Chris Howie

I identify as a Christian, free software developer, libertarian, and penguin enthusiast. Tweets are mine and are PG-13. (RT = endorsement) ∨ (RT ≠ endorsement)

[Allie ✞ @allie__voss]

Girl I follow on Instagram who said Sydney Sweeney’s jean commercial was “promoting eugenics” is now defending the down syndrome abortion couple

Do I tell her

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@TheAhmadOsman @1i__is Netbird is better as a self hosted solution, IMO. We are transitioning from Headscale to Netbird for multiple reasons. A huge one is that Netbird has an official open source management server that includes a full web UI.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@omer_7293 @reactos @julenuri It's a kernel compatible with NT, but written from scratch.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

Too little, too late.

What we've learned is that Microsoft is willing to sacrifice its users and its own long term survival for short term gains.

Letting us create local accounts again does not fix this. Trust is irrevocably broken.

[Windows Latest @WindowsLatest]

BREAKING: Microsoft could drop the requirement for a Microsoft account to use Windows 11.

This move is being explored internally as part of the company’s efforts to win back Windows 11 users.

A future Windows 11 update will also make the OOBE (out-of-box-experience) UX "quieter and more streamlined," with fewer pages and reboots, so getting started is simpler.

Microsoft has committed to faster OS performance, a reduced memory footprint, a faster File Explorer, fewer web-based UI elements in the OS, and even the ability to pause updates for as long as you want.

Microsoft is also scaling back Copilot in Windows 11, and it will only add AI to places and apps where it adds real value.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@alexbarkell @valigo @siegmaslugcat Honestly, it's not so bad with practice and a good IDE. For example, sometimes, something I could just write as a Bash script is faster to bang out in Rust just because I'm more familiar with control flow constructs in Rust than Bash.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@siegmaslugcat @valigo It's not. You can make it a hard error if you want with #![deny(unused)], but by default it's warn, not deny.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@Legoman99573 @wp_114x @Zendesk @FACEIT Oh absolutely. I'm talking about a milter for those of us who run email servers to automatically start blocking spam waves.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@BagehotsRevenge @ujjwalscript r/angryupvote

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@Legoman99573 @wp_114x @Zendesk @FACEIT We can hope. I'm considering building an open source per-recipient rate-limiting milter for Zendesk so that I don't have to react to spam waves myself. It wouldn't be that hard.

Maybe others would find it useful, too.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@Legoman99573 @wp_114x @Zendesk @FACEIT Zendesk's sending servers all have the hostname *.zdsys.com. I simply added code to my custom milter to reject all mail from any IPs that reverse-lookup to *.zdsys.com. This has blocked 100% of the spam.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@wp_114x @Legoman99573 @Zendesk Update: According to my mail server logs, almost 1,400 messages have been blocked so far. This is absurd.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@wp_114x @Legoman99573 @Zendesk I gave up waiting for them to fix this. Upwards of 300 emails now, just this evening. I have blocked *.zdsys.com from my mail server.

I wonder how long before Google and Microsoft start doing some form of blocking on their end.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@wp_114x @Legoman99573 @Zendesk The spammer is probably creating tickets using web forms, not by sending email. The same thing is happening to me.

It's 2026 and Zendesk can't figure out CAPTCHAs or email validation.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@Zendesk @imlucluc I have received over a hundred messages regarding tickets created with my email address over the last few hours.

Something has to give. Either fix this issue or I am blacklisting all of Zendesk from my mail server for all of my users. This is completely unacceptable.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@imlucluc @Zendesk The brand damage is being caused by Zendesk not doing a single thing about it.

[James Dreyfus @DreyfusJames]

To those ‘but..but..but-ing’ in the comments to my previous post about Charlie Kirk, pointing out that you didn’t agree with some or all of his opinions, please understand that no one, but no one, agrees with another person 100%.

It’s also completely beside the point.

The point is a young man was murdered, in front of his family, whilst engaging with students. Encouraging debate. Exchanging ideas. Challenging opinions.

There are people grotesquely skipping & dancing with glee over this news, en masse.

If this whole ugly, horrific affair doesn’t shock & disgust you to your core, & you can’t leave the ‘but’s aside, I really don’t know what to say to you…

[Hannah Frankman Hood @HannahFrankman]

@KonstantinKisin Charlie Kirk feels so much closer to home.

Politicians enter a different arena, assassination is a known danger, they’re removed from us.

Charlie Kirk feels real in a different way. Where’s the line between him engaging in discourse vs us? This one feels personal.

[Nick Freitas @NickJFreitas]

I am told that as a state representative this is the moment where I'm supposed to express my heartfelt condolences and then stand in solidarity with those on the other side of the aisle as we condemn political violence and stand unified as one people.

But we aren't "one people" are we?

The truth is we haven't been for some time now, and there is really no point in pretending anymore, if there ever was.

We are two very different peoples. We may occupy the same piece of geography, but that is where the similarities seem to abruptly end.

I convinced myself for a long time that whenever the left called me a racist, a bigot, a sexist, a fascist, a "threat to democracy" for even the most innocent of disagreements, that it was simply hyperbolic rhetoric done for effect.

And now the "effect" is a widow and two orphaned children, because the left couldn’t bear the thought of a peaceful man debating them and winning.

I don’t think they realize it yet, but murdering Charlie is going to be remembered as the day where we finally woke up to what this fight really is.

It’s not a civil dispute among fellow countrymen. It’s a war between diametrically opposed worldviews which cannot peacefully coexist with one another. One side will win, and one side will lose.

Charlie tried to win that fight through argumentation, through discussion, through peaceful resolution of differences.

And the other side murdered him.

Not because he was “extreme” or “inciting violence” or any other hyperbolic slur they hurled at him. They murdered him because he was effective. Because he was unafraid. Because he inspired others and made them feel like they had a voice, that they were not alone. And he did it at the very institutions which have fomented so much hatred toward conservatives.

I don’t want to “stand in solidarity” with the other side of the aisle. I want to defeat you. I want to defeat the godless ideology that kills babies in the womb, sterilizes confused children, turns our cities into cesspools of degeneracy and lawlessness…and that murdered Charlie Kirk.

Social media is aflame right now with leftist celebration of Charlie’s death.

I wonder if any among them understand what has just happened. If there is a Yamamoto somewhere in their midst warning, that all they have done is awoken a sleeping giant.

I doubt it. I think they gave up such introspection and self-awareness long ago.

I don’t know exactly what will happen next. I just know that it won’t be the same as what has happened in the past.

There will be thoughts and prayers…Charlie would have wanted prayers. Not for himself but for those left behind and for the country that he loved.

But then there will be a reckoning.

My Christian faith requires me to love my enemies and pray for those who curse me. It does not require me to stand idly by in the midst of savagery and barbarism...quite the opposite.

So every time I feel tired, every time I feel discouraged or overwhelmed, I am going to watch the video of a good man being murdered in Utah…I will force myself to watch it…and then I will return to the work of destroying the evil ideology responsible for that and so much more.

Rest with God Charlie, your fight is over.

Ours is just beginning.

[Chris Howie @cdhowie]

@MattEskes @LundukeJournal Yes? So is lots of other software that we're not talking about here.