Reach for the Stars @antares@qoto.org

ActivityPub doesn’t seem like too heavy a protocol in terms of coding up some basic bots or servers. Mulling over the possibilities!

M1, the Crab Nebula shot in dualband ... almost too snall for my telescope 😊. Total exposure time was around four hours with single exposures of five minutes ... #astrophotography #astronomy #universe #cosmos

You will find I'm occasionally geeky about my Hauptwerk organ. #organist #churchmusic

Happy Harding Whalebomb Day from #Oregon!

It is the birthday of infamous figure skater Tonya Harding and the anniversary of this unwise application of TNT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPuaSY0cMK8

#Jekyll is kicking my ass right now. I’m trying to put some html code as a code block into my article but Jekyll is rendering the #LiquidCode in the code block and not leaving it as just code. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Any Jekyll/Liquid folks out here?

Sometimes I also dip my toe into #solarphotography .

This kind of #astrophotography requires a lot of safety gear and you should never do it unless you know what you’re doing and have the correct equipment. Nobody wants to set their eyeballs or #telescope on fire right? 😁
Here’s a couple of solar shots from a while back, one showing a #sunspot and the other a prominence! They were shot using a specialised #hydrogenalpha filter and a mono camera

Well dang.. #NASA #Artemis1 #Astrodon..

Jim Free - NASA’s Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development.

Update on our #Artemis I mission:

Having been here since 2016, I can tell you there is definitely no such thing as a consensus on usage of content warnings on the fediverse. It's a decentralized network that doesn't belong to any one party, so by definition there is no single culture on it. Different corners have different expectations and customs.

Guide to Content Warnings

On qoto, the only toots that require a content warning (CW) are:

- Spoilers
- NSFW (Not Safe For Work) – this is up for interpretation, but I assume refers to tits and dicks
- Using a derogatory epithet or racially charged language in a toot that itself is not racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise hateful speech (such as quoting a passage from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for critical purposes)*

Other reasons someone may want to use CW’s here on qoto:

- Strobe effects (to avoid triggering an epileptic seizure in people who are susceptible)
- Violence, accidents, rape, suicide, self-harm, death, etc., including to non-human animals (PTSD, etc.)
- Food (pics of food can prompt people with metabolic syndrome, eating disorders, which are relatively common)
- Pics of drugs (may trigger use by people who are addicted)
- Very long posts (so uninterested readers don’t have to scroll through them)

It’s better if the CW description is more specific (without itself containing CW-eligible content). Instead of just “Spoiler”, say “Spoiler – The Wizard of Oz”. Also, it’s generally a good idea to repeat the CW description within the toot itself at the top of the toot for those who may have the auto-open feature enabled.

What doesn’t need a CW:

- swear words
- content that might hurt someone’s feelings
- unpopular opinions
- political content
- pictures of animals (that are alive and well)
- content from those with autism or who are otherwise neuro-atypical
- using the CW as a title or heading for your toot or trying to place actually content into the CW description is irritating for others

Overuse of the CW feature ultimately undermines it’s usefulness because it forces people to have to click on each toot or just enable the auto-open feature. However, someone with a condition like epilepsy or PTSD, the auto-open feature is not really an option so CW overuse effectively forces people with disabilities to click each toot while everyone else can just enable the auto-open feature, which doesn’t seem fair.

Other Mastodon instances have varying rules and views on CW use.

Note: I’m not an admin or moderator here, this is just my opinion. I don’t always adhere to these guidelines and you can do what you want.

- - - -

* This epithet restriction isn’t listed in the rules, but it was adopted as a compromise in response to some specific events. Of course hate-based speech such as sexist, racist, homophobic or anti-trans speech will not be tolerated. (Note: I personally block anyone who uses epithets in any context because the intent is often ambiguous and you can communicate the same info without explicitly using the epithet.)

RT @MorePerfectUS@twitter.com

Eli Lilly apologizing for a fake tweet but not for charging $714.87 for a carton of insulin. https://twitter.com/LillyPad/status/1590813806275469333

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1590843427855663115

https://mastodon.social/@planet4589

OMG! OMG! The God of Orbital Mechanics is here! 'Scuse me while I take some time to fan-ferret scream!

Last night's Hack Night was superb fun & our best-attended yet. I think we had about 70 people!

The evening's challenge was Huffman-encoding, and here's my attempt in #Haskell:

https://gist.github.com/686509b436c3e2ffb886192091a15d41

Unfinished! I was busy being host so I didn't get the full 90mins. #excuses

@freemo

Thank you, this is a good example of using reason appropriately to pursue noble goals.

Additionally, you've removed the character limit on your instance, making your users responsible for writing posts of the appropriate length instead of imposing a limitation.

This story teaches us that it is not enough to free oneself from the explicit control of central authorities, it is also necessary for everyone to be a responsible person so that the rights of all are respected.

Ironically, many people who implement these blocks are used to calling others "fascists" as a condemnation of authoritarianism.

@acjay You're best off blocking the whole instances yourself of certain instances as the instance admins couldn't care less over there.

Qoto has a very open stance here. Whenever possible, we won't suspend (block) servers. We leave that power in the hands of the users, because the users have all the tools available to them.

When an instance actually repeatedly harrass and go out of their way to do so, we might reconsider.

That said, I've blocked a fair amount of instances myself. It takes a bit of time to get to the sweet spot but after that it's a smooth ride.

We prefer this over the walled gardens that some other instances are, who then block more than necessary and make the federated space smaller for themselves.

I have to say, my initial experience on here is much better, in most ways, than my initial experience on Twitter.

I don't think most people who have a Twitter following know how hard it is to get any sort of interaction on there from a fresh start, if you're not prominent already.