Notices by Thom, absolute station wagon (thomholwerda@exquisite.social)

Look, we can all complain about religion all we want, but the Protestant Church in the Netherlands in the city of Kampen who have been holding an uninterrupted mass for over a year to protect a family of two parents and five kids (21, 15, 11, and 4) from deportation are fucking heroes. This family has been in The Netherlands for 12 years, so these kids know nothing of the place they came from (hell, two of them were born here and have never seen their parents' home country), and deporting them would be insanely cruel.

Why the long mass, though? Well, according to Dutch law, law enforcement is not allowed to enter a church (or other house of worship) as long as a mass/service/etc. is underway. As such, members of this church take turns holding mass, and 2000 of them have been keeping this up for over a year. The family has its own little area in the church, but they can't leave the building. The kids are taught by local teachers inside the church, and the 21-year old does odd jobs in the building. So yeah, they've been inside for over a year.

Turns out this "church asylum" thing has actually been attempted over 50 times since 1978, and it's been successful at times.

I almost bought a house in Kampen a few years before meeting my now-wife and moving to Sweden. Had that not happened, and I managed to buy a house in Kampen, I would've joined this church in a heartbeat to help out.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2591258-kerkdienst-voor-uitgeprocedeerde-familie-babayants-gaat-al-een-jaar-dag-en-nacht-door

Earlier today, I published a 10,000 word deep dive into Sun Microsystems's ecosystem of the late 2000s - covering their final SPARC workstation (the Ultra 45), awesome expansions like the SunPCI IIIpro (an entire x86 PC on a PCI card!), the Sun Ray thin client environment (including all the real hardware and working setups), and much more, on @osnews.

https://www.osnews.com/story/143570/living-my-best-sun-microsystems-ecosystem-life-in-2025/

This was a ton of work, and consumed my life for a few months. Few websites publish stuff like this anymore, and I'm glad I happen to run one where people still appreciate meticulous writing like this. If you want more, feel free to donate to our Ko-Fi or become a Patreon:

https://ko-fi.com/thomholwerda/
https://www.patreon.com/osnews

That being said, none of this would've been possible without the insanely generous donations from @kdedude and @vab - I can't emphasize enough how grateful I am to them. ♥️

My experience with the FreeBSD community is prominent members heavily promoting fashy trash like fash X fork and other fash propaganda, and the community attacking me vigorously for suggesting FreeBSD should consider things like a friendlier installer (something they are now working on and everybody is excited about).

¯⁠\⁠(⁠◉⁠‿⁠◉⁠)⁠/⁠¯

The death of X11 brings me great pleasure.

Call it my kink. 🥵

https://fosstodon.org/@3v1n0/115496819908245426

And as right on cue, the Dutch fascist leader Wilders has started pushing conspiracy tweets that the elections results - which he lost - are invalid.

Mind you, we vote with paper and pencil, ballots are stored for recounts, and the entire counting process in every single polling place is open and freely accessible to any Dutch citizen. Our elections are most likely the most reliable and transparent in the world.

Can we just not import American stupidity for one fucking day, please?

what if gender is a wave, not a particle

based kde

https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-www/2025-October/009275.html

I'm considering Librewolf. I really don't want to keep using Chrome, obviously.

@loic I'd rather eat shit.

https://www.spacebar.news/stop-using-opera-browser/

LibrePhone will be usable when The Hurd is.

WHO'S YOUR GOD NOW?????

Well. That's not encouraging.

https://community.frame.work/t/framework-supporting-far-right-racists/75986

Yeah @frameworkcomputer is a no-go from now on. You're free to take sides. I'm free to tell you to fuck off because of your choice.

Ask your doctor if you are POSIX-compliant.

Moldova showing the way.

Can we now please send like six guys and a dog to Transnistria and kick out the nazi Russian occupiers there? Transnistria is Moldovan territory, and the illegal occupation must end.

im still seething

https://www.osnews.com/story/143376/dark-patterns-killed-my-wifes-windows-11-installation/

🤫

Fuck you, this is our anthem now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYG7-d_Q9zU

We're told that after the war
The Nazis vanished without a trace
But battalions of fascists
Still dream of a master race
The history books they tell
Of their defeat at '45
But they all came out of the woodwork
On the day the Nazi died
They say the prisoner at Spandau
Was a symbol of defeat
Whilst Hess remained imprisoned
And the fascists, they were beat
So the promise of an Aryan world
Would never materialize
So why did they all come out of the woodwork
On the day the Nazi died
The world is riddled with maggots
The maggots are getting fat
They're making a tasty meal of all
The bosses and bureaucrats
They're taking over the boardrooms
And they're fat and full of pride
And they all came out of the woodwork
On the day the Nazi died
So if you meet with these historians
I'll tell you what to say
Tell them that the Nazis
Never really went away
They're out there burning houses down
And peddling racist lies
And we'll never rest again
Until every Nazi dies

Conversion therapy - for gay, trans, etc. people - has officially been made illegal in The Netherlands today.

Tiny ray of progress in the utter dysfunction that is my country of birth.

Long shot, but do I have any Faroese followers, or followers who live on the Faroe Islands?

I'm going down an odd rabbit hole relating to finding a job over there and I have... Questions.

Look, we all know Fahrenheit is the most nonsensical and most arbitrary measurement in the US (sorry @caseyliss), but I would like to posit that American Wire Gauge gives it a run for its money.

What in the fuck is even happening here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge