Notes | Brutkey

I see they're doing sightseeing tours of the Fediverse now. Aww that's nice. A new onboarding initiative.

Street scene, London. Overcast sky, bare trees to the left, an ornate old building to the right. Looking up at sign on top.of bus stop. It says: Bus stop Parliament Square
Big Bus Tours
TOOTBus Tours

Monday just walked in, bold as brass. Here again. Oh well. Glædelig mandag. Here's a postcard from ⁨#Aarhus⁩, just to say that I hope this week treats you kindly.

Short version: Aarhus Cathedral spire in aerial view seen through long grasses. Fuller description: Aerial view across Aarhus mid-city to the sea, seen through long grasses, their stems bending in the wind. This is the café garden on the rooftop of Salling department store, 30 metres up. Framed through the long-stemmed grass stalks: Domkirken, the cathedral spire. The sky is cloudless and a light bluey-purple colour with a streak of sunset pink. The moon is unusually bright and clear, high in the sky.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

#SilentSunday

A huge silvery building facade with slots that give it a sense of moving lines and upward motion. Above it, a thin line of deep blue cloudless sky. In front of it, at a slight distance, like two sentinels, two tall green trees. I just found this photo during a clear-up and can't remember where I took it - it was either Aalborg or Oslo, I think.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

I disliked being forced to choose between an unusable phone or companies tracking me. Especially when DuckDuckGo blocks over a thousand attempts a day to track me and my data. I was cross enough to try something. I uninstalled DuckDuckGo, which I’d originally installed through Google Play. I installed F-Droid, which I’d heard people mention on Mastodon. I installed DuckDuck Go again, but now through F-Droid. I turned on the app, tracking blocker included. And hey presto, all my apps work again.

Screenshot, Danish-language, of the DuckDuckGo app-tracking blocker with the real-time counter showing. At that moment, it shows that it has blocked 10,969 attempts to get my data from 10 apps in the last seven days.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

I am not shocked, I am not surprised. It’s not new and it’s not news. But it’s still enraging that we have to spend so much time trying to dodge and fix the enshittification of our daily digital tools. I am grateful to the Fediverse for making me aware of F-Droid, which solved this problem and which I am now using for other app switches as I gradually deGoogle.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

My phone has been so sluggish lately that at times it was almost bricked. My regular few apps would no longer work. Each one would freeze and crash every time. To avoid more enshittification and AI, I’ve been refusing to update my phone. I thought that was it but still refused to reboot. Then a thought struck me. I use DuckDuckGo's app-tracking blocker. So I tested each app. As it hung frozen, I turned off track-blocking for that specific app. And hey presto, the app immediately started working.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

I disliked being forced to choose between an unusable phone or companies tracking me. Especially when DuckDuckGo blocks over a thousand attempts a day to track me and my data. I was cross enough to try something. I uninstalled DuckDuckGo, which I’d originally installed through Google Play. I installed F-Droid, which I’d heard people mention on Mastodon. I installed DuckDuck Go again, but now through F-Droid. I turned on the app, tracking blocker included. And hey presto, all my apps work again.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

My phone has been so sluggish lately that at times it was almost bricked. My regular few apps would no longer work. Each one would freeze and crash every time. To avoid more enshittification and AI, I’ve been refusing to update my phone. I thought that was it but still refused to reboot. Then a thought struck me. I use DuckDuckGo's app-tracking blocker. So I tested each app. As it hung frozen, I turned off track-blocking for that specific app. And hey presto, the app immediately started working.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

#SilentSunday

A single tall tree with white blossoms, rising alone in an empty cobbled courtyard, a single old wooden beer barrel beside it. The backdrop behind it is a row of centuries-old weathered buildings, one light pink, one rust-red, one dark red and half-timbered. Above them, a sliver of light blue sky.Taken in Den Gamle By, the Old Town open-air history museum in Aarhus, Denmark.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

#SilentSunday

Short version: jets of water from a fountain in front of an historic building. Fuller description: right in front of us, hundreds of thin jets of water are bouncing up into the air at varying heights – one, two and three metres. They shoot up at intervals from wide circles embedded in the ground – people stand and play in the spaces in-between, betting on when and where the water will hit. If you squint, you can just make out a child sitting on the ground inside one wall of jets. This is the Endless Connection fountain by artist Jeppe Hein on the harbour promenade in Aarhus, Denmark. Rising up beyond, old and new city buildings. Prominent: ’Toldboden’, the former customs house, built by the world-famous-in-Denmark royal architect Hack Kampmann in 1897. An ornate landmark listed redbrick building. Its turrets and spires stand out against a dramatic sky – a cloudburst is imminent. Black and grey clouds are swirling in, big and low, leaving one distinctive overly bright white clear stripe on the horizon. The mood of the scene, to me: sinister and playful.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

Today is shaping up to be one of those messy days that could go either way. I may procrastitoot. Or procrastiboost. Probably both. Here's a cottage I saw in the woods.

#Procrastitooting
#MuteMeNow

Short version: Thatched cottage in woods. Fuller description:
A ridiculously picturesque fairytale red thatched cottage with white-framed windows, only the upper floor visible behind a riot of almost two-metre-high yellow and purple and pinky wildflowers and green grasses and bushes. It's tucked into big bushy trees including skyscraper-high willow trees. This is in Marselisborg forest in Aarhus Denmark.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

Puppy in the office puppy in the office! The puppy is not at all overexcited but I am so these are the best of the 37 photos I took

Same Alt Text all photos. A fuzzy blurry pic of a bit of a gorgeous little white-and-brown King Charles Cavalier spaniel with a boring grey office floor and desk background. Photo taken with permission, model's labour paid for in doggie biccies.