Marc Madness @marcmadness@librem.one

Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.

- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).

- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.

- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.

- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.

- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.

- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.

- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.

- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.

- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.

- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.

- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.

- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.

- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!

- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.

- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.

I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.

We love the four freedoms, and we want others to be able to enjoy them as well. Please boost and share this message, and, for those hearing about the four freedoms for the first time, check out latest video about free software: https://u.fsf.org/escape-to-freedom #freesoftware

why does signal have stories. is this about to turn into actually encrypted crusty ass snapchat??

"The structural differences between in-game play and in-game work are mostly arbitrary, and "real" work is half a game, anyway. Most of the people you see going to work today are LARPing (live-action role playing) an incredibly boring RPG (role-playing game) called "professionalism" that requires them to alter their vocabulary, posture, eating habits, facial expressions-every detail all the way down to what they allow themselves to find funny."
From "In real life", Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic).

If your "free thinking" and "independent mind" have led you to racism, anti-semitism, xenophobia, homophobia, and bigotry, then you're doing it wrong

He-Man also his pronouns.

Specifically the Romans measured things in "libra" (which is why the symbol for Libra is a scale), but people under the Romans who used Proto-Germanic heard the phrase "libra pondo" (Latin for "the weight measured in libra") and just started being like "haha oh yeah this thing is X pondo heavy". So the word "pound" is derived from the Latin word for "weight" ("pondus") but we use "lb" because that's how the Romans abbreviated libra, the actual unit of measurement they used.

Back in 2019 when the thing du jour to do to fascists (in the UK anyway) was to throw a milkshake on them, I made some fun emoji to capture the activity (in 3 flavours!).

I was reminiscing on this design just now, I still really like it - it's simple, the milkshake flowing out the cup as it's flying looks very good and I feel removes the need for action lines, and the smiley face on the cup is a nice 'fuck you'.

(you can still download these for free from my site - https://dzuk.zone/emoji)

@emacsen I found a couple quotes that are along those lines. On second thought, these might not be exactly what you're looking for, but here's what I found:

"I need privacy. Not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgement and intentions are." - whilelm@mstdn.fr

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - Richelieu

Yes, the Free Software Foundation and Defective by Design are on Mastodon! Visit us at https://hostux.social/@fsf and https://hostux.social/@endDRM and please help us spread the word by boosting this post! #Federated

We love freedom 0, the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose. Boost this post to share this freedom! Read more at https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

Probably not a lot of people know this now, but Mastodon's web app started out with "Publish". In 2016 a famous YouTuber jokingly offered to support Mastodon's Patreon forever if I changed the button to say "Toot" instead. Needless to say, this was a really early, and not very informed decision. The first glimpse of attention and financial support. As a non-native speaker I had no idea there was another meaning.

ME: ...and I'm also a Certified Mythical Hacker.

JOB INTERVIEWER: You mean, Certified Ethical Hacker?

ME: *polishing my phone screen with the Golden Fleece while a leprechaun thumbing through the Book of Thoth pops out of my laptop bag to hand me Excalibur* I know what I said.

the only valid use of face recognition software is using it to modulate a guitar player's effects chain based on the degree of guitar face they are exhibiting at any moment. that's it, that's the one valid use. nothing else.

Required Grace Hopper viewing: her 1986 interview with David Letterman in which she explains why a length of wire is "a nanosecond" and is a real kick in the head besides. It's great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA33wW5LaNY

#GraceHopperDay

Everyone's cool enough for free software! Help us build the movement with 500 FSF associate members by December 31: https://www.fsf.org/appeal/u.fsf.org/fall21

We are looking into packaging a new #Signal client made with Rust and Kirigami, called SignalRs. Should be hitting unstable branch tomorrow.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The scientist hanging a clock,
Who knew on that date,
That fortune and fate,
Would reveal so much more to the Doc.
Doc Brown, Doc Brown, he did invent
Such objects of folly, with good intent,
He tumbled and fell in his lavatory
But soon after took to his lab'ratory
For though he’d been woefully injur'ed
A vision unfurled in his bruis'ed head
Great Scott! Great Scott! From this disaster
Great Scott! Great Scott! The Flux Capac'tor!
And what did he do with it? Build it!

#BTTF #BackToTheFuture

god I love The Register's headline writers https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/23/software_freedom_conservancy_mastodon/

Someone recommended to me that I should ask prospective employers pointed questions about how company culture supports queer and trans folks, people of color, etc. and it's been outstanding advice

I've already bailed on three companies because those questions opened the door for a manager to utterly show their ass

And I found out today that one of those instances at a smaller org led upper management to clean house and start a formal diversity program (probably I was just the proverbial last straw, but hey!)