There is nothing to do but wait and see. The wandering eyes point at me but look through me, only occasionally forming the jewels of the face I knew.

We’re watching the last of the moments and hearing the last of the breaths, spluttered from a fluid lung. The time has come, as it often does. Never wanted, but always expected. Always expected, and in this case expressed with an uncomfortable welcome.

It isn’t fair for the dead to live, but we’ve grown effective at making it happen. Only somewhat does the widow accept, for she wishes not to entertain it.

‘It’s not fair’ is the cry that echoes. The moon is waning now, and colour drains to the lowest of the skin.

Goodbye to you, and thank you.

I imagine they’ll be cheap second-hand as well due to the education market.

The lower-end specs shouldn’t be an issue for testing either. They might even prove a benefit.

The very first I heard of the project was when Daniel Roe asked for frustrations with npm. It’s a shame that it feels notable to see effort placed on solving actual problems rather than creating problems to offer solutions to, but it should be applauded nonetheless. A few days later and the project was already in full force.

I’ve been involved with a fair number of open-source projects, and never before have I seen a community quite like npmx’s. Not only is the speed of development and iteration breakneck (there have been new features every time I’ve visited the site), but communication and coordination have been solid. I was extremely impressed by the decision for the project to place contributors’ mental health over development velocity and take a week-long break during an extremely busy period.

Entitlement in open-source communities is something I’ve covered before, but npmx has established an aura of respect and betterment upon a solid foundation which makes contributors feel genuinely welcome. They’ve placed a real emphasis on the first-time contributor experience; it’s easy to forget how daunting it can be to open your first pull request or issue, so seeing a project focus on that experience is refreshing.

The project serves as a shining beacon, an example of what open-source can be. Experienced maintainers, exemplary documentation, a solid Code of Conduct, a focus on accessibility, and a permissive licence. A tight ship that sails smoothly not due to benevolent dictators but due to a constructive, cohesive community fostered by building people up and tearing nobody down.

The Discord age-verification debacle and subsequent influx of users to Stoat meant I haven’t yet found time to contribute code directly to npmx, but I have integrated it into my workflow and added support for it to my search router. I’ve had the opportunity to engage in some extremely productive conversations and to offer my thoughts and feedback on changes. For a project as young as it is to have established itself and made such an impact across the web and on so many developers is remarkable. You need only to check the JavaScript development sphere on Bluesky to see that something big is happening.

Npmx has captured lightning in a bottle, but it hasn’t done so through unreasonable or unachievable means. It has done so by doing what is right. Npmx represents exactly what open-source should be and shows that best practices and genuine care goes a long, long way.

We, that is the driver, another friend, and I, decided to venture to a shopping centre. I sat in the front next to the driver, and the other friend curled up in something between a foetal and brace position across the back seats.

Getting in the car proved a lapse in judgement from the second the shitbox began swerving through the car park and lurched onto a busy main road. With a flagrant disregard for the speed limit, it staggered along to find a position in traffic before coming over the crest of a hill and rocketing down it. The tottering Starlet weaved across lanes and through traffic. Traffic which, thanks to the chopped springs, loomed over us and threatened to simply crush us when merging.

As we reached the shopping centre, he cut across a few lanes of traffic before, without slowing down, hurling us off the road into a notoriously tight car park. As the car attempted to hurdle over the speed bumps, the concrete and asphalt reached up and gripped the undercarriage with scraping claws. The grating of metal reverberated awfully through the interior. The driver wound his window down and feathered the pedals as he slowly progressed, screaming profanities and moaning in sympathetic pain, most of his body hanging out the window, as he tried to avoid grinding away what was left of the thinning bottom wall of the petrol tank.

Once past the worst of the speed bumps, he proceeded to pull the wrong way into a one-way road that was thankfully uninhabited by other drivers. He sped down it, performed some further illegal manoeuvres, then completely ignored a stop sign. When he pulled into a park (across two bays, naturally), I took a look at the back seat and my friend, who had all but perfected the contortionist-style ball she’d arranged herself into.

We clambered out of the vehicle, alive, and spent a brief period in the shopping centre before realising our break was nearly spent and that we’d be late to class if we walked back. The driver gleefully hopped back in, and the other passenger and I reluctantly returned to our positions in the car.

Knowing what to expect and with our sphincters suitably puckered, the Starlet threw itself back onto the street. The hill we’d zipped down previously (I think the brakes were shot) was now a mountain for the strained little car to manage. We started off strong with some momentum, but as it reached towards the apex, it slowed, and the tortured engine groaned ominously. The car just made it over the crest, screaming, before plummeting down the other side and back to college in time for class.

A three-strike system or similar might be general policy, but it isn’t always the optimal approach, and sometimes further nuance is necessary.

For example, a newly created account begins to spew bigotry. Should moderators wait for the third occurrence to take action, or should they just be banned immediately? They should be banned immediately, as all parties are aware that there is no intent for positive contribution here, and allowing the disruptive entity to remain causes unnecessary distress to other users.

Offering a path to redemption via a strike system is futile and a waste of resources in such cases. It can also be weaponised and exploited.

Intent can also apply to other situations and be gleaned from context. For example, the term ‘faggot’ could be offensive if used as a slur but benign if used to refer to a bundle of items. The appropriate consequence, if any, is determined by the intent behind the usage of the word.

A ‘based on intent’ clause has been policy for every stable community I’ve moderated, from small groups to large platforms.

Oof.

I think I’m fairly reasonable in my assessments of generative AI, yet I’ve still received a number of death threats, rape threats, and doxx attempts. Really vicious and hostile to extents I’ve never before been exposed to.

They are all accessible in an archive of Adobe’s site here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210314181449/https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/macromedia-legacy-activation-error.html

It has product keys for Captivate 1.0, Contribute 2.0, Contribute 3.0, FlashPaper 2.0, Director MX 2004, Dreamweaver MX 2004, Fireworks MX 2004, Flash MX 2004, Freehand MX, and Macromedia Studio MX 2004. Setting Windows’s Compatibility Mode to ‘Windows XP (Service Pack 2)’ seems to be the sweet spot if using a contemporary version of Windows.

Lovely to see that rule 34 of the internet is alive and well…

Have some tact. You didn’t flee a war zone; you switched apps.

To everyone who has tried to contact me about something, I’m sorry for my tardiness. I’m not trying to ignore you; I’m merely lacking the mental bandwidth to respond right now.

Today I developed and launched AutoDice, a convenient little bot that does one thing and does it well. Already in use on a couple of servers.

https://automod.vale.rocks/blog/introducing-autodice

However, the launch of the new Stoat icon I designed has been a resounding success. People love the new icon!

They love it so much, in fact, that since launching yesterday it has already been named ‘Toast’ by the community. 🍞

Thousands of people have liked the announcements of the new icon across social media, and many more have reached out to me personally to express their fondness.

Already I’ve seen fan art of the new logo across a few platforms, and it really is wonderful to see everyone embrace it so openly.

Completely unreal.

https://roosterteeth.com/watch/morning-somewhere-2026-02-11

AutoFeeds allows subscribing to syndication feeds and getting notified of new posts directly in your server.

https://automod.vale.rocks/blog/introducing-autofeeds

We don’t want to have to deploy bees, but sometimes that is the only viable option. Releasing bees as a moderation action is always a difficult call to make, but sometimes bees are the only tool for the job.

We have strict policies in place regarding bee usage. As it is, of course, a destructive action, we do also have a confirmation modal to avoid accidental bee deployments.