Remote

Chris

@chris@westmichigan.social

mastodon 4.6.4

Some stuff I'm interested in: Open Source, Self-Hosting and digital sovereignty, homelabs, Democracy...but really the list is endless.

Photo by Aaron Burden @aaronburden@unsplash.com

45 Followers

191 Following

38 Posts

Joined March 21, 2026

Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

Started this morning wondering about how I could find some native plants to plant in my back yard. I'm not really into gardening so don't know much. Then stumbled across https://gardenforwildlife.com/ and they seem to make it pretty easy. Would love other beginner-friendly local options in #WestMichigan if anyone has any! #gardening #michigan

gardenforwildlife.com

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@ThePlant@mastodon.social @gamingonlinux@mastodon.social You're doing great, I appreciate your work!

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

#mastoadmin This instance has been running for about a week, so far it's just me. I follow 125 people and a few hashtags.

My media storage is up to 25GB somehow...that seems high? Is this "normal"? Did I miss a setting somewhere?

Using #fedihost if that is helpful context.

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 3mo ago

Really surprised, but in a good way, to see #McMorrow drop out of the #Michigan #USSenate democratic primary. I'm not sure I _disliked_ McMorrow, I just like #ElSayed much more and think he's more the kind of leader I want to see in place.

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Kiloku @mattblaze I feel like I wouldn't mind ads by a corporation on Mastodon. I see everything as opt-in: if I don't want their ads I don't follow them, if people boost their ads and it makes it onto my feed I can just mute them or something. I'd rather have some ads that I can easily ignore than be on a platform that forces me to see ads.

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@VeroniqueB99 Can't wait to see the new "No-Pushback-ers" :ms_rolling_eyes:

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@stux We're so small. Humbling.

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@VeroniqueB99 Need to purge the ranks I guess?

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@zkat @b_cavello genuine question: how do we find our way to this better future? Is it legislation? Can we find any more ethical ways of engaging with it that "point" in the right direction? I worry that if people with good intentions don't work toward the future we want to see, then we'll be given a future we don't want.

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@moss slides.com has crossed my path before, but it's never been worth $5/month to me. Really want an #opensource tool for this

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/116528596376127279

I'd like to plug #ZenBrowser , based on #Firefox and has been nice to use

https://zen-browser.app/

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

I really miss having a President that makes me think "I want to be like them when I grow up"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okd5J56423M

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@chris_colvin@mastodon.social Yeah this is hard. I have successfully done the first and still play games with my friends although there's just some limits and I just have to deal with them. I'm also using Firefox (Zen browser), but not on a laptop...does it really kill the battery?

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@benroyce Someone help me learn please! How does a "closed loop" water cooling system use "forever chemicals" that leak into the environment? My naive comparison was like the water cooler in my computer: it has "water" but never requires refills and that water is never taken out. Help me understand?

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@benroyce@mastodon.social Is this information hidden or obscured from proposals? What I guess I'm getting at is: it critical that this information be sought after explicitly by concerned citizens rather than just demanding a "generic" closed loop system?

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@evacide@hachyderm.io And they mentioned Mastodon :)

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@billyjoebowers :ms_100: And I'd also love to encourage people to use this as an opportunity to get connected with local groups who are working to keep the energy focused on change. Huge rallies like this are important, we need to carry the energy forward by finding ways to stay active! #indivisible #nokings

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@gamingonlinux I started with "I really want to take a nap" and just translated back and forth a few times and ended with this. I guess I shouldn't take a nap.

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@AlleganCountyDems I see the "Coffee" price listed on here as "Wow, we need to have something affordable on the billboard..."

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 3mo ago

From the Petit Palais in Paris

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 3mo ago

Another great video from @bennjordan@mastodon.social on the history and future of capitalism in the US and its impacts on all of us living here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FZy1lBNykA

#capitalism #US

The Richest Country Is Pretty Mid Now

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@unixorn @blenderfox @homelab My biggest challenge with k8s in a homelab is dealing with flaky hardware. I've had ram go "bad" twice and it corrupted the disk for the control nodes and I lost the "state" of the cluster. I know you can back up k8s configuration, but backups are just so hard and I wish it were really easy 😆 Does Talos make this easier?

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Why is tool calling for models in #Ollama from things like #OpenCode so flakey?

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 4mo ago

Wow wasn't expecting this today, but glad to see it. This war in #Iran has to stop.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/03/us/politics/house-vote-trump-iran-war-powers.html?smid=url-share

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

#GEAppliances wants to sell me a software update for my oven, a completely digital "feature". I paid for the oven already, the capabilities are there already, this #paywall is so dumb.

https://www.geappliances.com/appliance/Air-Fry-Digital-Update-to-GE-5000-Wall-Oven-DGSN0CAFA2

geappliances.com

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Writing #agent #skills really reminds me of that old meme of kids giving their parents instructions on how to make a peanut butter sandwich and the outcome being a funny mess.

"Take the peanut butter and put it on the bread"
*Parent proceeds to place jar of peanut butter on top of the loaf of bread.*

When agents often run with broad access to our computers and the internet, what could go wrong?

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

Well, I forgot Peanut Butter

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 4mo ago

RE: https://mastodon.hongkongers.net/@glusnews_mirror/116682275723343844

How about instead we make better cars? #michigan #ev

mastodon.hongkongers.net

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 3mo ago

Eating food in airports is stupid levels of expensive.

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

My 2026 usage is 24% lower than in 2024 but I'm paying basically the same.

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

I've only got an hour or so into #Aethus but it's good so far and was happy to see that it supports #gamingonlinux

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Between two cats, a dog, and children I can't ever walk anywhere without having something dart in front of me out of nowhere like it's their mission in life.

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 3mo ago

Why is it so hard to find DRM-free ebooks that I can read on the device of my choice? What are other people using for this?

#ebooks #drmfree

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io this is such a good description of what I've been thinking too, but couldn't figure out how to put into words

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

"Controlling the flow of information is a potent thing - and we should be very careful of whom we give that power to."

W Social uncovered: the reality behind the hype
https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-uncovered-the-reality-behind-the-hype/

#federated #community

W Social uncovered: the reality behind the hype

W Social uncovered: the reality behind the hype

An article dispelling myths about W Social, the new European platform that aims to rival X: it is a fork of Bluesky that shares many similarities with Eurosky and requires government ID to sign up.

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Chris @chris@westmichigan.social

· 5mo ago

RE: https://mastodon.social/@0xYumeko/116536144764049138

Love to see this, but I hope they build out fast charging because traveling across Michigan is hard with random 50kW chargers only.

mastodon.social

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