R. A. Dehi @radehi@qoto.org

I guess I should write an #introduction.

I've been using the internet since 1992 and contributing to #Wikipedia since 2001. I haven't used Twitter since early 2021 because I decided it was unhealthy, and I used Mastodon a fair bit that year, but then lost my account through, apparently, inactivity, which I didn't realize was even a thing.

I guess I should put some kind of tag cloud here of stuff I'm interested in? Maybe #physics, #Linux, #Debian, #manufacturing, #DSP, #Python, #Numpy, #math (more #algebra than #analysis), #raytracing, #commonsbasedpeerproduction, #creativecommons, #piracy, #scihub, #libgen, #emergence, #solarpunk, #history (especially #Hellenistic and #Mohist), #UX, #HCI, #controltheory, #lifesupport, and #infosec.

@Hortense just to clarify, by "your timeline" I meant "one's timeline", and similarly with "before you read"; I'm not talking about you personally, I've just met you!

@Hortense Sure, I've seen flaming since I joined the internet 30 years ago. Usenet was full of flames and trolls. But Twitter is special and unique: the 140-letter format is suited for zingers and calls to action, but not for reasoning, and the tweets that "blow up" are the ones that get massively retweeted and replied to, which is to say, the controversial ones that succeed in resonating with primal emotions in the five seconds before you read the next, unrelated tweet. That is, trolls.

The way people amass large followings on Twitter is either by already being famous, by brigading, or having their tweets "blow up". And your timeline on Twitter is disproportionately made of retweets of or replies to famous people's tweets, who are selected for being trolls and flamers in a way that Usenet never approached.

The upgrade to 280 characters helped, but ten seconds instead of five is not much of an improvement.

@Hortense I used to be pretty addicted to Twitter, but ultimately I think it was really unhealthy. It fosters combative, defensive interaction styles because those are the most effective at driving engagement. I don't know what Musk is going to do with it (try to burnish his public image I guess), but before he took it over, Twitter already got a reality TV host elected president of the US. So how much worse can it get? Maybe it'll improve!

Not holding my breath, though.

@finnegan the VFX and CGI stuff sounds awesome! Are you doing it on your own these days?

@TillSawala hmm, I think it's been 24 years since I had to use IDL. It was not my favorite!

I think it's in the category of acronyms which are misleading if spelled out. There are lots of interactive data languages; IDL is just one of them.

@fourmajor https://diyhpl.us/wiki/hplusroadmap/ maybe?

@thelinuxEXP hey, is there a version of this on peertube or something?

@Hortense your post is what inspired me to create an account, so, thank you. I guess I have the opposite of impostor syndrome?

@dichotomiker heh, that's great

@ambihelical rule 34

@ambihelical Cool, thanks! I was wondering if it was a problem with my browser or something.

I love the impossible nut, btw.

Yeah, so it handles fenced code blocks, but not syntax highlighting.

I wonder if it supports fenced code blocks?

```javascript
for (let x of items) process(item, 'now')
```

Hmm, some of those worked, but not the bulleted list or the blockquote, so I guess this isn't really Markdown or close to it.

Oh neat, Markdown support is new since I last used Mastodon! Maybe I can use *italics* and horizontal separators

------

and bulleted lists:

* Italics
* Bulleted lists
* Links
* Headers
* Blockquote
* Preformatted text

A link should be like [hafnium oxide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnium_oxide):

> It is an electrical insulator with a band gap of 5.3~5.7 eV.

And preformatted text should be like

x = 1:10

I mean it looks like this