Notices by Gracious Anthracite (anthracite@dragon.style)

ok, boomer: a concise guide to the generations living in early 21st century America.

There's a bit of commentary as to why I did this and a few things I noticed after doing it on my blog: http://egypt.urnash.com/blog/2019/12/07/ok-boomer-a-concise-guide-to-the-generations-living-in-early-21st-century-america/

Five women with identical tank tops that say “Drinking MARGARITAS with my SENORITAS”. Three of them have Mardi Gras beads draped around their neck, five months after Mardi Gras.

I smell tourists.

(Flashback moment: Tass Times in Tonetown, a text adventure. Once you got to the titular Tonetown you needed to wear a certain amount of bling, or an alligator-man would leap out and eat you after a few turns. It felt very weird to be the Tourist instead of the Local in that.)

Passing thought: nobody ever says “look at this thing Facebooker Susan Smith posted” or “check out what Twitterer Skinky Dumpawps posted”, but I constantly see “look at Redditor Throwaway477864’s insightful discussion” or “watch what Youtuber Spafford Spiderton has to say”. What makes a site wrap up it’s users’ identities that way, and is it a thing that should be generally cultivated or avoided?

Once again, the weekly rite begins. Ralph the Laundry Lion has been stuffed to the gills with dirty launder, then strapped to the ceremonial palanquin, that he and his shame might be paraded through the streets for all to see.

I’m an hour or two, the laundry will be clean. But Ralph’s soul will remain eternally soiled. Look at that smile. He’s loving this.

Party’s over, y’all. Miriam-Webster is thinking of adding “fursona” to their dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/history-of-furry-and-fursona

Nice announcement outside the local bookstore.

Today is trans day of visibility.

Hi. I'm Peggy. I'm a transwoman.

I draw nerdy, slightly queer comics about robot ladies with reality issues, and cartoon animals with space opera problems. I drew a Tarot deck that I'm working on reprinting, too.

If you think me or my stuff is cool, then tell your friends, help make me more visible. Thanks. 💖

http://egypt.urnash.com

Safari has started bringing up this alert and I *really like it*.

The last food stamp payments have gone out. There will be no more until the government starts up again.

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/01/politics/shutdown-effects/

This is how you get revolutions.

“If your website is full of assholes, it’s your fault.” - Anil Dash

http://anildash.com/2011/07/20/if_your_websites_full_of_assholes_its_your_fault-2/

I was pretty happy when I went down this list. How many things on it are you doing, fellow #mastoadmim people?

(I’m not hiring anyone to help watch this place but I’m also deliberately keeping it SMALL so I don’t have to.)

I would just like to take a moment and remind you that the people running your Mastodon instance are normal dorks like yourself, who are probably doing it as a side project.

If you want something from us, it's not a good idea for your first contact about it to be dripping with bitterness and sarcasm. Please be chill with your admin. Thanks. 💓

Hahahhaha Richard Spencer was on his way to a racist con in Sweden but when his itinerary took him through an airport in Poland they said “dude gtfo” and sent him back to the US.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/395745-richard-spencer-confirms-ban-on-traveling-to-european-countries

(He’s banned in 26 European countries, including both Sweden and Poland.)

Hey all! I just silenced a few asstastic instances that were showing up on the federated timeline. If you see any more, let me know; one of the pleasures of running a corner of the People's Glorious Social Network is saying "none of that 4chan/gamergate/alt-right bullshit here" and making it stick!

also geez is it just that I've been trained to associate "cute anime girl face avatar" with "jerk" by the past few years or is every single corner of the fediverse on the .moe TLD kind of giving off "may start screaming about how hitler was right at any moment" vibes

https://dragon.style/media/3ql1ygqHU9U0sU-VyCI

In the 90s, MIT's Athena system devised a system to handle online harrassment. One feature of the system was that the notice of reported abusive behaviour sent to the accused user began with the phrase "Someone using your account…". Users were advised to re-password their accounts, as they may have been hacked. Password resets by UYA recipients were taken in good faith by staff, but the most astonishing thing was that the offending behaviour nearly always stopped there.

https://www.metafilter.com/173881/UYA-notices-and-face-saving-in-moderation-systems#inline-7389802

I need to remember this technique in the event of anyone doing stuff that merits a warning.

Rar.

https://dragon.style/media/mNtuZdxalgoN2vaDBSY

Today I realized that I cannot expect people on the Internet to have heard of the Geek Social Fallacies any more.

The Geek Social Fallacies are five things that geeks often believe about How Socializing Should Work, that cause a lot of conflict. I've found them to be pretty useful as a way to put a handle on certain concepts, and maybe even avoid going into bad situations.

http://plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

(Looking at them in 2017, I find myself wondering how many of the GSFs the design of most social networks is running straight into...)

Mastodon is to Twitter as a farmer’s market is to Safeway. — @nolan

Hey look at all these people at the second Seattle Masto meetup. I missed a couple who left earlier too. And that fist is the ex-without-benefits who didn’t want me to steal their soul.

I am entirely too lazy to get all the user names.

https://dragon.style/media/qhtQNUMN6uli4HfjYLE https://dragon.style/media/uems9oTxe9FCAzq8Z3I

“My ActivityPub server runs on a Brainfuck interpreter. In MINECRAFT!”

“In SURVIVAL MODE. Server’s down because of creepers.”

-Conversation at the Admin table of tonight’s meetup

A lot of Indy Comics Twitter has descended upon Mastodon.social, grinding @Gargron's image server to a halt.

If y'all decide you’re serious about this place, let me make a suggestion: if you’re part of a collective, then maybe your group should think about running an instance. If nobody in your collective is crazy enough to start one from scratch, there’s always places like masto.host, which make it pretty damn easy.

Also consider throwing a little $ into the Patreon for both whatever instance you end up on, and/or for overall Mastodon development. We don’t have VC or advertisers paying the bills, let’s keep it that way.