FailForward @FailForward@social.cleverlibre.org

@marathon @WilliamsStrangeFest

This very much resembles container apartments, although those tend not to be about sustainability at all.

Here are two types of student housing which can be found in Delft, The Netherlands:

<img src="https://www.delta.tudelft.nl/sites/default/files/styles/1200x900_4_3/public/studentenwoningen.jpg" width="100%"/>

Check also [here](http://www.architectureguide.nl/project/list_projects_of_architect/arc_id/213/prj_id/3).

When driving (especially long distances, being tired, etc.), sometimes you do things which only in retrospect you realise were not the safest manoeuvre to perform.

I often wondered whether people would be scared if they had an analogue gauge installed in their car dashboard which would be showing the current likelihood of them (or their passengers) being killed in an accident in the next, say 3 minutes.

I guess, some of us would get freaked out often enough to drive more carefully. or perhaps not drive at all.

@nanko

@dankmaximus Your name, when pronounced (or written ["jemny"](https://www.google.com/search?q=jemny)), means "gentle" ("mild" in Dutch) in some Slavic languages. You can perhaps play with that 🙂 .

@lucifargundam

@tetrapyloctomist @jwildeboer @ffeth

So I took look at what actually happened, as this sounds like quite a flat story in khn. And indeed, the narrative of good scientists vs. bad pharma + Gates is a bit more nuanced. There apparently was a very good reason for the change of mind on the Oxford side:

* Original source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/world/bill-gates-vaccine-coronavirus.html
* Archived version (no paywall): https://archive.is/aQxIT

> Oxford University said it would offer “nonexclusive, royalty-free licenses” of its work to manufacturers. But as it developed one of the most promising vaccine candidates, the university debated whether it was equipped to conduct clinical trials and transfer its technology to manufacturers around the world.
>
> Sir John Bell, who leads the development of Oxford’s health research strategies and chairs the Gates Foundation’s scientific advisory committee, reached out to Dr. Mundel. The advice was direct: “We told Oxford, ‘Hey, you’ve got to find a partner who knows how to run trials,’” Mr. Gates said.
>
> Oxford chose the British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca. The Serum Institute of India, after getting the financial commitment from Mr. Gates, agreed in the summer to start producing the vaccine.

Note also, according to reports, AstraZeneca committed to do this in a way which won't extract exuberant profits. But indeed, we do not know the details.

@dankmaximus For company domain avoid weird TLDs (like .online). Non-tech people don't even know it's a valid e-mail address or URL! *Always* think from the other side of the table:
- how do future customers perceive your e-mail/www domain? Is it easy to remember?
- are your customers local? Yes? Go for regional TLD (.nl/.eu?)!
- are you building a global operation? Yes? Go for ".com"
- remember that you will need to say your e-mail address over a phone - avoid strange pronunciation and puns!
- avoid anything which can be confused with another company of a similar name/pronunciation.

Now that sounds like complicated, but it's not. If in doubt, always gravitate towards [boring/no-surprises](https://qoto.org/@FailForward/105611148260352268). Do not overthink it. It's not how you are called, but what you do what will attract customers. Good luck.

@dankmaximus whatever the name, check a good and easy memorable website/e-mail domain first. That will give you an idea about the company name.

# Terracollage, Nature timelapses and ASMR slime videos

Went down the rabbit hole triggered by [this toot](https://qoto.org/@metapsyche/105637092639750846) by @metapsyche.

* created by [Roman De Giuli/Terracollage](https://www.terracollage.com/)
* link to the original [SATELLIKE video on Vimeo](https://vimeo.com/504369243)
* many other creations like this to be found at his [Vimeo page](https://vimeo.com/user4801470)

> Roman De Giuli is a German photographer and filmmaker, specialized in practical effects and experimental fluid art. His compositions mainly consist of fluids, powders and colours which are applied on paper to create vivid, three dimensional scenes. High resolution stills and 8K videos are captured with macro lenses to cover tiny areas in enormous reproduction scales. Roman does extensive studies of organic patterns, their behaviour and movement. With the help of music and sound design, he transforms the abstract narrative potential of his hand made visuals to experimental montages with a cinematic character.

These are truly beautiful creations. Captivating to watch. Indeed, it very much resembles timelapses of satellite overpasses/captures of evolutions of regions of out planet Earth. #aesthetics #art #beauty

Now, what came to my mind while watching this was that even though I know this is not real, it still has the same effect on me as if it were real. Which probably says that it's the motion, the colours and the music which invokes that emotion, not so much what it is. There is something meditative about watching this. #asmr #meditation

That was the romantic part. The other thought which popped up quickly was realisation that this mesmerizing feeling, that urge to _watch more of this stuff_ is probably the very same emotion today's children and youngsters have watching [ASMR Slime videos](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=asmr+slime) which are so popular among youth on Youtube. A parent observing their child watching this weird stuff again and again looks in disbelief and thinks _what the heck is going on here?_

Well, I think this Terracollage videos are an equivalent of those odd [ASMR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASMR) effect videos. Probably kids watching adults looking at Nature timelapses wonder the same way about how odd the older generation is.

> Human beings are odd assets: they acquire the value the moment somebody believes in them.
> -- [Venkatesh Rao/The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millennial](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-life-of-maya-millennial/)

@unnnmslymchlmps

Emotional disengagement/detachment
Resentment/Contempt
Sometimes adultery
Conflict
Divorce
Grief
goto 1

Life...

@zleap Welcome, good luck and enjoy! I guess your experience will heavily depend on whether you want to start a community (move your friends to Matrix), or rather join some large existing communities or public rooms.

@zleap This is what you are looking for: https://element.io/

@SubwayTooter
Re Need more markdown: look at my timeline. I post some basic markdown all the time.

@freemo

@freemo BTW, what's a better mobile Mastodon client? I tried Subway Tooter, but that does not even support basic Markdown quotes, so left it (push notifications were better, but I don't care too much).

@nagpossum you are right. I checked their Kickstarter and these Ugear people seem to be the genuine deal. In contrast, ROKR website is rather opaque and the only mention who they are is in their terms and conditions: probably from Israel. Either way, after I checked, the Ugear models seem to be much more interesting and elaborate. Thanks again for the link, I appreciate.

@nagpossum Thanks a lot for the pointer. These look really elaborate. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it were a single little factory in China selling in bulk to several outlets like these...

@nikola Memories of Winnetou movie 😉

@freemo First of all, congratulations to running an interesting space. There's some serious dedication behind this and It shows.

* re timelines: yes, this added flexibility of filtering or just managing whole instances is something I already discovered. Feature request: it seems to be somewhat difficult to just randomly browse a timeline of an instance. It would help if one could use the search bar to display the full timeline of an instance. Right now I discovered that to browse an instance timeline one has to find a toot from that instance and use the "..." context menu. Alternatively, one can put an instance into favourite domains, then open its timeline, and then remove it when it turns out to be mostly uninteresting
* re the idea with the instances catalogue: yes, that sounds useful. Over the last couple of days, I was doing that using https://instances.social/. A more integrated UX would help, although I am not sure how many users it would attract.

> What sort of interactions are you talking about and what sort of managing would you envision needing to do?

Just personal psycho-hygiene 🙂 . It's too easy to get down a rabbit hole and lose oneself in endless back-and-forths. I've been there so much in the past that I suspect, I am somewhat beyond that. I rather go for a walk with a friend and we can at least argue properly and aloud. So when I see that everything important was already said in a conversation here and we are getting into an agree-to-disagree territory, it's more useful to just back off, then to continue pushing into a brick wall. Easier done in flesh, one needs to be more conscious when doing it here. It's alright as is, but it can turn into a humongous waste of time for everybody if not kept in check.

> What sort of images are we talking about here.

Everything. Memes, cats, dogs, anime, whatever it's called today. It's the same stuff then it used to be 25 years ago, it's just that I moved on, only to re-discover it now. Back then it was propagated via chain e-mails with endless Cc lists, today it's apparently Twitter/Facebook (neither of which I ever used - so it's probably telling what sort of odd person I am 😃 ).

* re: hashtags

Yeah, I know what's the point, but I always found tags anywhere overwhelming. Either one develops a taxonomy and system to it beforehands, or it's rather useless - either you find only a subset of what you need, or too much. I gave up on it like 15 years ago and instead use full text search. That's why I am doing this mini-blogging even for music and stuff. My comments around stuff are often just SEO phrases making sure my full text search in a year or two from now will discover what I am just recording. I am a simple guy, you see 😉 .

@trinsec not really puzzles - you get a manual - I guess they call them that way for a lack of better marketing term. Either way it's fun to assemble (especially with kids) and looks good as a standalone piece afterwards too. Eventually I'd like to get one of those mechanically functional.

# 3 weeks of Mastodon@QOTO

So it's 3 weeks since I joined Mastodon@QOTO. My motivation was a low threshold scrapbook place were I can throw whatever I want to remember and/or share with friends.

After these couple of weeks, I can say this:
* works - kind of. Feels a bit weird, probably because I never did this kind of stuff in public before
* obviously what I am doing is not very standard (more than 200 chars), but within the design envelope of Mastodon and QOTO (kudos for all the customisations, I like it!)
* probably what I am doing would be better called mini-blogging (more than Twitter, less than a blog). When called this way, I took a look at services which do that (e.g., Tumblr) and the usage pattern fits
* timelines are somewhat distracting, but I'll try to use this in a somewhat introvert mode anyway
* interactions are not a bad part of the experience, but need to be managed - can be easily distracting
* lots of strange stuff fly around, but can be filtered out when needed
* the images people post are a throwback into 90's when we were sending this via e-mail (I still have a couple of GBs in my mailbox archive just funny pics and powerpoint slidedecks full of one-off jokes). Since I left this subculture, I never thought it still clogs the Intertubes elsewhere. Still fun, but I could do without.
* tooling: Tusky proved useful, `toot` is good too, web interface a bit overwhelming and distracting
* still need to work out how to deal with hashtags - probably will ignore

#note