look up & suggest to folks? Gracias!

It was a very nice #Fediday in Berlin! Thanks to the organisers, angels, and community!

I get the impression that @_elena quite likes the #Fediverse? 🤩 #fediday

slide1.jpg #Fediday

I’m on a boat! 🚢

One year ago today, I wrote "Fediverse for Freedom", a blog post about why public institutions must own their own social identities and content online. It spawned another post, a talk at FOSDEM, and stickers! I'll be talking more about these topics at #FrOSCon on Sunday. #FediverseForFreedom

https://andypiper.co.uk/2024/08/15/fediverse-for-freedom/