École des Bro-Arts

Switchy leatherman into bad puns, thick boys, and distributed systems. Purveyor of fine jockstrap selfies. Woof.group admin.

Jim Starkey: "Of interest only to third-rate academics a few papers short of a tenure package."

Reddit: "would never ever ever hire this degenerate holy shit"

Peter Watts: "The most innovative fanfic I've ever read."

Blog: https://aphyr.com
Leather Blog: https://blog.woof.group/aphyr
Work: https://jepsen.io
Pronouns: He/Him

Public Key

npub1hw0zfm2rrpuvr7k4qelzzgck94tdgvzhl9yce2q85pcn2l58q6ts76jzvh

NIP-05 Address

aphyr_at_woof.group@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsth83ya4p3s7xplt2svl3pyvtz64k5xptljjvv4qr6quf406rsd9cpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsu55qwj

Publishing to

relay.primal.net

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1hw0zfm2rrpuvr7k4qelzzgck94tdgvzhl9yce2q85pcn2l58q6ts76jzvh

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Last Notes

2025-08-19 20:13:01 UTC

Please. "Toxic masculinity" is only harmful to those who absorb it. You're thinking of *venomous* masculinity, which hurts others.

2025-03-26 13:35:35 UTC

The times you can write a sentence like this, as a reporter...
"Waltz, who invited Goldberg into the Signal chat, said yesterday that he was investigating 'how the heck he got into this room.'”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/signal-group-chat-attack-plans-hegseth-goldberg/682176/

2025-03-09 20:05:00 UTC

Oh, okay https://archive.is/okSlz
https://files.woof.group/media_attachments/files/114/134/263/027/474/361/original/8aa771a67d64a900.png

2025-03-02 23:38:54 UTC

Gosh on days when I use caffeine leg day is actually fun
https://files.woof.group/media_attachments/files/114/095/471/162/346/070/original/591367625dd98c4b.jpg

2025-02-04 18:18:29 UTC

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I think the only bit of actionable advice I got out of today's Ofcom livestream was that yes, geoblocking the UK is a valid compliance measure.

2025-01-25 01:19:47 UTC

BRB opening a bar called "Tongue in Cheek"

2025-01-16 20:50:10 UTC

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That might be a thing, but I think the bigger question is what happens to every *non*-UK instance. I assume there's going to be a weird detente where most do nothing, and the cautious ones geoblock the UK.

2025-01-16 20:24:25 UTC

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Like @npub1ewu…ktd2, I've been trying to untangle the thousands of pages of OSA guidance and... my current, lay-person's understanding is that essentially every Mastodon instance is going to be illegal in the UK come March. Most servers allow porn, or federate with servers that do. I've never seen an instance do age verification more robust than "You attest you're at least 18".

2025-01-16 20:19:15 UTC

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Even if we were to somehow do age verification, take the site private, and block all federation, I suspect some of our content could fall afoul of the "extreme pornography" provisions of the OSA, which doubles down on Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.
I am reminded, yet again, of the Spanner trials: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16803763/

2025-01-16 20:07:25 UTC

I wrote to Ofcom last week asking for guidance for Mastodon instances like woof.group, as the #OnlineSafetyAct comes into effect in March. There's a lot of respects in which we're likely to run afoul of the act, but one of the big ones is that Ofcom's response letter repeatedly explained that any service which allows pornography must perform "highly effective age assurance".
I've written back to ask for clarification, but... I don't see how it's possible to comply here.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/category-1-10-weeks/statement-age-assurance-and-childrens-access/statement-age-assurance-and-childrens-access.pdf?v=388849#page=15?v=388849
https://files.woof.group/media_attachments/files/113/839/825/685/664/255/original/d42293611a9ae91a.png
https://files.woof.group/media_attachments/files/113/839/826/154/575/051/original/26227ada7269a225.png
https://files.woof.group/media_attachments/files/113/839/826/807/452/178/original/ffd7c2850e757b94.png

2024-12-21 00:34:29 UTC

there is simply no polite way to say this but it has to be said: I would absolutely suck Royce's cold, robotic dick when placed in this position
jackie can come too
https://files.woof.group/media_attachments/files/113/687/996/111/228/304/original/65f7e8805a8c4ad3.jpg

2024-12-13 17:02:35 UTC

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Scrubbed through my ride videos this week and got two cyclists running reds. It happens! It's not great IMO!
OTOH, in that same set of rides I have three cars running reds or stop signs, ten parked in bike lanes, a half dozen unsignaled lane changes, four stopped or parked directly over crosswalks, four on their phones while driving...

2024-12-02 15:44:07 UTC

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At the same time, people are generally boring, admins are generally ethical, and snooping takes *work*. I've dug into the database to look at DMs once (?) in five years, and that was at the specific user's request. I've also been inside the surveillance capitalism sausage factory: corporate snooping is both far more invasive than most people realize, and also *ridiculously* lossy/noisy. We don't have the resources to fight a subpoena, but also no government has *bothered* to ask for our data.

2024-12-02 15:07:32 UTC

In the early aughts I was a a self-described paranoid cypherpunk. I was obsessed with privacy: running Tor, trying to convince all my friends to sign each other's GPG keys so we could build a web of trust, and booting Trinux from a floppy so I could tunnel my Very Important HTTP traffic over SSH where The Authorities (TM) couldn't read it.
None of that prepared me for the experience of being a moderator on Fedi, and the myriad privacy headcanons people construct.

2024-12-01 22:34:36 UTC

"Despite the fact that Threads users can’t follow or see mentions from people on other instances, Threads has already opted to block a slew of instances where gay & leather people congregate.... If Threads were a taxi service, it wouldn’t take you South of Market."
https://aphyr.com/posts/371-threads-wont-take-you-south-of-market

2024-10-20 18:04:56 UTC

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I think it varies, but my bear friends have said they felt surprisingly welcome. There *was* that one twink who said "oh my god you're SO brave, love your body positivity" though 😂

2024-10-14 15:52:13 UTC

Centaurs, from the Latin "cen", meaning "hundred", and "taur", meaning "bull", have one hundred legs by definition. Bulls, horse-men, and other horsey creatures are generally referred to as n-taurs, and can have any number of legs. Most cattle are 4-taurs; Chiron is a 6-taur. Those with more legs than usual (e.g. 64-taurs, or the Bojack Horseman Centipede) are known as myriapods.

2024-09-24 18:55:20 UTC

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oh man I saw the trailer for that and found McAvoy *uncomfortably* erotic

2024-09-12 18:24:39 UTC

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Yeah, definitely sort out priorities--it's not gonna be the full smartwatch experience. But... two weeks of battery life, an always-on screen that's highly legible in bright sun, offline, road and trail maps package for the entire continent! And in three years of my clumsy ass wearing it daily and slamming it into furniture, tools, steel frames, etc... I've put only a couple barely-noticeable scratches on the screen. I expect I'll probably be using this watch for a decade.

2024-09-12 18:13:23 UTC

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This may or may not be right for you but on the chunky, indestructible metal watch front, the Garmin Fenix is an incredible piece of kit.