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Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


Buongiorno a tutti ✨️

Sto cercando un' app o una qualsiasi cosa dove posso segnare i miei interessi e vedere articoli o notizie riguardanti solo quelli.

Ho capito che per il lavoro sarebbe utile tenermi aggiornata sulle tendenze e le mode delle stagioni, ma siccome metà del mio armadio sono vestiti neri.. beh non sono molto ferrata.

Consigli? Conigli?🐇

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in reply to Claudi 🧶

mia mamma quando aveva la merceria usava molto burda per i suoi lavori. Non so se però è quello che intendi. Per nuove idee/moda guardava spesso pinterest e Ultimamente ha fatto anche questo che va molto di moda per la mia compagna (sempre all’uncinetto) it.mc2saintbarth.com/cdn/shop/…

burdastyle.it

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 mesi fa)

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


I propose replacing calories with watt-hours.

- Almost same value (1 kilocalorie / Calorie is ~1.1 watt-hours)
- more intuitive for people who use electricity
- never the confusion between calories (science), Calories (food, which is technically kilocalories), kilocalories, and 'kilo Calories' (which is technically megacalories)
- you get to feel more like a robot with your 2.5kwh power consumption a day which may feel like validation to some creatures on this fediverse
- become powered by cake

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 mesi fa)

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in reply to John Carlos Baez

@johncarlosbaez @venite @xerge yea exactly, as mentioned in mastodon.derg.nz/@anthropy/115… I'd say generally speaking scientists are perfectly capable of picking the appropriate meaningful SI units for their papers and daily usages.

Watt-hours is just practical when you want to visualize how long an electrical device would run on a certain amount of energy, even if that of course is very different energy than burning fuel/food. The fact it's almost the same as calories makes it easy to draw analogies✨


to the people posting "but joules!": mastodon.derg.nz/@anthropy/115…

As much as you're right, it's also less intuitive in daily life. Knowing an egg or slice of bread is about 80-90Wh means I can go 'omg a big laptop battery worth power', 324kJoules is very arbitrary there if you don't use it much.

This is also a half-joking post, like, I'm not going to argue to replace anything currently used in science because as far as I can tell most sane scientists use the correct SI units for research papers


in reply to Anthropy

- yes, being a scientist I'm perfectly capable of choosing the units I want, and thus have spent a lot of time converting publicly available power data in gigawatt-hours / year into SI units. It's tiresome, so it's nice to have a chance to complain about it, but it's no big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Questa voce è stata modificata (2 mesi fa)

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


Email addresses are very simple, and you will score highly in this quiz.

e-mail.wtf

in reply to Sam Rose

12/21, so I am not really an e-mail expert, only sending and receiving them, but thanks @thunderbird for making that easy.
in reply to Till Kamppeter

@till We wish we could have made that quiz easier, but we're happy to make everything else about email easy!

rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua ha ricondiviso questo.


Qualche giorno fa parlavo, non ricordo con chi, di #libriScolastici sotto licenza libera, e dicevo di conoscere dei progetti, ma tutti abbastanza fermi

ecco, ho ritrovato in giro un elenco *quasi* aggiornato (ultima modifica nel 2022):

it.wikibooks.org/wiki/Catalogo…

#LibriDiTesto


Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


I just cobbled a list of my favorite #MSDOS #RetroDev resources.

github.com/SuperIlu/DOSDevelRe…

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Unknown parent

SuperIlu
@2ndStar was dir die sterne sind, sind mir voellig veraltete systeme 😋
Unknown parent

SuperIlu
@2ndStar pah, ICH MUSS DAS DAUERND BENUTZEN!!! 😭


Meanwhile, yesterday evening I died. Or rather, they let me die. And by “let” I mean “piled monsters on me until I died, and then looted my dead body”.

And then on the next turn, with the new cards I had just picked I won.

I am thankful to @Diego Roversi for getting the cat companion when looting, however. It was just a +2, but it was a cat, and I didn't want him to go into the discard pile!

#munchkin

Oblomov reshared this.

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

also, it was the first time we played munchkin since 2019 / the very early morning of 2020, and *I missed it*.
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

ed era la prima partita a munchkin che facevamo dal 2019 / mattina presto del 2020, e *mi mancava*.

Oblomov reshared this.


rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua ha ricondiviso questo.


rrdtool and Trixie


Posted on August 17, 2025
Tags: madeof:bits
TL;DL: if you’re using rrdtool on a 32 bit architecture like armhf make an XML dump of your RRD files just before upgrading to Debian Trixie.

I am an old person at heart, so the sensor data from my home monitoring system1 doesn’t go to one of those newfangled javascript-heavy data visualization platforms, but into good old RRD files, using rrdtool to generate various graphs.

This happens on the home server, which is an armhf single board computer2, hosting a few containers3.

So, yesterday I started upgrading one of the containers to Trixie, and luckily I started from the one with the RRD, because when I rebooted into the fresh system and checked the relevant service I found it stopped on ERROR: '<file>' is too small (should be <size> bytes).

Some searxing later, I’ve4 found this was caused by the 64-bit time_t transition, which changed the format of the files, and that (somewhat unexpectedly) there was no way to fix it on the machine itself.

What needed to be doneinstead was to export the data on an XML dump before the upgrade, and then import it back afterwards.

Easy enough, right? If you know about it, which is why I’m blogging this, so that other people will know in advance :)

Anyway, luckily I still had the other containers on bookworm, so I copied the files over there, did the upgrade, and my home monitoring system is happily running as before.


  1. of course one has a self-built home monitoring system, right?↩︎
  2. an A20-OLinuXino-MICRO, if anybody wants to know.↩︎
  3. mostly for ease of migrating things between different hardware, rather than insulation, since everything comes from Debian packages anyway.↩︎
  4. and by I I really mean Diego, as I was still into denial / distractions mode.↩︎

blog.trueelena.org/blog/2025/0…

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Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


Can anyone explain why #wikivoyage is so underused? I mean, traveling is such a wikiable thing!

Anyhow, I will keep on adding stuff to the Basel wikivoyage, even if it were only to remember for myself how my guests can park their cars.

en.wikivoyage.org

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in reply to Gilles DePemig :TwinPines:

I access it via OSMand~.

Its is slightly geeky - recommending an Esperanto museum for example.



rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua ha ricondiviso questo.


ilpost.it/2025/08/13/giustizia…

nel caso a qualcuno servisse qualcosa da rispondere a chi dice cose tipo “mandano i bambini a rubare così non vanno in galera” o simili

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

se posso permettermi, mi collego:
unita.it/2025/08/14/litalia-e-…

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


There is a new short domain name for #PuTTY!

putty.software/

At present, this is just a "landing page": a nice short name to remember, which will redirect you to the full PuTTY website at the same longer URL where it's always been.

But unlike putty.org or other third-party landing pages, this one is run by us, the actual PuTTY team, and it doesn't have a weird separate agenda of its own.

I intend to move the main PuTTY site over to that domain in the future, and leave just a redirector at the old location. But first I want to get the word out, so that people know which site to trust.

If anyone is still linking to putty.org, here's a place to link to instead. Please spread the word!

in reply to Simon Tatham

I wonder what Simon means by weird agenda.

*goes to putty.org

Wow, ok... at least they say not affiliated with the software but... yeah that's something special all right.

Good luck with getting the news out about putty.software/


Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


i found out yesterday that you can put #XMPP protocol links in #Mastodon profile fields!

set a field value to xmpp:your_username@example.org to have the field start a chat with you when clicked!

see my profile for example

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 mesi fa)

Elena ``of Valhalla'' reshared this.


Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


If there is one thing I wish I could take from Perl and give to the current hot languages, it's the importance of not breaking shit when you release new versions of stuff. If someone's code worked yesterday with your library, it should also work today after you add a new feature.

Yet, apparently, this is not the way we do code. We expect every developer to be so devoted to a random library that they keep track of all the breaking changes and are excited about them.

Please stop that.

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I've just realized that on my first #DebConf, in 2015, some people was using their (thinkpad) laptops as a tray to carry their meals. on my second DebConf, 2025, I didn't see anybody doing that.

I'd say that laptop design has gone really wrong somewhere in the process.

(this may be a bit of a subtoot)

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in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

I wonder, how Framework laptops are in this department... I keep fingers crossed that until I'll need next laptop, there will be at least third party keyboard with trackpoint for them, and then I'll probably switch. I've had TPs all my adult life, and they have seriously degraded in being suited for my autistic taste/needs.

rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua ha ricondiviso questo.


risk of injuries, nobody got hurt

yesterday: watching a video sponsored by a reinforced-toe work boots company of some sort

this morning: a tool fell from the work table as we were cutting some wood, straight on @diego@social.gl-como.it slipper-clad foot

(it was a lightweight tool, nobody was hurt)

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in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

rischio di incidenti, nessuno si è fatto male
Urgono pantofole antinfortunistiche
in reply to Yaku 🐗

rischio di incidenti, nessuno si è fatto male
@Yaku 🐗 dopo le pantofole da trekking, direi che è una sfida che devo affrontare!

in reply to Debian

yes, thank you so much. It’s been a very smooth transition and that speaks volumes to the hard work we are so grateful for.
in reply to Debian

I'm new to the @debian game.
I just saw in the documentation "Upgrades to Debian 13 "trixie" from the previous release, Debian 12 "bookworm", are automatically handled by the APT package management tool for most configurations. "

However, my debian didn't offer me upgrade in any way. Do I have to install a specific upgrade package?

Currently I'm using a standard installation based on KDE.
Or is upgrade only supported in gnome stock software packages?

Can anyone help? #Followerpower


Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


Debian Pure Blends are a solution for groups of people with specific needs: a handy collection of specific packages, easier installation and configuration for the intended purpose. Now with Debian 13 trixie, a selection of Debian Pure Blends, such as Debian Junior, Debian Science, or Debian FreedomBox, can now be be installed directly from within the Debian installer! debian.org/blends/ #debian #debian13 #trixie #debianpureblends #ReleasingDebianTrixie

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It happened again

(any reference to events witnessed during #Debconf25 are not really coincidental)


Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


If you are using the debian-installer-netboot-images somewhere: There is an errata entry for it. That package wasn't correctly updated and will be fixed soon after #Debian #trixie #debian13 is done.

(If you are a normal user, you aren't affected. Only if you build your PXE boot server using it you may notice this).

Meanwhile Image building and testing goes on, they are busy over there!

Update: Binary packages named debian-installer-13-netboot-<arch>

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 mesi fa)

Elena ``of Valhalla'' reshared this.

in reply to Joerg Jaspert :debian:

Thank you for tooting in the first place, and for the excellent walkthrough throughout the day!

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


While we all wait for the images to build and be tested and while the archive continues to be prepared so work on #forky can start (and #backports for #trixie can be done), how about some statistics?

Not the usual boring stuff like #package #numbers (MANY - 70753 binary packages from 34735 #source packages) or architecture space (lots, multiple hundred gigabytes per architecture), can find that in enough places.

How about this? The main #archive now has 54 suites (stable, testing, stable-backports, unstable but also the NEW queue are all suites). They all have 3 or 4 components (main, contrib, non-free, non-free-firmware) and can contain up to 19 different architectures (#trixie has 9 of them). Those suites are split over 9 archives - the public ones are those you see in the #Debian mirrors as different parts of them, others are purely internal functionality (NEW queue, buildd for example).

Curious for the #security archive? That has 17 suites in 5 archives.

Elena ``of Valhalla'' reshared this.



MOAR Pattern Weights


Posted on August 9, 2025
Tags: madeof:atoms
Six hexagonal blocks with a Standard Compliant sticker on top: mobian (blue variant), alizarin molecule, Use Jabber / Do Crime, #FreeSoftWear, indigotin molecule, The internet is ours with a cat that plays with yarn.

I’ve collected some more Standard Compliantstickers.

A picture of the lid of my laptop: a relatively old thinkpad carpeted with hexagonal stickers: Fediverse, a Debian swirl made of cat paw prints, #FreeSoftWear, 31 years of Debian, Open Source Hardware, XMPP, Ada Lovelace, rainbow holographic Fediverse, mobian (blue sticker), tails (cut from a round one), Use Jabber / Do Crime, LIFO, people consensually doing things together (center piece), GL-Como, Piecepack, indigotin, my phone runs debian btw, reproducible builds (cut from round), 4 freedoms in Italian (cut from round), Debian tea, alizarin, Software Heritage (cut from round), ournet.rocks (the cat also seen above), Python, this machine kills -9 daemons, 25 years of FOSDEM, Friendica, Flare. There are only 5 full hexagonal slots free.

Some went on my laptop, of course, but some were selected for another tool I use relatively often: more pattern weights like the ones I blogged about in February.

And of course the sources:

I have enough washers to make two more weights, and even more stickers, but the printer is currently not in use, so I guess they will happen a few months or so in the future.


blog.trueelena.org/blog/2025/0…

in reply to Oblomov

@Oblomov I'm not going to change laptop, this one is still pretty new (to me)!

other than that, probably make more pattern weights, as I can always print more? :D (I'd need to get a new box to keep them in, as the current one is full, too :D )

The laptop lid is covered by a vinyl sheet, so in theory I could remove it, put a new one on and start again, but I don't think I want to do anything like that (the vinyl sheet was put in place by the shop that I've bought the — reconditioned — laptop from)

Also, saving stickers for a future laptop is of course an option.

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

@Oblomov also, If I knew how to design board games, I would definitely design a game that uses Standard Compliant stickers as tiles (attached to something lighter than the pattern weights, but still with some thickness) and various Piecepack pieces.

Oblomov reshared this.

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

that sounds like a brilliant idea. I guess a portable Settlers of Catan could be a starting point, copyrights aside.
in reply to Oblomov

@Oblomov AFAIK because of the way copyright works a game with the mechanics heavily inspired by Settlers of Catan but a different setting, different text, different graphics etc. would be fine.
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua ha ricondiviso questo.

@Oblomov coincidentally, if anybody has an European source for fridge magnet bases in the shape of an hexagon 5.08 cm tall, I'd be happy to hear about it :D

(I think I can get sheet and cut them, but if pre-cut existed it would be easier)

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food, fish

apparently, wasabi paste¹ in low-fat² yogurt goes well with smoked fish (on rye bread)

¹ the thing with low single digit percentage of actual wasabi
² nope, I can't have butter, nor sour cream

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

cibo, pesce

a quanto pare la pasta al wasabi¹ nello yogurt magro² sta bene coi pesci affumicati (sul pane di segale)

¹ quella cosa che contiene una percentuale ad una cifra, e pure bassa, di vero wasabi
² no, non posso mangiare il burro, e neanche la panna acida

Oblomov reshared this.

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

cibo, pesce

Sensitive content

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 mesi fa)
in reply to 5Ub-Z3r0

cibo, pesce

@5Ub-Z3r0 ce ne sono totalmente senza

quella che ho in casa aveva tipo il 2% di wasabi negli ingredienti (erano sulla scatola, non sul tubetto, e temo di averla buttata, per cui non posso controllare)

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

cibo, pesce

Sensitive content

in reply to 5Ub-Z3r0

cibo, pesce

@5Ub-Z3r0 è la marca S&B, dovrebbe essere questa: sushitalia.com/shop-on-line/pr…

(non conosco il sito, io l'ho comprata in un supermercato etnico)

lì il wasabi è elencato negli ingredienti ma senza percentuale (però è bello in fondo, compatibile con i numeri citati prima)

onestamente non ho idea se in quelle quantià faccia veramente differenza, il grosso degli ingredienti alla fin fine sono gli stessi della pasta che non hai visto il wasabi neanche in foto

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

cibo, pesce
@valhalla@social.gl-como.ita
Ma sai che, pensandoci, ha senso?
Alla fine anche il cetriolo ha un retrogusto "pescioso", e infatti la salsa tzatziki è la morte sua!
Mi hai mooolto incuriosito!

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


Ieri sera in negozio sono entrati Sandra e Raimondo versione musulmana. Mezza età avanzata, lei vanesia, lui che la punzecchiava divertito e la prendeva in giro per la quantità assurda di veli che aveva nell'armadio. Musulmani, Protestanti, Cattolici. Siamo tutti uguali. Le cose cambiano dove c'è un minimo di cultura e testa, poi la religione diventa spirituale e cessa di essere un'arma di controllo.
Vedi alla voce fasci = ignoranti.

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Xab ha ricondiviso questo.


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in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

Anche moltissime discussioni sui videogiochi nel giornalismo in generale...
Questa voce è stata modificata (2 mesi fa)

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


SCAM ALERT

An elderly adult may go up to you and pinch your nose without your consent then claim to have stolen your nose

Do not attempt to pay them to reacquire your nose

They do not have your nose

Their supposed proof is just their thumb in between two of their fingers

Do not engage them
You still have possession of your nose

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Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


Share your own #curl story here: github.com/curl/curl/discussio… ... in celebration of c10kday tomorrow.
#curl

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in reply to daniel:// stenberg://

It's not big enough to put it on github...

I was a wget(ter)... and then there was this debugging thing where local files instead of web files would be cool for speeding up debugging without the need to install a local web server...

And this guy said: "curl can do this - the syntax is just file instead of http and some more slashes..."

I never used wget again...🤷‍♂️


Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


#OnThisDay, 5 Aug 1888, Bertha Benz drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim: the first journey of 100+km in a car by *anyone*.

She'd got tired of her husband tinkering with his prototype so took it on the road with her sons. And without him.

Along the way, she made running repairs to the engine and realised there would need to be refueling stations.

#WomenInSTEM #EuropeanHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Histodons


Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


It's 3AM, I'm on-call, and my phone is ringing.

There's a burst of violet light from next to me. It arcs over me, and impacts against the magic circle around my phone.

I pick up the phone and answer "Hang on a tick." I give my sleeping wife a small nudge, and she mutters something in Latin, and rolls over.

"Toby here. What's broken?" I resume on the phone.
"Hi Toby, Anthea from the call centre. We've got an alert on Sirius12 - system load above predicted limits for over two hours."
"Hi Anthea. That should be OK, we set up some new processing rules, and it will take a couple of nights for the system to recognise the change. If you get the alert tomorrow, don't call, but if it happens after Wednesday, do call."
"OK, Toby. I'll make a note in the Tzzbrzzhgga Nil hzzthrg Grrzght!"
I roll back, and nudge my wife again. When she's asleep her magics sometimes get a bit feisty, and they interfere with the 4G signal. She turns over again.
"Are you still there Anthea?"
"Yes, what happened, I started hearing the strangest voices."
"You were probably hearing Charlotte's dream. Don't listen, and don't worry about it."
"Charlotte? Dream?"
"Yeah, look up the wiki entry about calling me. It's all in there."
I should know, after I cleared it with Charlie, I put it in there. There was a pause, presumably while she read the entry. "A witch??"
"Yep, and if the mobile gets too close when she's dreaming it picks up bits of it. Only her dreams are more like astral interventions, and you really don't want to listen in to those. There can be unpleasant side effects - for you."
"Are you having me on?"
"No, you can check in with my boss and HR. They know."
"..."
"Give me a call if there are any other problems. Good night Anthea."
I hung up, and cuddled in to Charlie, and tried to go back to sleep.

I'm a sysadmin. I manage a corporation's servers along with a team of eight. And my wife is a powerful witch. Really powerful. So all the electronics around the house are in magic circles to protect them from when she's asleep. I went through five phones (three mobile and two landline) before we got that sorted.

She's sort of a magical troubleshooter. That's how we met. She was dealing with a haunted server room. I was managing the servers. I really did have a ghost in my machine. She laughed at my jokes, and I didn't laugh at her work.

#SF #SFF #UrbanFantasy #microfiction #Tootfic #IAmWriting #CharlieAndToby

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 mesi fa)

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


The Finnish expression for "it hurts" is "AI". I hereby petition everyone using English to shorten "artificial intelligence" as "OW". Or "OUCH" in a more formal context.
in reply to Lars Wirzenius rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua ha ricondiviso questo.

that's curious, the Italian expression is "ahi" (pronounced "ai")

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


Buongiorno ✨️
Volevo farvi vedere le borse che ho fatto in questo mese!
Ovviamente sono fatte a mano e in vendita e se vi va di aiutarmi a far conoscere la mia attività, vi ringrazio di cuore ❤️✨️
in reply to Claudi 🧶

ma indirizzo del negozio da qualche parte l'hai messo? Nostra nipote grande si sta un po' appassionando grazie a mia madre, secondo me un salto in negozio e qualcosa di carino lo troviamo per il prossimo compleanno!
in reply to Zel 🐧

@Zel l'indirizzo è Via Giacomo Sangalli 12 a Treviglio (Bg) ☺️

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


Windows has betrayed me one too many times. I'm raising money to buy a Mac for my publishing business.

Coupon code MWL gets you 10% off at my bookstore.

tiltedwindmillpress.com

(and before you shout "Linux/BSD/Inferno/whatever:" mwl.io/faq#tools )

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Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


Urgent help for OpenPrinting needed!

As many here know, I am co-founder and lead of OpenPrinting since 2001, known as the print guru for Linux and free software by many. I also got one of the 8 fellows of the Linux Foundation for this.

Up to now I was working at Canonical, hired back in 2006 just to run OpenPrinting and also to maintain printing-related Ubuntu packages.

... 🧵

Please boost.

#OpenPrinting #LinuxFoundation #getfedihired

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)
in reply to Aurélien Gâteau 🇺🇦🇵🇸

@agateau Thanks for the hint, but the Linux Foundation does not sponsor directly. I am working together with them to get help for getting directly sponsored and also to turn OpenPrinting into a legal organization, so that we can receive sponsoring.

#OpenPrinting #LinuxFoundation

in reply to Till Kamppeter Till Kamppeter ha ricondiviso questo.

Hope this works out, so that you can continue the important work you are doing.

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


Tom Lehrer made all of his music 100% public domain

so if seeing people sad about his death makes you want to check them out…
it’s free.

he wanted you to share them.

tomlehrersongs.com

bsky.app/profile/silencedrowns…

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Yesterday I had been reading yet another late Victorian tailoring manual, and this morning I was telling @Diego Roversi about the part when the author claims that there are some measurements that would be useful do draft certain garments, but a (male, of course) tailor can't take them on a female customer, and there are ways to guess them. But at least in one case, he suggested doing the obvious thing, and just ask the customer to have her husband or maid take the measure.

And I commented that everybody who was buying cycling or riding trousers from a tailor was living with a husband, or a mother, or a sister, beside having a maid.

Unless she was unmarried, and only had brothers, and her mother had died (while giving birth, of course) and she was running her father's house because he had not remarried yet.

Or even, she was unmarried, only had brothers, she was running her father's house because he didn't want to remarry and she was quite happy with the situation because she didn't want to marry herself but wanted to keep living with that very close friend (but just a friend!) who had been living in their house for quite some time now. But then, her not-a-lover could very well take her inseam measurements.

Things escalate quickly, right?

in reply to Vi 💙

@Vi 💙 and now I need to read the steamy romance short story involving those two and the inseam measurement.

for

reasons

scientific reasons

purely scientific reasons


Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


4th day using Linux. I've not yet connected my printer, but pretty much everything else I've got... And I'm just doing my usual things without issue, and that's with some slightly niche requirements from my computer.

If I was just browsing, listening to music, doing emails and instant messaging I'd barely notice the difference. If you mostly do only that and are still hesitant, don't be! Sure, have someone help install it for you, but after that you're golden.

#Linux #LinuxMint

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in reply to Sini Tuulia

@richardinsandy (My PC parts and computer repair shop (the one where I shop, not which I run) has also been offering it as one of the options installed on their refurbished PCs and laptops for a couple of years because it runs so much lighter than Windows, but is familiar enough to know how to use out of the box, and thus is better for older computers it seems...)

rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua ha ricondiviso questo.


Roll Top Backpack, Handsewn


Posted on July 25, 2025
Tags: madeof:atoms, craft:sewing, FreeSoftWear
a backpack in a cream fabric with a short dark brown bottom; it closes by rolling down the top and is kept closed by a strap that feeds through two D-rings.

I might be slightly insane? Or am I going to prove something about the nature and accessibility of sewing and MYOG1 as a hobby?

I love my modular backpack, but it has a very modern look that is maybe not the best thing when otherwise dressed in historybounding dress, and it’s also a bit bigger than I planned or needed it to be.

So, when one of the shops I buy from had some waterproof cotton canvas on sale I failed my saving throw against temptations and bought a few meters, with the intent to make myself a backpack in a different style.

It needs to be a backpack, because my back doesn’t like asymmetrical bags2, and as far as I know 19th century backpacks weren’t the most comfortable things, so I decided to go for a vaguely timeless roll top model that has the added advantage not to require a lot of hardware for the closure, just a few D-rings.

Leather straps would look cool, but also require some tools that I still don’t have, so I decided to look for some cotton webbing, and when I finally found some in 25 mm and 50 mm width I could finally start on the project.

Except for one thing: thread. As much as I believe that regular n°50 cotton thread got a bad reputation from sellers who decided to cut quality in favour of profit, it is not up to the task of sewing a backpack. Nor that I’d use regular sew-all poly thread either.

I do have some of the thread I used for my other backpack, which would have been strong enough, but it’s also in black, which isn’t exactly the look I was aiming for on the natural / ecru colour of both the canvas and the webbing. I also misremembered it as only being available in that colour (it isn’t), so I wasn’t tempted into doing a full online order of technical materials just for that.

On the other hand, I did have in my stash some strong thread I could trust for this job, in natural / ecru. There was only one problem: it was 33×2 Tex linen, and not suitable for the sewing machine. You can’t handsew a backpack.

Or can you? Of course it’s going to be much slower, but I’m still in a situation where I have more time and space for handsewing than I have for machine sewing. And as for strength, my perception is that for the same stitch length an handsewn backstitch is stronger than a machine lockstitch, or at least it is more effort to unpick (and thus harder to accidentally unravel if the thread breaks).

And so I tried.

And it worked.

a needle coming straight up through layers of fabric and webbing, in the motion called stabbing.

Having to backstitch everything instead of being able to use a running backstitch of course meant that it was slower than other sewing projects, and any time there were more than two layers of fabric I had to use the stabbing motion rather than the sewing one, which is even slower, but other than a few places with many layers of both fabric and webbing it wasn’t hard.

And to be fair, the seams were fewer and shorter than other sewing projects, and with the usual interruptions and uneven time availability it was done in less than a month, which is somewhat typical for one of my handsewn projects.

the layers of the base pinned into the sides, trying to keep everything properly aligned especially on the corners in a way that would be very messy if fed as-is to a sewing machine.

It may have been because of the pattern, but I think it’s relevant that it was also easier than other backpacks I’ve made, with significantly less cursing, even when doing seams that would have been quite fiddly when sewn by machine.

I have to admit that now I’m tempted to plan another backpack using the same pattern or a slight variation, sewn by machine in a different fabric, to see the difference in the time it takes and to check if the changes I think would make it easier to sew by machine are actually the right thing to do. But maybe I’ll wait a bit, other projects are in the queue.

The pattern is as usual online, released as #FreeSoftWear.

Having used it for a while, I have to say that it is just the right size to fit all the things I usually carry,

The fact that it only opens from the top means that finding things that have fallen to the very bottom involves a bit of rummaging, but not having to change a zipper every few years when (not if) it breaks is also very nice, so I’m not sure which shape of backpack I prefer.

the back of the backpack, showing the shoulder straps made with wide webbing that end in two D-rings, and a pattern of horizontal webbing sewn at 4 cm intervals to attach accessories.

The soft back of course is an issue when the backpack is filled with small items, but the molle webbing is there exactly because I have plans to solve it, beside the trivial “put something flat towards the back”.

As an object, I’m happy with the result. As a project, it was way more than successful, exceeding all expectations, especially for something somewhat experimental like this one was.


  1. Make Your Own Gear, i.e. sewing or otherwise constructing outdoorish equipment.↩︎
  2. at least not if I fill them with stuff as I usually do with my backpack :D↩︎

blog.trueelena.org/blog/2025/0…

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

You can’t handsew a backpack.
Or can you?


Look at leather sewing and the tools they use.

Thanks @Elena ``of Valhalla'' - I love reading about sewing by hand.



rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua ha ricondiviso questo.


/me, this morning:

and they are going to close the underground between Cadorna and Garibaldi. the stations, not the generals.

and now I'm thinking about a machine that turns a proverbially bad general into a competent and ideals-led one.

(note for people who will be in Milan next month: check the actual closures, that was just the bit of interest to me, but there will be disruptions everywhere)

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

io il mese prossimo devo farmi il solito Como San Giovanni - Milano Centrale - Genova per trovare parenti e andare a un matrimonio, ma inizio a pensare che la soluzione più sicura sia mettermi in cammino verso Pavia tipo Frodo
in reply to Xab rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua ha ricondiviso questo.

@Xab ecco, non ho visto se han chiuso qualcosa anche su quelle linee

ma tutto sommato Como - Milano a piedi non è così lunga, dovrebbero essere un paio di giorni, no? :D

(OSM mi dice 47 ore per fare Como - Genova, 26 per fare Como - Pavia e 14 ore per fare Como - Milano; soprattutto per la tratta Pavia - Genova non ho idea se tenga conto delle pendenze però)

@Xab

Elena ``of Valhalla'' ha ricondiviso questo.


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Try it out by selecting that layer and then switch between different languages using the language selector. #OpenStreetMap #OSM #i18n 🗺️ 🌐
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