Autumn Mahoney :sparkletrans:

Computer scientist from southeast Michigan. Currently building a giant-scale 24-bit homebrew CPU.

Former BBS sysop, demoscener, and dialup ISP engineer. Current debian wrangler and author of email server software.

Xennial, Unitarian Universalist, inventor, secret agent for justice and love.

:flag_transgender: :flag_rainbow: 🐧

#sprout24 #retrocomputing #debian #uu #detroit #bbs #globaltalk

pronouns: she/her
Sprout24 CPU: https://www.sprout24.net
callsign: KE8AXN
#globaltalk: Woodland Digital Studios

Public Key

npub1xv5wdp055an7gp00057qvmuu26hpvx2xqu7uuta4nuecddhf969q6av634

NIP-05 Address

autumn_at_tech.lgbt@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsrx28xsh62welyqhhh60qxd7w9dtskr9rqw0ww976e7vuxkm5jazsprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntelhhz6

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

Author Public Key

npub1xv5wdp055an7gp00057qvmuu26hpvx2xqu7uuta4nuecddhf969q6av634

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Published at

2026-11-06T12:37:57Z

Kind type

0 Metadata

Event JSON

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Last Notes

2025-08-14 15:39:13 UTC

- reply

I had never stumbled across a reason to use Lua until now, but it seemed straightforward enough to pick up on for what I needed. I don't mind being at least a bit familiar with it, especially if it is popping up in more software these days.
Dovecot removed the ability to call any arbitrary authentication program and now requires that to be done through a Lua script. So I ended up writing one that handles some of the auth logic but still uses os.execute() to call a helper script that knows how to talk with the rest of our mail system.

2025-08-13 21:39:04 UTC

I'm kind of grumpy at Dovecot for all the breaking changes in 2.4, even though it's probably making things more maintainable in the long run.
I had to rewrite our whole authentication integration, though, and this time had to learn Lua to do it.

2025-07-23 19:53:01 UTC

While I have a whole table full of 68k era Macs that love to play on #GlobalTalk, I hadn't seriously used a modern Mac in a long time.
I picked up an M4 Mac mini on sale recently, though, and have been using it as a daily driver for about a month now just to renew my familiarity with the platform.
There's a lot I do like about it, and it's probably twice as fast as my PC from 2019, so I've been giving it an honest chance.
The one thing that looks like a dealbreaker, though, is just how terribly slow MacOS seems to be with browsing through folders on SMB network shares. Especially to a server over a VPN connection — folders that open in 1-2 seconds in Windows take up to 20 seconds in the Mac Finder.
I've tried disabling thumbnail generation, switching to wired networking, adding some network stack tweaks that some people have recommended, and even tried reconfiguring a Samba server with some Apple-specific extensions. Some improvement, but still maddeningly slow.
Is there a real proven solution to this?

2025-07-21 14:22:14 UTC

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Right? Moving that fast over the big lake at low altitude... What a view!

2025-07-21 14:14:03 UTC

@npub1yqw…ywz8 That panel may have been a leftover from another plane I was hovering over. The two blimps on the map do show up as N1A and N2A.

2025-07-21 14:07:42 UTC

Of all the cool piloting jobs out there, I'd have to think that crossing Lake Michigan in the Goodyear blimp wouldn't be a bad way to spend your day.
https://media.tech.lgbt/media_attachments/files/114/891/607/370/849/727/original/42417248ecac62e1.png

2025-07-18 23:01:05 UTC

I swear, you plant *one* heirloom floppy disk in the spring, and by July you've got data taking over the whole lawn.
https://media.tech.lgbt/media_attachments/files/114/876/718/013/484/473/original/ea51e75d70519416.jpg

2025-03-20 00:27:00 UTC

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Yep. I shut down my BBS in the summer of 1995, went away to college, then came home the next summer to find pretty much all the rest of them had disappeared too.

2025-01-19 17:32:06 UTC

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Oh! I didn't even know this was a thing. Does this group have a presence other than in Facebook where I could keep an eye out for future events?

2024-12-23 16:25:42 UTC

I recently inherited some relics that my dad saved from his software company in the 70's. Among them is this tape that I believe contains COBOL source code for software that ran on Burroughs mainframes.
Two questions for folks a little earlier to the computer scene than I was:
1) What do you think the chances are that this tape could still be read?
2) Any recommendations as to where I should send it to try to recover a copy of the data and what it might cost?
For reasons far more sentimental than practical, I'd love to be able to at least see some of the code that he wrote back in the day if it ends up being at all feasible.
https://media.tech.lgbt/media_attachments/files/113/703/023/391/399/649/original/2c8fcd96ba66f9b3.jpg

2024-09-09 19:57:58 UTC

So I've been thinking more about what my ideal email interface would be like if I designed it from scratch. And it's gotten me thinking again about how different peoples' email workflows can be.
I treat my email inboxes as inboxes, getting antsy when there are more than a screenful of messages in there, and sorting messages into folders by customer, project, or sender when I'm done with them.
Other folks treat their inbox alone as their entire email history — I just checked on one customer account that has over 43,000 messages in their inbox folder going back almost a decade.
I'm not saying one method is better, necessarily, but I'm curious how you all approach your own email. Do you keep it sorted and organized? Or let it flow by like a firehose? Treat it like a to-do list? Or something else entirely?

2024-09-08 02:51:58 UTC

Y'all, I think I hit the motherlode today at the thrift store. I mean... Elton John, marching bands, *and* the Pope? Come on, now.
https://media.tech.lgbt/media_attachments/files/113/099/633/785/683/088/original/e8b1c1d9cd7c8b9c.jpg

2024-09-07 04:02:02 UTC

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I love that you're asking this, because I've been thinking about it a lot lately. The state of email and webmail clients is abysmal.
I've settled on Postbox on desktop, Roundcube for webmail, and FairEmail on Android. But it really is settling, because I don't love any of them.
I have written webmail clients before. Rendering HTML mail is messy, but I think the worst part is dealing with MIME parts and part encodings. It's all so sloppy.
Plus, the IMAP protocol is no joy. I'd love something in the spirit of JMAP finally put IMAP to bed.
I would love to make a webmail interface so good that I'd *want* to use it in place of a desktop client. It's made me start thinking a lot about what something like that could look like.
An obstacle, though, is that people (ab)use email in so many different kinds of workflows. Some must-have function for one person is another's deal breaker. That's part of the stagnation — nobody can agree on what a good email interface actually is.

2024-09-06 20:15:14 UTC

I've been running mail servers and writing email software since the dialup days of 1995. I guess by today's trends, that could brand me a holdout.
But we're still hosting mail for hundreds of company domains across dozens of mail servers, all in a nicely packaged system that's always just an "apt install" away.
The landscape has changed over time, and, yes, it is annoying dealing with the imbalance that the behemoth mail providers represent these days.
But there's a lot to be said for not bargaining away your digital autonomy.
I saw @npub1ksf…r6s6 selling his "Run Your Own Mail Server" book and jumped to pick up a copy. Not so much because I had a need for it (though it'll be interesting to compare notes!), but because I strongly support the idea that email is still a shared ecosystem and love that Michael is sharing the knowledge to encourage folks to continue to participate.
Long live the open Internet.
#ryoms
https://media.tech.lgbt/media_attachments/files/113/092/295/501/472/219/original/46eb3df9fe73993a.jpg