Aral Balkan @aral@mastodon.ar.al

This is sink spider; a giant house spider (this one’s still growing, they can easily get twice as large… or maybe it’s a male) who lives in the disused utility room sink. Going to miss saying good morning to the little thing. Hope it survives the end-of-tenancy clean booked for tomorrow. Not sure if it’s best I take it out into the garden or not.

I can haz painted a wall.

Made using the gorgeous new memeit.so by @kupad

#apple #linux #starTrek #nextGeneration #troy #space

So I just made my first commit using the new commit message editor I’m making called Comet ;)

It’s looking rough at the moment but progressing rapidly.

Coming soon to the elementary OS AppCenter :)

#elementaryOS #comet #apps #git #editor

Don’t care about making applications but like lovely wallpapers?

Well, you’re in luck because I commissioned one for Watson from the wonderfully talented @margodeweerdt

You can download three versions in 4K from https://github.com/small-tech/watson#get-the-wallpaper

#watson #elementaryOS

Introducing Watson: a best-practices application template for elementary OS 6 (Odin)

Get up and running in under 60 seconds with your first elementary OS application (while adhering to the human interface guidelines, etc.)

https://github.com/small-tech/watson

#watson #elementaryOS

Coming soon ;)

#tease #elementaryOS #watson

Some people, man! *smh*

Q. How do you spot a pedophile?

A. Look for the uniform.

#religion

Hmm, I have a new wallpaper by the wonderfully talented Ms. Margo de Weerdt… I wonder what that means… 🤔

#tease

About to fly back after a lovely ten days with my parents.

💕

Front: photo of me, ~9 years old, circa 1985.

Back: portrait of my grandfather (who I never met) ~13 years old, circa 1924.

#family

FOSS native app devs: “Do we really need a package manager? Are you really worthy of contributing to a project if you don’t spend at least half an hour manually discovering and installing dependencies?”

Meanwhile in the JavaScript world…

#usability #accessibility #design #rightsOfPassage

My 1984-esque Turkish mobile phone dystopia experience continues.

Why is this message in English?
What request? (I didn’t make any request.)
Why was this sent randomly at ten past midnight?
WHY ALL CAPS?
Best wishes?
WTF?

If you’re wondering what authoritarian technology futures look like, here’s an example from North Cyprus. This is a message from The Information Technologies and Communication Authority telling me I can use my device (IMEI number sent in the clear in the text) for 90 days without registering it (something I first encountered in Turkey years ago). Also note, they took a copy of my passport while buying the prepaid SIM card (something they also do in Belgium).

The dystopian future is now.

Cheers from my family to yours :)

(It’s so lovely to be able to see my parents again after two long years.)

Cypriot coffee… yum, but please hold the racism.

This is simply not acceptable.

(Laikon Kafekopteion – People’s Coffee Grinding – Nicosia, Cyprus.)

#racism #cyprus #laikon #coffee

Go home, iOS, you’re drunk.

Nothing like running the GTK4 demo and seeing homages to Facebook and Google.

What a sour taste that leaves in my mouth.

#GTK #GNOME #SurveillanceCapitalism