Rudi Pfenniger @rpfennig@qoto.org
A software developer with a philosophy degree
Interests include: #boardgames, #comics, #literature, #scifi, #philosophy, #Disney (and Universal theme parks)
Joined Nov 2022
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Bob, just Bob, like @Bob46598;
Look at my Works, and rejoice in your own achievements!
I arose by noon, grabbed a coffee and
remotely logged in to work not realizing it's a Saturday
Committed to write 2000 words, at least 200 lines
before the day was done...
Oh, the day is done...
#SciFiPrompt for "Navigation"... I felt a bit lost...
Another #boardgame Saturday with a first chance to try #frostpunk which is... a bit of a lot. It's good but we only had a 3 hr window (monthly board game night at our co-op) for play with 2 of us and between set up and tear down made it to the beginning of round 6 of the first scenario.
Felt like we had a good handle on things the first few rounds but could start to feel things slipping away a bit at this point (first real round of sickness and food was starting to be a struggle plus the weather cards really did a number on the generator).
Need more time and a bigger table for this one.
Six books to get to know me better (based on the number of times I've read/re-read/bought a new copy after binding on old copy fell apart/bought a new copy with a new cover):
1. Neverwhere by @neilhimself
2. Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson
3. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
4. Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
5. Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje
6. The Ivanhoe Gambit by Simon Hawke
#bookstodon #books #bookstadon
That last one is the first book in the Time Wars series by Simon Hawke and the cover captured my imagination as a teenage D&D playing #scifi geek like no other and left a lasting impression:
Post #live360 conference goals... the first mobile app I wrote back in 2010 was a little puzzle game that I worked on with my kids to show them a bit of what was involved in software development but it aged out of the App Store with iOS 11 along with a few other small games I had done.
It might be interesting to make an updated version of that original puzzle game first in Objective C, then .NET MAUI and then a version in Blazor Hybrid with the web app support structure that was demonstrated during the conference for a more hands on comparison of those approaches. If I have any energy left at the end of that, it might be worth trying in Swift (as a contrast to Objective C) and UNO (as another way to view cross-platform development).
Seems a bit weird (writing the same app 3-5 different ways instead of 3-5 different apps) but feels like there might be some interesting lessons to be learned in the process.
@jamesmontemagno Thank you for the abundance of useful/interesting information you've produced on Xamarin, .NET MAUI, Blazor over the years. One of the first places I look when trying to solve a problem or take a moment to learn something new related to #xamarin and now #NETMAUI and #blazor.
The week at #live360:
Favourite workshop: Building Cross-Platform Mobile & Desktop Apps with .NET MAUI with @jamesmontemagno
Favourite Session: can't pick just one lots of useful info from @jamesmontemagno, Sam Basu and @rockylhotka
Favourite event: Weirdly... Exhibitor Reception (sorry Dessert Luau)... open bar, trivia contests and some useful info from exhibitors
Favourite drink: Old Chocolate Fashion at Toothsome Chocolate Emporium (not directly related to conference but... it was really good)
Rudi Pfenniger
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It’s like the morning after Y2K.
(Klahoose, Tla’amin, and Homalco territories)
Enjoying my last day/last workshop at #live360 after a week of interesting sessions. Great opportunity to attend sessions across different interests and sneak in a few evenings at #universalstudios.
Rudi Pfenniger
boosted
It’s time I reveal my family’s love/hate relationship with and addiction to #boardgames.
We love the #boardgame but hate finding new and creative ways to fit them into our dining room’s shelving units.
Test: sad orphans
To say that “Aunt Teresa’s Home for Wayward Youth and The Criminally Insane” was a nicer place to grow up than the name implied would have been a mistruth. In truth, it was no picnic (though, there were ants) with the presumption of guilt though his only crime was being left an orphan. Not quite a capital crime but one that left him with no capital with which to improve his situation.
The food was Dickensian, literally, pulped penny dreadfuls mixed with the tears of orphans and offered up one scoop at a time. It’s one saving grace were the occasional chunks of indigestible dialogue, threads of speech left in their complete or near complete state that could be extracted from the pulpy mess of breakfast and become the topic of discussion for the day. Worst book club, ever. Period.
Rudi Pfenniger
boosted
@ben @CatButtes Here’s what I went through and where we’re at now: https://blog.freeradical.zone/post/surviving-thriving-through-2022-11-05-meltdown/
Rudi Pfenniger
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Mastodon is so good that I'm honestly feeling a little emotional about it. It is like online communities used to be, with people willing to engage in friendly and productive conversations, and no algorithm creating divisions for the sake of engagement.
It is honestly wonderful!
Rudi Pfenniger
boosted
To help make connections name…
Last 5 #ttrpgs / #boardgames you played
AND
Next 5 you really want to play!
Then, boost this post so others know to do the same!
_Last Five_
#dnd5e
#brindlewoodbay
#ffstarwars
#forbiddendesert
#unstableunicorns
_Next Five_
#motw #monsteroftheweek
#deadlands #swade
#wingspan
#macromicrocrimecity
#monstdrawcity
To help make connections name... Last 5 #ttrpgs / #boardgames you played AND next 5 you really want to play!
Then boost this post so others know to do the same! (feels like it's missing a... or all your dice rolls will be 1s for... ever!).
Heavily weighted to #boardgames (well, completely) but do want to dust off some #ttrpgs at some point. Definite soft spot for the old Champions Hero Games system.
Played:
#oath
#everdell
#quacksofquedlinburg
#duneimperium
#terraformingmars
Want to play:
#frosthaven
#frostpunk
#fittoprint
#hairofthedog
#agentsofSMERSHepicedition (to compare to original)
I smile every time I see Hello World as a #firstpost but my heart would grow three sizes bigger if people started posting their #fizzbuzz snippets
Rudi Pfenniger
boosted
Trying to see how much different #Mastodon is from the birdsite in terms of interaction, replies and mutual benefit in deeper relations and communication. Thought I would share something and see how it goes from there.
So...
One thing that has been on my mind the past few days, witnessing the great #TwitterMigration, is the role, or rather, the impact of social media in the current day and age.
I would be very interested in your thought re: these 2 possibly opposing points of view.
1) Social media allows a degree of connection, of communication, that arguably represents a paradigm change of the level of the wheel, agriculture (and the way it allowed for bigger and sustained settlements), writing, the printing press and the internal combustion engine.
We have expanded beyond our villages into these virtual settlements of virtually limitless size.
Now, can this expansion be limitless? To the point of an interconnected consciousness of 7 billion people?
Or rather, is there a critical point of no-return beyond which more social interaction is counterproductive? (certainly the sort of "social" interaction online would be the weakest link in social interactions"?)
2) As you become more and more connected with so many others, is there a point where you stop benefiting and rather just lose yourself?
Ie, achievements are only rewarding if there is some degree of uniqueness to them. Is there a law of diminishing returns whereby knowing more people who have done something reduces your reward from it?
TLDR; What is individuality and the place of the self in the social media age? Interested in your thoughts and your help elaborating on this question.
Rudi Pfenniger
boosted
To all the lovely humans starting Mastodon instances:
Please think about succession planning, resourcing, and rules of engagement (aka Code of Conduct) as a matter of priority for your instance.
When you create a community resource, you're making a commitment. If you're new to stewarding a community, ask for help. #AskACommunityManager
It'd be really sad if in 3, 6, 12 months we start losing a ton of instances and Fediverse community members with them.
Rudi Pfenniger
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It’s amazing how quickly I’ve gone from “What the hell is Mastodon?” to “Maybe I should start a Mastodon server?”
Rudi Pfenniger
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Okay this might be a long post 
One thing that I realised is making #twittermigration harder for people to switch is because the whole concept can feel daunting & overwhelming for non-tech savvy people.
With Twitter to them it was straight forward and easy to find topics they enjoy but with mastodon its a bit different.
So if you're new to mastodon or you want to introduce someone to mastodon here are some tips, useful sites & tools:
### Tips:
- Choosing a home instance isn't as importance as it seems, don't overthink it. Yes moderation rules & policies may differ but they all have one thing in common: Be a decent human. You **always** have the option to migrate your account to a new instance.
- Toots (or posts if you think toots are cringe 
) are what we call micro-blogging instead of tweets
- You’re supposed to "boost" AKA "reblog" toots that you like.Since Mastodon does not have an algorithm that surfaces toots that have been liked a lot, boosting is the best way to help spread stuff that you like, and to show appreciation. (credit to @orsvarn for this comment)
- Another way to fill your timeline with content you enjoy is to: Find other people with similar interests, follow them, favourite their posts, boost their posts, use hashtags. rinse, repeat. (credit to @garry)
- If you ever feel yourself getting sucked into arguments on the #Fediverse, you might want to take advantage of the instance mute/block feature!
Instances tend to foster a culture, so if you find people from a specific site tend to be bothering you, muting/blocking that instance will keep other members of that community from bothering you as well.
- Finally do not share private/sensitive information via DMs on Mastodon. Direct Messages are not E2E. **Keep it in mind**
### Useful tools & resources:
[Twitodon](https://twitodon.com/) - Find your Twitter friends on Mastodon
[FediFinder](https://fedifinder.glitch.me/)- Similar to Twitodon
[Fedi Tips](https://fedi.tips/) - an informal, unofficial guide for non-technical people who want to use Mastodon and the wider Fediverse
[Fedi Directory](https://fedi.directory) - A human-curated small selection of accounts to spice up your timeline.
[Trunk](https://communitywiki.org/trunk) -Trunk allows you to mass-follow a bunch of people in order to get started with Mastodon or any other platform on the Fediverse
[Fediverse.info](https://fediverse.info/explore/people) -growing list of people and topics can help you discover mutual interests with people around the world
**Mobile Apps:**
[Metatext for iOS 
](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/metatext/id1523996615)
[Tusky for Android 
](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keylesspalace.tusky&hl=en&gl=USt)
Lastly if you are interested in setting up your own instance you can learn via https://learnfoss.org/ its completely free and its made by the wonderful @stux
I apologize for the long post lol, just hope this helps anyones transition over 
Rudi Pfenniger
boosted
Free list of over 400 literary magazines that accept free submissions, you're welcome to share with anyone. This is a list I kept originally for myself, but friends were interested and so I made it public. https://crowcollectiveworkshops.com/free-submissions/
A software developer with a philosophy degree
Interests include: #boardgames, #comics, #literature, #scifi, #philosophy, #Disney (and Universal theme parks)
Joined Nov 2022
