Louis Ingenthron @LouisIngenthron@qoto.org

I made the transition to #Mastodon the day Elon closed his deal. Looking back, the difference is surreal.

On Twitter, my feed was full of political trolls pushing my buttons and pissing me off and making me question my faith in humanity.

On Mastodon, I get to read opinions from many of the same people I respected over there... but also I get brief, random windows into subcommunities like #Mosstodon, which is a delightful group of nature weirdoes and scientists posting pictures of moss they see out in the wild. It's so wholesome and positive that it restores my faith in humanity.

A good way to start a feed on a new social media site is doggo pictures, right?

So I didn't realize until recently that you can just straight-up run a Linux server inside Windows with WSL, and I absolutely love it.

It's crazy that people think Microsoft is still an anti-competitive company when they literally let you install competing OSes into Windows!

Meanwhile, because space is weird and distances can be absurd, this is the very best picture we have of the most massive dwarf planet in our solar system, Eris, and its moon:

For over a day now I've been trying to look up the specific orbital range of the asteroid belt only to get lost in wiki binges.

On a related note, did you know we, human beings who have never made it further than our own moon, have this super-detailed map of the second-biggest asteroid in our solar system, chock full of named features?

Meet Vesta:

I don't think I've ever actually smelled Drakkar Noir before, but judging exclusively by sitcom references, it must be awful.

Something strange just happened.

In December, I bought some sports memorabilia for my brother from Fanatics.com.

Since then, I've been inundated with #marketing #spam emails for the team that was branded on the item I bought, from multiple companies, mostly #Ticketmaster (who I've never done business with).

Today, I filled out a survey sent to me by Fanatics. I chose "Other" as the reason I'd rate them 0/10, and then typed in the box that they spammed me and I was reporting them to the #FTC (which I am, because the unsubscribe links don't even work).

I was then taken to a page that informed me that I was automatically being removed from all marketing lists based on my response... which was free-form text entered into a box.

In my mind, that would seem to indicate they know what they're doing is so wrong and illegal that they specifically wrote algorithms to look for related words (maybe "spam" or "FTC"), instead of offering "Marketing Emails" as a direct choice (remember, I had to choose "other" to enter this). So, they're concealing their wrongdoing too.

Anyway, I don't think any of this is #illegal, but it is #shady as fuck, so maybe don't ever do any business with #Fanatics

No, but it does become more likely as one gets older. We pine for "the good old days" and resist change. It's why every generation thinks the generation before is bigoted. Because "bigotry" meant something different to them.

And if someone tries to sell them the lie that the world can go back to how they remember it, some are foolish enough to want to buy that lie.

Made a traditional corned beef and cabbage meal for dinner tonight... delicious freshly-simmered corned beef and cabbage on dark pumpernickel with horseradish sauce and a side of boiled potatoes. Classic and delicious!

Sure is nice of Walmart to discount this 3-year-old last generation game 75% from its original price of... $100?

I thought this kind of deceptive shit was illegal.

So, without spoiling anything, I must say that The Last Of Us is an incredible bit of television. It respects the hell out of the source material while building on it to somehow elevate it even further.

All the main plot points seem to match the game, but we get to see much more of parts that were just brief flashbacks in the game, or hinted at with notes.

Bill's episode, in particular, is a marvelous example of improving on the source material (and the casting!!).

Literally every single pack of TP at the grocery store is labelled as "mega" rolls.

1) That's not what "mega" means
2) If they're all mega, are any of them mega?
3) Why the hell doesn't anyone sell TP that fits a standard holder size anymore?

So if I block someone (or a whole domain) on #Mastodon, that doesn't prevent them from replying to me? It also doesn't prevent their replies from being shown to other people who follow me?

And yet people obsess over whether Quote Toots are the dangerous feature?

Seems problematic.