"Musk has accidentally created a public hearing on his reputational and professional worth, where we now will see if he is a great CEO or a rich guy who kept winning until he didn’t. The public will now watch and judge him in real time as he makes the decisions that most CEOs get to make behind closed doors, in part because he can’t help but announce them personally. He cannot post less, because it will show a lack of attachment to the massive purchase he made, and if he posts more, he will be subject to the hyper-attention that made him famous."Musk will be judged in a public, embarrassing way, and he has paid for the privilege. He lacks the temperament to deal with even the lightest of ribbing, yet he has guaranteed that’s all he will hear for a long, long time."
Give me more of this #ElonMusk schadenfreude. Serve it up to me in a big bowl and I will gobble it down. Om nom nom.
If only egotists who've been enabled their whole lives didn't tend to burn down the world around them when confronted with their folly.
Musk's Kobayashi Maru
Elon Musk has had a difficult weekend following a difficult week, with all difficulties a direct result of his actions, a continual flywheel of actions and consequences that confuse a man with too much money and time on his hands.Ed Z (Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At)
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What is the Fediverse?
Help us translate the subtitles on our translation tool. Animation Produced by LILA - ZeMarmot Team Direction & Animation by Aryeom Script & Technology by Jehan Voice by Paul Peterson Licence: CC-By-SA 4.Framatube
This week, I'm trying to lean into the variable nature of my attention. I can continue to chide myself for having more projects than time and regret not being able to work on them all... and, if I want to make progress on any of them, it might be useful for me to simply acknowledge those automatic judgments and take the inspiration when it hits.
(I'm constantly trying to help my clients develop similar perspectives; maybe there's a little bit of "Counselor, heal thyself" going on here.)
That's how I got system emails working again here on my server yesterday. I think my next focus this week might be making progress on my website redesign. That sounds fun.
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As the spouse of a local journalist and someone who considers himself fairly leftist in philosophy, I really wish leftists would be a bit more specific when they tar all journalists with the brush they use for CNN talking heads or New York Times editors.
Journalism as an institution is not above criticism, and the criticisms of these big national or international consent-manufacturers is rarely applicable to local journalists. A world without local journalists—which we're fast heading toward—is a scary one indeed.
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Haha, happy to spread the word! It's a really great book.
I don't think Potter wrote it with online spaces in mind as much, but I found it all fully applicable regardless.
I love the new energy this #TwitterMigration is bringing. My feed has been active, exciting. I'm encountering cool new people.
I logged out of my Twitter account tonight. I've done that plenty, but this is the closest I've ever come to feeling ready to leave it behind.
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I've noticed that there's a lot less drive-by snark on the Fediverse, and I really appreciate that.
The Twitter culture of reflexively responding to strangers with hostile snark is so grating. I find it grossly antisocial—if you were to do that in person, you'd be rightly considered an asshole, but it's just what we do on Twitter because... it gets engagement, I guess. People get cheered on when they make a sweet dunk, so there's an incentive to prove you can be clever and punchy by snapping at easy targets.
Here on the Fediverse, or at least in the corners I inhabit, I feel there's a bit more understanding that normal social rules don't go out the window just because we're behind screens. I value that.
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[heads up: food discussion]
In the #PNW, there are two fast food chains called Taco Time. I learned this several years ago, but because I've only ever lived in the territory of the "lesser" one, the distinction felt academic.
I'm traveling this weekend through the territory of Taco Time NW, in western Washington, so I had an opportunity to try the supposed "better" Taco Time.
And it definitely is. I wandered so long in the dark. 🌮
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When I read people asking, vis a vis Twitter and Mastodon, "Where are people supposed to go if they want a big built-in audience?", my heart falls a little.
I don't think the scale of Twitter is at all desirable. I don't want another Twitter, I want smaller communities, even if that means I can't broadcast my thoughts to every far corner of the internet. In fact, especially because I can't do that.
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I had just over 1000 followers in the other place, but even at that relatively small scale, it had me second guessing what I should be posting - mostly for fear of antagonising someone (not talking about controversial push button topics here) to the point that I’d regularly talk myself out of posting at all.
With a smaller group of engaged people, i worry a lot less - if I were to mess up in some way, it feels like there’s the space to converse about these things and draw out nuance.
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I know that feeling! I experienced the same thing.
For some reason—perhaps in part because I run this joint—I also feel a lot more comfortable here deciding the rules of my engagement with others. My personal policy is "Arguing with me is a privilege reserved for those I already have an established relationship," and I feel much more comfortable enforcing that boundary here. Though I've also had much less occasion to do so, blessedly!
It just happened! I made a comment trying to say, "Hey, this tweet about Mastodon users is a little mean-spirited, and if the Fediverse is intimidating to you, I'm happy to help get you situated."
I immediately got two snarky responses from a random stranger, first quote tweeting a dril tweet at me, then saying "it's a website, it doesn't have feelings and it's okay to mock it".
That sort of drive-by snark at randos is one of the things I hate most about what Twitter has enabled.
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Out at the symphony tonight and caught the premiere of The Right to Be Forgotten, a folk opera in one act by Gabriel Kahane about technology and connection. It wasn't my favorite thing musically, but I was really appreciative of the message.
I can't say it always happens, but frequently, when I invite more experimental, small-scale, or "amateur" artwork into my life, I find something to like and think about. I want to find more #FolkArt.
[heads up: Musk, birdsite]
Part of the draw of Twitter is getting strangers to reenforce internalized self-hatred, which is part of what makes it such a good platform for reactionaries, authoritarian lefties and marketers looking to hone their craft. One of the things we like about Twitter is how much we hate it, how much it helps us hate ourselves. A feeling of being looked at, constantly surveilled, but submitting to that surveillance as opportunity, possibility, pleasure, punishment, struggle, career, legitimacy…
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How America turned against the First Amendment
Free speech in America is endangered by bad-faith court cases, Section 230-based workarounds to the First Amendment, and a misguided backlash against Big Tech.Adi Robertson (The Verge)
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Welcome to hell, Elon
Elon Musk now owns Twitter — and a huge number of impossible political problems around speech, content moderation, and trying to make money.Nilay Patel (The Verge)
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Some additions to this introduction since I first wrote it:
I'm an expecting dad! My wife and I are expecting our first kid in January.
I now have my amateur radio Technician license! Got it this summer and promptly did nothing with it because, well, see above re: upcoming life changes.
The games collective I mentioned above is now on the Fediverse! Check out @Null Signal Games to see what their charming, enigmatic, and humble Community Manager shares about Netrunner.
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I am frustrated enough with my current hacked-together email relay system for my home server (which largely doesn't work) and curious enough that I'm strongly considering setting up a little Mail-in-a-Box instance on some rented cloud storage space. And yes, I recognize that anything involving self-hosted email is usually met with a chorus of "Email is dark sorcery, don't do it!" 😂
Has anyone used Mail-in-a-Box before? How do you like it?
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i've used it and would again if i ever went back to selfhosting, which after two decades of same i can only imagine doing under severe duress
make sure to keep it up to date to avoid time consuming manual migration headaches. follow all deliverability advice with great care to minimize the frequency with which your mail is randomly blackholed by one or another of the three providers everyone else uses. good luck
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shitpost workshopping
therapist: the "isn't real and can't hurt you" therapist isn't real and can't hurt you
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meme therapist: I have good news and bad news
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Gen Con 2022: Netrunner was discontinued, but fans gave it new life
Project NISEI, the fan-made extension of Android: Netrunner, has given new life to the popular Living Card Game discontinued in 2018. It has even helped to keep the competitive scene moving along.Charles Theel (Polygon)
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I have an amateur radio license! A few weeks ago, I took my Technician-class exam and passed.
I'm not going to widely share my call sign for privacy reasons, but I'm stoked to have accomplished this!
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While I was temporary disconnected from the Fediverse, my favorite board game review channel shared a video about my favorite board game, #Netrunner.
If you don't know, I'm a member of Project NISEI, the volunteer fan project that has provided ongoing support for Netrunner after the previous publisher officially discontinued it. It's surreal to see a review site I've followed for years talking about a project I'm part of.
Why You Should Get into Netrunner in 2022
Support the Show: https://bit.ly/SupportSUSDBuy This Game: https://nisei.net/Visit SU&SD for more cardboard antics: http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/---FOLLOW...YouTube
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I think I might actually have a draft design for my new homepage that... works. And that I like.
Oh dang.
I have absolutely no idea how to turn this single flatpage design into a Hugo template, but I guess that will be the next step. Or a next step.
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I'm working on building a new personal website, and my goodness, if @Lizbeth's homepage isn't an absolute inspiration on every level.
I'm probably going to be taking a lot of ideas from that.
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I did! It's a work in progress still, so it only lives on my local computer. Right now, it's messy and unpolished, so probably not in a state to share, but I'll make some noise when the site is live, and when that happens, please feel free to ping me again to ask for the theme!
I love the seasonal themes idea too and am thinking about implementing it.
"How can I make a feed of exactly what I want to see?" is a solved problem. The answer is RSS.
But you can't sell that. So instead, we now spend hours of our precious human lives forking over personal data to these behemoth corporations so they can attempt to build profiles of us which they can sell, and the end result is that sometimes, they manage to show us a feed that partially consists of what we want to see.
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[heads up: alcohol]
Tried a new (to me) recipe for an old-fashioned tonight and it is easily the best old-fashioned I've ever made. Nothing fancy, no frills, just exactly what I expect from this cocktail.
2 oz. whiskey
0.25 oz. 1:1 simple syrup
3-4 dashes Angostura bitters
1 twist orange peel
Stir liquid ingredients with ice. Twist orange peel over the glass to express the oils, then drop it in.
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let's have a good old-fashioned taxonomical shitpost:
is oatmeal soup?
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Hmmm... depends on how it's made. I've seen consistencies that range from soup to pudding.
I err on the pudding side, myself.
If you use Venmo, a recent update to their Terms of Service includes a binding arbitration clause. Continuing to use the service means waiving your right to a class-action lawsuit and a court trial.
If you don't like that, you have the option to opt out of the binding arbitration, but you have to do so quickly (by the middle of May 2022, roughly). This article has more information.
How to opt out of Venmo’s new arbitration clause
If you use Venmo, you probably received an email explaining that the company is adding a fairly onerous arbitration clause to its user agreement. We’ll tell you how you can opt out.Barbara Krasnoff (The Verge)
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Harris Lapiroff 🔥
in reply to Spencer • • •Spencer
in reply to Harris Lapiroff 🔥 • •Harris Lapiroff 🔥 likes this.