Do Flamingos Know They're Pink?

Articles about how technology works, who it serves, the systems around it, and what it all costs. Digital sovereignty, open source governance, and internet rights.

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Panoramic view of Chuquicamata, a state-owned copper mine in the north of Chile.
Article

I Get No Ideas Inside the Machine

· 05 Jul 2026 · 11 min read

At Cables of Resistance, I ran a workshop asking if we can build hardware without capitalism. I was grieving what AI is doing to open source. Technologists need to see there's no innocent ground under the machine. It was always someone's land.…

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Woman with wax tablets and stylus
Linux Desktop

For the Love of the Linux Desktop

Twenty-five years of Linux on the desktop, long enough that the muscle memory outlasts the code. A love letter to the thing I look at and touch every day, and how it got that way.…

06 Mar 2026 · 6 min read
Neoclassical line engraving of Ulysses seated at a table, drawing his sword as Circe offers him a cup. Figures rendered in outline against white space.
Autonomous Stack

The Inventory I Should Have Done Years Ago

Every self-hosting guide starts with software. This one starts a step earlier: the unglamorous inventory of what you actually depend on, done after one too many price hikes dressed up as upgrades.…

03 Mar 2026 · 6 min read
Old roman bridge from 1st century AD in Sardinia over a murky river, with a beautiful green mountain behind it.
Autonomous Stack

Why I'm Doing the Autonomous Stack Series

Technology is a proxy for power, and power belongs to whoever controls the infrastructure. This series asks how much of my own I can take back, and what it costs to try.…

24 Feb 2026 · 4 min read
Detail, door-hinge, inscribed with the name of Entemena of Lagash
Open Source

Oiling the Doors at FOSDEM

No tickets, no badges, no lanyards: just a Brussels campus handed over to thousands of FOSS enthusiasts for a weekend. Notes from three years at the largest volunteer-run event in open source.…

20 Feb 2026 · 3 min read
A flock of flamingos chilling by a beach with an unidentified black bird walking non-challantly past them.
Autonomous Stack

Welcome to Do Flamingos Know They're Pink

The blog has a new home on self-hosted infrastructure and a new name. Flamingos aren't born pink, they become pink from what they eat, which is the kind of question this place keeps circling.…

17 Feb 2026 · 2 min read
Ruins of the ancient Incan citadel Machu Picchu on a misty morning
Digital Sovereignty

Building a Digital Sovereignty Castle in the Sky

European leaders keep summoning digital sovereignty into being with summits and tech champions. A speculative proposal for the thing they keep skipping: an institution that funds open hardware through public bonds.…

17 Nov 2025 · 5 min read
A Royal Mail coach dragged by horses through a flood.
Policy

The UK's Online Safety Act: A Lesson in Technosolutionism

The UK spent two years and billions making the internet less safe. The Online Safety Act as a case study in why you cannot regulate complex social problems away with surveillance and algorithmic band-aids.…

05 Aug 2025 · 5 min read
Power station "Centrale Hemweg" in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In the front the 150 kV switching station, and behind that the
Hardware

The Hardware Innovation Monopoly Problem: Why Europe Should Stop Chasing Unicorns

Europe's hardware problem is not too few unicorns. It is mistaking private control over public infrastructure, from ASML's lithography monopoly outward, for innovation success.…

30 Jul 2025 · 5 min read
$ ls ~/essays/ the full archive →