I just want to remind everyone that Mastodon has a public #roadmap:
https://joinmastodon.org/roadmap
It lists features in four categories:
1. In Progress
2. Planned
3. Exploring
4. Recently completed
along with a priority (1, 2, or 3 bars).
I encourage you to check it out and see if a favorite feature is there. To give one example, I still see people talking about how Mastodon is against quote posts, when that feature is in “Planned” and has 3 bars (highest priority).
For #FollowFriday: News media publishing in English.
DW English — @dw
On the Media — @onthemedia
POLITICO — @politico
ProPublica — @ProPublica
Rest of World — restofworld@restof.social
Rolling Stone —
@RollingStone
STAT — @STAT
The Conversation — @TheConversationUS
@theconversationau
@TheConversationAfrica
The Markup — @themarkup
The Nation — @thenation
The Tyee — https://mstdn.ca/@thetyee
VICE News — VICENews@federated.press
VOA — https://mastodon.social/@VOANews
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
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.
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!
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
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.
Economist. Antitrust policy; industrial organization; history of economics