1 May 2024
Kevin Talks Tech Episode 6 – Chris Alemany in Port Alberni, BC
Kevin Talks Tech is back from a long hiatus! Going forward, new episodes will be released monthly!
In this episode, I talk with Chris Alemany. We "met" on the social media website called Mastodon, an alternative to Twitter. We became fast friends, and I found him and what he spends his time doing instantly fascinating, so I had to talk to him! I think you'll really enjoy our conversation!
Chris is a University Instructor and Computer Technician (https://ah.viu.ca/media-studies/faculty/profiles/chris-alemany) at Vancouver Island University (VIU) in Nanaimo, a city on Vancouver Island! Lucky him! He was born and raised in the city Port Alberni, about an hour west of Nanaimo. He found work elsewhere to start, but moved back to Nanaimo many years ago and is now raising his family in Port Alberni!
We covered a lot of ground in this conversation, including his time as a City Councilor in Port Alberni, which he did along with his full-time job at VIU! Busy guy!
He has a number of hobbies and loves to tinker with tech! He hosts his own Mastodon instance (https://joinmastodon.org/) (server)! In fact, he's spearheading a federal petition to get more Politicians to use decentralized Social Media like Mastodon and not be so beholden to the whims and control of corporate giants!
The Fediverse is a term coined to describe a "federated universe", including Mastodon, and many others, that are built upon an open standard called ActivityPub (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub). Here's how Wikipedia details it. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse)
That petition now sits at over 700 signatures! 500 are needed to be considered in the House of Commons! Please consider signing it here (https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4769)! I talk about that more in this blog post (https://kevinthetechguy.ca/blog/check-out-this-petition-for-the-canadian-government-to-build-its-own-mastodon-server-to-engage-with-canadians/)!
"I do hope the petition inspires more Parliamentarians to make the leap, but I also hope it inspires a larger discussion about Parliament as an independent entity creating its own, verified, trusted, social media space that is not controlled by outside forces.
Like email, like the Our Commons website (https://www.ourcommons.ca/en), and all the other services they provide, Canadians should be able to always know that their parliamentarians are using reputable, secure, and law-abiding services under no one's control but Parliament itself."
More than anything, he hopes to inspire conversation and discussion.
