Now
This page is inspired by Derek Sivers' NOW Page Movement
What I'm up to ā February 2025 edition:
1) āļø Writing: The Future is Federated
2) š©āš» Self-Hosting: an Act of Resistance against Big Tech Oligarchs
3) š§šŖ Travel / Conferences: FOSDEM '25
4) š® What's Next?
āļø Writing: The Future is Federated
In June 2024 I started the blog The Future is Federated with a simple goal: to introduce the Fediverse (a galaxy of open-source, interconnected social networks) to people not familiar with it. It's been a joy to explore the Fediverse and share my findings with readers of the blog.
The latest post I published - on February 20, 2025 - talks about the microblogging server GoToSocial, which empowers people to easily self-host their own Fediverse instance:
Elena Rossini
š©āš» Self-Hosting: an Act of Resistance against Big Tech Oligarchs
How did I react to the shocking results of the 2024 US presidential election? I resolved to learn Linux and begin self-hosting as an act of defiance and resistance to the Broligarchs (Big Tech oligarchs).
In addition to getting rid of all my Big Tech social media accounts (Instagram, Threads, X and LinkedIn even), I began to explore the world of self-hosting FOSS (free, open source software). In December I got a basic virtual private server (VPS) and installed YunoHost on it (which empowers anyone to easily self-host).
I'm currently the proud admin of my GoToSocial, Friendica and Pixelfed instances. All my social media links can be found on my LinkStack (which is also self-hosted):
Elena Rossini
a link to my LinkStack: a collection of all my social links
š§šŖ Travel / Conferences: FOSDEM '25
In early February I attended my very first FOSDEM (Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting). I went specifically to attend the events of the Social Web track... and had an EPIC time.
It's hard to put into words how moving and special it is to be in the same space as the creators of the ActivityPub protocol and most Fediverse software.
from top left to bottom right: a group photo of Fediverse champions right after John O'Nolan's presentation of Ghost, my selfie with the Mastodon team, a selfie with Jeremiah Lee and Ruud (lemmy.world), a photo I took of Matthias Pfefferle and Wakest, my selfie with John O'Nolan (Ghost) and Matthias Pfefferle (ActivityPub for Wordpress plugin), my photo of the Mastodon team
š® What's Next?
š„ I'm doing pre-production for a 5-minute video that promotes the Fediverse (to people not familiar with it). Target release date: end of March 2025. This is my return to filmmaking (after a long hiatus / maternity leave)! The ideal plan is to then do a video series that introduces various Fediverse software ā based on my articles from The Future is Federated. One video a month would be grand.
āļø upcoming articles for The Future is Federated will discuss PeerTube (the Fediverse's answer to YouTube) and the Friends plugin that allows people to turn their federated WordPress sites into a Mastodon instance.
As you can see, I'm super passionate about the Fediverse and wish more people would know about it ā and join it.
š« Follow me on Mastodon and Pixelfed. All my other social media links are available here.
š½ļø If you'd like to support my work, you could buy or rent my documentary The Illusionists on the globalization of beauty. Watch the opening on Vimeo:
š If you'd like to say hi, my contact information is here