Hi, my name is Aaron, my friends call me Obi (oh-bye). I have been on Mastondon since April 17th off and on, but recently it's been a lot of on. The more I use Mastodon, the more I'm realizing the importance of picking the right instance, so I have been signing up for a lot more of them, which brought me here. I've noticed that on most of my other instances, the topic that most people are tooting about are Social Justice, and LGBTQA+ rights etc. I just have no interest in such topics, so that's what brought me here.
My interests are really around science, encryption/privacy, person freedoms, and most importantly logical conversation. During my search for the right instance, I have had a few failures, as what looked like something good for me, ended up back to the same old discussions in those areas that I just have no interest. But a few days ago, I found this instance, and it seems like it could be a good fit for me, so I am giving it a try.
I don't usually do these introductions, but here is some background on me I guess. I was a golf professional for almost 2 decades, then when my daughter was born, I decided it was time for a switch from the 85-100 weeks, and spend some time with family. I then moved on to data management for a company in the health care industry. Working from home got old, so after 5 years I decided to move on. Currently I am employed by a company in the Energy sector, in my small town that has been here for decades. My grandfather worked there until he retired, and my father is currently working there and will be retiring soon. My job deals with Hazardous Wastes.
My free time is spent doing a lot of hiking, some camping, and a lot of tinkering with GNU+Linux OSes, and encryption software.
That's it for me, stop by and say hello, and maybe give me some info on the feel of this instance, and what everyone is usually talking about. Thanks.
@obi I'm very big on having a unified interface for things, so, when my choice was between here and fosstodon, the killer feature for here was "Domain Subscriptions".
Full-text searches, a raised character limit, bookmarking, keyword searches, instance ticker banners, in-timeline subscribe/follow buttons, and a light theme with non-fixed-width columns were also part of my decision though.
@ssokolow I saw the domain subscriptions feature but wasn't sure how it worked. Is it just the RSS button on a toot? Does it subscribe to the entire instance the user is on, show it in home? All the rest I knew about, and that's what makes me want to use this. Awesome features. I have my own theme I made that is in my browser and applies to all themes, so I'm good there lol. But yeah, the features and instance description are why I'm here, the lack of toots in local is the only thing that has me 2nd guessing.
@obi It allows you to merge the entire public contents of another instance's local timeline (specifically, whichever toots they expose through their whole-instance RSS feed) into either Home or a custom list of your choosing.
As for how you use it, hit the gear icon, choose "Follows and subscriptions" from the sidebar, choose the "Domain subscribes" sub-entry that appears in the sidebar, hit the Add button, and it'll ask for you a domain and a list to merge it into.
@ssokolow Thanks. That is AMAZING. No other instance really touches this one with features. Appreciate the info.
@ssokolow Also, I guess we are opposite on the themes. You like the light, I need it DARK
@obi For whatever reason, I find that switching a UI from dark-on-light to light-on-dark makes it more of a strain to recognize letter shapes with the same font at the same size.
(Except for the terminal, where UI configurations are so built around the assumption of the intuitive meanings of and contrast relationships between various colors that, aside from cranking up the brightness on the blue to improve the readability, I can't find any way to improve it beyond trying different fonts.)
@obi Hi, and welcome.
Funny thing, I don't have the exact impression as you. Indeed I also think that it is good to be in an instance akin to your interests, since you are more exposed in the local timeline, but addressing and being addressed from other instances has been second nature, requiring no extra effort from me.
I scan the global timeline from time to time, so maybe that is the key.
Anyway, I'm a starter as well. Good luck!