@pete@social.coop

Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Jul 25, 2026

Replying to @afewbugs@social.coop

@afewbugs@social.coop Ask me about tetrapak if you want to see my brow furrow.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 28, 2026

Replying to @ingrid@everything.happens.horse

@ingrid@everything.happens.horse Woo!

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 28, 2026

Replying to @ingrid@everything.happens.horse

@ingrid@everything.happens.horse New edition? Exciting!

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 12, 2026

Notes and links from Tues 12 May: https://notes.peteashton.com/2026/05/12/notes-and-links-from-tues.html

We’d heard from neighbours that hedgehogs had been spotted so I put out the trailcam for the first time since the autumn and caught two of the little buggers! Loads of footage which I will edit into a video when I find the time but here’s a screenshot of them having a face-off at 3am.

So good to see them back in the garden. We had a lot of hog action last year but it suddenly stopped way before hibernation so we were worried sometime had happened and we’d seen the last of them. Fingers crossed we get some babies later this year.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 12, 2026

[Mutes Eurovision, unread count plummets]

(I don’t mind it, just have zero interest. Y’all have fun now!)

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 12, 2026

Replying to @janamarie@mystical.garden

@janamarie@mystical.garden Yes, the behind the scenes stuff on that is really interesting particularly how they managed the transition. Loving these pics. Wondering if I can do this with my old Nikon… (will have to wait though)

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 11, 2026

Replying to @adamgreenfield@social.coop

@adamgreenfield@social.coop Not a revoltin’ development!

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 11, 2026

Replying to @adamgreenfield@social.coop

@adamgreenfield@social.coop Yancy Street forever!

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 11, 2026

Notes and links from Mon 11 May: https://notes.peteashton.com/2026/05/11/notes-and-links-from-mon.html

Feeling a bit better today but still pretty low. I tried a couple of tricks to shake me out of it, which usually work when I’m just in a funk, but they didn’t do their magic this time so I reckon this is the fatigue. Which is good as the fatigue passes with rest. Eventually.

One of the tricks was to dive into a spreadsheet. I transcribed all the voting results from the Birmingham elections into a big sheet and had a look at what the overall voting share looked like. The popular vote, if you will.

(Deep dive into election stuff at the link)

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 10, 2026

Notes and links from Sun 10 May: https://notes.peteashton.com/2026/05/10/notes-and-links-from-sun.html

Well, this is the first time in a while I've come to my text document at the end of the day to find it completely empty. It seems I read, listened and saw nothing I felt was worth noting today. And if you've been reading this for a while you'll know that's a very low bar.

To be honest today has been a bit shite. Low mood, head stress, feeling grumpy and useless and sad. It will pass (it's starting to pass already) and it'll be OK.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 09, 2026

Notes and links from Sat 9 May: https://notes.peteashton.com/2026/05/09/notes-and-links-from-sat.html

This quarter’s Rabbiting On from the RWAF arrived which is always a pleasure and I spent the afternoon flicking through it. As I’ve mentioned before it’s a mix of rabbit care advice and really gruesome veterinary photos, all wrapped in a graphic design that looks like a magazine for kids who are obsessed with cute fluffy bunnies. In many ways it perfectly reflects the #rabbit community: deadly serious advocacy from the sort of people who enjoy talking in baby voices to silent prey animals. I love the magazine but even after all these years – and it’s been years – I remain fascinated by it.

Otherwise a rest & restore day after the yesterday’s excitements. Weather was surprisingly warm so we put the big sail shade over the dome, and I caught up with a neighbour who hadn’t been out in her garden for a while. She gave me a leftover tonne-sack. Nice.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 09, 2026

Replying to @adamgreenfield@social.coop

@adamgreenfield@social.coop Ooh nice. Bookmarked!

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 09, 2026

Replying to @pete@social.coop

@adamgreenfield@social.coop And Morag and her Loiterers Resistance Movement are very inspirational. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loiterers_Resistance_Movement

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 09, 2026

Replying to @pete@social.coop

@adamgreenfield@social.coop Good list of people here: https://www.triarchypress.net/walkingbodies.html

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 09, 2026

Replying to @adamgreenfield@social.coop

@adamgreenfield@social.coop If you’re interested in people who are doing this kind of thing I did a lot of research when we were setting up Walkspace a few years back. Lots of stuff from around the country that isn’t beholden to Sinclair et al. Let me know and I’ll dig out some stuff.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 08, 2026

Notes and links from Fri 8 May: https://notes.peteashton.com/2026/05/08/notes-and-links-from-fri.html

I’ll be honest, today was pretty much spent refreshing the Birmingham council election results and nattering about it on the local chats. I could come to like these daytime counts.

So we have a Green Party councillor. The results will hopefully be here once the Birmingham.gov.uk website recovers, and it was surprisingly close, which says a lot about the Labour incumbent who was one of those good ones who did a lot for this community. As an individual she’ll be missed. The party machinery she was chained to, not so much.

(More at link)

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 05, 2026

Replying to @ntnsndr@social.coop

@ntnsndr @celesteh Oh that’s perfect. Thanks!

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 05, 2026

Replying to @pete@social.coop

@celesteh I found some mentions in @ntnsndr ’s book Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life and it occurred to me the book might actually be useful for your case if you’ve not already seen it. https://nathanschneider.info/books/governable-spaces/ He mentions this code of conduct, but they don’t say *why* “Meritocracy is a joke”, which I guess is what you’re after. https://doubleunion.org/base_assumptions/

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · May 05, 2026

Replying to @celesteh@hachyderm.io

@celesteh I’m sure I’ve seen stuff in cooperative resources but brain fog is stopping me remembering, so I'm not as useful as I'd hope… Worth having a look at https://www.uk.coop/support-your-co-operative/governance-advice-and-support though there’s a lot to plough through. People Support might have some good resources too. https://peoplesupport.coop/ and paging #cooperatives #coops #WorkerCoops And of course there’s Michael Young’s “I said DON’T build the torment nexus, you fools” piece https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 30, 2026

Replying to @jezhiggins@mastodon.me.uk

@jezhiggins@mastodon.me.uk Fucking A man!

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 28, 2026

Replying to @grahamdunning@post.lurk.org

@grahamdunning@post.lurk.org @catnip@mastodon.online Oh, so glad I’m not the only one who lets those emails mount up…

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 28, 2026

Replying to @grahamdunning@post.lurk.org

@grahamdunning@post.lurk.org Nice! (Kinda wish you had literally cycled round the table on a bike…)

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 27, 2026

Replying to @celesteh@hachyderm.io

@celesteh@hachyderm.io I think this final point is the killer one, for a progressive party at least.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 26, 2026

Replying to @suearcher@toot.wales

@suearcher@toot.wales Hooray!

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 24, 2026

Replying to @jeni@drupal.community

@jeni@drupal.community TBH I thought it was my postal voting pack so just left it on the shelf, until my postal voting pack came and I realised what it was. :)

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 24, 2026

Badges from @jeni@drupal.community arrived this week and they’re splendid. Thanks!

Now I just need to get out of the house so other people see them. (Or give them away to friends, which is my main plan.)

https://deliciouscreative.com/badges

drupal.community

Jeni Tehan (@jeni@drupal.community) - Drupal Mastodon

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 21, 2026

Replying to @suearcher@toot.wales

@suearcher@toot.wales My experience is a few decades old but I’m sure it hasn’t changed too much. The main issue is being swamped when you arrive like pigeons swarming freshly dropped chips. I’d imagine it’d be a bit overwhelming for you two so take it easy and slowly, maybe prepare open boxes and trays in advance so you can just place them straight on your table. After that you can relax and enjoy it. And as others have said you can never have too much change. Oh yeah, make sure you don’t buy more than you sell!

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 16, 2026

Replying to @hellocatfood@post.lurk.org

@hellocatfood @jonty @yaxu That was a great show: https://vividprojects.org.uk/projects/no-copyright-infringement-intended/

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 16, 2026

Replying to @digichelle@hachyderm.io

@digichelle Been using Fastmail for years and have had zero complaints to the point where it’s boring, which is perfect.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Apr 14, 2026

Replying to @philgyford@mastodon.social

@philgyford@mastodon.social I was a bookseller in 1998 running the pop science section and I have a memory of Wired being an imprint of a bigger publisher, possibly Penguin? I don’t recognise any of those titles and this is definitely a later venture, but I thought I’d throw those tired neurone records into the mix. edit: huh, they still are an imprint. https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/282306/wired

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Mar 26, 2026

Replying to @pete@social.coop

@hellocatfood Cheap alternative: suspend a plank of wood over the desk between bookshelves or something and screw the camera to the wood. Cost - plank of wood and a screw. We can build one when you come over next.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Mar 26, 2026

Replying to @hellocatfood@post.lurk.org

@hellocatfood If you want to hold a DSLR or similar you’ll probably need a boom. Try searching “Tripod Horizontal Extension Boom” or similar. Can range from cheap crap to scary expensive! Here’s an example: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71ubj82sxRL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Mar 24, 2026

Replying to @autismunicorn@autistics.life

@autismunicorn@autistics.life @autistics@fedigroups.social All this is in hindsight (I got my diagnosis in my 40s) but I realised in my 20s I was introducing people to other people to avoid talking to them and had accidentally become quite good at facilitating networking within my niche interest groups, so I leaned into that and became the person who knew stuff and mapped the networks. In short, I made myself useful. (See also, working at events rather than just attending them.) This allowed me to filter for friends and I still have some close ones after all this time. To be honest I have no idea how I made friends or why people wanted to be my friend, but they did and having a shared interest to bridge the fear of small talk nightmare helped a lot. Romantic relationships I was fucking terrible at. :)

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Feb 17, 2026

Replying to @philgyford@mastodon.social

@philgyford I’ve been one of those people. This year I finally bit the bullet, downloaded the archives and canceled. Interestingly my 14,718 photos are all still up there (might be because they’re all Creative Commons?)

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Jan 13, 2026

Replying to @Ninji@wuffs.org

@Ninji@wuffs.org My favourite real world example is PSB - PhotoShop Big.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Dec 04, 2025

Replying to @cstross__dup_483@wandering.shop

@cstross@wandering.shop Pierced with extra long cigarettes, it seems.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Sep 15, 2025

Replying to @soatok@furry.engineer

@soatok Ira Glass introduced me to a similar concept using taste as the metric. Your awareness of good work - your taste - improves faster than your skills, so you increasingly think you’re less and less good enough even though you’re getting better all the time. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309485-nobody-tells-this-to-people-who-are-beginners-i-wish (Video because he’s a good talker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91FQKciKfHI )

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Mar 28, 2025

Replying to @ncdominie@mastodon.scot

@ncdominie@mastodon.scot Continuing the long history of Quakers being arrested for their pacifism. (as I'm sure you know) https://www.quaker.org.uk/faith/our-history/ww1

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Feb 11, 2025

Replying to @starhawk@dice.camp

@starhawk@dice.camp I came across this ages back (probably from Waxy.org?) and it's been delightful getting email updates every so often. I believe they're half-way complete.

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Jan 22, 2025

Replying to @kissane@mas.to

@kissane@mas.to Looks really good (and am somewhat relieved it's not a rocket propelled grenade you ran into, as I first thought).

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Pete Ashton @pete@social.coop · Jan 21, 2025

Replying to @tomcoates@me.dm

@tomcoates@me.dm "Flood the field with shit". I don't think it's supposed to make sense, just keep everybody busy trying (and failing) to figure it out.

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