Drupal teamlead at VDAB
With Drupal User Group Belgium organizing https://www.drupalcamp.be/drupal-dev-days-2025
Singer at www.j4fun.be and at www.octopusensembles.be
Love nature, walking in the Ardennes, drawing, making things đ¨đđ§śđĽžđĽ§
Header picture shows cranes in the Ardennes evening sky, on their way south to the "Lac du Der"
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Yet another #Artemis II article (from a French press agency, no less) ignoring that propulsion, power, & life support to the Orion capsule are provided by ESAâs European Service Module.
Built in Bremen by Airbus, with parts from all over Europe, e.g. solar wings made in Leiden.
Also no mention of the fact that the ESMâs for the Moon-landing Artemis IV & V missions are to be supplied as part of ESAâs contribution to the Lunar Gateway.
Which NASA cancelled last week.
It's not prophecy, it's analysis. In theory Trump could lose his mind this afternoon, shoot Stephen Miller in the head on live TV, declare his conversion to Islam and then surrender himself up for trial. In theory any of that shit could happen and since none of us are Trump, none of us know it won't happen.
But we can analyze; and through good analysis, come to the conclusion that none of that is likely to happen.
It's not prophecy, it's analysis. I don't believe in magic mate.
Folks, this is a general Gaza Verified message.
Please note that while we know the unconscionable situation people in Gaza are having to go through, we are also seeing a rise (from a small number of people) of mass tagging of people in messages and unsolicited direct messages.
To our friends and families in Gaza Verified: this is against the rules of almost every server, including the one your account is on and it will get your account limited or suspended. It is also against our rules (see https://gaza-verified.org/guide/ or, in Palestinian Arabic: https://gaza-verified.org/guide-arabic/) as we donât want your accounts to get limited/suspended.
If your account is suspended by your server for no reason or as discrimination for who you are, we will challenge that and, if necessary, help you find a new server (see our friendly servers list in the guide).
And we have also worked with some of you to help explain the rules and advocate on your behalf when your accounts were suspended for mass tagging or unsolicited direct messages.
However, with a small number of accounts, we have seen the same behaviour continue the moment the account is reinstated.
In such situations, we cannot help you further. And we will not verify any new accounts you create to avoid these suspensions.
The goal of Gaza Verified from the start was to ensure that Mastodon and the fediverse was a safe space for our Palestinian friends and, with the help of many server admins, I believe we have, for the most part, succeeded in creating a space where Palestinians are respected and valued. But this is a two-way street. It is also important that the people here who care and want to help are not constantly subjected to targeted messages imploring them to help. Many of those who help are not well off themselves and they help when and how they can.
The best thing about Mastodon and the fediverse is that it is a place where you can build genuine friendships. Everything else will flow from this.
So I beg our friends in Gaza to see the long-term value of being part of a community that cares and hopefully talking to one another and helping ensure that a very small number of accounts doesnât jeopardise that for everyone for short-term gain.
To our friends and families in Gaza, I do not presume to tell you how to use Mastodon or the fediverse but here are some of my thoughts based on what Iâve seen in the past half-year of Gaza Verifiedâs existence:
1. Please donât see this as a competition with each other. We all know that everyone who is in Gaza needs help.
2. Please try and make genuine connections with people here. Share your everyday experiences. People will follow you and they will engage with you. And from that, some of them will no doubt also help you.
3. Please donât target messages that try to guilt people who have helped in the past to help again. If they can help, they will. Please remember that they may not be in the best financial situation either.
For those of you reading who want to know how they can help, there are three main ways:
1. Check out the list of Gaza Verified accounts at https://gaza-verified.org/donate (ranked by those who raised the least in the past week).
2. Perhaps pick someone and try and organise monthly patronages for them so they can have a certain amount of money coming in every month (call it a universal basic income, if you will, or crowdfunded income redistribution, etc.) so they can pay their rent and/or basic necessities. We just successfully did that for Aseel, one of our Gaza Verified team members, where 17 patrons, including me, are paying her familyâs rent. If there was more of this, there would be less need for these families, who are facing genocide and famine, to keep asking for donations.
3. If you are mass tagged in a message or if you receive unsolicited direct messages, please either contact @gazaverified or mute the person in question but please donât report them if you can. Please remember that our friends in Gaza are facing genocide and the possibility of another famine. Muting them will stop them from contacting you without jeopardising their ability to provide for their family. And if you contact us, we will talk to them.
Any journalists want to write about this? Or anyone know how to figure out who insures Reflect Orbital? Reflect Orbital will cause eye damage to people using telescopes, as astronomers have previously calculated, and they openly admitted it in their reply.
(There is a whole slew of absolutely devastating ecological damage they will also cause, but I'm focusing on this one for now because it's so shocking)
"Friends don't let friends use LLM for activities where humans are valued. "
By @nod_
https://tresbien.tech/blog/algorithmic-bias-against-drupal-community-values/
I don't usually fail at making my life easier, but hey, it's a whole new world lately. To try my hand at LLM during my trial of AI-assisted coding, I wanted to see if I could customize an LLM for a specific task: assigning user credit on Drupal Core issues. Depending on the complexity, activity, and number of contributors involved it can take me anywhere between 30 seconds and 30 minutes to assign credit when I commit an issue to Drupal Core. Maybe I could automate some of it?
*Secret hilarious project* is now live!
Astronomy has a fine tradition of April Fool's Day papers, where there are real calculations, but perhaps on a very silly topic.
Compilation of this year's Acta Prima Aprilia papers here: https://www.actaprimaaprilia.com/2026-issue
Plan 9: Detecting Atmospheric Deterrence Against Interstellar Monsters David Rice, Michael J. Radke arXiv:2603.28895 Exoplanet atmospheres are usually discussed as tracers of climate, chemistry, and habitability, but they may also preserve signatures of planetary defense. We consider three
Please sign and share this EU citizens initiative â demanding the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement in view of Israelâs continued rights violations.
The initiative has already reached the first threshold across member states. It now needs signatures âď¸ to reach the 1 million mark.
https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2025/000005_en
Why mathematicians are boycotting their biggest conference: More than 1,500 mathematicians are demanding that their fieldâs most prestigious meeting be moved from the U.S.
(While unfortunate, this needs to happen. Everyone should move their meet-ups away from the US for now) #uspol
Hey everyone,
@aral and @aseelfromgz had the honour of speaking to two families from Gaza today and weâd like to welcome them to Gaza Verified.
They are:
⢠Family Gaza (@mohmad_ah)
⢠Diaa-Ayyad 97 (@DiaaMahmoud097)
Please give them a warm welcome to Mastodon and to the fediverse, follow their accounts, and donate to their fundraisers if you can (and please share this so others can do the same).
Also, remember that you can find all our families who have fundraisers listed at the following page, ordered by those who have received the least in donations over the last week (on a rolling basis):
https://gaza-verified.org/donate/
Thank you for making Mastodon and the fediverse a safe space for our friends in Gaza and for your support.
đ
#Gaza #Palestine #GazaVerified #Mastodon #fediverse #newMembers #verification
Sandra de Haan in Heeze
Mark McCaughrean
AnarchoNinaWrites
Aral Balkan
Prof. Sam Lawler
Pedro Cambra
Oliver Moran
Genuinely Gary đ¤ď¸
Gaza Verified