@atomicpoet @fediversenews I just replied to a friend on journa.host a few minutes ago, so clearly med-mastodon is not one of those "nearly 200".

Is there a way to access a list of which servers your instance is blocking, and which are blocking yours? I seem to remember someone mentioning that we'd blocked a few instances that were clearly associated with hate groups (violates our #1 rule) for example.

@atomicpoet @fediversenews Thanks for sharing!

@atomicpoet @fediversenews I think I remember people considering blocking journa.host because there were problematic accounts and interactions, and the moderation was found lacking.

To be clear, this is from memory, not my personal experience.

@atomicpoet @TexasObserver Just donated. They blew past the hundred thousand overnight and raised it to $200,000.

@atomicpoet @TexasObserver Great news about the fundraising. Congratulations. We need to cherish independent journalism. Along with music, it’s one of the only forces we have to keep the darkness away.

@atomicpoet You seem to have missed the good news https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-observer-no-layoffs-remains-open-board-vote/

@atomicpoet
Pains me to see journalists at the other place say "you need to be where your audience is". Well, sure... if you're a follower. Leaders take people to where they need to be...

@atomicpoet

>"Pains me to say this, but I don't think institutional journalists will be flocking to the Fediverse any time soon. "

Good news then (no pun intended) .

>"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." - Thomas Jefferson

One just has to look at the exestenial risk that is climate change, and their job their has been to ensure the biospheres destruction with their servile obsequious.

@mastodonmigration

@atomicpoet I've been explaining this as almost all journalists coming from an ad-supported background, where you say outrageous things to boost revenue. That fits perfectly with ad-supported social media, where the algorithm seeks to promote outrageous things to boost its revenue.

Nothing in the Fediverse works like that, so it looks like nobody cares about their work...which is admittedly true, since their work obsesses over false conflict and whatever capital says.

@atomicpoet uwu

@atomicpoet uwu :skyeface3:

@atomicpoet
/(OwO)/

@atomicpoet KL is a fabulous and sophisticated city - I've been there several times. Fantastic food, great roads (note how all the freeways have an entirely separate section for cyclists/motorcyclists - fabulous!) and lovely people. I love the place - enjoy!

@atomicpoet

Most of Asia is the same, especially China.

@atomicpoet we have the capability in the US, but no one service or app is in a position to monopolize. Bad for convenience but good for the users in some ways. None are superior to credit cards when it comes to legal protection from fraud, though.

Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, Apple, Samsung, etc.

@atomicpoet @TexasObserver @fediversenews

Same. For the state of independent and local journalism. And for the sake of losing a great innovator here on the Fedi.

@atomicpoet @TexasObserver @fediversenews This is so sad! I lived in Austin for four years for school and the Texas Observer was /always/ on a screen of some flavor, mine and everyone else's.

@atomicpoet @TexasObserver @fediversenews nonono, there's hope!

**Help Save the Texas Observer & Fight Staff Layoffs**

gofund.me/0e53f240

@atomicpoet Wake me when we get a piece from an AI that's actually thinking.

@atomicpoet just be glad Ai is good at building Ai yet.
The hype you hear should be comforting , it tells you humans are not yet afraid of Ai systems.
This period will be very short .Computers are still the fastest evolving systems that we can imagine. I suspect the black-box problem has less to with Ai an more with any templet applied to many fields .It looses value by de-contextualization .
What can be ALL must be Nothing. AIG will be invisible.
Think semantics of Being in Philosophy.

@atomicpoet "think pieces" "AI" *snerk*
I live for unintentional humor :)

@atomicpoet https://t.me/adriana_roberta_trade want to make $100k in a week through crypto trading click the link ⬆️⬆️⬆️

@atomicpoet
Haberman doesn't deserve a job.

@atomicpoet ha! “… now they’re pissing on us and don’t even bother to call it rain.” Sigourney Weaver, in “Avitar”

@atomicpoet
I recently saw how a streamer bought TW blue live because the 2FA was going to be disabled (the SMS based one, but it didn't specify) the person got scared and pay to keep it enabled. That is genius terror marketing and should be illegal.

@atomicpoet
What desperate serfs continue to work for Musk cranking out this code?

@atomicpoet so...we pay $8 for the privilege of hiding the blue check?

Sounds like a solid benefit - owning an invisible check mark!

@atomicpoet @pixelfed - Meh. 20 years ago WinAmp "had a following" until Corporate America bought it and screwed it up; 850M users down to zero in about 5 years. Now "The New WinAmp" is back and it looks like a sad cash grab as a Patreon wannabe. It will be different (and probably lame) for Hipstamatic this time around too. Not to worry, other new things will evolve in the Fediverse.

@atomicpoet @pixelfed I would never use a service name Hipstamatic simply because I'm definitely not hip enough to be on it..

@atomicpoet @pixelfed Once @pixelfed adds more sophistication to the image editing options (ideally cloning the sort of things Instagram has) then other apps have no chance. I’m a bit of a pedant so want more fine control over the image without having to use another app. I do still miss the creativity of Insta or Hispatamatic in Pixelfed, but not enough to put up with all the other nonsense. And I’m sure it’s coming…

@atomicpoet you pasted in the wrong window.

@atomicpoet macOS telnet doesn't have a -t option AFAICT.

@atomicpoet
Interestingly, the two institutions of higher education I attended, UCSB and UIUC, were both among the pioneers in building the internet. UIUC had a computer lab in 1983, which we appreciated very much.

@atomicpoet @woollyapp @Sarahp @fediversenews dang, I was hoping it was for OS not iOS :(

@atomicpoet I've got a place for you to check out: my site at utilware.com

@atomicpoet Isn't that a fact.

Mastodon and DuckDuckGo are my ways of finding new stuff. With Mastodon being the most frequent: blogs that help me discover new links and new sources that help me discover new links and sources... You get the idea. 🙂

@atomicpoet i quite enjoyed #stumbleupon https://www.stumbleupon.com/ back in the day. Maybe it’s time to check it out, again.

@atomicpoet I second that motion.

@atomicpoet

Wait, I like Reddit, because it makes me appreciate Mastodon even more.

@atomicpoet less toxic. i still have no clue how to navigate this, so i guess this is a major reset for me.

@atomicpoet it’s about connecting with decent people without being force fed ads and having what I see manipulated by an algorithm and also the freedom to avoid instances that are a bit polemic. Decentralization is not a panacea We have to have rules & fund it and I favour subscriptions. The sheer “value” of “free” large centralized platforms attracts certain (best avoided) wealthy egotists and as they forget about the people who nourish them they will shrivel up and disappear.

@atomicpoet
Better quality of engagement, really interesting people, easier to connect.

@atomicpoet I'll share my story.

For years I resisted getting a cell phone. I'd been responsible for 227 on a corporate account and it bordered on traumatic. But I finally broke down during a job search as I needed to be reachable.

Got a voice message from a former boss lecturing me on the "responsibility" of having a mobile phone and how I should always answer promptly, not let it go to voice mail. I was being irresponsible!

I was on a call about a job interview when he called.

@atomicpoet A LinkedIn story: Many years ago I joined a very popular group that several of my acquaintances (real and virtual) belonged to.

A couple of days later I got an email saying I'd been accepted into the group. Now I "must" send an invitation to the group's manager and a list of his friends. I "must" join his other group. I "must" follow him on social media.

Or, y'know, I could just quit the group and block him on LinkedIn and all the social media sites he'd named.

@atomicpoet
It explains easily why it us "former".

@atomicpoet

I know that children are especially vulnerable, and that is why we talk about these platforms in the context of harm to minors, but it is not any better for adults.

With no meaningful regulation on these platforms it will continue to get worse. The only sane option is to disengage.

@atomicpoet

Snapchat is the weirdest small and niche community that is still relevant today. It was a trend in 2015, then #vine came in, and then it was supposed to die out.

What is the use today? Like, who still uses it with a larger community? Are there still "influencers" on it?, because they can't possibly make money from small friend circles?

@atomicpoet
Interestingly the age for Snapchat is 13 years old and WhatsApp is 16.

I tried to use it without sharing my full contacts.

@atomicpoet @fediversenews Word. What I love about Mastodon is that it gives me back the same kind of active engagement I enjoyed on LiveJournal but is smaller, more digestible units.

@atomicpoet @fediversenews I didn't know it was possible to not think. How does one do that? I'm always thinking about something. Usually it's many somethings.

@atomicpoet And yet, they preserved French and promote multiculturalism some significant notches more than US ever did.

@atomicpoet I’ve heard one difference is that the United States was created by an act of war, and Canada was created by an act of Parliament.

Canadians have a trust of government, and therefore an expectation for government to do better that Americans just don’t have. And thus we’ve entrusted government with insuring our health, managing a modicum of retirement savings, housing the poor, etc.

@atomicpoet Another big difference we rarely talk about is evangelicalism. There are only pockets of it in Canada, but those churches have outsized influence in the US government and society. The Mayflower was an escape from British *moderation*. By and large Canada is Protestant, Catholic, or non-religious. And our growing immigrant population tends to be moderate representatives of their cultures.

@atomicpoet Or might it be "negative moderation" (aka censorship) instead of a bug? 🤔😇

@atomicpoet Sounds like it's the old 'rapid scroll' behavior (which wasn't a bug), not that they're disappearing. So, a regression to an old behavior that everyone who noticed it hated.

Lotta regressions over there. That's what you get when you fire build managers.

@atomicpoet Wow I though this was just my phone, I have been having this problem for like a year now