@Uraael@blahaj.zone

Uraael

@Uraael@blahaj.zone

I am Uraael.

Pronounced "Yu-RAYL" it's the name of my Soul which exists outside our dimensons of space and time, waiting for me in the car.

Note: what you see in the name box is whatever amuses me that day. Just call me Uraael.

Quiet Scottish Geek. Veteran Defender of Social Justice, Privacy and Human Freedoms. Gentle soul undergoing Kintsugi. Country boy at heart.

I am romantically entwined with @MariaTheMartian, my Twin Flame. 🔥🔥. We used to joke that our Love could melt servers...and then Firefish actually died. Um, sorry about that.

FEDIVERSITY:
Proud #Sharkey user since Nov '23
Proud #Firefish user since Feb '23
Proud #Fediverse user since Sep '22.

#Hashtags #Geek #SciFi #Scotland #Politics #Computing #Linux #Software #Music #Writing #PCGaming #Emulation #MentalHealth #AFinerWorld #Humanism #SocialJustice #TransRights #Feminism #AntiFascism #RacialEquality #LGBTQIA+ #MFM #Art #ShinyThings #FreePalestine #HaveANiceDay #OponionsLikeOpinionsButMoreLayered

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Uraael, to random

To me, My X-Men '97! (NO SPOILERS JUST ABSTRACT GUSHING)

My goodness this show is an absolute treasure! Another stellar episode delivering action, thrills, emotion, surprises...

I don't want it to end. This is BETTER than the parent show, and that was epochal.

Only two more weeks and I can share this with my 'we'll binge it' family!

Uraael, (edited ) to paganism

Wishing everyone in the Fedi a very happy Beltane! ☺️🔥🔥☺️

Let's give the Summer a proper pagan welcome.

I've been to a Fire Festival in Edinburgh before and it was great fun. 😁

https://beltane.org/about-beltane/

blogdiva, to design
@blogdiva@mastodon.social avatar

so, some douche bought a bunch of Teslas and seems to be running a 3rd party car service using Lyft/Uber.

WTF IS WRONG WITH THEIR DOORS?!?! i have never in my life have had a problem opening a car door until i tried to open the door of a Tesla.

that fascist apartheid fuckwad is a real ableist PoS, isn't he?

Uraael,

@jonobie @blogdiva Techbros build Inhuman solutions.

Techbros would enthusiastically build Skynet and Terminators.

Uraael, to ADHD

From the Visionary Director who brought you

WHAT IF: Bisexual?
WHAT IF: IBS?

and the classic

WHAT IF: Bigendered?

that all successfully came true, comes his latest and greatest and hopefully last cinematic event:

WHAT IF: ADHD?

Playing this May at a Health Clinic near me!

SoTired

Uraael, (edited ) to PCGaming

Review of CTRL ALT EGO on Steam:

This is Fantastic.

So many comparing it with Prey when it's a very different beast. All it has in common with that is the 'emergent' puzzle solving and the fact it's set on a space station.

MY first thought: it's like Observation. Did you play Observation, the fun wee sci-fi game where you're a computer roving around cameras, flipping switches and solving puzzles in a space station orbiting Saturn? No, I'll bet you didn't you PHILESTINES. Well, anyway, the gameplay mechanic here is very similar, a digital entity bouncing around receptive nodes piloting bots and drinking juice. Yes, and in the game.

It's also a tiny bit like The Sentinel: Geoff Crammond's 8-bit Opus where you conscious-zapped from robot body to robot body to avoid the Titular overseer. Listen out for some music snippets that homage/directly riff on that old game's iconic sound effects: dun-dan-dun-dun-DUHHHN. But this game is more advanced and accessible that that hoary old classic.

I'm four levels in and having a great time. I've frozen more M.U.M.s than an explosion in Iceland. I've made DADs my [female dog]: "THIS IS WRONG". And I think the person guiding me via witty messages knows too much.

GODHelpMe dotcom

Uraael, (edited ) to random

B A N G E R S

AND

Mash

AdaraAstin, (edited ) to random
@AdaraAstin@smutlandia.com avatar

A male friend told me that he acutely feels the absence of lingerie options for men, and when a woman is all dressed up for him and the best he's got is regular boxers, he feels like he's letting her down.

Masc people, are there options for (masc) dress-up undergarments that give you joy? What are youe go-to lingerie-ish things? Anything?

Uraael,

@AdaraAstin All I need is my tiny little bow tie.

Uraael, to meta

Ding dong Facebook is dead!

Lol, well my use of it is, anyway. Closed the account last night before bed with the largest smile on my face. Messenger and Whatsapp are gone too.

Feeling free at long, long last. 😁

maegul, (edited ) to mastodon
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Reflecting on the firefish/calckey "moment"

which was about a year ago now, I can't help but suspect it was a small event with wider implications on the dominance of in the

I think it was the last chance to direct the twitter migration energy into discovering new/different fedi platforms.

And it was blown, with alt-social in a weird steady/waiting state that's smaller I suspect, than what many hoped for.

@fediverse

cntd: https://hachyderm.io/@maegul/112358202238795371

1/

Uraael,

@maegul @GeekinKorea

Yea that's the story in a nut shell. The lead dev wasn't fit for the role and ruined the whole thing.

That's a harsh and ungenerous interpretation of events.

While the lead dev was only, what, 18 when they started the project, and you can definitely make an argument for a social media platform being a bigger bite than someone that age and experience could chew, what they achieved with Calckey/Firefish is something they can be very proud of. For a time it did look like a modern, credible and rising alternative to Mastodon itself. That's a hugely laudable achievement given the infinitely smaller timescale and far smaller resource they were working with.

There are a few reasons the Firefish project unravelled that weren't directly their fault, one big one inherited from the codebase they'd chosen to adopt (Misskey v12). The slow-downs and performance issues were due to that server codebase simply not being engineered well enough to scale well with increased population sizes. If you were running a Firefish instance of more than a couple of hundred users, performance tanked. I'd suggest that this issue was bigger than one dev or even the small team gathered around Firefish could address. They tried workarounds and tried swapping back-ends etc but I don't know if it was ever understood that the codebase itself was fatally compromised until it was way too late. Notably, Sharkey, basically Firefish but forked directly from the re-factored Misskey v13 codebase, has proven far better at handling scale and way more performative. Meanwhile, Iceshrimp and others still on v12 have failed to gain significant traction of their own and I believe they're basically inhabiting technical cul-de-sacs unless they address the codebase issue.

Additionally, the lead dev attracting the ire of a notoriously toxic/bullying personage/instance in the Fediverse is I think what took the wind out of their sails, killing the project as far as they were concerned. That personage levelled accusations of screenshot tampering at the dev (among many others) in a grotesque display of Trial By Public Forum but has actually been found out to have been doing exactly that themselves. I very nearly left the Fediverse over that person's behaviour and the scale of the support they enjoyed apparently legitimising it: there's a spider in this web and the power they wield via weaponised victimhood has been used to silence and harm far too many in this network.

In short, I don't think it's fair to lay the collapse of the Firefish project entirely at the feet of the lead dev.

Uraael,

@maegul @GeekinKorea I'll DM you the person's name.

In the end though, AFAIU, as a lead dev they were very happy to hold onto their role as BDFL. Which, if you're up for it, great, sometimes that's necessary to make things happen. But if you're not and then become the vulnerability, then that's a bad call and the buck has to stop with you for it.

I can agree with this because I think that harks back to their lack of experience I alluded to running a major technical project like Firefish. Possibly it can be argued they fell into a bit of a pride/ego trap as well; they were receiving a LOT of praise and attention.

Disclaimer: we're not Friends by any means but the lead dev and I were friendly and interacted semi-regularly on Firefish.social. My partner and I met on that server and we both feel they were very unjustly assaulted by the wider Fediverse community acting in a very vindictive schoolyard fashion.

Uraael, to random

I am depressed at the Scottish news today, our First Minister quitting before he was pushed out.

The SNP as a generally united force was the only thing holding back the tide of shit coming at us from Westminster, TERFs and other right wng malignancies. Trans Rights blowing up as an issue in the UK (Fuck you, American Christo-fascist dark money) struck a blow that cracked the party along ideological lines, and yet Sturgeon still managed to kept it mostly together, though you could definitely see sharks circling the bloodied waters. With her gone, feeding began in earnest.

Hamza was an average pick being the best of the options presented. But with him gone pretty much all hope of the SNP delivering another referendum or even maintaining the support for progressive policies like Trans Rights is now in serious jeopardy.

Kate Forbes, his hotly tipped replacement, is a christian fundamentalist and TERF sympathetic. If she gets the job all bets are off and I predict within a year we'll be having conversations in Scotland about those pesky abortion rights as well as watching things get worse in Scotland for the Trans community.

ionafyfe, to random
@ionafyfe@mastodon.scot avatar

“I am not willing to trade my principles or values or do a deal with whomever simply to retain power." One word. Integrity.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/humza-yousaf-resigns-as-scottish-first-minister-and-snp-leader_uk_662b68a9e4b0ab66ede44066 via @huffpostuk

Uraael, (edited )

@ionafyfe @huffpostuk Another word: Cowardice. Things got a bit tough so he noped out, much like David Cameron. Integrity would be staying to fix the mess he made: actions always speak louder than pretty soundbites.

Now the door is open for Kate Forbes to take us all back to the 1800s. Enjoy your abortion rights while you still have them.

TheSpaceshipper, to random
@TheSpaceshipper@socel.net avatar

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was released 19 years ago today.

"Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, journeyman Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect."

Uraael,

@TheSpaceshipper It'll always be the TV series for me. The film had some nice moments but overall felt inferior in just about every way.

TarkabarkaHolgy, to random Hungarian
@TarkabarkaHolgy@ohai.social avatar

The Burger King two-person bucket has 9 chili cheese nuggets in it
Are they in the divorce business or something?

Uraael,

@TarkabarkaHolgy If you truly loved each other 4.5 would be a romantic part of your love language. 😁

JugglingWithEggs, to random
@JugglingWithEggs@mstdn.social avatar

My work colleague who has never discussed politics with me came up to me this morning and asked whether I had seen what was happening in US universities in terms of protests about the war in .

She then got out her phone and showed me a clip that had left her distraught of a female Economics professor being grabbed by police and having head smashed into the pavement.

This colleague visited Auschwitz last month. She’s not antisemitic. Watching it had brought back memories of George Floyd.

Uraael,

@JugglingWithEggs I'm in the UK and I know exactly what's going on over there. We've been watching the US slide into Fascist Totalitarianism since 11th September 2001. I'm a little worried I'm apparently in a minority on that.

Not only that but we have a real cheek looking at the US in horror given what the Tories and Nu-Labour before them have done to our own civil rights and right to protest.

And official voices here have been raised very hard against people expressing their disgust over Israel. Folk in Norfolk need to open their eyes a little? We're only a few steps behind the US, as per bloody usual.

Uraael,

@JugglingWithEggs

What's surprising about this, though? The police brutality? Or the fact it's being wielded against white people and Jews? The Black community has been exhausting themselves telling anyone who would listen that this is who the police are, that this kind of oversight and censure is part of their daily lives.

I'm disgusted by what I'm seeing but I'm in no way surprised by it.

In 2014, the day after the result of the Independence Referendum result was called in Scotland there were riots in Glasgow's George Square. Right Wing thugs from all over England travelled up en-masse to give Scotland a message. Don't fuck with the Established Order. UK Police (both countries)? Let them. Let known offenders travel in these big clearly threatening groups. Let these thugs threaten to rape women passers by if they revealed they'd voted Yes. throw missiles, cause property damage.

America likes to make big flashy shows of power. Britain...is more cunning. They'll get you alone and knife you in the dark instead. Or they'll use proxies, like our charming homegrown White Supremacist groups.

Norfolk needs a wake-up, I think. The danger in this country is very real too.

Uraael,

@vfrmedia @JugglingWithEggs And here I thought they only made bootiful turkey there....😜

Yeah, there are places in Scotland like that too. And I have an Aunt in Lancashire who is...a lost cause.

I think all we can do right now is look after each other as best we can, and hope we survive the madness as long as possible.

Uraael,

@pixplz

You've a point: conceded. Perhaps it should be worded to read "But what's unclear?"

Uraael, to StarTrek

Uraael, to random

clears throat

I still have zero opinion on Taylor Swift or her music. Thank you.

leaves podium

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

Rise of Skywalker is cinematic garbage and far and away the worst Star Wars movie, even including "I hate sand" Attack of the Clones.

But it does have one saving grace, in that it finally buried the movie career of that hack J.J. Abrams. Everything he's done since is just "executive producer" credit on someone else's TV show.

Uraael,

@danjac He made a film so bad it tarnished the preceding eight. When you know the destination reeks of manure why even bother starting the journey?

Disney have a lot still to answer for in their handling of those films. That there wasn't a coherent vision for the new trilogy is abominable. It's just a huge mess.

And I'm sorry but Rian Johnston's film was only marginally better than Abrahm's.

Uraael,

@danjac He and Michael Bay both. Cinematic thugs.

danjac, to DuckDuckGo
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

PSA: has succumbed to FOMO and now uses "AI assist" by default (sigh).

You can disable this crap here: https://duckduckgo.com/settings#duckassist

Uraael,

@danjac Ach, it's search results have long been sub-par anyway. Startpage, Ecosia or Qwant all do better. DDG has had a lot of weirdly good word of mouth for some reason, but I reckon that's just by contrast to Google.

TheSpaceshipper, to random
@TheSpaceshipper@socel.net avatar

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023) is available from today on Xbox Game Pass (console and Windows PC) 👀

"PC Game Pass and Ultimate Game Pass members can start their adventures this week as a part of their membership to experience the next chapter in Cal Kestis’ saga."

Uraael,

@ElBeeToots @TheSpaceshipper Sorry I missed your reply! Thanks for this. Really enjoyed the first game but have been holding off this new one - good to hear it's tameable.

What mods did you apply, can I ask?

Shrigglepuss, to random
@Shrigglepuss@godforsaken.website avatar

DuckDuckGo have built some AI chat garbage. How about Fuck Fuck No :spritz:

Uraael,

@darwinwoodka @Shrigglepuss Autocorrect on point, for a rare change.

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