@doctormo@floss.social cover
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doctormo

@[email protected]

Inkscape Programmer and Software Freedom Contractor. Graphics, art, computers, politics, ideas, science.

Pronouns: they/them
Politics: A socialist... well, a federated pro-social consensualist... er, or something like that.
Meme Immunity: Innate rebel, adaptive skeptic, and pro-humility
Culture: British, Northern, Industrialist, Riverfolk, Pro-Sustainability, Pie.

My avatar image is a cartoon cat in a bowler hat with a spanner and overalls working on a machine.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar aeva , to random

if i ever score another single use time machine i'm gonna go back in time and make sure they name palindromes something that's actually a palindrome

doctormo ,
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@aeva

As a plural? Do you have to have an irregular plural?

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116102639569199871

I don't see people's default revulsion as a "purity test". I see it more as a "mental shortcut", which is useful until it isn't.

Let's not use AI as the example, let's use GM Food. The default revulsion mental shortcut means people reject "round up ready" GMOs, good. But also reject Golden Rice GMOs, very bad.

You can reject ChatGPT, even boycott it, I do; without actually becoming anti-science and rejecting every single spicy auto-complete. Details DO matter.

Those details are... 1/2

@gloopsies@fosstodon.org avatar gloopsies , to random

Hello artists of fediverse!

It's probably not a wild thing to say that we all hate Adobe and similar giant companies that make art software that:

  1. Doesn't work on linux,
  2. Could probably disappear tomorrow without any warning, taking all our projects with it and
  3. Requires expensive subscriptions

I want to try and combat that by creating an alternative open source suite of tools!

doctormo ,
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@kenSwinson

What are the manipulation UX for blender? I didn't think it was very different from Inkscape.

doctormo ,
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@ltlnx

What they hold the key or press it one or something?

doctormo ,
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@ltlnx

That sounds bonkers, but if it's what people want 😅

Special cursors and everything?

doctormo ,
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@kenSwinson @ltlnx

Thanks!

How does it constrain the axis for rotate?

@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org avatar davidrevoy , to random

Simple solution

A comic in four panels: Panel 1. A serene parc outside the University of Magic under the great teapot moonshine. The gothic sorceress and her blond elf new friend, and a magician, are all sitting and chatting, smiling around a little fire. All the little group don't have their AI (Avian Intelligence) Parrots and have books, sketchbook, a knitting kit, and sit under a banner: "The NO AI Club". In the background, the headmaster walks with a lantern with his AI Parrot flying near his shoulder is shocked at the small club. Panel 2. Shot on the headmaster, in anger, his face red with indignation: > Headmaster: "Why don't you have your Avian Intelligence with you? It's the future! You can't stop it!" Panel 3. The Gothic Sorceress turns around, holding her arm out like a weapon towards the headmaster, and casts a spell, emitting a magical light from her fingers. > Gothic sorceress: "Muteo!" Panel 4. The same view angle as in panel 1, the gothic sorceress smirks and she is proud of herself. The headmaster continues to scream at them in distance, but his speech bubble now only has a 'mute icon' in it. > Gothic sorceress: "*Can't stop it?* Please, that was super easy!"
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doctormo ,
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@davidrevoy @fell

Oooh, can I suggest one where the parrots all talk to each other in a line, and each time they pass it on it gets more and more garbled as they are "learning" from each other and it degenerates into informational goo.

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

😜 do you think I should evolve Inkscape into a Modern AI Browser? I hear it's the thing to do!

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

Help there's a crash in the drag/drop of dialog tabs on SOME machines. If you are testing the new release candidate from https://inkscape.org/release/inkscape-1.4.3rc on LINUX only. Can you mess arund with the tabs, detaching, reattaching etc and see if you can get it to crash?

Report back here either way, along with your distro/version and which linux build (i.e. AppImage, or binary build, etc)

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

Daughter: I don't think english is three languages in a tench coat. I think it's more of a Frankenstein...

Me: giggles

Daughter: looks at me

Me: you know, Franken as in French and stein as in German. Literally a Stein that has been Franked. A German that has been Frenched.

Ok it was funnier in my head. 😅

@mattdm@hachyderm.io avatar mattdm , to random

Whenever D'Arcy Carden is in anything, I can't help but note if she is a Good Janet or a Bad Janet. (In Loot, she is definitely a Bad Janet.)

doctormo ,
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@mattdm

Not a Janet

@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org avatar davidrevoy , to random

The new feature nobody wanted

A comic in four panels: Panel 1. A dark and mystical laboratory, with shelves lined with dusty jars of oddities and strange artifacts, a dark witch, dressed in tattered black robes, is tired, her desk scattered with parchment and strange devices. She looks frustrated and confused. On a perch near to the desk stands a colorful mechanical parrot that contrast with everything. > Witch: Of course, we wanted crows, and the university gave us this... Panel 2. Close-up on the parrot speaking cheerfully: > Parrot: :sparkle emoji: Greetings. I am a conversational Avian Intelligence model, developed by OpenMagic to assist you with your spells. > Parrot: What can I help with? Panel 3. The witch's face looks at the mechanical bird with annoyance. > Witch: "Shut up, you... thing." Panel 4. The parrot continues. The witch now have her face against the desk. > Parrot: ":sparkle emoji: I apologize, but I won't engage in conversations with hurtful language. Can I assist you with something else?"
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doctormo ,
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@plwt @davidrevoy

A group of stochastic parrots is a "Slop"

@brettezeleliquide@h4.io avatar brettezeleliquide , to random French
doctormo ,
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@SnowyCA

string theory is a real thing.

Knot made up!

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

Ghostbusters in the Shell

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

RE: https://mastodon.social/@sjvn/115532457970095005

These Free Software programmers are too demure, too shy, too generous in their descriptions. Call it what is it:

Labour Abuse

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

It's been a long while since I made an update video. So for a special October treat 😅 I've put together a quick update in the morning sunshine:

https://youtu.be/4hzLAchaPNE

You'all know what been up to. Engine, filters and lots an lots of reading of code and papers to understand it all. Almost done this bit too.

PeerTube link will come soon.

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

Hey, do you know CMake? Can you spare a couple of minutes to do a code review? The Inkscape project sometimes struggles to find experts in some tools to do reviews and you could be a great help just looking over this include construct for unit tests (we're trying to do more unit testing)

https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/7447/diffs#aef5f525afa24090506b1f6b4def8a3c2fb76126_174_153

Q: Is this ok to include a CMakeLists when putting together a list of cpp files for the unit test builder?

@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org avatar davidrevoy , to random

The Todo list

A short comic strip in four panels: Panel 1. A young witch, Pepper, is crouched on her bed, engraving something into the wood of the frame with a wood chisel: "TODO LIS...". Through the open bedroom door, we see Cayenne, an old witch who is surprised by the scene. > Cayenne: What are you doing? Panel 2. A tighter shot on Pepper, who looks at Cayenne, pleased with herself after finishing the engraved "TODO LIST". Cayenne struggles to understand. > Pepper: Can't you see? I decided to rename my bed "TODO LIST"! Panel 3. Cayenne scratches her head, still struggling to understand. > Cayenne: But why?... Panel 4. Pepper gets into bed under the sheets, her eyes wide open as if recalling a traumatic event. At her explanation, Cayenne puts her hand on her face, exasperated by Pepper's logic. > Pepper: It's simple: every time I try to fall asleep, all the things I have to do come to mind!
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doctormo ,
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@davidrevoy

EmBEDded Thoughts

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

Is there an Inkscape user who has and uses a drawing tablet device available to test some fixes for 1.5?

What we need is some testing on the smoothness of the drawing, it should be better than 1.4 and hopefully not break.

Downloads are here: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/7427 to get them you click on the green checkmark and click your OS, and download the AppImage, 7z (windows) or dmg.

Comment on the linked page if you can. Here is ok too.

Thanks!

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar ChrisMayLA6 , to random

While no surprise, Rachel Reeves' comment to a meeting of Private Equity bosses, that 'I want to take out more regulators; we have still got too many', give us a clear indication of who's side she's on;

she's labouring (pun intended) under the presumption that regulations have just appeared for no apparent reason;

actually for the most part, regulations exist due to past malfeasance by corporate entities - and that's what they want rid!

She's dangerously naive!


h/t FT

doctormo ,
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@ChrisMayLA6

Its worse. Regulations provide the rulebook which provides a level playing field between moral thinking citizens and abusive arseholes. Once there are no rules, not only is there less predictability for markets, but now the only thing holding people back is their own morals. Perfectly making sure only the worse evil cretins do well in business.

@dbat@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar dbat , to random

"Boys with the characteristics of wolves" Unknown Mortal Orchestra..

The song is amazing. It's 500 out of 10.

The video.. complicates.

I loathe AI. I go out of my way to not keep-up. I block, I unfollow, I unsub.

This vid somehow reached me. It grabbed some perverted neurons within my soggy skull.

1/2

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@dbat

What is death of the author when the author was never alive.

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

I have been pushing for to remove/decommission it's Twitter account. But I didn't want to do it unilaterally, bossing people about, but through reasoned policy that can be applied to other captured banana-pants social media platforms.

So I've drafted a policy, which I'm interested in having more people look at as it's going to be one of those gnarly things that's important to get right:

https://lists.inkscape.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/thread/JPXDI5CUQKURR3WHIPTVMVGSSQ6BVZA2/

What do you think? Worth while approach for a project?

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

Wow, chandwell's cathedral project is almost finished! Made in Inkscape without any machines to cut or 3d print.

https://youtu.be/wCzK3mE2GCM

The bit that got me was 0:29 which I totally thought was a shot of the real cathedral until it panned down and made my brain break.

@joshbressers@infosec.exchange avatar joshbressers , to random

The Register wrote a story about a single maintainer open source project, I think it's shameful and upsetting. So I wrote a blog post about it

An absolutely ridiculous amount of open source is one person projects. I have the data to prove it

https://opensourcesecurity.io/2025/08-oss-one-person/

doctormo ,
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@joshbressers

What would a union look like for Free Software?

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

I created a script to rotate my screen, I tied it to Ctrl+Shift+R and it's great for reading web comics on this light @system76 machine as if it was a book.

But er, I forgot that Ctrl+Shift+R is reverse lookup in Bash. Ooops.

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

Is there a free software system like kick starter?

I'd like to run a funding experiment and it would require this model.

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

Does anyone know what this is?

I found it today nailed to the inside of a closet wall which is an outside wall of the house. Attached in such a way that it couldn't possibly have been put there after the house was built in 1873.

It looks like Japanese print and seems to be wrapped and stuck into a sort of envelope. It was hanging vertically from the top beam and had been there for a very long time. As you can tell from the degradation.

But what in the world is it?

A very yellow and eaten parchment sits on a wooden table. You can see traditional Japanese style images and some very small text. The middle is torn, missing and the whole thing looks very fragile. A hand is holding down it's curling lower edge.
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@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar aeva , (edited ) to random

i'm probably going to keep using github for now simply because it lets me archive my hoarder pile of half finished bullshit indefinitely no questions asked, but this news that github is probably going to ai harder soon makes me wonder if anyone knows of a good alternative for long term storage for this sort of thing? codeberg apparently has a very short window of inactivity where [some] stuff is removed at their discretion. another option would be a vps but i don't want to manage a vps.

doctormo ,
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@aeva

You just want an off site backup?

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

Just saw a T-shirt that said "cream of the cream".

But isn't that just butter?

doctormo OP ,
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@dbat very good!

@mattdm@hachyderm.io avatar mattdm , to random

This sauce is 3× hotter for English speakers.

The label says: Hot Hot Hot Picante
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doctormo ,
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@mattdm

Hot (it's high temperature)
Hot (it's popular)
Hot (it's spicy)

Obviously you wouldn't use the same word over and over, that would be redundant!

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

We have a new person doing the Inkscape challenges this month and I was wondering if you guys would throw them a bit of attention for their first one? Draw a boat using 🚣

https://inkscape.org/forums/competitions/inkscape-challenge-august-2025/

@georgetakei@universeodon.com avatar georgetakei , to random

Elon, can we start from more equitable wealth distribution or nah?

doctormo ,
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@georgetakei

Hands up if you think the AI Robots owned by billionaires will be feeding the poor.

....

Robots are assets. If they aren't putting their existing low-tech assets to use solving poverty and hunger, they sure as shit ain't going to be putting any future sci-fi asset towards those goals.

@system76@fosstodon.org avatar system76 , to random

Curious how we program our two giant lasers? 🔍

video/mp4

doctormo ,
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@system76

Are you able to make GCode or DXF out of Inkscape or are you using other/more direct tools for designing?

@jimmac@mastodon.social avatar jimmac , to random

Regular dinner activities with @tbernard

Photo of Tobias drawing a Testride app icon in inkscape during GUADEC 2025 in Brescia castle.
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doctormo ,
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@davidrevoy @jimmac @tbernard

Inkscaping on a touchpad!

Bon apaise tete 😉

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

I don't understand why AAA games aren't smaller than AA games.

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

Should Inkscape have an update phone-homeatron that checks for new versions?

I ask because, I don't wanna, but it's often requested. It feels like "writing your own date parser" in terms of "I really shouldn't be the one doing this"

But it does bridge to our linux users who are often cut off from having a direct relationship with the project.

@lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social avatar lowqualityfacts , to random

Feeling inadequate because everyone on Mastodon appears to be an author or a lawyer or a scientist?

Follow me and feel better about yourself, for I have the intellect of a clever potato.

doctormo ,
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@lowqualityfacts

Ah, a wit.

@catsalad@infosec.exchange avatar catsalad , to random

FYI, accounts claiming to be part of the Mastodon Support Team are scams! The only support team here is me.*

*support only available for cats

doctormo ,
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@catsalad

They have three thousand Mastodon Support Team bots

The MST3k bots. 😝

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

I know this is for a car, but many a thing cried out at a command line. 😅

A bumper sticker in a bold serif font says "LET ME MERGE I HAVE TO PEE"
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@jasongorman@mastodon.cloud avatar jasongorman , to random

Maybe should have asked ChatGPT about "the tortoise and the hare"

A screenshot of a LinkedIn post saying: "Stop asking 'Can AI build enterprise code?". At Google, AI already writes 50% of it. The debate ended while you were still proofreading." The post is accompanied by what appears to be a generated image of a tortoise and a hare in a coding competition at the finish line of a race. The finish line banner says "WHO CODES FASTER?"
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doctormo ,
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@timotimo @eviltrout @jasongorman

The turtle doesn't have to use the screen because they've got their own shell.

I'll get my coat.

@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar molly0xfff , (edited ) to random

FT: "Donald Trump is preparing to open the $9tn US retirement market to cryptocurrency investments ..."

Trump is seeking to direct Americans' retirement funds to a sector in which he and his family are heavily invested.

https://www.ft.com/content/07906211-5ab8-4917-bcad-5397c0bc3170

doctormo ,
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@molly0xfff

"... and now they're coming for your social security money, they want your fucking retirement money, they want it back. So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something, they'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later because they own this fucking place..." (2005)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG46kAAMcU0

@doctormo@floss.social avatar doctormo , to random

What is the real reason it's annoying to be asked to use Linux? Why are folks so insistent on it? Why do they seem to get so disheartened or even aggressive if you say no?

Politics.

See my video on constructive politics and what a lot of foss people are trying to achieve by asking: https://friprogramvarusyndikatet.tv/w/sARaPgeK3tnEe94JZmDYxD

(re-posting the peertube link)

@georgetakei@universeodon.com avatar georgetakei , to random

The data speaks volumes over the political rhetoric.

doctormo ,
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@georgetakei

I have no doubt that the submerged economy will continue, but it's worth being honest that the graph is a cherry picking and extending it back to 2022 shows one (but only one) quarter was also negative under Biden.

Not that the president is usually responsible for GDP. Although this one is taking a sledge hammer to really test that concept.

@dbat@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar dbat , to random


Is there a way to duplicate a text-on-path object such that the copy has the copied text bound to the copied path?

E.g. "Woot" on a circle. Select text and circle. Duplicate. Move aside. Edit copy. Change circle. Woot does not care. Shift d shows original circle is still the path being used.

doctormo ,
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@dbat

Copy paste does the right thing, Duplicate does not.

@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org avatar davidrevoy , to random

Dear @creativecommons ,

I read your article about your initiative for new licenses for dataset holders in the AI industry.

Let’s be clear: I do not want to re-license my hundreds of CC-By comic pages to please AI giants.

I wish you would support CC artists suffering from massive plagiarism. You should enforce your own existing licenses against AI mass crawling. It seems you’ve joined the battle only after the casualties and still managed to side with the wrong people.

https://creativecommons.org/2025/06/25/introducing-cc-signals-a-new-social-contract-for-the-age-of-ai/

doctormo ,
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@davidrevoy @creativecommons

Nice one! My own thughts went more towards how CC Signals shoulds like CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) that bullshit tech that governments love because it allows them to burn things.

doctormo ,
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@davidrevoy @serge @creativecommons

Thanks for the tag in.

There's a lot of questions to ask, although I admit to being interested in different ones centred on consent, the social implication of being abused without recourse, and of course then the active discussion on "signalling" can happen on top of those resolutions.

So I guess we need a bunch of perspectives because we are not on the same page (might not even be the same book!)

@juergen_hubert@mementomori.social avatar juergen_hubert , to random

Okay here is my very simple concept for a - a "business card" that encourages people to join the and links to @_elena 's explanatory video.

My idea is that people can hand these out at , political organizations, and so forth - where politically active people gather who already have had bad experiences with commercial social media.

The back side could be customized further to list an instance which is most relevant to the place where you want to share them - for example, I want to print a variant for the gruene.social instance.

I will certainly try to apply my meagre skills to make this more appealing, but first I wanted to hear what you all think of this concept, and what your suggestions for improvement are.

(Note: If you want to play around with the design, I have made it available in / format. The template has the 85 x 55 mm size for European business cards, so you will want to adjust it for other regions.)


https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JxwrLkpvuBaAcRMLFoEjbIXJnhO-bs3r

A simple design for a two-page business card. The front page shows the Fediverse logo, a QR code, and the text: "Join the Fediverse! The People's Social Media: No Ads No Algorithms No Surveillance" The back side has the text "joinfediverse.net"
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@JoBlakely @juergen_hubert @mastodonmigration @_elena @stefan

I have always thought that introducing people to "Mastodon" was probably a mistake. What people need an invitation to join, and the materials templates to make it easy to join, would be local and club based servers which are advertised directly.

@davidrevoy Do you think we could pair up some of your cute drawings with an svg template to just pop in the details for any server which someone could print and hand out locally?