E. C. Chang @knottedthreads@qoto.org

I can't help but notice many toots from helpful newbies encouraging you to support the Mastodon Patreon.

It's fine to do that but understand it goes to just two big instances and the official Mastodon dev team.

It does NOT trickle down to YOUR instance. If you want to support your server, donate to it directly. Nearly all the costs of the explosive growth of the past few weeks is borne by local instances.

Mastodon is decentralized. There is no Mastodon Inc. This is not Twitter.

How to improve science discovery and productivity?
Not just about money (see graph below): funding fast, bets on talent/people, take risk, think big
https://www.wsj.com/articles/stagnant-scientific-productivity-holding-back-growth-11668700829?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1 by @greg_ip@twitter.com w/ @patrickc@twitter.com @tylercowen@twitter.com @pdhsu@twitter.com

“You’re gonna need a bigger #telescope.”
JWST's successor: The Carl Sagan Observatory - a 12 METRE optical telescope searching for exo-Earth
https://youtu.be/BIgQpXObjFI
#Astronomy #SpaceTelescope #Astrodon

Happy Wednesday Everyone! ✨

Just a quick reminder that to #reblog or #retoot will boost your favourite #posts and help grow creators, whereas #liking a post just lets the author know you appreciate their #content. Likes are always appreciated but please #boost where possible!

Let’s keep growing this #community and get #reblogging

#mastodon #reblog #retoot #growth #share

To this extent I'm really interested to know how the age breakdown of people on the #Fediverse. On one hand it would seem to make sense to me that most people here remember the "old internet" before the centralization and they're here to rekindle that flame of independence. On the other hand the youths are generally pretty up on this whole technology thing. I grew up on the internet and since then smartphones have become even more ubiquitous.

(Please boost for reach)

What I love about #masto is that I've discovered more artists, photographers, writers, poets, historians, archaeologists, heritage experts etc. in the last five days than I have in 10+ years on all the other platforms combined thanks to all the introductions and sharing going on. I always felt that social media was an obligatory part of the job, now it feels like a place to discover a creative world beyond my own field.

After a couple of days on #Mastodon I’m very impressed & excited to be part of this growing community! #mastodonmigration

My only humble suggestion is that it needs more #tardigrades aka "water bears."

Tardigrades have survived every mass #extinction on Earth since they evolved about a 1/2 billion years ago. There are ~1,300 known species. And millions of years from now, they won’t even notice we’re gone.

Wee reminder for new Mastodon users: stick your #Wordle results behind a Content Warning, not because it's scary or triggering, but because if someone is using a screen reader, they can hear and decide "oh a wordle result, I won't expand that".

Have you heard what a Wordle result sounds like to a screen reader? https://slate.com/culture/2022/02/wordle-word-game-results-accessibility-twitter.html #accessibility

Ok, so I just moved to my own server.

I’m astonished at how painless it was.

I understand there’s a federated Facebook-alike too.

If ISPs start offering federated social media servers to their customers, like they do email, it could finish the privacy stealing, data harvesting big social media monoliths. There would be no need to use them any more. It would just be a service, like email, with no ulterior motive.

God, I hope it comes to pass.

I will miss the #borscht that our guests from #Ukraine️ made us. Very happy that they are quickly settling into their new home though #HomesForUkraine 🇺🇦

Nice highlight @PLOSBiology of the role and importance of organism identifiers at #iNaturalist. That is, the experts putting in the time to figure out the taxon of the animal in my and your photos.

My huge appreciation to these experts, particularly in #entomology, for they often take the time to educate me and point me to resources for identifying #nativebees #insects #arachnids and more.

🌓🌎🌞 <-- lunar eclipse

🌎🌓🌞 <-- solar eclipse

🌎🌞🌗 <-- apocalypse

"During the 15 weeks after the statewide masking policy was rescinded, the lifting of masking requirements was associated with an additional 44.9 cases per 1000 students and staff"

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2211029

#science #masking #covid

In my opinion, criticisms of mastodon being unusable by the general public are over blown.

Hey there, really really appreciate all the follows and recommendations 🙏

But, can you also tell new people about the site at https://fedi.tips too?

The site address is exactly the same as my username with a dot in the middle. You can make it clickable on here by having https:// at the beginning.

It would help A LOT if you can tell people about the site too! Thank you!

Hello Mastodon!!

“Things will be broken. Things will be broken more often. Things will be broken for longer periods of time. Things will be broken in more severe ways,”. A #Twitter engineer on how the next few weeks will play out.
#TwitterMigration #ScienceMastodon
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/

Hi #ChemiVerse

I might come to regret this, but I've seen some journalists compiling lists of people on here & I thought it might be useful in the early days here to do something similar for the chemistry community (& those who interact with the chemistry community – you can define that quite liberally).

So, here is a Google Form that you can fill in if you wish: https://forms.gle/gF9MLUGMWs23EFix6

And it feeds into this Google Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qdJvHHvu-BC4N6nk1jNMhTwoBrIaqHLUCZRf9pCQwDs/edit?usp=sharing

(The form does not collect e-mail addresses)

Posting an #introduction for a pseud is a bit weird. Expect a bit of everything. I’m trained in synthetic organic #chemistry . I’m an #NMR enthusiast, amateur #python programmer, enjoyer of various nerdy things such as #gameing with an ‘e’ and #chess. I enjoy cooking, and I sometimes post pictures of my cats.

Let’s try this again with server capacity:

#Introduction
I lead a #research group at #Harvard University’s Rowland Institute, which is a beautiful, cross-interdisciplinary institute right at the Charles River that divides #Boston and #Cambridge MA.
We use #ultrafast magneto-optical #spectroscopy and other tools to understand the next generation of #materials needed for a more #sustainable global #energy production and consumption.

#Science #Chemistry #Physics #MaterialsScience #ChemToots