T was 15 years ago when I first met Rianne. It was at a birthday party of a friend of hers and a friend of mine. We started chatting randomly and soon figured out we had a lot in common, including our Computer Science background.

A lot of time has passed since then and I do my best to be a good husband. This coming Saturday we’ll do something special but modest.

I should note that the reason Microsofters try to put me and my wife in prison [1-3] is because I did the right thing and protected my wife, whereas the Microsofters would just strangle women or worse.

Some people, instead of trying to become better human beings, try to become better sociopaths.

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1. Matthew J. Garrett Has Just Sent a Threat to Put My Wife and I in Prison Because His Own Spouse Says He’s a Rapist
2. Threats From ‘Former’ Red Hat (Now IBM) Staff While IBM’s Likely Accounting Fraud Attracts Public Scrutiny
3. Put Criminals in Prison, Not People Who Report the Crimes

spoke to my sister today (that’s her above) one last time before her wedding tomorrow. It’s hard to believe how fast people grow up. She’s now managing a team, doing programming while using Debian 11, just like me. Tomorrow she’ll be officially married to another technical person. Life passes by when you don’t pay attention. We all grow older, but some take advantage of the time they have on this planet. Some waste it away.

This is me aged 16, back in the days I was playing tennis a lot.

ITH the rapid growth of so-called ‘social’ networks and that rather disturbing hype around ‘clouds’ usually comes a mindset shift; a lot of people foolishly turn to other parties to not only host — in the datacentre sense — their sites (or accounts) but also to manage all of their software and control their data. I have been trying hard to resist that, especially for photos hosting. Our wedding (and beyond) album now has over 400,000 views and the albums I set up in 2005 (using Gallery) has outlived many PHP changes, albeit with some efforts (code changes and migrations).

People don’t need surveillance and censorship platforms such as Facebook in order to share photographs. Facebook is people who are lazy and irresponsible, not technically-inept.

Avner Werner Max Schestowitz, August 29th, 1924 – January 9th, 2015

My Funny Valentine

On Valentine’s Day we think of those
Who make our lives worthwhile,
Those gracious, friendly people who
We think of with a smile.

I am fortunate to know you,
That’s why I want to say,
To a rare and special person:
Happy Valentine’s Day!

By Joanna Fuchs

Thanks to Rhoda for this card…