What's even the point of getting a PhD in the middle of a pandemic if you're *not* going to make a plague doctor mask and wander around campus wearing it along with your regalia?

Cheers to all of my fellow plague doctors from the class of 2021 or 2020!

As foretold by @cwebber ( https://octodon.social/@cwebber/107475000512669706 )

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~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org · Dec 20, 2021, 18:36

~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org · Dec 20, 2021, 18:36

Dec 20, 2021, 18:36

~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org

I wish dislikes were implemented in most ActivityPub software.

~b · Dec 19, 2021, 15:38

~b boosted

**tripu** @tripu@qoto.org · Dec 19, 2021, 15:38

Dec 19, 2021, 15:38

tripu @tripu@qoto.org

I decided that these merry days leading to Christmas, when we’re infused with positive sentiments and hope for humanity, are as good as any other to read… #Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

😲

Not really! In fact, I’m a bit embarrassed to leave my e-book reader lying around so that others can see what I’m reading… But my Theory of Reading actually supports and encourages reading anything that has been very influential (for good or for ill) regardless of its literary merits, its veracity, its applicability today, or its moral qualities.

Not to put them all necessarily in the same bucket, but I have read The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Communist Manifesto and Atlas Shrugged — and I would read The Bible and The Quran too: all of them #books that are ( in a way or another) wrong, false, corrosive, harmful, evil, racist, sexist, pro-violence, or pro-war — or even all of those things at the same time!

Granted: #MeinKampf may well be the wrongest among the wrong books… And in a way, that contributes to making it “useful” as a reading.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/64930929-tripu?shelf=currently-reading

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~b · Dec 18, 2021, 22:20

~b boosted

**tripu** @tripu@qoto.org · Dec 18, 2021, 22:20

Dec 18, 2021, 22:20

tripu @tripu@qoto.org

That was about 📚 #reading (#books).

Related, about the 📰 #news:

“I don’t know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie – not a writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician, designer, architect or painter. On the other hand, I know a whole bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs.”

— #RolfDobelli

https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/2010-dobelli.pdf

**tripu** @tripu@qoto.org

tripu @tripu@qoto.org

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t #read all the time — none, zero. You’d be amazed a...

~b · Dec 17, 2021, 07:05

~b boosted

**Longyap** @longyap@shitposter.club · Dec 17, 2021, 07:05

Dec 17, 2021, 07:05

Longyap @longyap@shitposter.club

@p need bloated plugin tool bar

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~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org · Dec 17, 2021, 13:03

~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org · Dec 17, 2021, 13:03

Dec 17, 2021, 13:03

~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org

(satire) https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Interjection

Show thread

~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org · Dec 13, 2021, 14:47

~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org · Dec 13, 2021, 14:47

Dec 13, 2021, 14:47

~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org

#fedipasta

Show thread

~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org · Dec 13, 2021, 13:39

~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org · Dec 13, 2021, 13:39

Dec 13, 2021, 13:39

~b @torresjrjr@qoto.org

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Mastodon, is in fact, the Fediverse, or as I've recently taken to calling it, the ActivityPub-Fediverse. Mastodon is not a singular network unto itself, but rather a subnetwork of a greater "federated universe" - the Fediverse - realized by thousands of independent, live servers, each running an instance of one of an ensemble of platforms, all of which interoperate via the ActivityPub protocols.

Many Mastodon users surf a particular impression of the Fediverse every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the fraction of the network which is most widely used today is called "Mastodon", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the Fediverse, equally inhabited by users from other non-Mastodon servers.

There really is a Mastodon, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the Fediverse they use. Mastodon is an ActivityPub server for microblogging. Mastodon is an essential part of the Fediverse, but limiting by itself. The Fediverse experience manifests in the context of a complete network. Mastodon distributes content in combination with other ActivityPub servers. The whole network is basically ActivityPub servers with Mastodon being the most common; The so-called "Mastodon network" is really the Fediverse network.