(edit: #introduction doh.)

Hi I'm aaron, an elder cis male queer based in the UK and on Fedi (Masto mostly) since Nov 2022 so I guess in fedi years I'm somewhere between uwu smol bean and get off my lawn.

Politically I lean #left (#Corbyn left not Starmer left) and though I'd prefer to smash the state and start over I vote #green because just look at the state of this place. I love discourse and aim for an open mind but I'll block for bad manners/bad takes from strangers, gross assumptions that don't demonstrate critical thinking or obvious trollbaiting. If Myers Briggs is important to you I'm #INTJ and will sometimes come off as sarcastic where I'm actually being earnest so please keep a charitable outlook if you don't know me yet.

For work I'm a freelance finance consultant working with small businesses, usually in their first few years, helping them to grow sustainably. ethically and with demonstrable social purpose. I typically take over client hardware and software stacks too so have a tiny amount of exposure to #Linux though my clients are more likely to skew OSX or Windows so my "programming" goes to business apps development in MS Power suite and occasionally wanders into java, vba, sql and even c++ if I'm feeling especially saucy/masochistic. Every now and again I manage corporate #legal functions and have a strong interest in case law and #global politics as a result. Mostly I'm focused on problem solving.

Socially I try to stay locally involved (since the pandemic made me appreciate that) and help with #rewilding projects around species reintroduction and habitat maintenance. Local to me is wherever I am at the time so if I get to travel I try to relay the issues I'm seeing where I've travelled to and will boost posts in #español #français (du france et canadien) #português (do brasil ou portugal) #italiano #deutsche and #Ελληνικά provided I can read and understand at least 50% of what is written and the fedi translation feels sufficient to get the point over. I post travel photos now and again, I have a panny FZ1000-II which I'm new to and self-teaching photography "skills", my Pixelfed account is linked in my bio but not very active and I try to limit media posts on masto servers for the sake of the admin's burden.

I boost images with alt text with the rare exceptions of video content where the audio is sufficient to describe or where alt has been provided in the first reply or two. Accessibility is important to me, if you want to test the difficulty of hearing the web instead of seeing it just pop some headphones in and listen to your phone announcing Whatsapp group messages to you aloud; it's a very different world.

In my actual spare time I'm usually partaking in #exercise of some sort which helps to keep my mental health in check and I'm slowly working on improving my VO2 max and flexibility following close to a decade with a nasty back problem that impeded me and made me miserable. If I'm not doing that I used to enjoy #gaming (fuck you Stadia) and will often reminisce over platforms (Amstrad CPC 464 for life) and games of yore, I keep abreast of current releases but rarely game on the PC which I mostly use for work and longform shitposting. I'm more likely to be playing a text based choose your own adventure (usually one of the #VtM stories) than a shooter since I suffer with photosensitive epilepsy.

In my home life I practice #poly and am sex positive so AMA if you feel like it, I try to operate on the principle of groundlessness. The usual hashtags apply so TERFs and the like can just block me now before I get to you, police apologists can tell me their stories but I'm not going to be changing my mind on defunding positions, and anyone who wants to politely discuss their divergences will find a willing ear here so long as it's respectful and well meaning chatter.