Matt Panhans @mpanhans@librem.one

Nice thing about Mastodon: It's one of the extremely rare web pages I visit where my ad blocker doesn't need to do anything.

Inkscape, the free, open source vector drawing program, lets you make lovely drawings. #inkscape #opensource

My co-founder at @spritelyinst (he's Executive Director, I'm CTO) now has an account on the fediverse: @frandallfarmer

Randy also:

- Co-invented JSON with Doug Crockford and Chip Morningstar
- Co-founded the world's *first* major massively multiplayer game / virtual world: Lucasfilms Habitat on the Commodore-freaking-64! (Also the place where the technical term "avatar" came from (borrowed from Sanskrit by Chip, I think)) Watch this wild video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVpulhO3jyc
- Co-runs the open source revival of the original Habitat: https://frandallfarmer.github.io/neohabitat-doc/docs/
- Co-founded Electric Communities. Electric Communities Habitat is where the E programming language came from from which much of Spritely is based. Watch this hilarious but mind-bending video from p2p virtual worlds... in 1997!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNiePoNiyvE
- The compression pass to my expansion pass of communication in the Spritely Networked Communities Institute. Any time things have gotten wordy, you can bet it's from me; any time they're terse and concise, you can bet it's from Randy. Usually we try to combine our skills.

Welcome Randy!

Time to introduce myself. Hello!

I'm an economist, writer and professional nerd. https://timharford.com/

I write books (The Undercover Economist, How To Make The World Add Up, etc).

I present "More or Less" on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.

My FT column is called "The Undercover Economist"; it's been running since 2005.

I also present "Cautionary Tales", a podcast about learning from other people's mistakes.

Nice to be here.

#Twittermigration #Economics #Writing #introduction

Me, at literally ANY store… 😬

The Best Introductions to Economics, recommended by
@TimHarford . The best books to get you thinking like an economist.

https://fivebooks.com/best-books/introductions-economics-tim-harford/

If you enjoy someone's post on #Mastodon go ahead and click the star. If someone tells you that's meaningless because there's no #algorithm, ignore them. Sure, boost the post too if you want others to also see the post, but don't think telling someone you like what they posted is somehow unimportant. In real life I don't tell someone, "good job," or "well said," or "I love that," for the sake of some algorithm, I do it because I'm human and they are too. It's fundamental to being truly social.

Made an iOS Shortcut to let you follow someone from a different Mastodon instance without the copy/paste hoop-jumping.

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/e109c8e6b8c0420c902134049b13c064

Once added to your Shortcuts app, you can share a Profile (or webpage or text that contains a profile link or username) to this Shortcut to be taken to the Follow confirmation page without ever copying or pasting anything.

Let me know if you find it helpful or run into any issues.

#iOS #Shortcuts #Projects

If you a running a Mastodon instance and are looking for a good way to take donations/recurring donations, I can help you avoid the Patreon 10% Venture Capital tax via a site running Ghost and Outpost. Not a biz offer, we will run this for free as a way to give back to #fediverse.

And if you already have a patreon, we can help you gracefully switch to something better without upsetting what you have set up now.

A History of Recent Twitter Migration to the Fediverse

1 month ago: Mastodon? No thanks. You have to have a Ph.D in Hackerology to use it.

3 weeks ago: I don't like this Mastodon... But if I have to... *sigh*

2 weeks ago: Wait. This does really cool things like let me edit posts. So genius. Is this free?

1 week ago: OMG! There's other apps! Now I know why there's a Fediverse!

Today: Comrades—let's fight for our freedom! Cast off the chains of Big Social!

I hear they changed "toot" to "post"...... that's one #Hometown feature upstreamed

Very sad news from Italy, where the great economic historian Gianni Toniolo has died. He was a wonderful scholar and a generous academic citizen, both in Italy and on the European stage. Among other things he played an important role in promoting #econhist at the #CEPR. His history of the Bank of Italy was launched just three weeks ago at a glittering occasion in Rome. He was courtesy itself and was always very kind to me personally. He will be greatly missed. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam uasal.

@susanathey has arrived. Now the market will surely tip.

In case someone didn't know, two books I've co-authored are freely available online for non-commercial use:

#Bayesian Data Analysis, 3rd ed (aka BDA3) at https://stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/book/ and lectures plus #rstats, #Python and #Stan code at https://avehtari.github.io/BDA_course_Aalto/

#Regression and Other Stories at https://avehtari.github.io/ROS-Examples/ including #rstats and #Stan code

The web sites also have links to the publishers' web stores if you prefer hard copies of these

It's November and somehow the floral beauty continues into fall!!

#floral #flower #flowers #photography #photos #pixelfed #mastoart #art #botanical

✨ Hello Fediverse!

If you haven't heard of Pixelfed before, it is the fediverse equivalent to Instagram.

Imagine being able to follow your friends on Twitter from your IG account, on the fediverse you can!

Tomorrow is my first day as a software engineer at @bitwarden! My goal is to make computer security more user friendly 🤓

(Also, it is neat that my employer has a Mastodon account)

NEW: Mastodon users can now register their handle with RePEc. This allows to verify their RePEc profile on Mastodon. Watch your monthly RePEc email for the link.

https://ideas.repec.org/i/emastodon.html

#dailyRePEc

This one is for all the new people on #Mastodon: did you know that the #fediverse has more than just a microblogging replacement? And that they can all interoperate with your Mastodon account?

Check them out!

Facebook replacement: Friendica
Instagram replacement: Pixelfed
YouTube replacement: PeerTube
Spotify replacement: Funkwhale
MeetUp replacement: Mobilizon
Reddit replacement: Lemmy
Podcasting replacement: Castopod
GoodReads replacement: BookWyrm

Mastodon is really having a moment in mainstream news coverage. CNN, BBC, TIME, etc.

The influx of users will continue at an alarming rate. Remember to be welcoming, and kind, and positive, and helpful.

This isn't just an opportunity to improve the idea of social media, it's an opportunity to shine a wonderful light on #opensource.