i. celeste aurora [witchzard 2.0]

Fall is harvest season. And I have harvested some herbs from my balcony... 😂

Found this on the Interwebs, back in Dec 20xx, and still love it: 16 THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN: ~~~~ by Dave Barry , Nationally Syndicated Columnist Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be "meetings."There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.You should not confuse your career with your life.Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Never lick a steak knife.The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.A person who is nice to you but rude to a waiter is not a nice person (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.).Your friends love you anyway.Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it's up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

"You can't give up hope because it's hopeless. You gotta hope even more and cover your ears and go bla-bla-bla-bla..." ~~~~ Philipp J. Fry, Delivery Boy (Futurama, "Godfellas")

And I am really looking forward to Elif "confiscating" (un-privatizing) all the homes/apartments that Vonovia owns in Berlin. Real Estate should NOT be owned by companies!!

My small "pond" is blossoming again 😍 #bloomScrolling

So, I sign off all my emails with "I. Celeste" or "I. Celeste Aurora". I really don't want to drop "I." but I don't want people to use that name anymore at all. And I think "I. Celeste Aurora" leaves a little bit room for mystery, no? 😂

@sashag@anarres.family Depending on what is recorded on your passport as gender marker, you may not be allowed to get in. At the moment I wouldn't risk it at all – even if I could get in, I don't know if getting out again is possible at all.

In fact, if I had anything to say, I would completely prohibit companies from owning any real estate at all. Real estate should be owned by human beings, and inheritance tax paid on it. Just allow the current text-free limits and done with it. This concentration of wealth in the hands a few (or especially in the hands of people who are only interested in making a quick buck) is poison for a society.

@sashag@anarres.family

Starting big deployment... ✅ DB Dump✅ DB Convert✅ DB migration✅ Deployment in Preparation✅ Deployment✅ Testing Yay!!! We had a downtime of net total 35 minutes. All the deployment including testing took 52 minutes. This is just awesome...

You know what makes me really worry and sad? Regarding last Sunday's eelction results in Saxony-Anhalt? The fact that not a Single one of my native-born German friends got in touch and assured me or consoled me. "Evil wins when good people stay silent."

In the latest episode of Ted Lasso, there is this scene wit Alice and Ted, less than a minute — if for nothing else, the episode is worth watching for this scene. Just absolutely awesome.

@DrJLecter@beige.party 🥰🥰🫶

@faithisleaping@anarres.family Managers who measure the performance of their teams based on LoC ... or the quantity of the output in general ... are the ones that need to be kicked out and sent to the Sahara with only a liter of water. I have seen this in many organizations – in some, the output was only paper; and the more paper someone generated, the more successful they were and were thus promoted faster. But the paper they generated was (a) useless, and even worse, created more problems than solved. Yeah, with AI, this is obviously way faster done than ever before. Fucking fuckers!

@faithisleaping@anarres.family I mean, Dave Barry (Nationally Syndicated Columnist of bygone ages) said long time ago: If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be "meetings." But vibe-coding is definitely not the solution that some idiots believe it to be.

All the prep for tomorrow's big deployment seems done. Even the "dress rehearsal" worked fine, so, yeah, it shouldn't take longer than 45 minutes – but I still insist on 4-hour-downtime: better safe than sorry.

Ich hätte nicht gedacht, dass ich mein Prinzjp "keine Inlandsflüge" über Bord werfen würde. Aber sollte ich nach Berlin müssen, wird das zukünftig nur noch via Flieger sein – ich habe keine Lust, Gefahr zu laufen, in einem der von Nazis bevölkerten Bundesländer hängenzubleiben...

@Tami@troet.cafe 😂😂

@dee@social.treehouse.systems Good morning. Wish you the best, but I am sure this is going to be "fun" at the beginning.

Fuck!!!! 😢😭 #CSDBerlin

Part 2: Musa Şele (he/him) Then came 4th grade. Ms Palandöken was gone, Mr Şele came. Mr Şele stayed with me through the primary school then, 4th and 5th grade. His signature is on my primary school diploma, next to the principal's signature (the principal's daughter, Şenay, and I had a huge crush on each other and there were plans for the two of us going to high school together, but alas, my father had decided to bring me to Germany... 😞 - but that's probably another story) Mr Şele, I learned decades later, was in fact sent to our village as punishment - and after our school, he was sent to south east Turkey, for even tougher punishment 😢 I don't remember much about him, except that he was a really good teacher in all the topics that mattered, but there was one thing that forever changed how I think. Starting 4th grade, we also had to have "Religion" as topic. And it was, obviously, Islam. And since there was only one teacher per class/grade, he had to teach us religion as well. I don't remember most other religion classes we had, but I remember the first one. One day, it was quite sunny, he said: "Ok, today we'll do religion. Let's all leave the classroom and get out of school. Follow me!" Flabbergasted as we were (leaving the school was forbidden and punishable with corporal punishment ), we didn't dare to say "no". So we followed him. Left school. Left the village. Went somewhere close to a creek nearby. Then he said: "Lay down. All of you. On your backs. Look at the sky. Stop thinking." Ohhhh-keey, what's going on? We did what we were told. And then something happened. Something beautiful. I SAW the sky. I SAW how beautiful it was. How much beauty there was. Then he said: "Sit up. Look around. At the trees, at the grass, at the rocks, the creek, the animals, the flowers. Look. Stop thinking, just look." We did that, too. "Look closer. At the leaves, at the grass, at the tree, at the rocks. Closer." We did that, too. "This is all The Creation. This is what you should love. All this beauty. This is Their* creation. This is so beautiful because They love Their creation. They love all of us, everybody, everything, everywhere. This is all there is: love for everything, everywhere. This is Them, The creator. And you are part of Them. Your only 'duty' is to love. There are no more rules. Love for everything in this world, in the universe. Because that's who They are: The Love and The Lover. Don't ever let anyone tell you anything else. Their creation is because of love, Their love to Their creation is eternal and infinite - as should your love for everything and everywhere: eternal and infinite." ... ... "Ok, we're done. That was the Religion Class. Any questions?" ........ I learned faith from Mr Şele, and I learned that any religion not based on love is a lie - is an ideology - created to control people. Admired Mr Şele: if you are reading this, know that you are admired and loved - forever and ever. (*: Turkish being non-gendered and Mr Şele being who he was, I don't think he meant "he/him", but rather really "they/them") #TeachersAreHeroes #Teacher

Part 3/3: Wolfgang Holzner (he/him) This is now after I moved to Germany. I had to "redo" 5th grade in Germany. Not because I was bad, but because the 5th grade was classified as "Turkish Prep-Class", i.e., it was a prep-class for Turkish pupils so that they can, for one year, learn German and lessons at the same time. It was good, tbh. Especially since in Berlin primary school had six grades, it was even more fair because the final grade (6th) is used to decide which type of highschool you'll go afterwards and if I had started directly with the 6th grade with my non-existent German, I might have not been so good. Anyway, after finishing sixth grade (another long story, another time), I entered high school, at 7th grade. My luck that I, again, had a teacher who had just finished his teacher's graduation, i.e., we were his first real class. He was an idealistic child of the 1968-generation. And he left a strong impression on me. There are so many stories I could tell, but there are two for which I am still thankful to him. The first is about music: I was an odd kid (surprise, surprise), I didn't like contemporary music at all, so I was interested in Classical Music but also non-mainstream. One day he stops me after class and says: "You now, I noticed that you don't like pop music or any contemporary popular music for that matter. Would you like to hear something interesting, something out of the ordinary?" Yes, I would. Then we went to the music class. He put on a record. It started playing. OMFG!!! 😳 I had never heard something so beautiful 🤩 - it was Emerson, Lake & Palmer - playing "Fanfare For The Common Man" (yes, yes, I am listening to it right now). Wow!! This opened my eyes (or rather: ears) to a completely new type of music. I became a huge fan of Emerson, Lake & Palmer (and similar artists). The second topic was more serious, something so dear to his heart that even today he fights for it. One day, again after class (I think it must have been history class), he stops me at the door before I could leave. "Hey Imdat, do you have a minute?" Yes, I do. I mean, after "Emerson, Lake & Palmer", I of course do. Then he looks into my eyes and says: "If you plan to stay here in Germany, there are a few things you should know about us Germans and our past." - says and hands me a (history) book about Germany between 1933-1945. It was about what the Nazis did to the jews, homosexuals, and any other minority they deemed "lowlife". I read it in the evening. I cried. I read it. I cried. It contained photos of concentration camps after they were freed. I cried. I cried. I couldn't stop crying. I didn't know. I had never heard of it before. There was a chapter about "Hitler" in one Turkish history book I read when I was still in Turkey, but it was like two paragraphs (it was too early for me, because that topic was to be taught in 7th grade in Turkey). From then on he'd give me reports, stories and historical records of what humans are capable of. Like slavery. Like Holocaust. Like ... I believe he had the most impact on me becoming critical of humanity but because of Ms Palandöken and Mr Şele, I never lost my faith in humanity. Mr Holzner was an amazing person. I met him again in 2021. It was August 2021. I was thinking of him after so many decades and looked him up on the Internet I found a contact and sent an email. He was supposed to be living close to Mainz now (about 300km from Munich). And then he responded - telling me that he is right now in Munich and he'd be super happy to meet me! Oh mighty universe, how much I love you... 🥹 I spent about 3-4 hours with him and his lovely wife (she was also teacher at my school in those days - but another story, another time). When I came back home, I started crying - like never before. I dunno what happened. But I couldn't stop crying. I believe that this meeting with him in August 2021 contributed to my egg cracking in Dec that year - I don't know why, but I am sure it did. You, too, Mr Holzner: wherever you are, you are loved and admired - eternal and infinite. Yeah, three stories about three teachers. There were many more teachers who influenced me but these three left such huge lasting impressions that I still remember their names and their shapes. You see, teachers can be horrible and scar you for life - or they can help you to strive to be a decent and kind human being. In any case, some of the leave lasting impact on you. With me, these three helped me to become a better person - I don't know whether I am a good person, but I know for sure that I am not a bad person - and that's partly thanks to my teachers. 3/3 #TeachersAreHeroes #Teacher

@mina@berlin.social The idea of Fedi is a human-interaction system, we do not expect our posts to be boosted by bots, especially not without prior consent. This is a bot-only system where bot-accounts are created automatically; there is zero interaction between the bot (and the bot owners) and the post's author. This system assumes that a major goal of posting is to have a large reach, but this ain't Twitter, this ain't Threads. Most people use hashtags as a search-help, not as an audience-reach tool. I have e.g. now switched to Followers Only-posts anymore, as I had enough of techbros like him arguing like this. I don't really want reach, I just know that there are people who watch some of the hashtags I post, that was the reason for using those hashtags at all. Now, no hashtags anymore because I can't know if another techbro comes around the corner doing whatever with my posts. There are tons of reasons why we love Fedi, and of which is that there is no algorithm and no automated system to gather reach.

@evan@cosocial.ca @alice@lgbtqia.space Neither of the admins of the two servers I am on did any of those things you list there. How I know? Because I am that fucking admin and I would never add an open registration relay or added tags.pub as relay. And none of my users have followed your fucking bot. But still I saw your bots boosting my hashtags. None of what you say is true, either you and everybody around you is completely incompetent or you are just a liar. I am guessing a combination of both. Just listen to my words: OPT OUT is NOT CONSENT!! Read it, repeat a gazillion times, and fucking heed it!!

The assholes have "won" – I'm going followers only Fick those fucking fuckers! Lest I leave Fedi this is the only option it seems to preserve some sense of privacy.

@mina@berlin.social Here is a thead where it is explained why this is a bad idea https://lgbtqia.space/@alice/116824281370893420

@Bikil@mastoart.social Yes, it really was. It took me a while to fully grasp what was going on there, but it was such an amazing scene...

@SleepyCatten@cultofshiv.wtf Yeah, that ripped the balance. The guy has no remorse, even after realizong that his software is buggy as hell: none of my post should ever have been boosted by his shitty crap as I am on none of the open relays, but still, all of my hashtags were boosted. He didn't apologize, he didn't change his atttitude, he just realized after discussing with me in DMs that there is a bug and announced that he is shutting down the relay connections for now. No remorse, no nothing. I've had it with these assholes, I really had it

It is really one of the best humanist movie collections I know, the "fights" between a leninist-communist and a catholic priest

Ic hasse diese Regierung, von ganzem Herzen. Ich hoffe, alle in der Regierung (ausser Pistorius) und alle Abgeordneten der Union, SPD, und AfD kriegen einen erfolgreichen Herzinfarkt und Gehirnachlag gleichzeitig. Diese Fuck-Regierung hat es geschafft, dass ich meine Pause vom Fedi unterbrochen habe. Fuck diese Regierung.

@faithisleaping@anarres.family Yeah, but there are more and more assholes like the guy from tags.pub, and it is really getting more and more difficult to peotect oneself from those kind of tech bros

... #CSDBerlin (Source: Insta, netzfrauen__ )

PSA - URGENT The Insta account of a friend was hacksd and now she can't access it anymore. Does anyone have any tips?

@evan@cosocial.ca Yes!! The only relay I am on is a very small relay where the admin had to explicitly allow my server. Maybe next time you check before spam-boosting posts of other people. Regardless of whether I am on an open relay or not, this behavior (opt out) is unacceptable. There is a reason why EU law ONLY accepts opt in as informed consent. @alice@lgbtqia.space

@tagesschau@ard.social Der Verdächtige war ein Deutscher: er ist hier geboren, hier aufgewachsen, und wuede hier in Deutschland radikalisiert. Das ist die ganze Info, die es braucht. Vielleicht solltet ihr endlich mit Eurem Rassismus aufhören. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/csd-berlin-anschlag-tatverdaechtiger-100.html

@evan@cosocial.ca @alice@lgbtqia.space I have already blocked tags.pub on my servers on server level

On Saturday morning we have our big deployment. On Saturday morning because I asked for a 4-hour downtime – I think I need only 45 minutes, but better safe than sorry

@Tami@troet.cafe Ugh 😑- natürlich hat sie sich geändert, natürlich ist sie nicht mehr die Frau von damals. Langhaltige Liebe existiert nur, wenn mensch sich immer wieder in den immer neuen Menschen verliebt...

Fuck you!!!!

@SleepyCatten@cultofshiv.wtf

It took about two minutes, at most ... 😂

@captainvellalives@lgbtqia.space 🫂