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1. Embed this notice
   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 21:09:49 JST Aral Balkan

   Happy birthday, asshole!

   https://www.rte.ie/news/uk/2026/0219/1559293-andrew-uk-arrest/

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 21:48:38 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Jonas Geiler

     @jonasgeiler It was just three or four of us from the board, if I remember correctly, and him and possibly one of his minders so there were no kids during the meeting at least. But he did do meet and greet with a bunch of kids at the announcement event afterwards.

   • Embed this notice
     Jonas Geiler (jonasgeiler@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 21:48:39 JST Jonas Geiler

     in reply to

     @aral
     Ah yes, the perfect topic for a CODE CLUB meeting: same-sex relationships and oh no the poor children 😱😱

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 21:48:40 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     (I’m still fuming that I had to sit next to that asshat because a certain someone at Code Club was busy kissing royal arse against our fervent objections and made him a patron. The dipshit – quite out of the blue at the meeting– voices his concern that kids would be confused by same-sex relationships – oh, the irony of his concern for kids (nothing was known of the Epstein connection at the time) – and I had to explain to this royal arsehole that no, kids have no trouble understanding the concept of two people who love each other. I’m so glad I resigned from the Code Club board when I did. Another initiative that could have been a force for good in the world that was destroyed by the petty greed of one person ­who was rewarded with an OBE like a good little puppy.)

   • Embed this notice
     Frank Delporte (frankdelporte@foojay.social)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 22:42:05 JST Frank Delporte

     in reply to

     @Sh41 @aral a bit vice-versa, CoderDojo has been swallowed into Code Club after Raspberry Pi Foundation has taken it over...

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     Raul Portales (sh41@androiddev.social)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 22:42:07 JST Raul Portales

     in reply to

     @aral I did run a Code Club dinner years ago, it felt definitely a force for good... But of course there'll be people tainting everything 😓

     This is the same code club that's run by the Raspberry Pi foundation and Coder Dojo, right?

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 22:44:55 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Raul Portales
     • Frank Delporte

     @frankdelporte @Sh41 Yeah, the enshittification started when one of the co-founders accepted Google as a sponsor against our objections and the other co-founder and I resigned. Well, the royal patronage thing did predate that so maybe that’s when the writing was on the wall. Still, it was very disappointing to put it mildly.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 22:54:33 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Raul Portales
     • Frank Delporte

     @Sh41 @frankdelporte Yeah, it had great potential.

   • Embed this notice
     Raul Portales (sh41@androiddev.social)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 22:54:34 JST Raul Portales

     in reply to

     • Frank Delporte

     @aral @frankdelporte ah, that's unfortunate. I loved the initiative when I was part of it (2018-2020 or so). We did run a Club for autistic kids and it was a great experience.