Ian McKellar
ian.mckellar.org
Ian McKellar
@ian.mckellar.org
Leftist Dad. Immigrant nerd. Musician, husband.

Was @ian on Twitter. Is ian@mckellar.social on the fediverse.
And of course I love seeing the way my community treats it as no big deal. She's just a nice lady who helps the kids get safely to school.
November 12, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Ian McKellar
Yeah, the original promise of free software was *lots of people* being able to fix and customize their software to their needs. There are new and different challenges here, but that promise is much more within reach right now than it has been.
November 9, 2025 at 8:19 PM
I'm excited for the possibility that more people will be able to tweak their computers to behave the way they want.
There's a lot of software that doesn't need to be general purpose and robust.
November 9, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Building an OS from scratch might be a bit much, but having an OS that's open source and/or has comprehensive APIs for customization could become an edge.

An LLM would probably have an easier time writing a gnome-shell JS extension than a scary C monkey patch for macOS customization.
November 9, 2025 at 7:30 PM
You've got one of those old IBM Model M mice?
November 8, 2025 at 11:19 PM
I will be checking that out if sufficiently stir crazy over Thanksgiving.
November 8, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Ohio? Let me know what you find. We're there at least once a year and I have no idea where to go for that stuff.
November 8, 2025 at 9:48 PM
We recognize our own.
November 8, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Yeah, but the last couple of NYC mayors didn't even go to the right schools...
November 7, 2025 at 4:02 PM
We did! We voted overwhelmingly in favor of gerrymandering! Which for some reason is good this year. I hate this timeline.
November 5, 2025 at 4:11 AM
Republicans, mostly.
November 5, 2025 at 2:10 AM
And yet some people are still saying we can't be replaced with AI.
November 4, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Some weeks I really could use the Strict Scrutiny edit that's just pop culture references because I've already consumed all of the news and takes I can take. But I still need my fix.
November 3, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Have we ever seen any side-channel attacks in the wild?
November 2, 2025 at 10:40 PM