#I should probably never have joined this site or at least not that early. It wrecked me

[satellite-blossom]

Sick coloring and shading, dude ❢ Unfortunately I don't like how you draw Sonic the hedgehog so I'll have to blacklist your blog because I don't want to block you.

[quaddyvoddy]

one crazy night shift and six hours of sleep later, and i'm just now realising that i agreed to pay for a taylor swift vip ticket just so i could make my bff happy

[mountmortar]

hi, i saw your post about different socials/sites and i'm curious to ask what your experience on mastodon has been like? i've been interested in checking it out but it's hard to know what kind of "instance" i should join in that case, or generally what the culture/etiquette there is like!

OKAY. so! your experience on mastodon will be heavily influenced by the instance you join—it might be best to shop around for instances that fit your interests! for example, i use mastodon primarily to get tech news/web news that nobody else on the web seems to talk about, so i joined the tech.lgbt instance. as such, when i log on there, i definitely see shitposts and things from the younger members of the instance (early 20s) but even the shitposts tend to relate to tech things a lot of the time. it's pretty much a lot of tech talk. some instances let you view what other people on the instance are saying before you join—you'll see the the option for "live feeds" on the right side (if you're on a computer), for example! mastodon.social, the most generic and popular instance (249k active users as of right now), has this option. obviously, if you join a generic instance like this, you'll see a lot of EVERYTHING. an instance for fandom is blorbo.social, a popular one for anime/manga content is sakurajima.moe, which i've also linked the live feed to! you can find a metric fuckton of instances to search through here!

i've been part of three instances—mastodon.social (generic), mas.to (also generic) and tech.lgbt (topic-oriented). being part of the generic instances ultimately gives you the most general social media experience, and you'll probably find yourself ignoring your local server feed (the other people who are in the same instance) and curating your experience via people you follow the same way you would on here! being part of a nicher, topic-specific instance may provide you with more entertainment right off the bat based solely on the fact that you are already connected with people who are also interested in things you like.

(ultimately, it's just like picking an email provider—yahoo, gmail, aol, etc.—that allows you to communicate with people with both the same email provider or with different email providers! it's just that it also comes with a community page of people who use the same email provider as you, if that makes sense at all. just find one you like, read the rules, and you're good to go!)

using mastodon is a LOT like using twitter, if you're familiar with it—it has its own lingo, of course (toot instead of tweet, for example), but the layout of the site/app is pretty twitter clone-ish. the difference is that while twitter is, in recent times.........Conservative/Right-Leaning As Hell, mastodon is so liberal/left-leaning that i've seen people describe it as TOO liberal/left-leaning, lmao. if you join a niche instance and venture outside of it, prepare to see a lot of political posts. interaction between users is encouraged, though because it IS filled with a lot of techy people no matter what instance you join, prepare to see the occasional techbro every now and then. it's easy to avoid them, though.

a Very Big Thing about mastodon—the circles i'm in, at least—is that alt text on images is a MUST. if you've never done alt text on images before, be prepared to learn or whatever you post WILL be ignored to hell and back because some people will straight up refuse to interact if you post an image with no alt text. it's also important to note that some instances of mastodon have moderation problems, which you might find being discussed by users on there a lot.

ultimately, i'd say my experience on mastodon has been positive—i've followed some genuinely interesting people on there (a lot of university professors and people in the workforce—i've learned more about SpaceX satellite waste in the last few months because of an astronomy professor i followed than i ever would've had i not joined!). if you don't feel like eternally searching for an instance you like, there's nothing wrong with just joining a generic, "catch-all" instance and then just seeking out people to follow. just make sure to read and follow the rules of an instance (which usually amounts to "be friendly" "no hate speech" and whatnot—depends on the instance, but it's all the same) and you'll be fine no matter how you talk or interact. you might find some instances that prefer you to use tone tags and some whose userbase has never even heard of tone tags—there's a lot of different "holes in the ground", so to speak!

(i will say—despite me linking a couple of fandom instances above, there really isn't much of a fandom presence on mastodon as of right now. not that i've seen, at least. you'll find a lot more people talking about their real-world interests (tech, gardening, marine biology, knitting, whatever) than you will someone going nuts over a fictional character. so if you're super into fandom, or super into a NICHE fandom, you may find yourself a bit lonely over there if you don't have a group of friends to migrate with you. if you don't mind that, then it works out! )

i hope this helped a bit! ^.^

EDIT: FORGOT TO MENTION. CONTENT WARNINGS ARE A BIG THING OVER THERE. you can hide your post behind a sort of "spoiler" type warning (like discord basically) and a lot of instances require you to content warn for certain content (gore, food, etc.) it's a VERY big thing.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 730

Thanks to the generosity of @were-ah, I’ve been given the chance to relive some childhood nostalgia. For those who aren’t into virtual pet websites, or haven’t been to one since the days of Neopets, a new pet site is being built called  Santae, and Were-Ah got two beta keys at their Kickstarter.

So all of yesterday was spent exploring the website, commenting on its design with each other over voice chat and in my case creating a lot of pets.

I grew up on Neopets, and while I was not around since its conception, I had joined that site early enough where I had been around for the release of all the lands after the space station storyline. And that website influenced a lot of my middle and high school years. In fact, a lot of the knowledge I have about Internet safety against phishing scams was taught to me by Neopets. 

In large part because Neopets had a very large scamming problem, larger than it should have been for a game website.

When I got into university, I had fallen out of love with Neopets. In large part because I didn’t have the time anymore to play all the flash games to earn points. However, I had, for a small while, started a Subeta account, another well known pet site. Primarily because not only did it have more interesting pets than Neopets (at the time), but you also had a personal avatar to dress up as well. It was fun all around and the people were quite nice.

I didn’t stay with that site particularly long, but that was probably more due to there not being much keeping me there. The only other pet site I joined and really, really enjoyed was unfortunately a small website whose name I can’t remember or the name of their pets. Even though in terms of community and the way their seasonal events were designed, I considered it the best of the three pet sites I’ve ever been on for engagement.

Then, a few months ago, Were-Ah showed me Santae and I was immediately fascinated by the site. It was clear by some of the features the website was promising (such as several pets being able to have the same name, but only one has the first edition badge) that these were people familiar with Neopets. The style and design, though, spoke of artists who may have initially gained their experience by working with Subeta or similar pet sites.

And yet this was also very clearly a love project all of their own.

When I first saw the designs for Santae’s pets, I couldn’t help but think how much more intricate they looked compared to the pet designs I grew up with. They were even more intricate than the Subeta pet designs (if you don’t include the weird experiment pets they would design later in the website’s lifespan). Which is funny, because I think I thought the same thing about Subeta’s pet designs compared to Neopets.

Though, I will fully admit, at least three of the pet designs from Santae are very much my jam, and I don’t think I ever felt that way with Neopets or Subeta. Never had I had pet designs that stood out to me so much that I said… I want that… several of them.

[captainkurosolaire]

Update / Valentiones

Just wanna throw-down some appreciation and update on some stuff still plan on tackling this year. Although early this still implies for Valentiones. “Love ye all, have a terrific hearty day.  Should you feel cast aside, leave that t’ me to debunk it. Cause I’ll polish and give you a reason to rewrite that by finding you, picking you up, dusting it off. – You’re f*cking valuable, every single passing Sun t’ Moon, not even I can determinate it, no scale could justifiably do it. Don’t let any foul scallywags tell you otherwise. I’ll handle em’ You focus on shining eruptive, dazzle chaotically! I see you and I am thanking you fer existing, otherwise, I’d be out of business as a pirate, what’s the point of being one if I can’t discover my treasures cross these bland planes?” - CKS

Achieved a decent-chunk of chapters already with my goal this year to be like 60, think I'm almost at 20 this early-in. More than I expected. Thanks for all the energy and power, from low to high. Still got probably 800-1000 chapters I need to realistically create, I get why One-Piece how it is. Once you get real passion for your art, there's an overabundance of stories to further write. xD I most certainly will be around chipping at pieces. In my case, I've always continued for the company that's been on this crazy voyage with me, for always welcoming or being there after long-breaks to RP partners who's integrated or pre-established stuff with me to join in. To my Best Friend/Roomie for always shooting inspiring ideas, always been able to easily click from being nerds who made so many D&D and Tabletop sessions we went to make our own whole world-building and tabletop game. Was pretty dope, but now I'm taking all that same, rich-passion and throwing it to world-build here. I got all the people to credit, I started from here on the community with too that matured and nurtured my character who allowed a very vanilla starting character, to morph into something that I could eventually give deep respect to continue. There's ton's of people and fellows who came from Tumblr as well, that were either forced to give up, or brought down by anon's, all those who suddenly disappeared, couldn't because time-commitments, or became distant, I've kept ingrained in me and I stay ever vigilantly passion in their stead. I overflow like a flowing fountain and multiply for all their sake to continue onward, and the lurkers, all the people who came to me saying they got inspired to join this fandom, all that you've made a impact, difference on me, and make no mistake about it, you matter. I carry your spirit, energy all with everything I endeavor. It's meant a life-changing amount to me have a place to just unleash myself. No better way to say it but -- I LIVE for this shit. So even no matter how infested this site becomes, or when the p*rnbots take over and I have to somehow try to convince them to start up a brothel and least take up RP, I'll still wage on. I may and most definitely die alone at the end. But baby I didn't live like that one-bit or felt like that at-all, I've lived millions.--- Update --- I'm determined to be more regular about this stuff yearly, I've collected so It can get done. I literally think I'll be at this point writing for the next two FF MMO's at this point if I don't start now. For now though, got about two-chapters left in me to do hopefully before February ends. Then I'll probably take a mini-break. I'm thinking about having or seeing if people will send a single, -word- to me in my submission box, and create my own prompt's judged upon that way. Overall, I never-mind getting anything asked or submitted anytime either while, I'm throwing it out. But this way lets people get involved, and I can use my over abundance of characters and try to create-weave a story within the mood or perimeter I need to tell, but I don't have to follow my story-path. Words submitted can be just about anything. Either I can mention you when I do a post with your submission, or you can go on anon for it. Even if no one's down for that stuff, It's all chill. Cause I'm dedicated and determined to do this stuff regardless, whenever I'm around. xD I eventually will take the XIVWrite again too, but I want to do that after a lot of progression or absolutely, my last-rodeo, or its. I've got to establish a lot of Captain's Crewmates, NPCS, I'm even doing slow-burn and building up other antagonists, I got relics, cultures, isle world building, continue thinking of just a mountain of arcs. I really want to get to my sport-arc. After these next two-chapters or so, I'm going to start timeline jumping all over the place. When I'm energized. Anyways that's it, also If need a Valentione's I got ye my hearty, I take no issue in being a rebound. 😎💛

[fahrni]

Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

It was nice having a short week to ease back into work, and a slow week at that as we headed into a four day weekend.

Yesterday I hit 57, the big 60 is hiding just around the corner and the walk to retirement age is just around the corner from that. It’s strange. I don’t feel that old mentally. My body is broken but my spirit and mind are doing fine.

On with the linkage! Enjoy. 😀

Eleanor Beardsley and Chandelis Duster • NPR

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, took a tour of the cathedral early on Friday. Macron marveled at the soaring light stone ceilings — now cleansed of soot and centuries of grime — as he toured the more than 800 year old restored cathedral.

With all the bad news in the world I thought I’d share some hope. It was so depressing to see Notre Dame burn. But it’s back! That’s something to celebrate.

Benjamin Sandofsky

I’ve been thinking a lot about how social networks die, these past two years. It’s an unusually personal topic. In 2009, I picked up my life to move to San Francisco and work for Twitter. I joined a startup you could fit around a giant lunch table, and left a corporation with thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of users.

Watching Twitter disappear was a real loss for the web. It was mostly a great place, at least for me, and it opened us all up to a new form of communication and breaking news. We could follow our favorite news organizations and movie stars and on occasion even interact with them. It was great. Now it’s just one big dumpster fire.

Seeing ActivityPub and AT Proto come along has been a breath of fresh air. Could you imagine if Twitter was still Twitter and embraced AT Proto? That would’ve been something.

Ashish Bhatia

While Javascript is unavoidable, here’s how I think one should try to limit its spread.

JavaScript is eating the world, just like C did in the 80’s and early 90’s.

I’d call WillowTree a premier native iOS and Android shop, amongst other things, and now we’re doing a lot more React Native and TypeScript. I know of native iOS Apps that use JavaScript internally for business logic. It’s handy. It’s an ugly language but useful.

By  The Associated Press

Formula 1 on Monday at last said it will expand its grid in 2026 to make room for an American team that is partnered with General Motors.

I’m very excited for this! I’ve wanted to see an American manufacturer back in F1 for quite a while. I know Redbull is working with Ford on a new power unit but it’s nice to see Cadillac dedicated to the entire sport. They will become my new team on the grid. I’ve low key supported Haas for a number of years and always wanted them to switch to an American power unit manufacturer. Maybe they will at some point. Haas runs Ford motors in NASCAR why not move to them for F1 if they can get Ford behind them.

Michelle Del Ray • The Independent

Amazon workers are planning to strike from Black Friday through Cyber Monday to hold the company accountable for “labor abuses, environmental degradation and threats to democracy,” organizers say.

I didn’t pay attention to this yesterday so I wonder how things went?

Hestia

I had never done anything even vaguely approaching web development before I made this site. I probably couldn’t have even told you what it meant. I did have a bit of coding experience (I used a lot of python for my degree), but this was very different. I could not have done it without the help of the people who came before me and were generous enough to create guides for the rest of us. These are the resources I used the most

Neat! I love seeing folks who’ve never done this kind of work pull something beautiful together. Great work!

Mia Sato • The Verge

In her lawsuit, Gifford alleges that Sheil copied her, down to specific frames in videos. She claims that repeated pattern and Sheil’s uncannily similar content ultimately cut into Gifford’s own earnings. The similarities extend, in Gifford’s telling, beyond just video content to eerie real-life aspects like her manner of speaking, appearance, and even tattoos.

This is kind of weird. Was it intentional or did it just happen? It seems that’s the lynchpin to the case.

Rob Knight

I’ve been helping getting MacStories setup on Bluesky this weekend and I came across a few handy sites.

I’ve been using Bluesky a bit more now that I can follow more folks I know and those famous people I like. More tools, please.

Will this be a big enough thing for folks like Iconfactory and Tapbots to enter the market?

Luna Razzaghipour

Most people writing code that ends up running on macOS machines aren’t super familiar with the operating system, its unique features or its rough edges. That’s okay! If you’re a programmer using macOS and your code will actually end up running on a Mac rather than a server somewhere or whatever – even if your software isn’t a user-facing graphical application – then this post is for you.

I know concurrency support in Swift 6.0 is a big topic of conversation but I gotta be honest, I find it terribly confusing. Old school threading and rules around it are so much easier to grasp.

Of course I need to dive into the Swift 6.0 version of concurrency. But I think it’s good to learn it at a lower level.

Manton Reece

Comparing ActivityPub and AT Proto is a useful exercise. It’s tempting but ultimately too simple to say that one is decentralized and one is centralized.

AT Proto is something I’d like to know more about. It’s so different but it does seem quite powerful and I wonder if parts of AT Proto could be used under ActivityPub? It seems to me like it could, unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the part I’m referring to.

Mond

I don’t know about you, but if I were to look at all of this as an outsider, it sure would look as if C++ is basically falling apart, and as if a vast amount of people lost faith in the ability of C++’s committee to somehow stay on top of this.

I can only imagine how difficult it must be to maintain backward compatibility for a language as old as C++ and continue to advance it.

I hope it doesn’t splinter and make a mess out of a tried and true low level programming language. There’s so much code out there that needs to continue working and advancing the language without breaking things is crazy challenging.