Phil Landmeier @shuttersparks@qoto.org

Just a small town girl
Livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train going anywhere

Keep pulling in new people on my fedifinder.glitch.me runs

MASTODON TIP: If you have somebody whose posts you love, and you want to be notified whenever they post, just click on the bell button in the advanced web interface, and you will receive a notification whenever they toot! (I don't know how many of the mobile clients have this option, though.)

And, on that day, she spread out all the boxed cereals. "Take, eat," she said, and they did eat, and leaving blessed detritus all over the table and floor, she said, "go therefore onto your technology, and bother me no more."

And then she wept.

Momma 6:19-21

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.

Good morning! A post just rolled across my fedi-timeline saying not to post about politics on Mastodon, so I'm here to remind you that:

1 "politics" refers to decision-making about how to live together in groups
2 choosing to not participate in political discussion is saying you support the status quo, and is a political stance
3 abstaining from politics because you feel safe from its impacts is a privilege and a choice to abandon your more vulnerable neighbours

Tips for Americans on saving money on COVID protection:

-Masks such as N95s are FSA/HSA reimbursable.

-Your health insurer (private or public) is still required to offer you 8 free home COVID tests every 30 days.

-Some states are continuing to mail free home COVID tests on request. For example, WA, MN, and WI residents can order them through https://sayyescovidhometest.org/

Prediction: All the cool new tools for journalists and broadcasting will be developed here first. People going to closed sites like Post .news will just have to venture outside their walled gardens to use them. They will quickly tire of that step, then realize they're completely reliant on a single conduit for their brand again. Same mistake they made on Twitter.

Since Mastodon saw its initial popularity circa 2017, I've noticed that most users and those reporting on it either don't think about the Fediverse as anything more than Mastodon, or treat its history as beginning with Eugen Rochko and the beginning of Mastodon. In fact, Mastodon is the latest in a long line of federated social networks, going at least back to Identi.ca, and though I wasn't around for all of it,I find this history pretty interesting. (Thread; boosts welcome!)

"On two occasions I have been asked (by members of Parliament!), 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
Charles Babbage
#quotations

The fact that we all came to #mastadon looking for an app just lke Twitter and 2 days later we are all happy that Mastodon is in fact NOT like Twitter, says a lot about that little birdie.

Two #traps you need to avoid.

1. Caring for what they think
2. Thinking that they care

The Milwaukee airport has my favorite airport sign in the country, hands down.

Ever since roughly the progressive Democrats' unfortunate letter, "asking for peace" in Ukraine became the new code word for demanding Ukrainian capitulation or Westplaining to the Ukrainians what they need or want.

The only way to "ask for peace" is to demand that Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine.

The great @blaine Cook (legendary inventor and former lead developer at Twitter) has written superb first draft of a "Fediverse Charter." Naturally, he made it open source for anyone to build on. Because that's just the culture here in the Fediverse. Get used to it :)

cc @jeffjarvis @davetroy @dangillmor @KevinMarks @tchambers https://slocanstatement.org/

I see some people talking about screen reader accessibility, so I want to point out a real bad habit some people have gotten into on Twitter and on Carrd pages which wreaks havoc on screen reader accessibility. I thankfully haven't seen it on the fediverse much.

Usually people refer to the habit as "Twitter fonts". This is a misnomer, though; these so-called "fonts" are just misusing various Unicode characters (mostly those designated as mathematical symbols) because someone thinks they "look cool". DO NOT DO THIS. Depending on the screen reader, some of them might be moderately legible, some of them might get spelled out, and the worst of them will spit out garbage like "JAPANESE LETTER JAPANESE LETTER CHINESE LETTER SQUARE ROOT CHINESE LETTER".

I recorded a video a while back to demonstrate how bad this can get:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLDvg0cZYZ8

🦇

#ScreenReader #Accessibility

I have a thick skin. I’m not unaccustomed to attacks. And I surely don’t mind reasonable people raising opposing views. But the bird app has been swamped with MAGA Republicans determined to drive away progressives with false narratives and ad hominem attack. A dispiriting display of the human condition and a waste of time. Alas.

The Biden White House Is Making Trump's Nazi Thanksgiving Painful For Republicans https://open.substack.com/pub/politicususa/p/the-biden-white-house-is-making-trumps?r=40ncs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web #politics #USPol #Democrats