Dr. Cat @DrJLCatlett@social.cleverlibre.org

#vote #electionday

It's Election Day here in America! 🇺🇸
Fill in your ballot and vote for the change you want to see 😁

#ElectionDay #Election #2022Election #Election2022 #Vote #GoVote 🐉🗳

#lunareclipse ?
I moved to Mastodon that kind of night.

So. All I can say is. Went out to see an eclipse and it was awesome. We live on an amazing homeworld. #beauty #lunareclipse #NewZealand

I was up way early this morning taking pictures of the #LunarEclipse. Here’s some of what I came away with.

My HDR photo of the blood moon #LunarEclipse this morning

Lucky to have clear views of the #lunareclipse from #dunedin #NewZealand last night

But here's a pic of the last #lunareclipse that I got through the trees, May 2022:

Some eclipse pics from last night. #lunareclipse

@billclarkphotos: "The Election Day lunar eclipse blood moon sets behind the U.S. Capitol dome in Washington, DC #LunarEclipse #BloodMoon [images]"

https://nitter.poast.org/billclarkphotos/status/1589944352423518209

(H/T @barnes_law RT )

Lunar eclipse pic from the Jack C Davis Observatory. Snapped this about 45 minutes before the storm clouds covered everything. Woke up to ❄️. #lunareclipse

Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.

- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).

- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.

- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.

- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.

- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.

- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.

- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.

- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.

- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.

- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.

- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.

- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.

- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!

- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.

- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.

I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.

Me avoiding US election coverage today.

#Midterms #ElectionDay #voteBlue

🍂Autumn is here and with it, the flu season.

Our #immune system is critical in the battle against #viruses, #bacteria & #parasites that can cause infections.

Find out more about how the immune system is regulated. 👉 https://bit.ly/3Fp3o2F

@CORDIS_EU @UZH_ch

🐦🔗: https://nitter.eu/ERC_Research/status/1589188351265222656

Expect some of the following to happen in the coming weeks:

- celebrities with huge follower counts pushing tiny community-run servers to their knees

- instance admin burnout; shutting down of servers

- big new servers that don't "vibe" with common rules or culture being widely defederated

- some notable account violating an instance code of conduct and throwing a fit

- lots of people ragequitting Mastodon for one reason or another

- etc.

It'll be a rough ride. Patience and strength, all.

Turkey tail #mushrooms
#mushroom #mycology #nature

Lion's mane mushroom 🍄 at nearby woods last month. These are edible and taste good but I did not forage them 😊

#mushrooms #mushroom #mycology