I mean, I'm not reading anyone's mind or anything like that. But judging from a lot of people's comments about That Bird Hell Site, you'd think that people would be dying to get away from it.
It's not that easy.
There's a reason it's called social media. It's social. It's your connection with a list of other users that you presumably have curated over a span of months or years. For some of those connections, it's your only connection to them. It also costs a lot of energy to make connections like these to begin with. So, it makes sense that people wouldn't want to start over elsewhere. In fact, I recall reading a couple people fearing that they were being abandoned by people who decided that enough was enough at Twitter.
A very fair conclusion to make, but not one that is without its flaws. Social media is a double edged sword. Sites like Twitter are designed to get you to engage the site as frequently as possible. How? Twitter has critical mass. Everyone you know is probably on Twitter or at least tried it, so you get comfortable with it because most of the people you know are there. They want you to stay on their site and browse around, so they try to learn about you and your friends through your posts, and then throw them all in an algorithm to try to make a few cents off an ad you might click on. Sure, Twitter has other ways to monetize, but the general rule is if a product is free, you - or more specifically your data - are the product.
To some people, this is just the absolute worst. However, I decided that I was generally okay with this as long as the product was useful and the people behind it weren't completely evil. Symbiotic relationships aren't necessarily bad relationships, after all.
When I "left" Facebook - "left" is in quotes because I still log in to and even use the account from time to time, much like I did during my Twitter down time - I made a conscious decision that I wasn't going to support what Facebook had become. When I first joined, it was fun to keep up with everyone. When I left, keeping up with everyone meant suffering through arguments, bad political takes, and opinions about things you didn't want to know. I saw the worst of people I cared for many times, and interactions on the site straight up ruined several relationships between friends. It was too much. The product ceased being useful, and I quit.
Earlier this year, I "left" Twitter - again "left" is in quotes because I still logged in, read everyone's posts every day, and even sometimes replied - I again made a conscious decision that I wasn't going to support what Twitter was about to become. My leaving was 100% about Elon Musk's planned purchase and privatization of Twitter. Why would something like this prompt me to leave?
Don't get me wrong, I'm no angel myself. I mean, just read this blog in its early years, or dig up some of my older posts on Trax in Space. However, someone with the money and influence that this man has who is consistently stooping to this level of dehumanization is downright dangerous. Sure, there are other billionaires out there with less than reputable personalities, but no one comes close to touching Musk right now. So if the top man at Twitter is going to be this kind of person - and this is not to mention anything about the recent political views he has taken - it will cease to maintain my loyalty.
Joining and using Mastodon regularly is simply me hedging my bets. Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect. Far from it, in fact. The main thing it's missing is critical mass - the people and organizations you know are very likely not on Mastodon. The other problem is it's hard to actually do any discovery on the site, although this might be good for some people whose main complaint about Twitter is that discovery leads to some bad mental health situations (ie: doomscrolling). However, consider this discovery is what draws a lot of people to Twitter, and is a contributing factor to its critical mass. A third problem is that its sharding is poorly done. You can only belong to one server, even if you have more than one interest, and it's not trivial to move servers if you decide you want to do so. I feel like with this being its cornerstone feature, it should've been more thought out and useful. But the good things are that it is actively moderated, it's easy to follow the posts of people you follow (even on other servers), there's no algorithm on your timeline to deal with, and you get 500 characters instead of 280.
I returned to Twitter once it was clear that the acquisition was not yet a done deal. No need to abandon ship if it's not sinking. Besides, I'm doing my part trying to keep it afloat. But like I said, there's social in social media, and that's the main draw. Remeber, that feeling of abandonment that people get by reading about people like me leaving is by design. I feel for people who are hooked like this, but it's not going to stop me from at least trying to do the responsible thing.
I'm hoping that if the worst happens and the deal is closed that I'll be able to formally pack up and leave for good without coming back, but if there's one thing I've learned from the last couple months?
This is my blog where I give my thoughts and opinions on various topics and share my creative endeavors with the world. I run two personal blogs, but combine them here for ease of access.
Blogger - My oldest blog using the Blogger platform contains posts full of opinions, gaming, and code.
Tumblr - Tumblr posts are all about my creative side, containing music, videos, writings, and updates on my web creations.
You can select a category below to view the latest post, or browse thorugh the posts using the navigation found at the top and bottom of each post.
So That Bird Hell Site refugees seem to be divided between here and Cohost. Seems the more technically inclined end up here. Why is beyond me, this site doesn't take any special technical skills to use.
In addition to following Twitter (for now), I feel like I'm going to eventually have to make a decision to either follow both sites, or abandon those that moved to Cohost in favor of brevity and sanity. It's not a decision I will make lightly.
This is the first step in removing chronologically ordered posts... They make the algorithm the default option and in a couple of months they will say "oh no one uses chronological posts, so we're removing it".
Some idiot signed me up for a mailing list I do not want to be on. The mailing list requires you to enter first name and email. So this idiot used my email... but for the name they included a CRYPTO 12-WORD RECOVERY KEY??????? What even the actual is this?
I don't do crypto, so if someone's trying to scam me they're wasting their time.
Chris Pronger suffered commotio cordis after taking a slap shot to the chest in 1998.
Praying for a similar recovery and outlook for Damar Hamlin…Pronger was back on the ice weeks later and played 12 more seasons en route to the Hockey Hall of Fame. 🙏 https://t.co/qYfT8kv66s
I actually signed up for a nostr account. It's under @roncli. Good luck actually finding it, it seems like their website is borked AF. At least I'm verified, though!
Mulling permanently closing this account and never opening this site again. You all are wonderful people, but I question whether this place is worth it anymore. https://t.co/Pmzltt4fXn
Some time ago, I made a blog post with the sentence, "The guy is an asshole." In that sentence, I linked every word to a separate article about HOW he is an asshole.
Fast forward 2 months later, and I think I'm going to challenge myself to extend that to a link for every letter. What's scary is that it shouldn't be too hard. 🙃
Seems like it's on the Cohost/Tumblr side of the aisle in terms of post length and content. It also has optional monetization for your posts, whatever, I won't use that but I'm sure it's a nice option for some.
Worked a bit on Descent 1 DXX-Retro's code today a bit. That code base is so icky. But, I have it compiling in Visual Studio thanks to Sirius, so at least that's a start.
As silly as this tiny font looks, it is employed in a way that makes me feel like I broke the game and did something epic. GGs to the devs on this one!
After a 110-5 score line, it became apparent change was needed in the OTL. Well, change is coming. This update should go live tomorrow. https://t.co/j8TwWzLogN
The value proposition for Mastodon, as a Twitter replacement, has flipped since the last time I tried it:
Mastodon: you might pick the wrong server and have to move away from it Twitter: you have definitely already picked the wrong service, and you have to move away from it
The Overload Teams League had a team anarchy game result of 110 to 5 today. The awful one-sidedness of such a game aside, this skews stats and records in a very bad way.
I think I've come up with a reasonable way to solve it, but boy is the SQL for this site becoming mind bending.
And what's worse: I have to convert it all to MongoDB when I do the Docker conversion project. I'm going to be a MongoDB aggregation EXPERT by the time that's over.
https://t.co/40yzlOfRR0 <-- I don't want to be on a platform run by an abusive leader and overworked staff. I'm so dependent on twitter for my work though, I've got an essential part of my contact network here, but every second I'm here I feel I'm betraying my morals.
It's definitely a struggle, but I believe the only way to deal with it is to face it unafraid, and learn from every encounter with it. It will still hit me, but I no longer let it control me.
Competition anxiety is the only type of anxiety I get, at least with any regulatory. It doesn't happen when I play 6DoF games (at least not anymore), but almost any other competitive game I play, the anxiety can strike at any time, and it affects me greatly. I have become much more aware of it lately, and I think that's helped result in days like today where, for a moment, everything seems to be falling apart... but then I understand what is going on and don't let it ruin the rest of my day.
At the chess club, I played 5 games between two opponents that I have losing records against. I confidently won all five games, even declining a draw because I didn't think I could lose and had a passed pawn.
Later, I got productive, finishing the week's math homework and doing a video presentation for business in one take. And now I'm feeling really good about how the day went, despite that one hiccup early in on.
An hour later, I played in another Tetris match against an opponent with a lower best score and was playing buzzed. It was a league format where I am not getting eliminated if I do poorly. I got trounced, lost 6-1 over two matches, and couldn't get to level 19 more than one game.
Competition anxiety stuck hard in the second set, and I have no idea why. It tried to frame the remainder of my day. I did not let it.
Today was a reminder that competition anxiety is fickle and strange.
I played in the events today. The first was Classic Tetris Monthly's tournament, a knockout bracket where I have had mixed results. Today I was up against a maxout player, someone who can score a million points. (my best is 740k). I swept the match 3-0 no problem, and felt good the whole way through.
Worked on a remake to an old song from 2003. Got a coworker to play some guitar parts fort it. Sounds amazing! Now I'm wanting to do more music stuff again. If only I had the time!
Tumblr may become relevant again, but probably not for a while. There are a number of non-creative projects ahead of it that need doing, so it'll be a while before I regularly put out stuff again. That said, look for something new there in the next few days. 👀
Caveat on Tumblr: I've been there for about 9 years, back when I decided to split my blog between my creative endeavors (Tumblr) and everything else (Blogger). While I still have the account, I'm not very active on it since my creative endeavors have taken a back seat.
Being shitty to your workforce, rolling out features no one wants, not addressing PR disasters in a timely or acceptable fashion, belittling a percentage of your user base.
It occurs to me that Day of the Devs is on the same day, at about the same time, and on the same MUNI line as the League of Legends Worlds finals. That's NOT going to be fun to navigate.
Pacific Daylight Time ends November 6th, so I imagine what's happening is it's interpreting the time with daylight savings because that's what it is now, and not accounting for daylight savings ending before the date.
Long long time ago, I can still remember How that conversation used to make me smile And I knew if I had my chance That I could make those people chat And maybe they'd be happy for a while
Apps never tell you what they changed anymore. What bug fixes? What stability improvements? What did they do to space time? Knowing Google, they probably made it worse. https://t.co/b29hitjcE1
The OTL Mid-Season Invitational has completed the two quarterfinal matches tonight, and both matches went 5 games. I played in 5 of those matches (we won 3-2!) and cast 2 games from the other set.
