Shibaprasad Bhattacharya @shibaprasad@qoto.org

Hello folks! What are your interesting independent research projects/side projects? Let's hear about them! Bonus points for links to webpages/codes!
#research #project #coding #PhD

I am gathering a list of people who want to be involved in the discussion around the formation of a "United Federation of Instances" which is an attempt to combat the fracturing of the fediverse and the general spreading of misinformation WRT moderation decisions.

If anyone is interested in being a part of it let me know in the replies. I will add you to the list, share the draft proposal, and we can start discussions. I have several people already interested.

Out of nowhere, my nephew just asked, “Do you think Pavlov thought about feeding his dog every time he heard a bell ring?” and now I’m going to be haunted by this question.

I absolutely love visiting Malleshwaram #flower and vegetable #market during the wee hours (especially on the day of a festival). The stock is fresh and the crowds are minimal.

The way in which #technology has taken over and changed our lives, with groceries delivered with a click of your fingertip, we see fewer and fewer shops in these markets as the years go by. A few of my favourite things about this place are the incessant bargaining, the Kannada banter and the lovely smell of flowers that carries itself through the market. The old world charm of this place is something else and I hope we never lose such places.

Place: Bangalore, India.

#mastindia @mastodonindians #india #bangalore #photography #city #urban #urbanphotography #malleshwaram #streetphotography

With sleep my body prefers one of two patterns:

1. Wake up at dawn, spend whole day awake, get exhausted by night, crash, loop. In this regime, I find myself not feeling rested after sleep for days.

2. Wake up when I wake up, often feeling well rested. Work as long as energy is above a threshold, switch context or nap if energy dips. Eat when hungry, sleep when sleepy, loop. In this chaos, I'm creative, productive and content. I take more breaks without guilt… but working with others is hard.

It's perfectly reasonable and possible for *both* of these statements to be true:

* it is better here than on Twitter
* this better *isn't good enough*

Federation and decentralization *as currently and inconsistently and idiosyncratically practiced* while better, are not good enough.

Digging in and saying that decentralization and federation *is* good enough is really, really unhelpful.

Also, the potential for better does not mean the practical experience is better.

I want to thank everyone for the ovwhelming support for our cause, you guys mean a lot.

I have been tthinking a lot lately and thing I have a social solution to this problem. It is something I am going to start doing a writeup on ttoday. I think it will not just thelp QOTO but in general address the unwantant fracturing of the fediverse.

I will share the dettails once my writeup is complete but if anyone is intterested in hearing more or potentially help being a part of it, please reply here or reach out to me in DM.

#mastoadmin #fediblock #qoto #fediverse

Hi! I'm doing a story on the mass layoffs in the tech sector. If you are an affected employee willing to talk (on or off record) or have some information to share about the same, DM me.

Oof, this hit me in the chest when I saw it, so am passing it on.

For most of my life growing up in #bangalore, I remember quickly walking past this building without giving it a second glance. Standing at the junction of Brigade Road and Resicency road this #building was in a largely disheveled condition through most of the 80s and 90s; and known for shady activities (it was used as a theater to play B-grade movies at one point).

This is the Bangalore #operahouse built in the 1930s, for the colonial residents of the British Bangalore cantonment. In the early years it was used as a theater, opera and also a space where boxing matches were held between troops who arrived during #ww2.

One of the few #colonial Goth buildings of Bangalore that hasn't been razed to the ground, thanks to a court order, this building has been painstakingly restored by the Korean electronic company - #samsung.

#mastindia #history #architecture #india #british #cities

In regard to delisting of QOTO on joinmastodon.org:

I'm not here to make a judgement on who is "in the right" here as I've been here for only around a week, and I can't know or verify the events that lead to this.

However, Eugen's lack of communication and transparency about this is highly concerning - I think the least we deserve is a public statement on the delisting - arguably a responsibility of Eugen's, considering the outsized influence that the joinmastodon.org directory has over the Fediverse, and in particular Mastodon instances.

I urge him to remember that the Fediverse is supposed to be decentralized - his actions right now suggest he is trying to move towards the opposite.

@Gargron

I would love to get some conversations going about #meditation. I’m not sure how well this platform supports such things, but the best way to find out…

I started a practice some time in the mid 2000’s. I kept it to short (10-15m) sits, but managed to make it a consistent habit within a year or two. I like Headspace and similar meditation apps as a starting point, and recommend them to people if the topics comes up.

Around 2018, I started with The Mind Illuminated, which is a more structured approach based on the book of the same name. This involved longer sits (20-60m), with some clear guidelines. I feel that my sense of equanimity improved dramatically around this time, and many facets of my day-to-day life along with it.

While I did reap significant benefits, I did not progress through the stages outlined in the book. This led me to a more metta-based practice called Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation or TWIM, which is my core practice now. This has raised my baseline level of happiness quite noticably, and has also driven more “moral development” in terms of how I see the world and my place in it.

Does anyone else here follow one of these practices? Anything you’d care to share about your practice?

#TheMindIlluminated #TWIM

Today is #TransDayofRemembrance when we honor and remember trans lives taken by violence. How horrifying that a deadly attack upon the LGBTQ+ community in Colorado Springs should occur right before this solemn day.
Hate isn’t born in us. It is taught. It must end.
This starts with our political leaders, who must cease their cynical attacks against our community before another attack occurs.
Call out the hate. Remind them of its consequences. Hold them to account.

I really want to learn how people manage to finish all their chores and have a social life?

WOW! Im suprised at the generosity everyone. I mentioned in a reply thread a way to donate to QOTO, didnt even make a public announcement about it, and already people are donating 3 figures a pop. Extremely generous. Thank you all of you! I feel like if we are going to take donations we should post some means of thanking those that donate and are ok with the recognition.

I don't want to just be posting about numbers like a clock, but the 2 million mark of monthly active users across the network is a pretty big deal. This is going big numbers! Shout out to all the server operators who are absorbing this wave.

I mentioned this in a private message to someone recently about why a small handful of servers block qoto. I wanted to reiterate it here for the new comers on QOTO who dont know the history:

So there are some servers out there that demand every server int he network block every instance they do, and if a server doesnt block an instance they block then they block you in rettatliation.

Their reason for this is quite flawed but it goes like this.. If we federate with a bad actor instance and we boost one of their posts then their users will see it and defeat the purpose of the block. The problem is, this isnt how it actually works. If they block a server and we boost it, they wont see the boost, thats how blocks work.

The issue becomes even more complicated when you consider the fact that these servers, by virtue of their policy, have huge block lists where they block tons of major servers. So in order to satisfy them we too would have to block a huge number of servers.

This means you have a choice, you either join a server that isnt blocked, but has a huge block list themselves, or, you join a server that doesnt block and be blocked by a small handful of servers. Obviously that means on QOTO you will have bigger view of the world than you would on any of these others servers. In fact QOTO has onne of the largest federation footprints of any server in the network.

I want to also explain why we choose the decision we did. Years ago when this controversy started and servers across the fediverse started blocking there was a divide of people taking sides. WOTO was one of the few servers that didnt take sides and allowed people read content from any server (but with strict hate speech rules). This caused a huge influx of people,s pecifically from the LGBTQ community, onto our server. It turns out many people relied on us not-blocking for their physical safety. There were big name biggots (like milo yanappolus) who were on the network. They used their accounts here to watch his account for doxing so they could warn themselves and their community and protect themselves accordingly. In fact we added a feature just for them called subscriptions which allowed them to monitor accounts without following them so they could do so anonymously.

In tthe end for the safety of the LGBTQ community here we refused to engage in mass server blocking and instead encouraged our users to block servers on an individual basis and provided access to block lists for them to do so. But some really misguided servers blocked us anyway.

Thankfully the servers blocking us are few and far between and are limited to only the most excessive and aggressive block lists. As I said, QOTO has one of the largest federation footprints on the fediverse,

#mastoadmin