Matt Panhans @mpanhans@librem.one

This is first on Mastodon! Please boost this thread. It’s an important one.

Good morning to readers. Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

Some career news: I’m leaving NPR as part of the layoffs that dramatically reduced the company’s workforce.

I’ve decided to go back into Ukraine to keep reporting.

But this time, alone.

After 15 years of being a loyal Twitter user, it’s become less and less useful and enjoyable for me. I’m gonna shut down my account for a few weeks and see what it feels like. I’m going to keep posting on Mastodon and on Substack tho http://tinyurl.com/DDsubstck (and you can also find my work the old way: going to The Washington Post!)

Many thanks to @coachtony @scott @breana and everyone back at @medium HQ for the me.dm haven on the #Fediverse. You've saved me from an apex foe. #Earth is way less toxic after #mastodon.

Randomly noting: if you're in the US, in April of 2024, the US will have a solar eclipse pass over a bunch of states for the first time in 7 years, and for the last time in *decades*.

It is an indescribably wonderful experience to be in the zone of totality. This article kinda covers it:. If you're not sure if you've seen one, you haven't. It's the most bizarre thing where it feels like someone flips a light switch and turns off the sky. https://www.space.com/37791-go-see-the-solar-eclipse-in-person.html

Keeping my tradition of painting octopuses on the bottoms of tables in hotel rooms alive 😀

One thing that's kind of nice about Mastodon is that the founder doesn't advertise his posts in the notifications feed. Just kind of nice to have.

20% off sale on my book from the publisher: https://www.routledge.com/Learning-Microeconometrics-with-R/Adams/p/book/9780367255381?utm_medium=email&utm_source=EmailStudio_JB&utm_campaign=B043762_eh1_1au_1aj_t001_1al_2023authordirectcommercialemail_4636263&utm_id=

lol and indeed lmao

A couple charts showing the dramatic changes to MLB games this season so far.

I actually hadn’t realized that batting averages had been going down so significantly over the last few decades as well.

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20230423&instance_id=90880&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN&regi_id=89263722&segment_id=131150&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2Ff9de3827-1615-56b3-9299-809756427ae1&user_id=ca9782c11c92a53f9ddf0b8826ff3601

Wrote a short post about Elon suspending @dell under the same policy that old Twitter used to suspend NY Post, and which Elon and his friends had argued was unacceptable. https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/19/twitter-suspends-reporter-dell-cameron-for-reporting-on-twitter-hack-using-same-policy-old-twitter-used-to-block-ny-post-hunter-biden-story/

I wrote about ActivityPub, and why Elon Musk might have saved social networks by buying Twitter — just not at all in the way he meant to https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/20/23689570/activitypub-protocol-standard-social-network

Some people wish that Mastodon had better News, Tech and Culture coverage.

Well, now Flipboard has these convenient curated accounts:

Flipboard News Desk
https://flipboard.social/@NewsDesk

Flipboard Teck Desk
https://flipboard.social/@TechDesk

Flipboard Culture Desk
https://flipboard.social/@CultureDesk

Follow these accounts for a steady stream of pertinent posts!
(They promise not to overwhelm your feed)

Thanks @tchambers for spotting this great new resource!

#twittermigration

On becoming ref 2.

New pod! @alex and I are joined by @person to chat about Montana's bid to ban TikTok. We also talk about Discord's post about dealing with the leaks, THAT Substack interview, Twitter's blog post that seemed to come from a wormhole connected to the past, and a case the Supreme Court is hearing tomorrow.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mc-weekly-update-4-17-tiktok-boom/id1646510125?i=1000609431756

Stop glamourising “hustle culture” and start glamourising the Frog and Toad lifestyle.

I have encountered more image descriptions on Mastodon in 24 hours than I have in Twitter in a couple of years. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating.
As a blind person, this means a lot to me. If you read this and you describe your images, thank you so, so, so much on behalf of all of us. If you don't, now you know you'll be helping random Internet strangers make sense of your posts by typing in a few more words than usual.

One of my favorite out of date technologies is the MP3 player. I have an iPod classic from 20 years ago, and a simple speaker and I use it every day. So good.

The other one I love is the Alphasmart Neo. I bought a second one just in case they get harder to get or mine breaks.

#classictech

Deep in Florida, an ‘ecological disaster’ has been reversed—and wildlife is thriving.

20 years and $1 billion dollars later much of Florida’s Kissimmee River has been restored to its natural state. 40 square miles of wetlands have been reestablished and rehydrated. A milestone worth celebrating.

#SomeGoodNews

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/kissimmee-biggest-river-restoration-ever-completed?utm_source=reddit.com

Anarchists, preservationists, protesters and parents - this is a fantastic history of how the Netherlands went from car culture to bike culture. It was no accident - it was an amazing, long, brilliant campaign.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/de-fiets-is-niets/

The thing about Twitter is that it really lacks a lot of the features you'd expect from a true Mastodon replacement.

For example, there's no way to edit your toots (which they, confusingly call "tweets"—let's face it, it's a bit of a silly name that's difficult to take seriously).

"Tweets" can't be covered by a content warning. There's no way to let the poster know you like their tweet without also sharing it, and no bookmark feature.

There's no way to set up your own instance, and you're basically stuck on a single instance of Twitter. That means there's no community moderators you can reach out to to quickly resolve issues. Also, you can't de-federate instances with a lot of problematic content.

It also doesn't Integrate with other fediverse platforms, and I couldn't find the option to turn the ads off.

Really, Twitter has made a good start, but it will need to add a lot of additional features before it gets to the point where it becomes a true Mastodon replacement for most users.

#twitter #mastodon #twittermigration