*banned 4 MarkDown love* @design_RG@qoto.org

* Using Lists on Mastodon - guide posts *

...and then you discover someone who's cool and has interesting posts, simply by following a hashtag on which one of her posts showed up.

Serendipity is a lovely thing. Thanks @snow , your post lead me to find @twistylittlepassages - Amazey.

Amazey has some interesting posts and notes -- and a pearl I am going to link to here.

"Using Lists in Mastodon" -- is something I have seen when passing by the Preferences controls panel, but never quite understood. And I don't think it's well documented either.

So, we depend on luck in figuring it out ourselves, or finding someone who did and shares - like she did.

A neat feature, she explained it succinctly in two short posts.

** Linky : https://weirder.earth/@twistylittlepassages/102730541724191409

TY, Amazey! :smiley:

@twistylittlepassages Those are good thoughts. Used to be common advice, when joining in a group or community., to listen politely before jumping in and maybe clashing with the locals.

Still a good thing, in my book. Have a good day, Amazey! 😃

@freemo Flash back?? 😛

Seen that one, month ago or so?

Wonderful that we have FULL TEXT Searching here! https://qoto.org/@freemo/103237809157475767

@Iambharani Really amazing -- I was wondering what it would do. Go around, nah.. 😛

@realcaseyrollins That would be a curse. Mentioning it is already alarming.

This man has to be stopped, hopefully Americans will see the light.

@snow Thank you, I am curious of your final conclusions. Interesting that you know so much about those personality types and can determine them simply by observing someone's public activities.

@puzzl Ah, wonderful!! 😄

Glad to know you liked the post and benefited from it. I think most people have NO idea this is still possible, it's been 3 and a half years since that free Upgrade offer "expired".

Still good and well, I got two machines upgraded and fully licensed that way too.

There's one reason for some machines not going that way, and it's if their hardware is under-powered, or has obscure drivers.

I have a small, netboook Acer model, 10.1" tiny thing that I bought for carrying on bike touring trips. It has an Intel processor and chipset, modest but workable, but the Video driver was developed by a third party company. This they kept as closed source, and only ever provided in binary, compiled form, in 32 bits version only.

The processor is 64 bits Atom dual core, it has 4 GB of ram, but when I installed Windows 10 on it was an unpleasant experience -- the Display drivers were generic VGA ones, without Hardware acceleration, and a pain to see it redrawing a screen.

So I downgraded it to Windows 7, and will keep it at that. Linux is not an option since the drivers don't exist for it, because of the developers obtuseness. Intel should have muscled them into releasing source, but this is not a large niche of the market, so it is left as an orphan unfortunately.

@freemo
Here in Canada we enjoy services similar to what Freemo is describing for the US. And it is a nice thing.

All of those "full-service" public libraries had their beginnings as privately endowed services, there are many older library buildings that still have the name of their patrons (Carnegie Mellon was one of the major ones, if I recall correctly) in their buildings.

At the time the first ones appeared, to provide access to the working classes to reading and self improvement materials, at that time no such service existed at all; public or private.

My small town here in Canada has a memorial Library building (no longer used as the main branch, now relocated to larger premises) with the name of the benefactor who accepted funding a large part of the costs of building and stocking it.

At that time, working people had very long hours, much less leisure time, but could get better opportunities if they got more education. Either via self-improvement, or thru some night school courses, either in general knowledge or specific trade areas they worked in.

Now we have more free time, but there seems to be much despair on the opportunities (or lack thereof) of self improvement for the same working people.

Interesting to learn about how they have changed in the NL, it's one possible way things could go.

I remember reading an article, possibly on The Atlantic, talking about the situation on a small town in Southern US, where a wave of prosperity temporarily landed via the exploration of cracking and underground gas fields. They entered into some larger public projects, including a new Library building, and then things started to change. As fracking has a rapid rate of decline, and then the income flow trickles down fairly quickly, and the operators move on to new land leases in the next nearby shale formations.

Now the small town had this 5 Million Dollar new Library and many people were resentful of the head librarian getting a small raise - this was going to come to a Town Hall meeting for discussion, but turned nasty when posted in the town's Facebook group. A lot of opposition, citing the lower average wages in the area, etc.

It wasn't even taken to the Town Hall, such was the nastiness and divisiveness shown in that FB thread. The report was quite good and gave us an insight on the frame of mind of the town residents and the regional circumstances.

Things must be bleak in the UK, I imagine, which has been under Tory rule and in slashing mode for years now. Plus, Boris.

@thecomputermaster@mastodon.social

@profcinreyes Hello and welcome to Qoto! 😃

Enjoy the network and all it has to offer. If you are new to using Mastodon, there's a good guide here: https://lifehacker.com/a-beginner-s-guide-to-mastodon-1828503235

We also have another new users guide, posted here : https://write.tedomum.net/rgx/suggestions-and-guidelines-for-new-users-written-by-mastodon-art-administrator

Casey Rollins made a video to explain the Fediverse, here :

"I made this video awhile back to help explain how the #Fediverse works."

https://www.bitchute.com/video/XOtRcgIdqihs/
https://invidio.us/yBRrqbRQ3tM
https://youtu.be/yBRrqbRQ3tM

Any question, just ask, and someone will try and help out.

Have a good day!

Phoebe is too pretty to pass - sorry for yet another Cat post, last of the day. Promise.

This gorgeous little girl was once in a pet shelter, now a stunning lady cat.

#mastocats #CatsofMastodon #meow #xp
---
RT @Miss_Phoebe_Lee@twitter.activitypub.actor
Hip hip hoorah
It’s my gotcha day today!🙀😻🎉

2 years ago this day, mommy walked into the humane society and fell in love with a fuzzy little kitten . . . the rest is history . . .…
https://twitter.com/Miss_Phoebe_Lee/status/1216426401131388931

#introverts Be Like...

* How To Write A Blog Post People Read *
by Rachel Thompson, @BadRedheadMedia

https://medium.com/the-1000-day-mfa/how-to-write-a-blog-post-people-read-441b9e8bbd82

"Unsure how to structure your blog posts? Here’s a quick guide to get you started!

Writing a blog post people will read isn’t rocket science, yet it does take some skill. As I work with writers new to blogging, many are stumped by how to go about structuring a blog post."

A nice read, recommend it for anyone interested in writing and blogging in special. Thank you, Rachel!

A good page of the Mastodon Documentation explains how to set up Filters to get rid of unwanted contents.

I just shared some tips with users in another instance, and plan to write a blog on this. But for now, here's the link:

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moderating/

Example on Screenshot below, which removed some particularly annoying posts from a local user there.

#Geopolitics , censure and #tech news. #xp
---
RT @DanielDumbrill@twitter.activitypub.actor
Twitter banned the president of Syria and an Iranian leader.

Now an Iranian & American ambassador are arguing with each other on Weibo... In Chinese.

The Chinese internet has become the most uncensored environment for international political discussions.

#irony
https://twitter.com/DanielDumbrill/status/1215165980281753600

Another nice page on the same site -- adding Themes to Mastodon!

https://wiki.nixnet.xyz/books/masto-tweaks/page/themesskins

The author describes how to obtain a fully fleshed theme like the ones in use at Toot.cafe or Witches.Town from their Github depositories (links provided!)

And then, you could modify either of them to your own liking.

I really like the custom theme Renato Lond created and uses at his instance - https://masto.donte.com.br/

Green background is easy on the eyes, while some contrasting elements add pizzazz and make it easier to find controls and scroll bars (these, sometimes are blurred into the Dark Themes I prefer) Screen cap of the default Web client view attached.

@realcaseyrollins Most of the time people come looking for a social experience, discovering new things, learning and having a nice time in their limited spare time.

So avoiding unwanted content or conflict is important to most people, I think. For a long time I avoided Twitter for this and other reasons (their brain dead 140 characters limit was also so stupid as to defy my comprehension, to be perfectly honest)

And I found a really clear reference for any system admin sympathetic enough to their Users and budding Writers plea for MORE space than the freeking 500 chars hardcoded into Mastodon source.

(** at Gargron's insistence, and not in a config file as I would think it should be; would make the changes MUCH easier.)

https://wiki.nixnet.xyz/books/masto-tweaks/page/character-count

@realcaseyrollins I don't see the fact that people want to avoid untrammeled speech as a problem -- we are all here in seach of different things, and conflict is not on most people's lists of reasons to be here.

I like the fact that there are different places and you can visit and see, find nice local feeds to chat more closely with people.

It only would take a few storm troopers determined to make havoc to disturb things a lot if there were no controls or doors to stop them. State sponsored actors included.

@realcaseyrollins@mstdn.social @pschwede @pigeonkami One post total, and she seemed a nice person, pity.

Good luck and have fun, @phoebe