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ploum

100 Mastodon myths:

1. Mastodon is hard.

FALSE. It’s a "soft"ware. Not hardware.

2. You have to use Linux to post on Mastodon.

FALSE. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are also supported.

3. You need to learn to use the Vim editor before posting on Mastodon.

FALSE. There’s also an emacs plugin.

4. Mastodon is only for computer nerds.

FALSE. As you can see, we sometimes try to make jokes that everyone could understand.

237 comments
🐧DaveNull🐧 ☣️pResident Evil☣

@ploum There’s also an emacs client, not plugin. A software that's meant to be installed on a full-blown OS and connects to a server is called a client 🤡

WagesOf

@ploum a new front in the old emacs vs vi war has opened.

Arthurr :debian: ⏚

@ploum oui, ça nécessite VI, mais l'autre, Emacs c'est pas juste pour envoyer des mails ?

Adam Boyce

@ploum try, but whether the catch makes up for it is anyone's guess.

Navi🦋

@ploum i’m still trying to understand joke2 please wait.

TastingTraffic Social®

@ploum

anyone who says mastodon is hard should be not be on a dumb phone..

or on a PC.

these kids learned on a phone

That was their mistake. So much unknown power left on the table for the sake of hey hey look at me, me, me, me,

not a good plan

It all started with app stores in order to DUMB DOWN LAST TWO GENS

Its not a joke either. Its a FACT.

They are so far behind the curve ball it will take at least 2 gens to recover

Founder of #SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Founder of #RTB (Real Time Bidding)
Founder of #HFT (High Frequency Trading)

Disclaimer: tastingtraffic.net and/or JustBlameWayne.com (Decentralized SOCIAL Network) and/or its owners [tastingtraffic.com] are not affiliates of this provider or referenced image used. This is NOT an endorsement OR Sponsored (Paid) Promotion/Reshare.

@ploum

anyone who says mastodon is hard should be not be on a dumb phone..

or on a PC.

these kids learned on a phone

That was their mistake. So much unknown power left on the table for the sake of hey hey look at me, me, me, me,

not a good plan

It all started with app stores in order to DUMB DOWN LAST TWO GENS

barefootstache

@InternationalTechNews

On the phone it depends on the client where Tusky does a fairly good job. I feel following threads is better implemented than on the browser.

@ploum

Swastodon

@ploum from the first False, I read this in Dwight Shrute 's voice

m0xEE

@coisbackeljau
He probably won't answer the questions though and tell you that it's KGB who's going to be asking questions 😂
@ploum

rocaverde

@ploum not just vim, some of us prefer vi

Micke

@ploum I hear even NetBSD support is on the roadmap, so it is definatly a multi platform software at this point!

Christina Sørensen
@ploum Did you know that 100% of mastodon users think they're still on linkedin? #feditips

For more tips like these please follow @MaidBot! And remember to like, comment, and subscribe to the channel. It's with the help of viewers like you that we get to make quality content like this.
The cat who walks thru walls

@rmacanthony So keep on PIP'ing along, to the right destination device, and you'll be fine!
@ploum

The cat who walks thru walls

@rmacanthony (fun fact my mother told me when I was eight: my initials are the same as the pretty much most often used CP/M command :)
@ploum

Robert MacAnthony

@mrrmot @ploum love that story :) My dad was a programmer and we had a CP/M machine in the house early on. Was great to learn some things on it.

Dewi Ioan

@rmacanthony @ploum these young'uns with thier fancy CP/M ... OS/360 was good enough for Apollo...

RDeihm

@ploum I can just imagine VIM Mast. "P" enters post mode but "p" enters edit post mode. U must have a post open to use "P", and once in post mode typing a second "P" sends post to server. Very natural. Oh.. And outside of post mode "S" shuts down the system with out state change.

Ricardus

@ploum I'm completely baffled by the people who don't understand it. The Masto web interface is EXACTLY like Tweetdeck, so if you can use twitter you can use Masto.

Jos Bell

@ploum Hmmmmm.
Is it also ok that other than having heard of Linux I literally don't know anything about any of the stuff you mention 🤔 I'm just hangin' out here taking it all in without plugins or vims or bsds... Perhaps there's another magic portal ??

Rachel Maria

@Jos21Bell @ploum Jos me too. Many of us are new & still trying to figure it out.

José/Joana de Castro Arnaud

@Jos21Bell @ploum
Relax and go with the flow. Just absorb the nerd lingo, then search for the new words.
To *use* Mastodon, a browser or mobile app is enough. To *manage* Mastodon, Linux wizardry is required.
Vim and Emacs are old-style text editors, still very popular. BSD is an operating system, Linux-like. A plugin is software made to install within another software; browser extensions are examples.

Jos Bell

@jcastroarnaud @ploum Most of us who've just joined are just using it as per other soc media on standard browser without add ons - I found the basic app useless, but seems fine going via the website.
Is there more to see ??

cshardie

@Jos21Bell
I find the web interface best, too. Even though I'm on the website on my phone 😄

This post is a bunch of old computer humor. The funny part is the answers are still incomplete.

José/Joana de Castro Arnaud

@Jos21Bell @ploum The Mastodon app offers little more than the web interface. I prefer the Tusky app on Android, also free. And there are paid apps, which I didn't try.

Dewi Ioan

@Jos21Bell @ploum
Its mostly just nerd techy jokes... to parody the people saying it's too complicated (It isn't)
Mastodon is all web based, the backend usually run in Unix/Linux but can run on Windows...

Peter Frederick

@ploum I was hoping to use vi as my editor of choice.... :ablobcatneon:

I really cannot see how people think it's hard to use Mastodon on pc or mobile version (eg Tusky on android).

I'm enjoying using it...

Peter Frederick

@Steveg58 Ed is ok too.... I draw the line with TECO (from DEC PDP o/s).... ☺️

Monkey

@ploum with such good humor I wish to see the other 96 Mastodon Myths :D

Pixelcode 🇺🇦

@OscarFM @ploum but all 0100 out of the 0100 are listed 🧐 😉

Monkey

@pixelcode @ploum
Did you think about before you post? hahaha brilliant!

screenbeard :Kinoite:

@ploum ending all my posts from now on as follows

:wq!

Elena ``of Valhalla''
@screenbeard @ploum is that because you're using the emacs plugin, but you're trying to use it as if it was vim, right? :D
JP Etcheber

@ploum Windows support is capped at Windows 3.1.

Cyberlux Compucat

@ploum Meanwhile, me doing a good chunk of my Mastodon posts on Windows...

FLOSS McGee

@CyberCat2000 @ploum You can upgrade to FreeDOS, most likely! Oh boy!
FreeDOS.org

Cyberlux Compucat

@dancefighter69 @ploum Funny thing, I have a old Dell Dimension I might put FreeDOS on (multi-booting with Windows 98 and/or ME) for retro stuff...

Nemo Thorx

@ploum I only see 10 myths. I was promised 100! 😁

Elis H 🌱

@nemothorx I see 100, not sure which post you're looking at @ploum

Lennart

@sa0bse @nemothorx @ploum true, also there cannot be 100! myths as Mastodon does not support bigint.

trissc̈hen

@nemothorx @ploum hmm I see 11 myths. Also I don’t see where they promised 0x1B30964EC395DC0<<464 myths 😆

Nemo Thorx

@metalpoetnl @ploum i was counting from zero and intended to say 11 as the fourth, but brainglitched :(

Francis Rubio :verified:

@ploum who are the people who are saying these myths? 😂

tgdavies

@ploum one of the reasons I left Twitter was that people who didn’t know better kept calling GNU/Linux “Linux”. Disappointing!

TravisV_

@ploum Question, how does this site work exactly?
Is every server like a mini social media network?
Can you find things on other severs with 1 account?

deadstarrover

@TravisV_ @ploum the fact that nobody can figure out even the basics of this app is a real problem. For social media to work it needs to be super simple and intuitive. This site was designed for programmers, seemingly.

Toms Trasūns

@TravisV_ @ploum Yes, you see others.

You can sort of think of three layered bubbles:
1) the people you follow and everything they post and „boost“ (you can follow people on other instances (aka servers)),
2) the people on the same instance as you (the Local timeline), and
3) the people from other instances that people on your instance follow (the Federated timeline)

Rick Beetham

@ploum Might want to update the myths… I’m on iOS/iPad and there are several apps that allow you to have Mastadon access. Just FYI
RICK

Ash 🖤

@ploum need to rename this post to how to troll the non computer-nerds 😂🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓

ja3far

@ploum Vim? We shouldn't have left the ed path!

MechJayTi

@ploum This became perfect once I got the metajoke😂

Paul Wilde
careful with that sort of language here! :blobcat3c:
grin

@ploum uh… what's… "Mastodon"…?

😉

The cat who walks thru walls

@grin It used to be a cute furry beast that made people think it was adorable. Times changed, it decided to go into hiding; everybody thinks it's extinct, but it actually cleverly transformed into a music band and carried on influencing people. Then the times changed again, and it morphed out of its physical form, yet it once again fugured out an even better way to mess with people's minds, so here we are.
@ploum

MattHawkins

@ploum the solution to bad actors on the internet is to persuade them to use Vim. Then when they are all trapped, jettison Vim into the Sun.

Leo Martins :verified:

@ploum Although you have to be careful since in some instances using emacs too often can have your account suspended.

Ropexu

@ploum Good that there is a emacs support. I was afraid that I had to use vim 😅

Nahum Takum

@ploum If I understood everything in the joke, does that make me a nerd, or do I still have a long way to go before I may consider myself 100% nerdified?

Thanks for the post, it made my day!

Patrick Baker

@ploum @soller I haven’t checked, but I would not be surprised if #3 is in fact … a fact. :emacs:

Hella

@ploum
Missed chance for more geek: Numbering your 4 topics with 001, 010, 011 and 100 😉

…might work for coffee…

@ploum

Even your NetBSD Toaster can host an instance!

DELETED

@ploum to 4: yes, it’s true. Kind regards your grandma 😃

Dergoran

@ploum
Sorry this has to be my reply.

Reiner Jung

@Dergoran @ploum This is our daily life.

Arne Babenhauserheide

@ploum
def fun():
try: understandableJoke()
except TooGeeky:
# unlikely.
fun()
🙂

Michael

@ArneBab @ploum
probably recursive jokes? New topic in computer science? 😉

Arne Babenhauserheide

@MikeSpheniscida yes, and doubling down on it, because if this joke is TooGeeky, you’ll get a Stack Overflow in Python ☺ @ploum

Taylan
@ArneBab @ploum

Oh no, I'm stuck in an infinite loop. ;-)
Murad

@ploum j’utilise curl à l’api et je n’ai pas besoin de changer

^Z

Tobias Schmidl

@ploum and where are the remaining 10 jokes? 😉

Destiny Hailstorm

@ploum I'm a disgrace, I've got stuff running primarily on Linux Mint (servers none the less), with nano.

*These are secretly tips disguised as memes for greatness*

Godfrey642

@ploum I didn't understand a word of this 😕

Manong Dave

@ploum It's the strangest thing: when I read this, I hear Rainn Wilson's voice saying the "FALSE" statements!

Tyrone Slothrop

@michiSoeoeg @ploum You´ll have some compatibility issues.

Nano should work fine, though. Always does.

Carlo Henden

@ploum I see that you also are counting in the right base: 2.

You are a true Mastodon

deadstarrover

@ploum how about the myth that it’s a usable website? I can’t even figure out it’s most basic functions. I can’t find the people I’m looking to follow, even when they send me their @‘s. Until someone fixes this, it’s useless. And please make it closed source. For god sakes nobody wants a mercurial teen in charge of their social media.

Carlos Solís
@ploum
5. Mastodon is only for the "woke".

FALSE. There are plenty of servers for the raging bigots out there too. They're blocked by the majority of the rest of the Fediverse, but that's another story.
cxx

@ploum I must strongly disagree on point 3.

Ed is the standard text editor!

"If you are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!"

Source:
cs.wellesley.edu/~cs249/Resour

@ploum I must strongly disagree on point 3.

Ed is the standard text editor!

"If you are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!"

Benjamin Hollon 🇺🇸🇲🇾🇮🇳🇦🇫

@ploum Wait is there a vim plugin? I need this.

JK, Pinafore has vim keybindings, but I don't need them since I'm using qutebrowser anyway. :)

Volker K. 🏳️‍🌈

@ploum I'm frankly disappointed that people think that they can go to Mastodon without knowing about some common basics, like sed or ex. Honestly, vi is already pretty high level and people forget where it comes from! Further, it's outrageous that sinful "editors" such as "emacs" are spoken about here! It shows in what muddy waters we are paddling here!

CarsmileSteve

@ploum particularly enjoyed the binary reference at the beginning...

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