ceoln @ceoln@social.cleverlibre.org

Boost if you

- love reading books
- love buying books

No one will know which one.

Amazing footage of a Cirroteuthid octopus stretching its tentacles to form a huge balloon, filmed by EVNautilus at a depth of around 1,600 metres.

Source and more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbHjs9A7sis

I've recently discovered the wonderful writings of the Nigerian American author, Nnedi Okorafor. She writes beautiful pros, focusing on #SciFi and #fantasy. Incredible talent and gorgeous writing.

#Books #BooksOfMastodon #Bookstodon #DecRecs

I both knit & crochet, and I read both paper & ebooks. Knitters & crocheters argue over whether one is "better." Right now #bookstodon is arguing about the merits of paper vs. e. People, they're all good! Reading is good! Both knitting & crochet produce useful, warm, attractive items; each is better for some items than others but there's a lot of overlap. Paper & ebooks have a lot of overlap in usefulness; pick the one that works for you in your situation & don't judge others! #books @bookstodon

Dear admins:

Just FYI, I decided to report the scrapper-building guy to his instance. I both reported him and sent a message to the instance admin.

Just to make things clear, would you consider adding a new rule to your Code of Conduct?

Here's the rule that I thought. I made sure to add a bit of ambiguity to cover all bases, but feel free to modify it as you see fit.

"Building or promoting any software whose functionality includes scanning and/or archiving users' posts without their explicit consent, or that will otherwise disrupt normal instance operation."

This would make it clear that we will not tolerate scrappers.

Thank you.

#MastoAdmin

#introduction (reposted from old profile)

Gen-Xer born in #Mexico; since kid I was a #computer #nerd and liked #anime and #scifi, so it was logical I'd eventually discover the #cyberpunk genre (#ghostintheshell, #akira, #neuromancer, #bubblegumcrisis, #parasitedolls, #lain...)

Aside from that I've done #opensource and #freesoftware; have gnu/#Linux on my PC and recently I discovered #decentralization.

Currently #amwriting a scifi novel about #AI and #androids.

Get ready for another oracle, folks, because I'm in a Cassandra mood right now.

I just found out today that Linode has begun offering Mastodon servers hosting. This occurred exactly as some of us had foreseen (or, in a mundane way, "called it" ​ ).

It was only matter of time before big hosting companies started adding Mastodon to their suit of software because they saw a big opportunity there.

This is big - no, huge. Let me tell you why.

For starters, it takes the sysadmin load off from the server "admin" (or should I call it "top mod"? "ruler"?) so they can focus on what really matters: Community.

Yes, yes, I know, as some people have said it before, Mastodon is not a product. But deploying and mantaining a Mastodon instance is a huge thing, and not everyone can do it. In fact, it's a great barrier to entry.

You've already seen the amount of effort that our admins have put in keeping their servers snappy and scalable.

Well, these hosting companies are already doing it for a convenient price; which means that more people can start hosting their own Mastodon servers. Is this good? Is this bad?

Well, the way I see it it was just matter of time; whether the existing communities in the Fediverse are ready or not.

Yes, more people will start setting up their servers, and yes, more people will start joining without any respect for community standards in here. This is our Eternal September, and it is inevitable.

But here's the thing: Twitter is already crumbling. Today their website stopped functioning. This had NEVER happened in at least 5 years. Or at least, not in an unpredictable way as it happened today. Server maintenance? I can get it. A storage unit failing and people having to switch to a backup? Within the parameters. A datacenter suffering from a natural disaster? Predicted and insured against. A DNS failure? A blip.

An entire website failing for no apparent cause with a lot of team members no longer working there and very few people to maintain it? Run. The fuck. Away.

We don't know if Twitter will last till the next month. Hell, we don't know if a failure on a critical power line will cause a bunch of servers to fail. We don't know the state of their backup systems. We don't know if someone will sabotage it. We don't know if someone will start using the 400 million leaked accounts to wreak havoc in there. We don't know if today's failure was the result of an intrusion. The stability of Twitter is hanging by a thread.

And what will happen to the people that need an online space? Where will they go if there are not enough Mastodon instances around?

This is where Mastodon users like you or me come in. The Mastodon hosting services are out there already. It can be a danger or it can be an opportunity.

Linode is the first, but soon other cloud companies will start to compete and offer their Mastodon hosting services. With competition, prices may drop (to a certain limit).

In a matter of months, sysadmins will gain more experience dealing with Mastodon administration: backups, scaling, all that stuff. Before you know it, companies will start hiring Mastodon administrators. Courses will appear on online learning platforms like Udemy and Platzi. It will become a valuable thing to put in your resume.

And we WANT that. The ball just started rolling.

So admins, this is a message specifically for you:

Get ready. You can panic like everybody else, worrying that Gargron will finally give up and implement quote toots OR you can start preparing for the time when the inevitable happens:

Making videos for Community leaders (aka admins) about online racism, how to get rid of trolls, common caveats when running a Mastodon server... etc.
Starting discussions between Instance admins about community standards and codifying them in server rules.
Making lists of trusted instances and their admins to add them as allow-lists on the versions of mastodon that support them, JUST IN CASE.
Opening admin-only alternative communication channels to deal with big problems when (not if, but when) they arise.
Doing your homework and finding out which laws and regulations you need to follow when setting up your instance.
Creating blocklists for known spammers and nazi instances.
Training and recruiting more mods.
Adding moderation wikis to your instance servers.

Yes, wikis. Where are they? I don't see any wiki on how to do Mastodon admin stuff! And we want to organize millions of people? Seriously??? Even reddit has built-in wikis, why don't we have them?!

Right now, the way I see it, a lot of new instance admins are winging it and learning along the way. But we need organization, because sooner or later Twitter will fail (even temporarily) and people will flock to here in even greater magnitudes than we saw in mid 2022. And I'm not talking about server capacity and our usual headaches. I'm talking about dozens, even hundreds of instances opening up with Linode or other cloud services, people joining in the hundreds of thousands per week, with very few moderators, and if we don't prepare for that, they will overrun us with their toxicity, dogpilings, harassment and doxxing. We can isolate ourselves but the fediverse as we know it is at risk of being outnumbered by a decentralized mob. Whether that happens or not, it's up to you. It's up to you to be ready for the moment that huge gate opens and millions of users come in a stampede.

#Meta #MastoAdmin #musings

Having a fun time compiling my (very very late) best-of list of #metal albums for 2021 (I know, I know) over the last few weeks.

The debut record, Animate//Isolate by Minneapolis' #Obsolete totally flew under my radar in '21 - a fantastic technical #death / #thrash album in the vein of #Atheist, #Martyr, #Coroner, #Vektor etc. & hints of oldschool DM melodies/song structure similar to #Hellwitch, #Monstrosity, & older era #Dismember, #Hypocrisy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M3wqzSr05A

The #JoinIn hashtag coming to Mastodon made me wonder if any #ActuallyAutistic folks would like to replicate #NotAloneTalk here?

have never felt so much kinship with a bluetooth device

What in the fuck.

#cat #cats #catsofmastodon

Video title: Funny Cats dubbed with DooM SFX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOGrWcIBMQU

This #BlackFriday I thought I'd just post a photo of myself - enjoying a hot chocolate, while sporting a Ralph Lauren sweater featuring the famous Polo Bear who is *also* enjoying a hot chocolate 🙂

#BlackMastodon

I've been very careful in how I approach pixelfed development in regards to Instagram and their ToS/trademarks.

This is why you can't crosspost, or otherwise access IG apis via Pixelfed.

They are grasping at straws at this point, along with banning Pixelfed urls, this behavior is desperate.

We must be doing something right 😉

Happy New Year! Ring in 2023 in the metaverse! What parties will you be teleporting to in the virtual world of Second Life?

Attend the many New Year's Eve events and parties listed on the Second Life Community Events Page! https://events.secondlife.com

Or visit the many music clubs in Second Life and celebrate the new year with new friends! https://secondlife.com/destinations/music

Second Life Pic of the day by Clau Dagger. https://second.life/pod123022

#SecondLife #VirtualWorld #Metaverse #NewYear2023 #HappyNewYear

abba: this intra-band breakup is bad. but there's power to that.
fleetwood mac: this intra-band breakup is bad. but there is a haunting beauty to it.
no doubt: this intra-band breakup is bad. but ive got a fucking trumpet.