Chris Adams

Science & justice. Also: coffee, cities, UX & code. Aghast at all the typos in my tweets. I'm an organiser at climateAction.tech, and I work at the greenwebfoundation.org. He/Him.
mrchrisadams on most of the social networks

Public Key

npub16lurcvm4c984e78gg5leu327hp2ncpnw4dvt7x7xmccnjnh956ds9zyzpt

NIP-05 Address

mrchrisadams@mastodon-social.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsd07puxd6uzn6ulr5y20u7g40ts4fuqeh2kk9lr0rduvfefmj6dxcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds35cjp7

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub16lurcvm4c984e78gg5leu327hp2ncpnw4dvt7x7xmccnjnh956ds9zyzpt

Show more details

Last Notes

2025-11-05 06:38:47 UTC

Oh boy, I get the feeling that voting Mamdani IN must have felt *even better* than voting Tories OUT of the UK last year.
What a result - THANK YOU NYC!
And wow, one of #ZohranMamdani ‘s lines after winning was essentially:
“billionaires just spent more funding the other guys than they would have spent on me taxing them when I’m Mayor”
He’s SO good at this 💯

2025-06-10 04:41:05 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…hunl @nprofile…gfyr TLDR though:
1. pitting the whole Microsoft 365 suite that an organisation has built all its processes around,
vs
2. just LibreOffice for half the users
…sounds like it’s almost designed to show how much harder all those processes will be for the half with the non-integrated OSS option, especially if there is patchy training and IT support for staff trying to migrate 😬

2025-06-10 04:34:03 UTC

Has anyone seen more info about how this switch from Microsoft in Denmark is being implemented?
The article here says they’ll essentially be giving half the gov Libreoffice but staying on Office 365 for everything else, while the other half keeps using the whole integrated Office 365 suite for a year.
That feels like it’s a very uneven match up and: @nprofile…hunl has a piece on why
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/what-the-open-world-must-do-better/
https://mastodon.social/@randahl/114655674138180496

2025-06-07 06:59:06 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…m624 what’s your time frame for getting a new lappie? I’ve used Mac laptops since the late nineties, and the best option I saw was the framework when I refresh in future.
I’m tracking threads like these to understand the trade offs from leaving Apple‘s feudal system (i.e. build quality was a thing for me too)
https://www.reddit.com/r/framework/comments/1k0ulg0/framework_13_build_quality/
Build quality doesn’t seem so good in terms of one single durable thing, but perhaps easier to maintain over time, ship-of-theseus style…

2025-06-02 10:55:52 UTC

WOOT! I pay for Youtube, to avoid the ads, and because honestly I easily use it enough to justify the cost, but paying something like couple of months of subscription fees to increase the chances of there being a viable alternative in future was an easy decision to make.
Looks like I wasn't alone 💯
https://framapiaf.org/@peertube/114613219893538727

2025-05-30 08:08:57 UTC

Dear fediverse: appreciate the irony of asking for this, particularly on Mastodon: if you have come across any very good series or explainers on YouTube explaining how activitypub works, would you leave a comment in this thread?
I’m looking for videos, not written docs and specs. I’d prefer peertube links, sure, but I’ve yet to find any hosted peertube-as-a-service to recommend, and I do not want to be that guy telling everyone to self host all their own stuff.

2025-05-27 13:24:34 UTC

Yesterday, at the #republica-adjacent #Mastodon meetup I learned that @nprofile…tga4 doesn't run on K8s, or Nomad, but Aurae (https://aurae.io) - the project Kris Nova presented at FOSDEM back in 2023:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a277u4j6fU
This makes me quite happy - I hadn't realised it was running anywhere in production, and since Nomad relicensed, the options for OSS cloud schedulers are smaller than they once were.

2025-05-26 12:00:28 UTC

If you're involved in the Mastodon / Fediverse #fediscovery programme, you've worked on the project, or you've been following its progress over the last year or so and you're going to this event, would you leave a comment in this thread?
It was funded as part of the EU NGI Search programme, and I think it's an interesting project. I'd like to learn more about it, and I figure others might as well:
https://lu.ma/7h454kcp
I’ll add some links in the next post.
/1

2025-05-16 11:38:56 UTC

I’d sign this if I could, but as a former EU citizen (thanks Brexit) I can't now, so the next best thing is to to encourage others who can, I guess?
If you are a citizen of the European Union, and you'd like to see the end of conversion practices targeting LGBTQ+ citizens, this petition is nearly at the threshold for being accepted to begin the process to become law.
Deadline to sign is today.
https://mastodon.green/@alberto_cottica/114517230568050844

2025-04-29 20:42:13 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ssyg I’m really glad you raised this as I work in this field and the framings I see used are often really problematic, because they shift responsibility to all the wrong places.
If you’d be up for chatting about this on the Environment Variables podcast this year I think it’d be a good convo for people who continually wrestle with the environmental implications of AI.
Here’s a sample episode
https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/1820rl98-ai-energy-measurement-for-beginners
👍?

2025-04-13 05:27:59 UTC

I had no idea there was even a thing called hookworm, but I was aware of the stereotype of”slow” Southerners in the USA, and while this might not be a fun read for the squeamish, it is a fascinating story. The idea that it is so widespread globally still today… yikes.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-gave-the-south-a-bad-name/

2025-04-09 06:47:42 UTC

If you have used and loved #Tailscale, and you still like the product but want a sensible insurance option to reduce your exposure to potential #enshittification, what *hosted* options have you looked at as alternatives?
Part of the appeal of #Tailscale for me at least was that they provided a really thoughtful UX layer over some existing cool OSS tech like #wireguard.
Also, many of us have tried self-hosting and want to minimise what they self host if at all possible.
https://mastodon.social/@JonathanGerlach/114302498688902923

2025-04-03 12:16:54 UTC

I mean, this is just such strong Brexity "we can't find our arse with both hands” energy.
https://hachyderm.io/@djnavarro/114271895319172076

2025-04-03 12:14:16 UTC

This is breathtaking. It's like watching Brexit, but at the scale of the entire USA, with similar seeming people in charge.
https://sfba.social/@drahardja/114272929881138640

2025-03-30 08:02:58 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…typy @nprofile…2d6k @nprofile…2lvc wow, I had no idea Orion existed - what a find!
I didn’t see any info about a Linux version being available, and I assumed it used loads of Apple APIs for sync, keychain and the rest. Did they mention plans to release a Linux version anywhere before?

2025-03-29 15:00:33 UTC

43. Blimey.

2025-03-16 17:10:39 UTC

- reply

Here's the project on Github too.
https://github.com/suitenumerique/docs
(whoops! Added the wrong tab I had open to this post before. original post showed this link instead - https://github.com/suitenumerique/meet)

2025-03-16 14:20:41 UTC

WOW - The French government announced a project simple called Docs:
“A collaborative note taking, wiki and documentationZendisorm that scales. Built with Django and React. Opensource alternative to Notion or Outline."
It’s even offline-first, using the CRDTs under the hood (Y.js).
LOL, does this mean I get to roll out the
"Liberté, Egalitité CRDTé”
Dad joke?
I think it does. Link below
https://docs.numerique.gouv.fr/
V interesting joint project between DINUM (🇫🇷) and Zendis (🇩🇪)

2025-02-04 08:59:41 UTC

Oh neat - I had no idea you could do this - get the youtube channels you subscribe to your preferred feed reader.
I pay for youtube, so I don't get ads, but I still appreciate the notion of having more control over what I watch.
https://mastodon.social/@christophemarois/113942189545289716

2025-01-31 11:49:01 UTC

Hey gang. I've arrived in Brussels for #fosdem
My tips for getting a lot out of it:
Have a list of events ahead of time! My fave to use is
https://fosdem.sojourner.rocks/2025/
It lets you share your schedule with others.
Also, use the https://nav.fosdem.org map. It gives you routes between rooms at the event, let's you hyperlink anywhere on the campus. It's v handy!
Here’s the link to a post with a few more, and a link to the sessions I'll be at:
https://rtl.chrisadams.me.uk/2025/01/im-at-fosdem-2025/
Enjoy!

2025-01-31 07:51:24 UTC

Dear Brussels fediverse peeps. If you have a fave quiet cafe near Bruxelles MIDI/Zuid that you like and *have personal experience with*, and is within walking distance, would you share a recommendation.
I can Google, but I’m looking for recommendations based on personal experience if possible.
I thought I would arrive in time to make it to the hotel
I’m staying at, and I’ve learned the train was delayed overnight (I’m on a sleeper train from Berlin to Brussels for #FOSDEM)

2025-01-13 08:17:47 UTC

I want to take this article and replace every mention of the term word “AI”, with “Expensive External Consultants and Systems Integrators”, because it's strategically about as smart.
Sure, there are some places where AI and machine learning can be helpful and very valuable, but this blind faith in a piece of tech, when you see something like an 80% failure rate for internal AI projects (see the rand corp report in next post) should be ringing SO many alarm bells.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/12/mainlined-into-uks-veins-labour-announces-huge-public-rollout-of-ai
/1

2025-01-09 07:38:09 UTC

I have an email address, a username and a password for your system.
I'm not using your service daily, so if can't remember my password, I probably don't have the username handy either. you already have my email address.
WHY REQUIRE MY USERNAME *TOO* WHEN RESETTING MY PASSWORD IF YOU ALREADY HAVE MY EMAIL ADDRESS?
THIS JUST LOCKS ME OUT OF THE SYSTEM FOR NO GOOD REASON, JEEZ.
(not looking for replies, just ranting about terrible German IT systems. I’m fine, but a bit pissed off.)

2025-01-06 12:01:14 UTC

Oh neat! If you follow #FOSDEM - we now have 7 devrooms interested in doing indoor CO2 monitor thing! WOOT!
Here's the pad we're using to coordinate. If you are organising a devroom, or planning go to one at fosdem and would like to see some info about indoor CO2 (i.e. a rough proxy for air quality used for public health), then you can add yourself to the list below:
https://pad.public.cat/D0sRexLgTlmdcxlSnbDA3Q#
Link to my original post below:
https://mastodon.social/@mrchrisadams/113730911782444104

2025-01-05 17:31:47 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…9kxn @lornajane @nprofile…7td3 @nprofile…xt5t @nprofile…20r6 @nprofile…7adv @nprofile…9qy9 @nprofile…lrlx @nprofile…sdgg @nprofile…dvqh @nprofile…f2x4 @nprofile…ffaw there's now an freely editable page of resources for indoor CO2 tracking for devrooms at #FOSDEM below
https://pad.public.cat/s/tnvBWsNZv#
There's a longer form post below too:
https://rtl.chrisadams.me.uk/2025/01/an-update-on-air-quality-notes-at-fosdem/
#FOSDEM #inclusiveweb

2025-01-03 05:35:20 UTC

I’ve been skeptical of LLMs lately partly because of the sheer amount of grift you see from ppl on social media peddling them, and the way big tech firms have thrown basically every scruple I can think of under the bus in a massive buildout of new infra.
I’m glad @nprofile…ssyg
wrote this time end of year round up though, because it lets me check my assumptions against someone doing the work to look really really close at the development of the field and show his working:
https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/31/llms-in-2024/
/1

2025-01-02 09:16:35 UTC

I had *no idea* that #SQLite basically came out of a side project to build a resilient database aboard the USS Oscar Austin, a Navy destroyer in the early 2000’s.
Many of us try to play down the link between the defence industry and tech, or at least position it as something we've moved past - but this is so on the nose for me.
This post is full of weird factoids, and some like the one above were new to me. Worth a quick gander.
https://fosstodon.org/@blainsmith/113742829380110327

2025-01-01 20:38:29 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…m624 There is always WNDR (or at least, I think that was one of backronyms we ended up with.
I've tried to jot down what I remember from some half remembered convos in Vigo at the post below 😅
https://rtl.chrisadams.me.uk/2025/01/parking-an-idea-wndr-for-web-native-dynamic-rendering/

2024-12-31 16:59:04 UTC

I posted about air quality / indoor CO2 in rooms yesterday in #FOSDEM, and this project here appears to set up a fairly accurate in-room CO2 sensor (a SCD4x one) with a tiny ESP32 minicomputer.
The box can join wifi, and then expose the live CO2 values for scraping via Prometheus/Grafana, a well known monitoring/observability stack.
It even includes a 3D model for 3D printing the box, and sample code and links to buy the kit, for 30-40 EUR total.
Not bad!
https://tech.lgbt/@alxndr/112051071094122231

2024-12-30 14:12:59 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…0gtx @nprofile…xt5t @nprofile…f2x4 TBH, I was looking at indoor CO2 levels as an relatively easy to measure but very imperfect proxy for air quality, and for want of a better term… “lurgyness”.
It’s not really my area of expertise - I am WAY out of my depth here 😅

2024-12-30 13:21:40 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…xt5t For what it's worth, I had @nprofile…f2x4 was one of the first people to contact me in response to my post. Devtank seems to be the company behind this thing:
https://opensmartmonitor.co.uk/environmental-monitoring/
I'll share a link to the video I found. which looks a quite a bit nicer than what I have.

2024-12-30 13:12:34 UTC

Over the last few months, I've developed a habit of using @nprofile…ssyg's fantastic llm tool with the growing crop of decent small language models out there.
I include Llama 3.2 3B as one example of an SLM, as I can run it on my 4 year old machine without really noticing it affecting resource usage, until I need to run a query. Even then, it's still using less memory than my browser.
It took me a while to figure out a setup I like, and this might be useful for others.
https://rtl.chrisadams.me.uk/2024/12/how-i-use-llms-neat-tricks-with-simons-llm-command/

2024-12-30 10:49:44 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…xt5t @nprofile…6zhx this might be of interest to you Andy. A bit more detail:
https://rtl.chrisadams.me.uk/2024/12/whats-the-air-quality-like-in-rooms-at-fosdem/

2024-12-29 07:12:18 UTC

This is such a good piece by @nprofile…eyyt - it really clearly lays out why so many projects to adopt open source alternatives to big tech products fail, and why we see so many large organisations adopting abysmal products like Microsoft teams and so on in the face of cheaper, less terrible software - it's about so much more than the software.
It also lays out a set of sensible things you need before even starting a project to adopt OSS alternatives in orgs:
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/open-source-by-itself-is-no-alternative-for-big-tech/

2024-12-28 14:26:32 UTC

I'm going to #FOSDEM in Feb. If you know if any of the teams who organise devrooms or similar spaces would be open to having CO2 sensors running in the rooms, and making the values visible to participants, I'd love to know.
It feels like an affordable project to do, and quite scalable too.
Actually… I'm doing a talk in the #inclusiveweb dev room anyway. I'm happy to start with bringing my sensor of my own if there's nothing better available.
https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/track/inclusive-web/
Anyone else up for it?

2024-12-24 11:46:23 UTC

Dear Fediverse, have you come across an open data set of the carbon footprint / water usage per kilo of different kinds of food? I’m sure I’ve come across this before but am failing at finding it online.

2024-12-16 12:13:01 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…p4mx this is a really interesting question, and back in 2018, there was a good thread from @nprofile…lm9m about this kind of long term archival storage:
Simon W’s blog:
https://simonwillison.net/2018/Nov/5/
the thread on twitter:
https://x.com/simonw/status/1059179386815959040
The lump sum to Internet Archive and 100 year domain name registration in that thread is a nice notion.
I'll respond properly on the discourse:

2024-12-16 10:46:01 UTC

If these apply to you:
1. You are using default Apple Mail, and Mac OS
2. You have got used to actually good search offered by Google Mail, Fastmail and so on,
3. you are pulling email from gmail AND regular IMAP accounts
Have you found a good “for power users” guide to using the default mac Mail.app for OS 15?
I'd rather invest in learning a supported default app well, that offers local search if possible, and I can't be alone.
I'm not looking for alternative clients yet.

2024-12-16 10:08:01 UTC

One nice surprise I discovered travelling from Berlin to Brussels, when #deutschebahn decided to divert me to Amsterdam instead of Frankfurt.
In the central station, if you forgot your water bottle, and you need to buy some water, then next to rando bottles of pop, there are now these, from https://bottleup.com
They're a backup reusable bottle made. from a plant-based plastic that you can pick up if you don't want to buy a drink in a single-use plastic container.
It cost me about 3 EUR.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/661/946/903/791/442/original/54ec19b10fc939c6.jpeg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/661/947/287/571/453/original/738f3654c0fa27c7.jpeg

2024-12-13 08:20:24 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…td39 do you know if anyone has ever tried to Subject Access Request Spotify and other services to get their Scrobbles?

2024-12-11 19:34:09 UTC

I must be missing something obvious. Is there a nice way to do threads in one go with Mastodon?
There isn't an obvious UI element see in Ivory, nor the official Mastodon client, and yet I see people like @nprofile…eznj doing absolutely epic long ones.
I think this is because very post has to be a reply to the previous one, so there's no ID to link to, but surely this has been solved already, right?
If there's a good published how to, I’d really welcome a link to it.
👍 ?

2024-12-09 08:30:07 UTC

Y'know that #solarpunk trope of floating wind turbines in the sky, tethered to the ground, and feeding power down to denizens below?
This is in China, serving 50KW at 500m, which is power for between 40 to 140 households.
The figure changes depending on which country you use. USA is around ~1KW per house, and in Europe it's closer to 300-400W on average).
I wonder what the economics are like for these. I you have seen numbers, do plz share.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202410/12/WS6709ce66a310f1265a1c7306.html
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/621/925/880/734/828/original/4ac8fd1b3bf4d718.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/621/926/132/243/940/original/072345935bfd3527.jpeg

2024-08-15 10:29:08 UTC

- reply

@npub1jlj…skl3 this feels very “prisoners dilemma“ - surely elections when you expect there to be more elections are the definition of an infinite game, right?

2024-07-29 09:14:02 UTC

Wow, I had no idea that trees process methane through their bark, as well as drawing down carbon dioxide to grow.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/24/tree-bark-vital-role-removing-methane-atmosphere-climate
Like the dark oxygen discovery last week, there are all these natural systems doing all this work to keep the planet habitable that we are only now discovering.
Link to original paper below (I wish the Guardian would link to these)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07592-w

2024-07-26 09:18:18 UTC

Dear Brussels Fedi folk:
I’m in Brussels with a few hours free before meeting friends this evening, and I have missed Belgian frites terribly.
The best ones I've had in Da Brux ever were at Frit Flagey, but that was a year and a bit ago.
Coming from Bruxelles Midi, which are the next best places that are slightly closer, that you have had personal experience with and were anywhere near as good as Frit Flagey?
(Maybe I should just ride there after all…)

2024-07-13 13:42:39 UTC

Lanyap episode time - woohoo!
I’ve been a paying subscriber of the Energy Transition Show for years now, and this is one of their free shows for 2024, diving into the nuance of communicating about climate change.
There’s loads of useful stuff, and while the podcast is *really* good on wonkish detail, this one also explains how sometimes you gotta talk about climate in terms of *love* as the driver for action.
Not short, this one - but definitely worth your time 💯
https://mastodon.energy/@chrisnelder/112774970732496829

2024-07-04 11:34:19 UTC

- reply

@npub1jlj…skl3 Yes! I loved that post - made me really happy to read it, and I appreciated your analysis and perspective 👍

2024-06-30 07:25:16 UTC

I have come to expect weird headlines from the BBC more and more over the last 10 years, but this new story from the BBC about how terrible it is that Spain has loads and loads of clean energy has such a bizarre framing - it manages to frame something which is broadly a positive thing as some kind of crisis.
The YouTube comments are surprisingly good for once as well.
https://youtu.be/AkW8nNGVrOM?si=cnnZXm4lJ9WSL2r0

2024-06-19 09:10:54 UTC

This was SUCH an easy purchase to make. If there’s a book club reading it later this summer, I’d join the hell out of it.
It cost me 7 USD for the ebook version, and Adam's books have a been formative throughout my career - so I'm definitely looking forward to this:
https://social.coop/@adamgreenfield/112642367924611184

2024-06-13 15:29:57 UTC

- reply

@npub1lwu…6w4j Well.. it IS append-only at some level, amirite?

2024-06-02 08:34:36 UTC

Dear #djangonaughts - is there a central repo of branding and media asset information for the django project? I'm looking for high quality versions of the django logo, the django pony , colour swatches and the like, and I couldn't find one when looking at the website.
I'm aware of the django pony site,
https://djangopony.com/
…and that I can buy a license of the original pony to edit if need be:
https://www.istockphoto.com/fr/vectoriel/vecteurs-de-conte-de-f%C3%A9es-gm91230581-3355498?st=3eb57c4

2024-06-01 11:36:20 UTC

Every time I try to buy tickets to travel on the Paris metro, I realise how much I miss the comparatively stellar UX and attention to detail of German public digital services.

2024-05-10 04:13:46 UTC

This piece about how uncompetitive US and European EVs are compared to what’s being made in China is a real wake up call to anyone not familiar with the standard of cars “over there”.
It’s like the 1970s all over again where incumbents just thought they could get away with focusing on high price, high margin big cars, ignoring what customers wanted, and ended up losing market share to better made, more affordable Japanese cars.
https://mastodon.energy/@jgkoomey/112412602767549978

2023-09-04 12:54:05 UTC

- reply

@npub1l0s…pgrv @npub1g45…0ka3 ah, danke. I wish we had this in Berlin.
TLC would be the Taxi and Limosine Commision in this case?
https://www.nyc.gov/site/tlc/index.page
It took me a while to find a plausible match for who TLC might be in thie context and that's the only one I can think of.

2023-09-04 04:28:12 UTC

- reply

@npub1l0s…pgrv @npub1g45…0ka3 wow, I had no idea that Reported existed in NYC. Is any data in the public domain about how often it used used and how often the submissions lead to fines being levied on drivers?

2023-08-27 13:44:59 UTC

- reply

@npub19lt…qfjk this is how you keep the flow of daily posts? I always wondered how you managed it.