 Great Giana Sisters is better than Super Mario Bros. The soundtrack is better too. I’m probably one of the few who thinks so—but there’s a reason for this. I was one of the few kids who owned a C64 instead of an NES. For a good portion of my life, Giana Sisters were my Mario Bros. Did they copy Super Mario Bros.? Yes, but the copy seemed better than the original. A few days ago, I shared some art. People asked me to put it behind a content warning. This bothered me because there was nothing untoward about that art. No nudity, violence, or anything untoward. Nonetheless, people found it to be “disturbing”. I deleted it because I had to ask myself, “What am I trying to accomplish? Do I want to talk about social media or art?” Yet I do want to talk about art. It’s an important part of my life. Also, separating art from technology is a big mistake.
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@atomicpoet I consider myself one of the most inclusive & least prejudiced people out there but I don’t believe in sheltering people either. Something about everyone triggers someone. If the biggest thing we’re worried about on this platform is offending others, most of us wouldn’t be able to say anything at all. I agree with you. @atomicpoet  There are two levels: 1. There are a lot of dicks and tits on art. Some of them supposedly biblical. Art's like that Some potential sign-in screens for #SpaceHost. We wanted to go for something whimsical, surreal, and sci-fi.
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 (1/n) Hi Chris. Now, that I have figured out what #SpaceHost is, I can give you some feedback, if you like. (I have done quite some website creation/consulting in the past.) 1) While I as a techie and #SciFi aficionado in principle like all 3 of them, will your target group like this bombastic #fantasy-#SciFi crossover imagery which looks a bit like well-done #AI generated content? 2) All images are a "wow" from a stand-alone creative point of view.... @atomicpoet Chris--As someone who's not a scifi fan overall (I do admire specific writers, films, series), my first impression when I saw all three images was: They're terrifying. Then: What the heck is SpaceHost? Is it like Airbnb--in space? Is it an actual place that people go to have a scifi horror experience? That's what the images implied. I agree with @HistoPol that the first one has a precarious foundation, which isn't likely to be a message you want to send. So who is the audience? @atomicpoet Having been a professional designer, I know how annoying it is to work up a great visual, or set of visuals, only to have people say, “yes, but…“ or simply, “no, something else.“ If Elon Musk gives you the creeps, wait till you learn about another social media CEO named Mark Zuckerberg. Musk and Zuckerberg are almost exactly the same but with one key difference. Zuckerberg is good at his job.
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@atomicpoet What is his job then? His whole Metaverse plan failed and backfired almost immediately, Facebook keeps losing users, and only Instagram with Messenger are keeping afloat by copying features and ideas from other apps. I just spent 15 minutes reporting bots that were trying to disguise themselves as K-Pop fans. There were hundreds of these accounts. Perhaps some of them were human, but the “follow me and win cash” was too slimy to ignore. Several folks wondered if Mastodon’s recent growth was due to bots. Not all of it, but it’s definitely a factor. @atomicpoet First, they come for the bots. Then, they come for the scammers. Then, they come for the trolls! Have mercy, Chris! Looks like some sort of K-Pop/crypto community just migrated to the Fediverse from Twitter. I don’t exactly get it 🤷♂️ But maybe not everything is meant for me to get.
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 @atomicpoet That rings a bell from Twitter a while back. It is mostly inorganic but the fan content disrupts the algorithmic checking. @atomicpoet Those are fairly specific , but I am suspicious of the posts begging for boosts and follows in general. 4 years ago, I deleted my Facebook account. At first, I thought, “How can I do this? All the important people in my life won’t know what’s going on with me.” That fear was unfounded. As it turns out, all the important people still know what’s going on. You see, once they find out I’m not on Facebook, they get a hold of me through some other means. Typically, that means phone, email, or text message. And a few have joined the Fediverse.
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@atomicpoet that’s cool. I left FB for quite a while But it didn’t work out as well for me as it did for you. They didn’t text or email- I just didn’t hear from them so 🤷 I went back to just keep in touch. @atomicpoet same here, 100% @atomicpoet That's lucky. When I deleted my Facebook a decade ago nobody bothered to stay in touch.
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@atomicpoet @fediversenews  @atomicpoet @fediversenews I recently re-wrote this piece on the very same sunject: https://thecanadian.online/?p=287 Had an excellent roundtable discussion about Fediverse crowdfunding today! We discussed our experiences, including benefits and drawbacks. And then we all shared our own unique insights about the greater ecosystem. There was even a great tech demo from @dickhardt. This was so successful, everyone wanted to do another roundtable for next month.
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If you’re privileged enough to stop using Big Social, you should. Granted, not everyone is, and I sympathize. But if you’re free to leave, you absolutely have a social responsibility to do it. Anything less is an endorsement of Fascism.
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@atomicpoet @atomicpoet It took me a while of running 🐦 (🐕?) and #Mastodon in parallel l, but finally made a complete break and feel better (and mentally healthier) for it. Moving IG to #Pixelfed as well. I am fortunate in that I don't rely on SM for my living and my social life will adapt, but agree not everyone has this luxury and it is important to recognise that. I found it a wrench, and had zero real investment in it , and was nothing more than a casual user, hooked in by bad habits. What would happen if Elon Musk replaced journalists “legacy” Blue Check with a 💩badge instead? Would they still hang around Twitter? This isn’t a ludicrous proposition. Twitter auto-responds with 💩 whenever press sends them an inquiry.
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 cc @dennishorn  @atomicpoet Given the fact Dogge is now the official icon and the owner has the humour of a 13 year old, this seems extremely likely to happen.
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 @atomicpoet Imho an instance is a bigger deal than a blue mark. It’s the same as having your own domain, versus a page on someone else’s. You *own* that domain. You control it. That is instant cred in my book. YMMV @atomicpoet, “…So there I was, sitting at this huge table…. And I looked to my left, and I saw a bunch of Nazis… then I looked to my right… a… bunch… of… Nazis…. Then it dawned on me that, if I’m gonna sit there with a bunch of Nazis, that I was one, too!” @atomicpoet its licensed as AGPLv3+ which would be a long conversation filled with legalese.  @atomicpoet @Gargron @fediversenews Trump's Social Media Site Quietly Admits It's Based on Mastodon Mastodon had originally threatened to sue Trump's 'Truth Social' site for allegedly violating its open-source license. https://www.pcmag.com/news/trumps-social-media-site-quietly-admits-its-based-on-mastodon  @atomicpoet the truth social code is actually open-source.. it's hosted on some gitlab install somewhere. They can't call it Mastodon though as they've stripped out all the activitypub stuff I pretty much see @taylorlorenz like a social media groundhog. She comes to the Fediverse whenever there’s conjecture about Twitter’s current usefulness. If she sees her shadow, she returns to Twitter.
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   Honestly, if you're using Mastodon on Android, don't bother with anything on the Google Play store. Just visit @elk in Chrome, press "Add to Home screen", and now you have the best Mastodon app for Android. See screenshot for what this looks like.
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Having used the M2 MacBook Air for two weeks, I’m glad that Apple finally fixed their laptops. Because the butterfly keyboard era was horrible. It was so bad that it forced me to migrate to ThinkPads just so I could get a decent keyboard. Now ThinkPad keyboards are still better than Apple’s. But now that they ditched the incredibly awful butterfly keyboards for something tolerable, I must say that their hardware is good again. Not enough for me to daily drive, but I’m glad they exist!
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But the #OS also plays a big role here. You are one of the few users that made the switch. Others just lived with the #ButterflyKeyboard. The keyboard is nice, but for me it’s the battery life that makes the ARM macs worth buying. I don’t even bother bringing a power adapter with me unless I’m going to bd multiple days away from home any more.  @atomicpoet Ugh! I had to replace my 2012 MacBook Pro with a 2018 last year and... I cannot stand that damn keyboard! Luckily I don't use that machine daily or I would dump it ASAP. Today is the 1 year anniversary of peerverse.space! That’s my very own @pixelfed server. It’s the Fediverse server I’ve managed for the longest time. Check out my bio: “I created this instance so that I could share what I love with complete and total freedom.” I wrote that a year ago, and it remains true even now. I was highly motivated to replace Instagram, and peerverse.space has done this in spades. Congrats to me! Long live peerverse.space! When I started peerverse.space, people questioned whether @pixelfed had the ability to attract interaction. Well, it does. I share my life, and I get more than enough responses. But I’d still use peerverse.space even if it got none because likes and comments aren’t even the point. The point is to share what I love without anyone else preventing me from doing so.  @atomicpoet Someone asked, “Why does the Fediverse need new protocols like ActivityPub when older protocols can do the same thing?” Interesting point: 1. You can create a federated chat app through email protocols and someone has (Alpha Chat) 2. You can create a federated social network through XMPP and someone has (mov.im) 3. You can create a microblogging service through finger protocol and someone has (happynetbox.com) Nothing wrong with older protocols!  @atomicpoet Agreed. Also nothing wrong with newer protocols. I think there is a strong argument to be made in favor of evolving to Matrix. However, I realized that as soon as the W3C validated ActivityPub that this was going to be the standard for decentralized social media. It has momentum. It’s what will build the network effect, and therefore the social graph, for decentralization.  Good way to not go crazy is to see protocols as how they send data first, then what can be build. ActivityPub is most simple, works like a two-way RSS for servers to pull posts from each other. XMPP is like TCP with navigation, with many extentions. Matrix is a way to store and modify decentralized data in an abstract thing called "room" that it's members can access. Of course this is only simplification.
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@atomicpoet @fediversenews only time will tail when people get on the baby wagon for sure  @atomicpoet @fediversenews also “integration with mastodon” <> freedom of exit with your social graph. Without that, any platform is just another Twitter waiting to happen. @atomicpoet @fediversenews How are they selling the absence of micro transactions via ActivityPub to their investors? Isn’t that the key to how Post.news will make money? (Personally I think microtransactions should be treated as radioactive, but what do I know, I’m not a big time Silicon Valley VC)  @atomicpoet @phanpy @elk I love the friendly competition between Elk and Phanpy. Wouldn't have expected it, but Phanphy is quite quickly taking over as the main one I use.  @atomicpoet 🤔 not sure what you mean by "auto-updating of notifications". Is this a feature that I myself don't even know? 😂 |
Gregory's Server
@atomicpoet Now, I'm not a huge fan of the platforming in either game because of the inertia in the movement but Giana Sisters lose because it's much more floaty. That's just my opinion of course.
@atomicpoet @Chris_Huelsbeck makes some great music :)
@atomicpoet SID beats 2A03 APU though, of course huelsbeck's music was better