Dom @me@netpro2k.io
The evergreen case of #OpenSource, this time told by @nzakas:
Mom: Dad said you invented a thing? ESLint?
Me: Yes.
Mom: What is it?
Me: It finds and fixes problems in JavaScript.
Mom: Huh. Do people use it?
Me: Basically everyone writing JS.
Mom: How much did you make on it?
Me: Nothing.
Mom: I don’t understand your industry.
Me: Me either.
Love this #threejs implementation of the Vertex Animation Textures (VAT) technique, by Mike Lyndon (https://twitter.com/mike_lyndon)
Includes soft-body, rigid, and fluid (topology-changing) animation.
https://codesandbox.io/s/vertex-animation-texture-demo-gy8jqt?file=/src/App.js
Hopping on an intercontinental flight next week and I'm preparing my personal in-flight entertainment.
Does anyone have any ideas on how I might be able to stream my Steam Deck (SteamOS/Linux) to my Pico 4 (Android) without an internet connection?
I'm thinking that a connection over ADB might be possible, but I have no idea what I could use to do the actual streaming
Oh boy I really need to stop trying to read every post in my timeline, its quickly getting unsustainable. I had the same problem with RSS, couldn't help myself.
Non user-hostile "algorithm" I know you are out there somewhere just waiting to be written.
To this extent I'm really interested to know how the age breakdown of people on the #Fediverse. On one hand it would seem to make sense to me that most people here remember the "old internet" before the centralization and they're here to rekindle that flame of independence. On the other hand the youths are generally pretty up on this whole technology thing. I grew up on the internet and since then smartphones have become even more ubiquitous.
(Please boost for reach)
Just a reminder to all the new arrivals here:
These instances are NOT commercial entities like #Twitter ... someone is paying the bills for servers and networking, and the massive influx of people like us are raising those costs enormously.
Be a good citizen, checkout the "About this server" link, and if you can, make a donation towards costs.
I kinda wish the whole 'unlisted' thing on mastodon was a little more fleshed out.
It would be nice if I could have it so that by default when I post a reply it was unlisted instead of public.
It'd also be nice if the autodelete feature had an option to unlist instead of delete, and if in general it was possible to restrict visibility of a post retroactively (even if it wasn't perfect) without reposting.
Lack of "the algorithm" makes me tempted to try and read my whole timeline because I don't want to miss something good.
Having computers help you sort through information wasn't the bad thing, the bad thing was that the optimization function "the algorithm" runs on for most services is maximizing ad views, not user value.
@leo so having self-hosted instances is a good thing, but I have found tremendous value in the twit.social local timeline.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Mastodon, is in fact, Fediverse/Mastodon, or as I've recently taken to calling it, #Fediverse plus Mastodon.
Real long aggregation of Mastodon etiquette for birdsite expats
Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.
- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).
- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.
- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.
- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.
- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.
- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.
- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.
- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.
- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.
- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.
- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.
- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.
- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!
- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.
- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.
I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.
Setting up an instance wasn't too bad with https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/mastodon, considered using a provider but they are all quite slammed right now. Main important thing to me was that I am using a domain I control so I can migrate later if I need to.
Did one extra layer of added fun to get the bare domain for usernames without actually hosting my Mastodon instance on that domain https://jacobian.org/til/my-mastodon-instance/ ... We will see if that breaks anything...
Hello World
