Notices by Tinker ☀️ (tinker@infosec.exchange)

Introducing the Tinker WriterDeck OS!

Convert any laptop and most chromebooks into a writer deck: A device designed solely for writing.

No distractions.
No internet.
No apps. No games. No social media.

Just writing.

The Tinker WriterDeck is very light weight and specifically seeks to lower the barrier of entry to creating writer decks. It converts older, reused, refurbished, or inexpensive laptops into a dedicated writing machine.

A digital typewriter.

The Tinker WriterDeck sits on top of a "headless" Debian Linux image and boots directly into a console based text editor.

We're using the Tilde Text Editor because it is a simple text editor, has an intuitive User Interface, and allows for customized color schemes for light and dark modes.

Operating System download and instructions on how to convert your laptop into a dedicated writer deck for free are found here: https://tinker.sh

See below for an example of the writer deck in light mode and dark mode.

If anyone has any questions or needs any help setting your laptop up, let me know here!

#solarPunk #linux #writerDeck #bookstodon #writing #writingCommunity #author #libraries

In light of the historic speech from Sen Cory Booker, who all is going to their local Hands Off 2025 protest this Saturday?

Find your protest here: https://www.mobilize.us/handsoff/

More info on the protest: https://handsoff2025.com/about

#HandsOff #HandsOff2025 #protest #CoryBooker

Everyone is making fun of the US govt for using Signal and leaking classified info...

...no one is making fun of the "investigative journalist" blowing his cover, dropping his source of info, and kissing ass to the US govt by telling them about the leak.

This reminds me of the hackers (who obviously came from a penetration testing background) that hacked the DOGE website back in February just putting "Your security sucks" as if that was an "own".

FUCKERS!!!! STOP HELPING THE FASCIST US GOVERNMENT WITH THEIR SECURITY!!!

Quick aside while I burn my day doing this.

I know how to do this...
...but all of that knowledge goes obsolete every four months.

But I know how to approach and learn this...
...but search engines SUCK now (an AI... literally, you have no idea what you're talking about).

Also, the Acer Aspire One netbook (DOES ANYONE REMEMBER NETBOOKS?!?!?! FUCK YOU CHROMEBOOKS!!!!) was the best piece of hardware ever made.

Ever.

Ever ever.

Okay, back to this. On my fifth iteration...

(apparently usbmount is no longer part of ubuntu packages)

Not a typewriter, my ass.

You ARE a typewriter, whether you like it or not... Just you wait....

They used to make word processors...

Like. Just turn the laptop on, and it was a word processor.

A portable, electronic, type writer with a screen.

I looked up the modern equivalent. The Freewrites and the like... and holy crap they're like $500. Are you kidding me?!

I'm going to make a word processor.

Be right back...

Because with Ubuntu server / headless, we don't need automounting of USBs because that would be stupid.

Ok. I'm going to try a desktop version of ubuntu and remove gnome and just go to console and see if that works.

And I swear to Eris if anyone recommends Arch, I'm going to dropkick a massive UDP stream in your direction.

I don't know what that meant... but it sounded funnier in my head....

Anyways... this is fun and good for my soul. I haven't been this annoyed by computers in a while.

0: "Do you have a grant writing person or a formal donation campaign?"

1: What would we use money for?

People pick up food and drop it off. They volunteer their time and gas/electricity/feet-movement and get some food out of it.

Do you... do you wanna pitch over a fiver for gas? That'd help! Or I just bought some bags to store some bread in from the bakery... I guess I could use 2 dollars to that end...

Wait... what are YOU using money for?

0: "Well.. we have to pay the guy who writes grants and organizes donation campaigns."

1: Huh...

#mutualAid #solarPunk #anarchism

Lol at talking to non-profits from a anarchist mutual aid standpoint.

0: "So... we're just not used to how you are doing things. It's very new and exciting! But I'm not sure if it's aligned with what we do."

1: "We're... we're doing the exact same thing.... and we're doing it in a normal way.... and an old way... what do you mean?"

0: "It's just... well... we're used to a top down non-profit approach where people write grant requests and get a lot of money and then... well I'm not sure what they do with the money... but you all are just, well, going out there and doing it. Without any money. Or formal organization."

1: "Yeah... alright... umm... So you wanna work together or not?"

0: "Frankly you scare us."

1: "Yeah, I get that a lot."

(Side note, we have a person who works in corporate consulting and can speak non-profit language really well... she has volunteered to have us shut up and only let her speak. We all think that's the best idea going forward."

#mutualAid #solarPunk #anarchism

@catzilla - Finding people that vibe like this and making them my friends and me being their friends is now core to my life.

I've learned to identify folks that dont act like this and to communicate with them in their own language... but I limit those interactions to purely professional.

@simondassow @catzilla - Oh, it's a methodical run book at this point:

Neurodivergent Gain Friends Method

- Join activity groups that align with my interests (examples, local Hacker Meetup, Local Food Rescue, Local Food Bank, Local Library Book Club, etc)
- Talk to people there as myself, completely unmasked. (This culls the sample size quite a bit - Folks self select to not hang out with me. Makes my job a LOT easier.)
- Of those that remain, note the ones that infodump and move them into acquaintance tag.
- Continue to spend time with acquaintances and if we vibe inter-personally, hang out with them more often (either at interest group, or outside of interest group... say another interest group)
- After enough time, move from acquaintance tag to friend tag. Exchange numbers on Signal, send each other memes and videos throughout the day.
- After having three or four friends, bring all of them together (say at an interest group meeting) and see if they vibe with each other. Now we're a friend group.

If at any time you exhaust your pool, find new inputs and increase your pool again. Run through run book. Rinse / repeat.

I now have a close friend group of five people in my immediate town.

We are ride or die.

I went through an input sampling of about 250 people. I have a lot of acquaintances still. They're chill. I like them and they like me.

Small anecdote regarding Food Rescue in our town.

We have a bakery that we've started working with. They bake fresh each day and at night they would have to throw away anything they didn't sell.

So we partner with them every evening and pick up the baked goods that they would normally throw away and either take it to another org that makes hot food for folks or to the free fridges in town for people to pick up on their own.

They call us each evening before close to let us know if they have any food for pickup. If they don't call, it's generally because they sold out that day (yay for them!).

An interesting pattern emerged though. We would get regular calls on some days and other days were completely silent. We would never receive calls on those evenings. Week after week.

So I asked about it one time when doing a pickup and the baker told us that those days were staffed by a woman who had experienced a lot of trauma. She specifically would not call even if they had food to pick up because she never wanted to be in a position where she was alone with a man after close.

That seemed very prudent, reasonable, and safe of her given her circumstances and experience.

We took the time to learn about our neighbors and worked with the woman to meet her needs for safety and comfort. We found out that she was much more comfortable with another woman or femme presenting person doing the pick up. We found a couple of gleaners that were willing to do the pickup and they went over during business hours when it was slow and just got to know the baker.

They built trust and established safety guidelines and now we have regular calls during these evenings as well.

The lady was very very very happy that she could help feed people and was very happy that we were willing to work with her to find a solution that brought her comfort, peace of mind, and actual safety.

I thought y'all might like to hear that. We'll find a way to take care of everyone.

#solarPunk #mutualAid #foodRescue

Are you an introvert but still want to make a difference?

Do you like talking to persons but hate talking to people?

Do you want to join community but hate the idea of meeting with community?

Here's a fun thing to do:
- Print zines (little how-to and educational pamphlets).
- Put zines in little free libraries!

Here's a place to download zines for free: https://www.sproutdistro.com

Here's a how-to on how to make and put together zines (cheers @susankayequinn )
https://susankayequinn.com/how-to-write-solarpunk-zine

Here's a place to find all the little free libraries in your neighborhood: https://littlefreelibrary.org/map/

Here's the FAQ from Little Free Libraries regarding donating any books or material that may be considered controversial (dive in and read their take on Banned Books! Oooooh!): https://littlefreelibrary.org/faqs/#45820

Do you have any other sources for zines that you like? Post them below.

#solarPunk #mutualAid #libraries #littleFreeLibraries

When the insider threat is the boss.

@davep - I literally studied fascism and totalitarianism in high school and in college (my degree is in history with minors in political science).

So. Yay. This is awesome.

I'm doing as much as I can as an individual and as much as I can with local groups.

But dang if there's a metric fuck ton of people who are ignorant or apathetic (or both). Not to say anything of those who are openly malicious and encouraging it.

Wooooo....

I feel like a nuclear scientist staring at the mushroom cloud of a close by, recently detonated atomic bomb. I can tell you how it works. But that's not gonna stop me from getting blown away by it.

Meh. Fuck it. I'll throw sand in whatever gears I can find and create or prop up whatever mutual aid I can.

"Why isn't someone stopping this?"

I don't know. Why aren't you?

Alright. Probably the same reason they aren't either.

It's happening. Recover from the shock. Adapt and overcome.

Invite your friends over for dinner. Put all your phones in the laundry closet and turn on the drier. Then brainstorm things you can do to resist.

Then do it.

I'm *IN* the US and am doing everything I can to #boycottusa .

I'm buying local where I can, limiting my purchases from large US national and multinational corporations.

Its not much, but it is incredibly difficult to find large corps that have not either donated to fascism or are currently supporting fascism.

My local co-op grocery store seems chill though.

I found ANOTHER free fridge and community pantry in town!!!

It wasn't listed on any map sites! Found out through word of mouth!

It's held at the local university!

In fact, AmeriCorps helped set it up! That's cool. Didn't know that was a thing. I now have more people to meet and talk to as I build out my mutual aid network!

I just spent about 45 minutes talking to the coordinator there about it, seeing how they do things, learning from them.

In addition to being a node for the community to "give a food / take a food," they act as a node for the regional food bank (they get about 500 lbs of food a week) and they also act as a node for food rescue from a nearby grocery store! I'm adding them as a distribution node for our food rescue efforts as well.

In addition to the free fridge and community pantry, they are also a distribution node for various living supplies such as clothing, toiletries, school supplies, etc.

Here's more information about them: https://academics.umw.edu/communityengagement/for-students/get-involved/eagle-resource-closet/

So that makes two free fridges in town. I'm going to add their information to various lists and maps.

We still need to build out more. We're contacting various places right now to expand!

#solarPunk #freeFridge #mutualAid #foodRescue

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can see all of the web sites you visit.

Even if you visit a site that uses HTTPS, your ISP can see which site you visited (even if they cant see what specific data or web pages you went to).

Using Tor hides even which domains you visit. It's not a silver bullet (your ISP can see you went into the Tor network but cant see past that) but it can fit a specific threat model.

Using the operating system Tails - a version of Linux that pushes everything through Tor and doesnt save anything to your hard drive - can be a wonderful tool.

@Em0nM4stodon has written a comprehensive guide on what Tails is, how to use it and how not to use it.

Really great stuff and I can't wait to read the articles to come!

https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/01/29/installing-and-using-tails/

#privacy #security #fightBack #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #immigration #ice

Regarding indoor hydroponics...

Most of my power consumption is through my grow lights (still way cheaper to grow than to buy at the grocery store).

I've thought about solar panels and batteries etc... but that costs a lot of money (I havent found a non-scam solution - still researching, but let me put this down for a second).

So I started thinking... instead of lining my roof or side walls with solar panels to power indoor LED grow lights...

...why not just install light collectors outside and funnel that light directly into my house and on too of my plants with fiber optics?!?!

Basically run cabling through my house to wall literal light sockets. And attach further cabling from there to my plant shelves and setups. I could still have LEDs for augmenting the grow space if needed or during stormy days for example... but even then there is light to be collected. Anyhow!)

Turns out other people have the same idea!

Here is a gentleman going a into detail on the math and science of it with a DIY project: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DN8GXTmR6RI

There are even some companies that do this!

Here's the basic idea (I stole this pic from https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/guide-to-fiber-optic-solar-lighting):

#solarPunk #indoorFarming #indoorGardening #hydroponics