Municipal elections 2022

Working in a very operational role for an NGO serving the Dutch research and education field is still one of the best jobs in the world for me. But I missed being involved in my local community ever since moving back to Zwolle just before the pandemic hit. I looked for something to get more involved and decided to apply for a position on the candidates list for the local chapter of GroenLinks (a member party of the European Greens) here in Zwolle for the Municipal elections of 2022.

Continue reading →

Properly parking a domain

If you are like me, you probably have a couple of domain names. Some in use, some cool to have, some for other people. Recently I realized that spammers can use domains that are not properly configured to use email and so I looked in to how to protect these domains while parked (or only in use for a simple site). I came across this elaborate document from the M3AAWG (Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group), I tried summarizing it below. Replace the bold example.com in the examples below by your own parked domain.

Continue reading →

Liberating a couple of laptops

I like using free (as in freedom) and open source software as much as possible. But a truly open source computer, with open source bios and other firmware, is either very expensive or the models are very very old. Brands like Purism offer newer models (with a modern CPU etc) at high prices or you can buy a refurbished older laptop with all the open source bells and whistles from brands like Nitrokey also at a high price. Both were to expensive for my taste and I decided to take the DIY route.

Since I was interested in running Qubes OS and Debian I looked at hardware recommended by the Qubes project. The Lenovo X230 looked liked the most likely candidate since they are readily available on second-hand marketplaces or at websites that sell refurbished laptops.

Continue reading →