*banned 4 MarkDown love* @design_RG@social.cleverlibre.org

Idea, Fediverse.

Is there such a thing as RateMyInstance ??

Searched for a hashtag and did not find one. I think we users could take this and provide feedback, ideas to others of what our home instances are like.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly parts even. Just like the Spaghetti Western. 😉

What you all out there think? This could be a grass roots started thing.

#RateMyInstance is needed!

#mastotips #newusers

Great fun to see my Mastodon post, the original above, crossing over there via Birdsite Firefox extension.

TW post is at https://twitter.com/design_RG/status/1204119845152972800

This BBC News article (which I saw on birdsite) is the Reason I am here today.

Thank you, BBC!!!

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-india-50343054

Screenshots via James Wilson, @jameswils https://twitter.com/jamewils/status/1192736311406411777

Not usual for me to ask, but... A quick question.

Any way to post an image in a toot without having to upload the image into the message or copy/paste into it?

Tried <img src:" " tag and it doesn't convert to an image.

Reason for asking - hate to be re-uploading and taking space on servers with multi copies of same thing. TY.

LOLZ.... 😝👍🐈

#catsrule #mastocats #catsofmastodon #CatsOfTwitter #meow #xp
---
RT @Jfayepaints@twitter.activitypub.actor
I'm so over the cats chewing on/ jumping in the christmas tree 😐 the internet's given me a few solutions, which one to use... 🤔😄 why do cats hate christmas?! 😂
https://twitter.com/Jfayepaints/status/1203745817322041345

For Halloween this year, lucky Rolf of Warwick and Sherry both dressed up in Style.

"Kiki's Delivery Service" is one of my most loved #anime by Studio #Ghibli . Superb drawing and story lines. #catsofmastodon #cats #meow #mastocats #xp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki%27s_Delivery_Service
---
RT @RolfatWarwick@twitter.activitypub.actor
I just found out that my friend Sherry is going to look after me on the evening of Halloween ag…
https://twitter.com/RolfatWarwick/status/1188415948878942208

My idea of Heaven. Cats, computers.

Beautiful ginger and Sun workstation. 💕

#mastocats #catsofMastodon #meow #xp #moa
---
RT @gayocats
garfield_sun
https://twitter.com/gayocats/status/1191417335103422465

Someone caught me having a nap. ZzzZzzz

#mastocats #catsofmastodon #meow #xp #moa
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RT @CatDisapproval
These are the things that dreams are made of.
https://twitter.com/CatDisapproval/status/1201853750111068160

💕😻 #mastocats #CatsOfTwitter #meow #feline #moa
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RT @neville_park@twitter.activitypub.actor
No Wasabi I can't be your chin rest all day

#DailyCatPic #CatsOfMastodon #MastoCats #cats
https://twitter.com/neville_park/status/1198725152860708866

Was ist Das?

Mysterious artifacts keep showing at the bottom left corner of my mastodon window into QOTO. "429 Throttled" -- woot?

Any idea what this is or could be? How to remove it? They do seem to disappear, each staying on screen for a couple of seconds, then the bottom ones drop off, disappears.

The whole stack drops, and sometimes new ones appear, at the top.

Browser is Waterfox Current, which is Firefox Aurora channel, 68.0a2 atm.

Running in Windows 10, with Strict mode for tracking.

It is Nice to have a Forum as part of our QOTO instance group of services. Each service has its own focus, and Discourse is a nice way to keep conversations visible for longer times.

* QOTO's Discourse Forum is at https://discourse.qoto.org/

Our posts in Mastodon are still here, but buried under many more we add to our profiles daily, while here a discussion has a more visible "Home".

* We can refer to threads we post here, helping new users, and ourselves at the same time. No more "I did write something about that...", or similar. :wink:

* We have emojis, text formatting with Bold and Italic, Images, attachments and more.

* To get started or to refresh your skills, learn some new ones and make your posts prettier - How about Reading the Friendly Manual?

* RTFM has always been a recommendation in tech and science circles. :wink:

The developers team at Discourse created a New User Guide.

It's located at : https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-new-user-guide/96331

Today another mastodon user created a Blog post about the new enhanced clipboard in Windows 10.

Marco's article is all text, and explains the workings of it.

https://marcozehe.de/2019/12/08/how-to-use-the-extended-clipboard-in-windows-10/

LIGHTHOUSE WITH ROTATING LIGHTS

In the 1870s, the Japanese government built lighthouses with rotating lights. Some of these Meiji era lighthouses are still in use today.

Eight lighthouses were first brought into service in the 1870s with the same mechanical light rotating system. This apparatus was designed and manufactured in Scotland; and then the equipment was shipped to Japan. The Japanese government hired Richard Henry Brunton to oversee this technology transfer process.-- see Richard Brunton (1991). "Building Japan: 1868-1876," pp. 24-25. https://books.google.com/books?id=q6GOdFknNDYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

The heavy glass lens mechanism is only part of the optical instrument assembly in Japanese lighthouses built using European designs.

The heart of the lighthouse is the light rotation apparatus which moves the lens. In the earliest Western-style lighthouses, the bulk of the lens and rotation gear is supported in a mercury bath. Mercury was used because of its low rotation friction. -- see Japan Coast Guard, Maritime Safety Department, "Past and Present of the Aids to Navigation of Japan," p. 6 (PDF p. 7 of 12) https://www.kaiho.mlit.go.jp/e/image/41_the%20aids%20to%20navigation%20of%20japan.pdf

In the mechanical drawing below, the mercury bath is shown below in blue.

The Kashinozaki Lighthouse in Wakayama Prefecture is one of the eight sites where the "modern" mercury bath pedestal support mechanism was installed by Brunton. -- see Wikipedia "Kashinozaki Lighthouse" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashinozaki_Lighthouse; and see Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME), "Mechanical Engineering Heritage No. 83." https://www.jsme.or.jp/kikaiisan/heritage_083_en.html

QUESTION: The fact that the Japanese lighthouse apparatus was modeled on equipment used in Scotland begs a few questions -- for example, where were similar mercury bath pedestal support mechanisms in use in Scotland in the 1870s? Are there sites where this 19th century technology is still in use in the United Kingdom?

QOTO = Question Others to Teach Ourselves?

** Editor note: ** I am just testing out @chikara's post with a suggestion of a possible new layout. His OP is here: https://qoto.org/@chikara/103273481915673401

I think that having a Content Warning to wrap the text will give it better exposure - if a catchy CW Description text is used, maybe people will click and expose it. The images selected for a post are ALSO important in attracting readership.

We are basically on the business of Publishing here, and fending for attention from users who have a never ending scroll on their Feeds.

Hope you consider this and don't mind it, Chikara. Also, this suggestion is a method I use and would recommend to Anyone wanting feedback, readers and interaction.

** Thank you for your detailed posts! @design_RG...