Andy Alderwick

One of the Merveilles mods since August 12026 :flan_hurrah:

Pronouns: he / him / Dr
Proper nouns: Andy
Adjectives: half-Cornish, former sysadmin, recovering physicist and pun lover
Conjuctions: … not sure. Are you asking where I live? UK 😅

Public Key

npub13e0usndpuak5pmua6ys7j6k47l3armmsrsjsnfm8dh6natynftkq48qty3

NIP-05 Address

alderwick_at_merveilles.town@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsguh7gfks7wm2qa7wazg0fdt2l0c73aacpcfgf5ankmaf74jf54mqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsp04nwr

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub13e0usndpuak5pmua6ys7j6k47l3armmsrsjsnfm8dh6natynftkq48qty3

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Last Notes

2026-10-21 08:30:27 UTC

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Now I know what upset Jack so much in Chapter 97 of Gunnerkrigg Court!
(https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=3060, but spoilers within. If you have a little time, I'd recommend starting at the beginning https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1)
https://assets.merveilles.town/media_attachments/files/117/477/943/032/056/709/original/efb0b834a3a9970b.png

2026-10-21 07:58:35 UTC

#SysadminLife
:flan_yikes:

2026-10-17 09:52:23 UTC

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I was a professional sysadmin with many years' experience, super great at my jobs, so of course I don't understand why the top choice only starts at five :flan_confused:
Are we talking per week or something?

2026-10-08 17:02:34 UTC

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the “/owner/repo/raw/…” paths were not banned since they're <5% of the traffic in my logs, but long-term I think the “/owner/repo” paths are the safest to keep open :flan_think:

2026-10-08 16:57:42 UTC

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I would not worry about sharing links at this point, the scrapers already have their incredibly long lists of commit hashes to continually scrape over and over again.

2026-10-08 16:46:20 UTC

This is almost #GitForgeDowntime but not quite…
To shed some of the most expensive scraper traffic on the Merveilles Git Forge, I've disabled access to source code browsing, commit listing, issues and pull requests.
If you do try to access those pages, you'll see a message like in this picture. There's no problem with accessing that message: it's super cheap to generate and there's no reputation scoring that you're influencing. (I wanted to make this clear because some sites' anti-scraper defences punish visitors who access several error pages.)
Now that the poor server's CPU isn't a molten blob, I'll try to lift those restrictions from users who are logged in. :under_construction:
https://assets.merveilles.town/media_attachments/files/117/406/282/643/169/917/original/3b4fd6f03875b051.png

2026-09-26 12:07:15 UTC

📢 October is fast approaching, and so is an annual relaxing of one of merveilles.town's rules!
🎃 #ff8000 month is almost here! 🎃

2026-09-15 15:22:24 UTC

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I was wondering why the lights were flickering…
(The weird part was that the lights aren't even switched on)

2026-09-11 21:20:01 UTC

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Ah, so the criticism of “it's two smartphones stuck together” applies literally here :flan_XD:

2026-09-11 21:07:08 UTC

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the facial expression on the folding mobilek! :flan_smile:

2026-09-08 19:36:17 UTC

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I've had a few today, and @npub1e5z…p90v has mentioned them too. Pinging @npub15c5…ncq4 in case they haven't seen this…

2026-08-01 16:07:14 UTC

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Just wanted to say thanks for introducing me to MangoWM!
I know you tooted about it ages ago, but now I had the time to try out Wayland on OpenBSD and I'm getting on so well with it :flan_metal:

2026-07-15 15:57:38 UTC

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I was wrong! It wasn't terrible at all, but awesome :tealheart: :merveilles:

2026-07-08 18:26:22 UTC

Amazing… just solved* a problem on my #OpenBSD desktop thanks to a tiny program posted to a mailing list back in 12002: https://marc.info/?l=netbsd-users&m=103719000328428&w=2
The layers of awesomeness here:
• the code is tiny enough to know it contains no nasties
• it compiles without any changes
• it still does the job it was programmed for
• it works around the problem I have today (xenodm crashes on resume)
• the author wrote it to work around the same problem
• 23½ years ago!

2026-05-31 10:48:03 UTC

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So *that's* how you're meant to do it :flan_think:

2026-04-29 16:44:24 UTC

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So not five years then :flan_disappointed:
*checks calendar*
*checks calendar again*
Oh.

2026-04-29 16:42:13 UTC

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Surely not that long ago!! 😅

2026-04-20 18:26:24 UTC

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Perfectly cromulent semi-SI units. Decifeet, centifeet, kilofeet :flan_thumbs:

2026-04-06 16:22:59 UTC

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It's always been like that! One aspect of privateness is that internet randomers can't create issues or pull requests since they cannot log in, but they are free to browse if the repos are public. Perhaps that was where the confusion crept in.
I'm totally fine with extra human traffic, it'll be nice to reduce the percentage that is slopscraping :flan_laugh:

2026-04-06 16:14:55 UTC

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Do you mean that some particular repos aren't published as public? I can browse a whole bunch of your repos without logging in

2026-03-22 20:20:41 UTC

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Happy Birthday! :flan_hurrah: 🎂 :flan_cheer:

2026-03-15 19:11:37 UTC

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I'm on stable and vimb didn't crash for me :flan_thumbs:

2026-01-22 15:56:43 UTC

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yay, ableism :flan_angry:

2026-01-12 17:05:58 UTC

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I was cycling back from Cambridge in the dark and in the middle of a cycle path was a Android phone. Locked behind a PIN, no details on it, so thought I'd take it home and keep it charged up.
Back on my bike, it started ringing. But I could not find out how to answer the arsing thing. Still, I thought I would hang around to try to answer it next time.
Eventually, the name of a nearby business appeared on the screen, so I found my way there. It was 2°C so after all the waiting I was frozen.
It turned out that the owner never rang the phone, they just asked Google to make it sound a loud ringtone while they toured the premises. Where I found the phone was nowhere near the business.
I got a similar glare when I said he could have just rang the phone and maybe someone would have answered. Understandable. Why would he trust people when he could trust Google instead?

2026-01-09 16:37:48 UTC

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You should come over to OpenBSD, we have 143 in OpenBSD 7.7! Ditch those seldom-updated operating systems such as *checks notes* Arch…

2026-01-09 16:34:36 UTC

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No, I'm on Firefox on macOS too, the latest version that's supported is 115 ESR :flan_blush:

2026-01-09 16:28:39 UTC

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Today's reason is entirely practical: I'm involved in my design work and a website I rely on has stopped working on my macOS. I'm able to use a newer Firefox on OpenBSD and the website continues to work there :flan_thumbs:

2026-01-09 16:06:32 UTC

“Life will be so much easier once I can ditch macOS and just run OpenBSD”
-- me, and probably countless millions nationwide

2025-12-19 00:31:38 UTC

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To be fair, Past Veronica knows what she's talking about :flan_shrug:

2025-12-12 16:50:44 UTC

Thinking of https://merveilles.town/@aartaka/115703810327257466 and wondering how decent font sizes should be specified in web pages.
In my in-development site, I've not styled <p> and <h1–6> yet at all, so it's just using the browser's default sizes and spacing. Eventually I might decide to be more opinionated, but how to go about it?
I might have the opposite problem that @npub1dqw…h4lu might be thinking of: all the screens I use are low-resolution (currently 1366px wide) so I worry about ultra-high-resolution in particular.

2025-11-11 20:22:17 UTC

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All style icons copy each other :flan_XD:

2025-11-11 20:02:36 UTC

I'm so glad that after the Bell Riots, wealth inequality was solved and scarcity for all people on Earth was consigned to the dustbin of the past. ✨
It's just about the only situation where a global corporation could ask noble citizens $230 for what they themselves call “a piece of cloth” without coming across as being wholly despicable.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/introducing-iphone-pocket-a-beautiful-way-to-wear-and-carry-iphone/
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bell_Riots

2025-11-08 23:30:56 UTC

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C'est la mode à l'université!!

2025-11-08 23:05:53 UTC

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So does this mean you were wearing hot pink trousers, which became black in infrared??

2025-09-16 17:44:52 UTC

⚠️ Important merveilles.town instance news! ⚠️
If you haven't prepared your Orangetober avatars yet, you have a fortnight left to do so. 🎃

2025-08-12 20:55:29 UTC

Hi @npub1fh7…ee83, do you share your configs or infrastructure notes about your anti-bot defences?
The Forgejo instance I run is collapsing under the latest botnet and it'll be great to have a decent approach to follow!
Of course I will understand if you want to keep such details private :flan_luck:

2025-08-08 16:14:23 UTC

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The door opens, the sunlight and dust stinging your eyes. Andy lurches through, one heavy step at a time. He closes the door with a grunt, leaning his back against it to catch his breath.
He looks tired, but determined. The only time you've seen more grit is on the roads in winter.
He winces, then slides down until he is sitting.
“It's done.”
With effort, he passes the shoulder strap over his head and lets the clothespeg bag hit the floor.
“Forty-seven socks, all paired up.”
You try to ask him if he meant 47 pairs of socks, rather than individual ones. There's no response, no recognition in his face. Just a thousand-meter stare and bushy eyebrows.

2025-08-08 14:18:18 UTC

I have decided to be
*flounces and swoons dramatically*
an adult

2025-06-05 01:14:35 UTC

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Woah, what a view! :moomin_sparkles:

2025-06-05 01:07:07 UTC

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Is that all that's left of Pino? :flan_confused:

2025-05-18 18:05:47 UTC

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My research on the only case I know (Discworld's Granny Weatherwax insisting on being called “Mistress Weatherwax” by those she didn't like) has led me to this esteemed organ:
https://www.askamanager.org/2024/05/coworkers-message-me-hi-with-nothing-else-younger-coworker-thinks-im-tech-illiterate-and-more.html#comment-4722953
“‘Mr.’ started as ‘Master’ (as in, ‘the master of their craft,’ especially since many last names originated from people’s trades), and was pronounced as ‘Mister’ before getting contracted to ‘Mr.’ So having people call you ‘Mister [name]’ was a sign of deference. ‘Mistress’ was the equivalent of ‘Master’ before getting contracted to ‘Missus’ and ‘Mrs.’, and it too was an honorific that referred to a woman who was at the top of her game. And that’s why there’s an extra ‘r’ in ‘Mrs.’ even though we pronounce it ‘missus.’”

2025-05-18 10:20:19 UTC

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I know! You spotted that I didn't include that example :flan_wink: I thought the long form was “missus” but of course that has no “r” :flan_think:

2025-05-16 12:22:01 UTC

TIL why (in British English) we don't use a dot after the “St” short form of “Street”.
The “t” in “St” is *not* the second letter of “Street”, but the sixth. So it's not an abbreviation (like “Prof.” for “Professor”, “etc.” in “et cetera”, etc.), it's a contraction (like “Dr” in “Doctor”, “Mr” in “Mister”, “St” in “Saint” and so on) and contractions don't have a dot.
🤯
I assumed it was just a weird English thing, but turns out I found the only language feature that's entirely consistent :flan_wink:

2025-04-28 20:58:56 UTC

Today I visited Cambridge and cosplayed as a indifferent consumer! I had a blast.
While wondering the streets and getting slightly off-course, I stopped to get my bearings and, at that moment, a middle-aged man left the building right by me, pushing the wheelchair of an elderly woman.*
“Excuse me,” I said, “I'm looking for York Street, I think it's near here…”
The man wasn't entirely sure, but he did know the name of an unrelated side street in the middle distance. Perhaps he told me that because it might have evoked a memory? Who knows.
Then he asked, “Don't you have a phone?”
I cheerfully replied, “Yes!” and then we stared at each other. Now that I've had time to reflect, and to regret, I realised he was expecting me to say “Yes! But the battery is flat.” or “Yes! But I have exceeded my data allowance† and, like all normal people, don't download my maps in advance.” But even at the time, as the moment hung between us and became pregnant, I knew I had said something that completely surprised him and caught him off guard. He had no means or words available to reply to me. I had nothing to offer in his direction either.
Then I realised that I was the one breaking the norm. I had a phone; I should have been relying on it. So I explained my stance with a faltering smile and these words that would haunt me: “I prefer to use my wits.”
The man's expression hardened. The surprise had given way to abject suspicion. Who was this person not using their phone? If they had a phone, why did they choose not to use it and why did they instead engage other people in needless conversation to compensate for their folly?
I made my excuses and left, making sure to thank them profusely for their time and for stopping when I wanted to talk to them. I turned a corner, made sure I was out of their sight, then shielded my phone's screen from the sun and started up Organic Maps. York Street was fifty metres away.
I've reflected on the suspicion. Perhaps some of the suspicion I felt was projection‡, but should I have been suspicious in their direction? Are people now so reliant on their phones that they don't know what the next street along is called? York Street has a medical practice on it; if they were local, they would be sure to visit it over the years. Perhaps they weren't local? Perhaps I had happened on a kidnapping in progress? Then how did he know the name of that side street? Was it part of the getaway route?
Perhaps I am over-thinking this. The sensible, normal response is to let my phone do more thinking for me.
✻ ✻ ✻
* She was in the wheelchair, that's how I knew who had it.
† My data allowance is 20 MiB if I pay €0.23, which is probably enough to download half a street. Yours may well be orders of magnitude higher 😅
‡ It was 100% projection.

2025-04-25 20:34:15 UTC

Copy of https://hachyderm.io/@patrizia/114398714464484381 with CW added:
The Good Law Project is fundraising to challenge the UK Supreme Court's recent ruling on in the European Court of Human Rights.
If you are unaware, the ruling of the UK Supreme Court was that under the Equality Act 2010, 'sex' was to be interpreted as 'biological sex', rather than gender. This upended over a decade of existing practice and interpretation.
If you are able to contribute, please do: this ruling was devastating blow to the community, undermining our expectations and safety.
https://goodlawproject.org/crowdfunder/supreme-court-human-rights-for-trans-people
Boosts would be welcome - the more people see this, the better the chances of them hitting their goal.
#Trans
#TransRights
#CrowdfFunding
#UKpol
#SupremeCourt
#Discrimination
#EqualityAct2010

2025-03-12 23:23:33 UTC

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Locksmith obvs because all the bobby pins are useful to control my hair :flan_headbang:

2025-01-26 00:05:00 UTC

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Yep, this is the serious, genuine fear that a lot of small, independent web services have. The billionaire techbros are going to be fine, they already have the resources to deal with countries' laws. It's almost as if this law is written for them.

2025-01-25 23:41:10 UTC

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The UK's ISPs do not do the blocking! That's only for truly dangerous sites like ThePyriteBay.
But for those who facilitate terrorism or those who fail to complete certain risk assessments by the 16th of March, you can be fined €21.3m / $32.3m CAD or 10% of revenue, whichever is *greater* (so I will need to check how many boondollars I'm minting by running the Git Forge).
And these are criminal offenses, not civil, so the UK will try to extradite folk's arses (along with the rest of their bodies) to bring them to just ice.
So websites themselves blocking access to the UK (and who prevent folk in the UK using VPNs to circumvent IP-based blocking) will be in compliance with the law. (Or if you're UK-based, just shut down completely.)

2025-01-25 20:58:08 UTC

Oh no…
According to the #OnlineSafetyAct, users to the Merveilles Git Forge aren't just the ones with accounts… it's everyone that visits the website too :flan_facepalm:
So while I'm fighting bots hammering the service (https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@reidrac/113889142183511732), I'm also meant to be tracking the humans in order to count them. And geo-locating them too.
All in order to gather evidence that there aren't a significant number of UK visitors. But let's say I did, and found that there are 500. Is that significant?

2025-01-09 23:16:18 UTC

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I made a (very minor) contribution to this one, but got put off using it for real by the policy of avoiding moderation tools: so no blocking, no defederation.

2025-01-02 22:59:22 UTC

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Yep, we got taken down by an instance of Scrapy (https://scrapy.org). It was asking for complex pages, 100 times a second, from patterns that were disallowed by robots.txt :flan_angry:
My auto-restart scripts fixed the service at 21:10 UTC, almost two hours ago, but not after an extended period of #GitForgeDowntime. On the other hand, if the service auto-restarted more quickly, it would have just been taken down by the bot again…
Time to think about more proactive defenses.

2024-12-31 13:21:42 UTC

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Thanks for pinging me! No, there's no email sending or receiving function in our Git Forge, so the email address field is nearly useless.
If it happens to match the email address you use in your Git commits, then it shows your avatar next to the commit author information! But that's all.

2024-12-20 10:47:31 UTC

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Well, me too, but both Westcountry and Norfolk would be dialects that have been relatively untouched by fads from the last few centuries.
Perhaps the acid test should be:
• find a city gent
• doff cap
• perform Rimmer Salute¹ while city gent bangs on about “finance” and “disrupt” and “blockchain” and “AI” and “eat the poor”
• show them the list and see which words they recognise
• ask them to git-send-email a patch to neauoire's repo
¹ As attached, but more reverential
https://assets.merveilles.town/media_attachments/files/113/684/737/757/591/881/original/681c0032801e95cf.mp4

2024-12-19 21:20:00 UTC

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Um yes! Um… I think I have a too complicated relationship with English to be able to join in with this :flan_pats:

2024-12-19 18:10:57 UTC

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“Anglish” meaning getting rid of the Greek, Latin and French¹ loanwords in English?
¹ plus many others of course, but they're the main three

2024-12-13 17:56:18 UTC

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thank you :tealheart: It's more like the whole respiratory system from the throat downwards, I cough a lot (from a throat tickle) too.

2024-12-13 17:43:21 UTC

Turns out this time of year is ideal to go on antibiotics that say that I need to avoid strong sunlight (because it sensitises the skin).
Our solar panels have generated 4.0 kWh over the last seven days. A single sunny day in winter will generate 5 kWh (and 22 kWh in summer).
Plus, achievement unlocked: after driving other people to hospital so many times over the years, I get to drive myself in today ✅
So lack of DecAdv updates weren't just me being tired, I have a chest infection as well :flan_sick:

2024-11-30 16:32:18 UTC

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An “instant pot” is a pressure cooker, isn't it? If so, it's awesome for pulses :flan_thumbs:

2024-11-13 16:42:38 UTC

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I love how you freely block arseholes on sight, but I thought that the whole AUTHORIZED_FETCH config setting was to prevent servers you've blocked from ever seeing your posts, whether directly or indirectly? That's a real bummer if it doesn't work that way (but I'm making the assumption that you've turned it on).
(Obviously this doesn't help with folk taking screenshots and DMing or emailing you, but I thought Mastodon at least had the above feature.)

2024-11-13 16:33:53 UTC

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Does visiting the linuxmom.net URL for any of your toots show all the replies?

2024-09-30 10:02:48 UTC

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Re: important instance news about Orangetober:
∘ It's now the 1st of October in Kiritimati, so knock yourself out!
∘ This is not a hallucination, this is definitely unreal.
∘ A lot of fedi folk appreciate notice when avatars change, as avatars may be more easy to track than names. I'm going to pin a toot with my old/new ones.
∘ This is all for a little fun, so if you don't have the spoons or don't wish to participate there is absolutely no shame in that.
∘ No-one calls it Orangetober… just me!

2024-09-26 15:23:38 UTC

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Hopefully that will appease [@flame](https://merveilles.town/@flame ), who originated this lovely custom :flan_cheer:

2024-09-26 15:21:28 UTC

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I'm as surprised as you are! I mused idly about avatars this morning and then thought “hang on, is October quite soon now?” Turns out it is!

2024-09-26 10:20:21 UTC

⚠️ A reminder of the merveilles.town instance rules ⚠️
https://assets.merveilles.town/media_attachments/files/113/203/333/343/057/782/original/3176b68beba919cb.png

2024-08-25 20:57:18 UTC

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Yep, the webserver is showing the updated cert now :flan_thumbs: Thank you for fixing it!