Biggles @Biggles@social.cleverlibre.org

@hallam @cstross @pnh

Why do people keep trying to rebadge the algorithm? Because strip away the talk of "discovery" and "curation", and that's essentially what you're asking for.
The algorithm discovers heat, not light.

Polite reminder, mastodon users with visual impairments went to a lot of trouble getting people to use the alternative text description facility on image uploads. Spending energy over the past 5 years reminding people in the kindest ways to caption images. Please lets not lose that ethos. There are so many photos without alternative text captions now. It isn't difficult to do, and only takes a little effort to develop the habit. #image #Caption

Quit trying to gatekeep how others use #Mastodon / the #Fediverse. That’s not what this place is about.

(I do realize the irony of this post, but it still stands.)

Anyone seen any good topic-specific aggregation accounts on here?

I'm interested in accounts that produce a continual stream of boosts of interesting posts from other people about specific topics - it feels like Mastodon should be a really good home for that kind of thing, especially given the lack of an "algorithmic" timeline

@Curator is one example, but I want more!

It's that time of year again... To celebrate the 178th anniversary of the publication of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, here's the brilliant Neil Gaiman reading the novel for the New York Public Library podcast https://wp.me/p5l5eh-1id
@neilhimself

♫ psycho killer, cat cassette ♫

The Internet Archive offers a fairly easy way to import your tweets into their archive:

1. Request an archive of your data from Twitter.

2. Use an archive.org web tool to convert the contents of data/tweets.js from your archive into a CSV file containing your tweets' URLs.

3. Import that CSV file into a Google Sheet. Grant archive.org access to read your sheets.

4. Submit the URL of that Google sheet to archive.org's batch processing system.

https://help.archive.org/help/how-to-archive-your-tweets-with-the-wayback-machine/

I am slowly losing it. I beg, I plead: there is no need to do things like "Elno" and "Eloon" or El*n. Just use "Elon" so that those of us who don't want to see that can have actual, workable filters. There is no full-text search, so using "Elon" will not result in trolls being able to find your post just by putting "Elon" in the search. Mastodon searches only on hashtags This isn't Twitter. #FediTips

Oh this is too good. Since Twitter is now blocking Mastodon links, someone has created a link shortener to hide them. Gotta love the URL:

https://spacekaren.sucks/

I don't think journalists (in general) -- and certainly not the organizations they work for -- fully understand the threat Musk represents to the future of free expression and journalism itself.

Begging him to reinstate the banned accounts is pure folly. It is bended-knee supplication to a sociopath who now controls a powerful media company. But the power of his company depends in no small degree on keeping journalists there.

Leave. Now.

This just hurts my soul. Microsoft basically hid a Black cemetery on land they got for free after tax breaks and then allowed for the desecration of the graves. The county and newspaper aren’t off the hook either. Same with the consultants and archeologists. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-authorities-erased-historic-black-cemetery-virginia

New TIL: Start, test, then stop a localhost web server in a Bash script

https://til.simonwillison.net/bash/start-test-then-stop-server

Needed to figure this out for an automated test for Datasette - I wanted to start it running as an HTTPS server (with self-signed certificates), hit it once with curl to check that it worked and then stop the server again:

https://github.com/simonw/datasette/blob/0.63.3/tests/test_datasette_https_server.sh

Seasonal reminder: Alcohol is a completely legal drug that destroys lives, relationships and families. Don't make it hard for people who are trying to stay sober to enjoy festivities and functions.

Is Bad Legal Takes on here yet?

🎶Mastodon man
Mastodon man
Is he a John
Or is he a plan
If you follow him does that make you a stan?
Mysterious man
Mastodon man🎶