Just passing through.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: April 24th, 2024

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  • I generally downvote in two scenarios. One is if someone is being a jerk, which is not necessarily enough for a report but always annoying. The other is if they are sharing misinformation, even if I believe they mean nothing bad with it.

    I think it has it’s place as a way to reduce visibility.

    And sometimes I enjoy getting downvotes - there are times I knowingly rub a group of people (generally authoritarians) the wrong way, and I’m happy to see the message is well received. ;)




  • I used to think ThinkPads were good because they make conservative decisions in product development and assure quality every step of the way.

    Turns out that’s bullshit. I am on my second ThinkPad since 2019. The first one stopped receiving charges, and I got it fixed with a new motherboard. Now it kernel panicks every 15 minutes for no good reason, so it basically came back from repair effectively bricked. The second one one of two charging ports are not working reliably, and the physical mouse buttons and the nipple joystick don’t work at all. I’m just waiting for the day the remaining charging port breaks.

    I’ve been careful with both, always carrying them in a solid sleeve and treating them well. My Fairphone goes through a lot worse and never has any problems.

    I really would not recommend ThinkPad any more.



  • I have been recommended ThinkPad for this, but I have had terrible experiences; the charging port breaks, and it’s soldered to the mother board rendering the entire machine bricked. The quality of these machines is not what I’d expect.

    My next laptop will be a a Framework. I guess the recent launch of a new model means there might be some old ones on the market, even though the crowd buying Framework laptops might hold on to them a bit longer than other people.



  • There’s a bunch of really badass people doing interesting things and discovering new things well into their 70s. The grandfather of a friend of mine picked up orientation running in his 80s - he’s now the national champion of his age group.

    I think more than age, what one has to overcome is the reluctancy to try new things. I think this is natural to humans at any age; the difference is that when we’re young we’re forced to try new things as few things are now new. The more experienced we get the easier it is to fall into old habits, and he who’s not busy being born is busy dying, as Dylan said.


  • I like the choose your own adventure element. If you want strong content moderation you can go to Beehaw; if you want something more catch all, Lemmy.world is good; if you’re a Stalinist, you have at least three solid options.

    The instances talk to each other, but many fulfill slightly different functions.

    At Reddit, it seems the stupidest posts often get thousands of upvotes. Here, they’re lucky if they get 50. So that makes me feel less crazy, I guess.



  • “probably” is a nice word here. I have seen no indication that Mastodon plans to make their groups difficult to work with for other platforms. There is, however, many interests to take into account to ensure a good user experience, and not one solution is guaranteed to work well for everyone. What works in the Threadiverse might very well be terrible in Mastodon. They follow very different network dynamics.


  • Hi, and welcome!

    Lemmy does not, as of now, interoperate very well with Fediverse services such as Mastodon and Pixelfed. Sure, you can follow Lemmy communities from Mastodon, but it’s not a pleasant experience. The group just boosts everything that is ever posted to it.

    Likewise, Lemmy does not work with Phanphy - it has its own API, and separate apps. It’s too different from Pixelfed/Mastodon for it to make sense to share an API.

    If you search for @elena@lemmy.world at mastodon.social you will, however, be able to see your user from there; you can view this post, and if you have an account you can comment on it and contribute to the discussion like anyone else. You can also boost the post or comments to it, making it possible for content from Lemmy to reach far and wide. We sometimes do get comments from Mastodon users, so it clear that this happens every now and then, but mostly it’s kept separate.

    Mastodon users can also post to Lemmy by tagging a community (like they would tag an a.gup.pe group), but it’s not very intuitive.

    We commonly refer to Lemmy as part of the Threadiverse - a subset of the Fediverse which revolves around threaded discussions around shared content (Reddit like). The main platforms are Lemmy, Mbin (which is what I’m currently posting from), and PieFed.

    Mbin and PieFed go further in the direction of interoperability than Lemmy does. Mbin supports Mastodon-like microblogging; if you check out the search for the hashtag Lemmy, you’ll see not only this post, but also microblogs from Mastodon and all kinds of content. Limited, of course, by what is federated with that instance (Kbin.earth doesn’t have too many users).

    In Piefed, users can follow Mastodon groups made with a.gup.pe, such as the knitting group. Often Mastodon users start their posts by tagging each other, so it doesn’t look completely native, but it can be neat. You can also follow PeerTube channels directly in Piefed.

    In short, it’s quite complicated - there are different platforms, and they all solve interoperability differently and prioritize it to different degrees. There’s always the possibility that Mastodon users will stop by and say hello, but how easy it is made for them to do so varies quite a lot.


  • I had a bit of a slow start on Mastodon, but after sticking with it for a while it’s now by far the best social media experience I’ve ever had. I follow less than 200 people, not all of them active, but their posts along with the content they boost provides a much more interesting feed for me than any algorithm ever has.

    And when I post something I’ve put work into, it’s boosted by those interested and reaches far more relevant people than I’ve ever reached on other networks. And people trust it to be interesting because it’s boosted by someone they trust, rather than some faceless algorithm.

    That said, the cost of entry is indeed a bit high.



    • Consider writing an introduction post. “Hello, I’m [this person], and I’m interested in [this and that]. I’ll be posting about  [these things], and I’m passionate about [something].” Tag it #introduction, along with other tags relevant to your interests. Check out what other people have written in their introduction for inspiration. Pin the introduction to your profile. Personally I never got around to writing one, but I’m pretty sure I would have had more followers if I did.
    • Write who you are in your bio - what can people expect if they follow you? Who are you? It doesn’t need to disclose your true identity, but people follow other people on Mastodon, so it’s good to make it look a bit personal.
    • Tag a relevant a.gup.pe. The group will boost your post to all its followers, making your post visible on more instances even if you don’t have followers there yet. If you asked this on Mastodon, you might for example tag @fediverse@a.gup.pe and @mastodon@a.gup.pe, though neither are unfortunately very big. At least your post is likely to get pushed to the largest instances, and some people who are interested might see it in their feeds.
    • Throw in some relevant hashtags. Some Mastodon clients will hide them a bit if they’re at the end of the post.
    • Search for content, follow relevant people when you see them. It takes a bit of time, but gradually you’ll expand your network and get momentum. If you’re in a small instance, you might search for relevant hashtag at a more central hub (like mastodon.social) or a more specialized one (like sciences.social if you’re into social sciences)