ALAN LAVENDER @lavenderlens@qoto.org

The First Kiss Captured on Film: Behold “The Kiss” Shot by Photography Pioneer Eadweard Muybridge (1872) https://www.openculture.com/2022/11/the-first-kiss-captured-on-film.html

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.

Robert Frost

Some #photography taken at #dawn last week when I went to check on my #ponies. In the second photo, you can see the moon in the top right hand corner, with the sun rising toward the bottom left. #LandscapePhotography #Devon #Countryside

Happy Feast Day of C.S. Lewis

I can't think of a more important intellectual or religious influence in my life. He was one of the most important critics of Scientism too.

He died the same day as JFK and, in the moment, his passing wasn't really noted. But I think his legacy will be much greater.

One thing that’s a bit of a hassle with Mastodon is that you can’t immediately follow people on other instances.

You have to copy the username and search for it on the server that has your account.

To make this easier, I’ve created a little bookmarklet. Press it, and you’ll be taken to the same account as viewed from the masto host you are on.

GitHub Gist: https://gist.github.com/bramus/d8bce55dab1881cde18aa2169c66ac33

(Change the value of `MY_MASTO_HOST` in the code to your mastodon host –not URL– and you’re good to go)

Muscles grow by increasing the size of their cells, not by increasing the number of cells. In contrast, the cells of the immune system and body mainly increase by reproducing in response to infection.

These cell divisions have a limit. Telomeres, at the end of chromosomes, shorten with each division until the cell stops dividing or dies.

#Covid19 shortens Telomeres. Yes, immune systems will age.
https://mastodon.green/@fitterhappierAJ/109372994883071557

I ran into a new member of a choir I sing with on the bus last night. We hadn't interacted much up till then. We got chatting (she is lovely!) and when there was a silence, without a word she produced the most perfect round orange I've ever seen from her handbag and gave it to me. Just complete unexpected orange. I gratefully accepted it and I've just eaten it. It was delicious. I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, but when life gives you oranges, it's a good day 🍊

10 KB Club: Curated list of websites whose home pages do not exceed 10 KB size

https://10kbclub.com/

There are 16 cameras on the #NASA Orion Capsule including one on each of the four solar panel wings.

Some can record in 4K quality and will give us an amazing view of the upcoming flyby of the Moon on November 21st.

After coming within 100 km of the Moon, #Orion will go farther than any human-rated spacecraft has gone, then do another flyby of the Moon.

Then it'll return to Earth on December 11th, landing in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-artemis-i-cameras-to-offer-new-views-of-orion-earth-moon

What a day! Thank you #NewUsers for being patient and understanding what a strain Mastodon is under. The performance issues you experienced today are not normal. As you can see things are running more smoothly now.

What we saw is the incredible resilience of a distributed system. Admins all over the world responded swiftly, and will manage future growth challenges too.

These are incredible people trying to make our world a better place. Support your instance if you can.

#twittermigration

There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about how to set up Mastodon.

1. You do not have to sacrifice a duck. Any waterfowl will do.
2. The bit about dancing around naked in a forest glade? While dancing is fun, you may just walk.
3. When the demon appears, you needn’t chant in Latin. It is fluent in all languages.

The rest of the guide is correct.

Self explanatory statements below. I have a theory on this.
Please boost if you take part
Thanks
#poll #extrovert #introvert #mastodon

I know it's soooo bad what Elon did to Twitter, really.

But I've been running this server for over 3 years now to flee Twitter and somehow it feels things are falling into place...

I have met such amazing and wonderful people here on the Fediverse that I consider my true friends no matter where they live❤️

The only thing I want is for you to have the same and here you have a chance do that just that!

Hi everyone! It looks as though we're receiving a spike in signups this morning. If this continues through the weekend, please be aware that slowdowns may occur at peak times.

We scaled up from under 1,000 users to over 14,000 the past week. We're currently waiting on new hardware to arrive in our hands to give us some headroom.

---

In other words: we've been working like clockwork since last week, and we're awaiting new systems to make sure your experience here is buttery smooth.

@georgetakei Cap’n says welcome aboard the Mastoprise 🚀

I don’t understand why people think Mastodon is difficult. It seems pretty straightforward, and the separate servers are no biggie. I’m enjoying this fresh start here, like moving to a new apartment!