mastodon 4.7.2I like encrypted messaging and all chat.
I like to follow and have followers. No preconditions to follow me or to leave. Just come as you are.
I like tech, especially Linux. I manage a pack of small loving dogs.
RSS for this site: @smalldog.rss@social.smalldog.club
I had been looking for a secure private messenger that isn't in the top 3 or 4 by popularity.
Delta Chat seems to be a good one.
-- delivery is fast with reliable notifications
-- little to no battery drain
-- mobile and Linux desktop apps are great
-- no fraud like Session seems to be doing now.
I just picked one of their recommended chatmail relays to use. I'm not into running my own.
You can get it at the link. Let me know if you do.
Another weird 80's memory popped into my head as I'm sitting here at work with little to do.
I think it was mid-80's when the first anonymous AIDS testing arrived in my city.
I was so nervous about getting one that I parked the car blocks away, walked zigzagging through town, in one side of a building, out the other, and more zigzagging before arriving at the site.
Bad things happened to people suspected.
Now you can get one as part of a routine doctor visit.
Sometimes a web designer is a web designer and sometimes it means "I can install WordPress pretty good if the host has click to install."
That org I used to help, I spent 30 hours of my own time, unpaid, repairing the WordPress and server getting blown to bits because the "designer" left a WP security vulnerability a mile wide in it.
I should have gotten a big lunch and a chugger cocktail for it. 🍹
One day I might let it go. I'll think it over. 😁
Used to, on my long drives for work, if I got drowsy, I could put a radio evangelist on the FM. Then I could yell stuff back at the radio and be awake again.
Now the BBC World Service on Public Radio serves the purpose. I can still yell stuff back at the radio to wake up, but I can also count up how much bullshit can be packed into every single minute. It's a fine art and well practiced.
I'm trying out a new (to me) Android keyboard.
My main demands are 100% fast accurate swiping (glide typing) and voice input, plus, I want something privacy oriented this time.
FUTO is great. Everything happens on board, including the voice typing, which is rare. Most pull Google for it.
Previously to get swiping that I could tolerate, it required using Gboard or Yandex. Neither one of those has a good privacy reputation.
So far FUTO is a keeper. 👍
My net friend of decades in Iran hasn't shown an online presence since the net cutoff there on Feb. 28.
Hoping that's all there is to it.
Last words:
Me: see you soon.
Friend: yes, buddy.
I'm enjoying the recently added Mozilla RPM repository that includes Firefox Beta. Using it on Fedora.
I use both the Firefox and Thunderbird Betas. Both are very stable. I've used them for years. OTOH, I wouldn't do the nightlies, unless you're into that.
Nightlies are a step riskier than betas.
#firefox #firefoxbeta #mozilla #rpm #FedoraLinux
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2026/03/firefox-developer-edition-and-beta-try-out-mozillas-rpm-package/
Some things that happened when I worked in a restaurant in the 80's:
— 11 AM is when it opened for lunch. One time it was 11:30 and no customers, which was odd. Nobody had bothered to unlock the door.
— A wait person came into the kitchen and said "it's like half the sheriff's department just arrived in the parking lot." A good bit of the kitchen staff vanished out the back door.
— a local TV news crew arrived for lunch in a helicopter. "Parked" it in a field beside the restaurant.
From my yard, I can hear someone sneezing from all the way across a busy 5-lane thoroughfare. Drama queen!
OK, it is pollen season.
I felt like I had werewolf syndrome, so out came the clippers and razor. Now I look like something that would walk out of a UFO.
I've been cold all day and have razor burn.
You must have meant Geocoties, not Geocities.
I was walking through the hotel lobby this morning on the way to work. The TV there was tuned to NBC.
As I quickly passed by, I heard the words, "Iran, nuclear bomb, steps to war."
Everything is normal in the United States. 😬🤷
Too bad the entire GD world is at stake.
When traveling abroad and somebody asks, "where are you coming from?"
Me: "whadda you gotta know that for?"
Huh? Why you messin' in my business. Huh, huh?
In jr. high and high school, my favorite weekend television was the NBC Mystery Movie, Rockford Files, and Columbo.
All of them radiated coolness.
Columbo's cool car was a 1959 Peugeot 403 Cabriolet.
Rockford lived in a cool trailer and had a Pontiac Firebird. I sat in one of his series production Firebirds when there was a promotion in town. For a high schooler like me, that was hot.
I used to make popcorn, pour soda, and isolate myself in my room for those shows. It was so soothing.
Javen's bag. 🛍️
I did the Fedora upgrade last night to release 44. Trouble-free as usual. What a pleasure. 🐧
You can do graphical or CLI upgrade. I chose command line just for TF. Easy as copying and pasting the steps from the instructions page. There aren't many steps.
Nice things. Fedora and Linux Mint have been faves for a long time.
The Western world: that one is a brutal dictator.
Me to myself: if we only had one that good in our government here.
At the end of my first semester in Guadalajara, I determined my language acquisition was moving too slowly. I decided forcing myself into some situations would help.
At that time, it was common to pay bills in person in Mexico.
I told the señora de la casa to give me the bills and cash, and I'd go around town, pay them for her and do the marketing.
(1/2)
Pensé que habías muerto.
(I thought you had died.)
That was the first complex sequence of tenses I ever learned in Spanish, so I had to go around practicing it on people. 💀⚰️
I'm seeing another run of something like this today. Twitter/X is most famous for it.
An org that I view as worthwhile could use donations. Some of the responses start to come in:
— if you only took monero.
— not till you publish your financials.
— not until you do this specific thing I just thought up.
— it's the boomers' fault, or I would.
Go ahead and part with your big five dollars, if it was even going to be that. 💵 🤣
I'm at work today without enough to keep me busy.
Reminiscing about night clubbing in the 80's:
— Eww. Did you see that thing just walked in? Looks to be a quart low on blood. Looks like could be a vampire. 🧛
— Me: Where?! ❤️
— Did you see that hunk just walked in?
— Me: I'm not even looking over there because I know I won't like it.
I used to hope that the USSR or Cuba developed a vaccine or a treatment first, so they could rub the USA's nose in it.
Maybe unrealistic, but that's what I was thinking at the time. The panic level was high.
I guess it was 1981. It was the first time I ever heard of AIDS. My first thought was that this has the hallmarks of more bullshit from the government. I didn't believe it at the very first.
Then BOOM. It became very real very quickly. Of course, a lot of bullshit came out of the government, and still does, but on that one thing, it wasn't.
Some Sunday morning reading. So many things.
--
Among the Few Who Resist Hidden Persuasion - Lawrence Davidson
A small subset of just about any population somehow manage to escape national or ideological conditioning...
https://consortiumnews.com/2026/05/07/among-the-few-who-resist-hidden-persuasion/
OMG, I had no idea:
In her Guide to Erotic Massage, Karoline Leavitt stresses consent, communication, and controlled sensuality.
I asked Grok for the 2026 Subaru model lineup for USA.
Grok replied: "Have you considered a Tesla?" 🤷
I then asked the mojeek search engine and got my answer.
j/k. I didn't ask Grok any questions.
I just scored 2️⃣6️⃣ points in Sqword! https://www.sqword.com
I'm on social media a lot, so I'm not virtue signalling, but the less I'm on it, the better I feel.
This applies mostly to the Meta and X media, but it can be any.
When traveling by air east coast stateside, I like to think ABDTA (ANYTHING but Delta through Atlanta).
I'll do anything to avoid that constant shitshow.
United through Washington-Dulles much nicer.
I'm also Javen at Dunkin 🍩
My 20's in Guadalajara 😱
tu muñeca, si señor
tu juguete cuando juegas al amor
tu muñeca, nada más
la que usas y que tiras y ya esta.
It's opera night here tonight:
La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento
Muta d’accento
E di pensiero
I like that name Javen almost enough to legally change my name to it, but I don't want to throw off my parents like that, and it's a lot of trouble to do a name change.
It was a Starbucks in Mexico City gave me that name. ❤️
I got mine at the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
You don't ask questions. Just roll.
I want one of those things that looks like a hot dog stuck through a croissant. 🌭🥐
Pleased to have been into more than just one issue for the past 10 years. For the past 50, really.
"Do you know any families that might be a good match for this exchange student from Germany?"
Me: "well, yeah, but you know." 😁
werewolf syndrome
There were billboards everywhere:
Billy Graham Library - "The #1 thing to do in Charlotte."
Having lunch at the Cracker Barrel restaurant at the exit nearest the library is quite a listening experience.
Going to CB used to be on my avoid list, but with the traveling I have to do, sometimes I go, especially when I can walk from a hotel.
If I got high, I might even go to the library, but I don't.
Black Agenda Report, or BAR.
One of my favorite sites packed with news, analysis, opinion, and high-level thinking. Plenty there about Cuba, Iran, Russia, USA, and that other one.
#sosueme for these, but I still find Twitter/X and Telegram useful for breaking news with the usual caveats. X is usually the first I check each morning to make sure the other side of the world is still there, or did they shoot that shit off already, and it's just not here yet.
I just had a Dunkin' Boston Kreme donut. 🍩
It was reasonably convincing. The cream was thick and rich, and there was a lot of it, but I did not gag. 😁
If you like the Iran Lego videos, "We Share the Same Pain" is very good.
