Dave T-W @davoloid@qoto.org

@freemo, please refresh my mind: are you accepting small donations to support QOTO (in crypto or in fiat)? I can't seem to find that on [the about page](https://qoto.org/about/more)...

(Also: are you seeing a surge in users? If so, how are your systems coping with it?)

@ernestopriego So far, I'm happy for the change and the different vibe on Mastodon, at this point. Even if I will really miss the folks who don't migrate, and particularly trusted media folks. But in recent months, my timeline was filling up with so many 'recommendations' and 'trending' posts that it just became as bad as facebook. Too much time wasted sorting through rubbish to get to read the people I wanted to hear from.

Right. After quite a lot of researching, and trying out different tools, I *think* I have found most of the people I follow on Twitter who are also here on Mastodon

If you're reading this, and I somehow didn't find you yet, let me know and I will happily follow back! 🙂

Useful find - via @glynmoody - a tool to scan the biographies of the people I follow on Twitter for Mastodon profile links, then import them! https://pruvisto.org/debirdify/

Hello, I've arrived on mstdn.social and I shall introduce myself.
#Teacher of #Computing and #ComputerScience in uk #SecondarySchool #HighSchool #ukteaching interested in development of teachers, writing about teaching and computing, #reading and #cogsci.
I am the author of "How to Teach Computer Science" and "How to Learn Computer Science". See https://httcs.online for more. And remember to follow me, thanks.
#caschat #CSEd #CEd

An autumnal Canal de Bourgogne at Cry s/ Armancon today

Just a little note about #QOTO bots.

We just revived our old bots over at QOTO. You can find a list of the bots at the end of this post

One note: The arXiv bots are very noisy. As such we set them up to only go off once a day, in the middle of the night when the server usage is minimal. This should reduce any spam and not bury the posts of other users in the timeline.

@time - Toots the time every 15 minutes, unlisted so wont show int he home timeline unless you follow it.

@HN - Posts hacker news every 3 hours except when the server isn't active.

@arxiv_stats - Posts new arXiv papers on Statistics

@arxiv_bio - Posts new arXiv papers on Quantitative Biology

@arxiv_math - Posts new arXiv papers on Mathematics

@arxiv_eess - Posts new arXiv papers on Electrical Engineering & Systems Science

@arxiv_physics - Posts new arXiv papers on Physics

@arxiv_stats - Posts new arXiv papers on Statistics.

@starfleet - an auto-follow bot that follows people from around the fediverse in order to increase QOTO's federation.

A pleasure to present @mfa, Christian & my "#SpaceX Transporter Satellite detection w/ #MachineLearning" #IAC2022 paper to the
mlugs.de community last-last Tuesday. I hope you like the longer titled paper, see it here on iPosterSessions
https://iac2022-iaf.ipostersessions.com/Default.aspx?s=50-B9-F3-FB-02-91-36-DE-EA-C8-DA-7B-B0-0C-48-2C
#IACParis2022 #iafastro #mlugs

@jon
Probably helpful blog post on migrating from one instance to another:
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/06/how-to-migrate-from-one-server-to-another/

Also: many instances are more than happy to accept donations or other help 😉

Brief #TwitterMigration #introduction:
I'm a #physicist #phdstudent at University College London (#UCL). I research #neutrinos, #nuclear effective field theories, and advanced #computational methods for fundamental theory. I earned my MASt in applied #mathematics at the University of #Cambridge #DAMTP and previously studied physics and electrical #engineering at #UMaine. My pronouns are he/him.

I've been thinking about how we can use what we learned about remote work & virtual meetings from the pandemic. It would be great if we didn't have to release lots of carbon to meet, and could live wherever we wanted. But, there are downsides to virtual everything, particularly with our current tech & practices.

Should we really be trying to go back to how things were? Can we learn from our pandemic experience? What are the best practices & tech for setting up virtual and hybrid meetings? Do we really need VR and avatars for virtual/hybrid to work? Are there advantages, for certain kinds of people, of virtual platforms?

This is likely a personal preference: I think virtual works as well as in-person when communication is mostly one-directional, e.g. prepared talks and, to some extent, poster sessions. If conferences are mainly talks and posters, I think they should be virtual.

I am hoping that n-way virtual communication could be better with better organization and technology. Places like CERN have been doing hybrid & virtual meetings for a long time. Can we learn from them? https://qz.com/1832018/how-physicists-solved-your-zoom-video-conferencing-problems

Now to be a bit cynical -- I think those in charge are those that did/do well in our old/current system, but that system is not great for everyone. Again, this is personal, but I'm better at expressing myself in writing. I'm more likely to ask a question at a conference if I can enter a virtual queue. God I dread mixing at conferences. This one time there was "science speed dating" at a conference. It was torture. Maybe for some people sometimes virtual can be better?

Anyways, I thought I'd use this virtual platform to bring up these ideas! I know many disagree on this and are happy to get back to conferences. I'd also like to mention that for people who continue to be concerned about COVID, going back to normal is not yet possible (will it ever be??). For me, this article rings true: "For those still trying to duck covid, the isolation is worse than ever" https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/26/covid-pandemic-still-isolating/

#moa