• 2 Posts
  • 14 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Something that trips me up a bit about federation and instances is the overlap of identical communities from different instances.

    So for example, I’m an atheist, but it’s be years since that was a part of my identity that moved me to care about atheist memes or patting myself on the back for not being religious, which (sorry guys), is what I feel like happens in those communities. So I get them out of my feed by blocking them the way I block plenty of other communities I’m not interested in. In Apollo I was spoiled by the ‘hide subreddit’ feature that I don’t believe existed in Reddit itself, but which was crucial to my enjoyment of that particular app. But since there are multiple instances hosting a version of any given community, I must’ve blocked at least three ‘atheist’ and two or three ‘atheistmemes’ communities, which look the same to me, but are hosted on different instances.

    Is my All feed destined to continue having different instance versions of all the topics I don’t want to see, no matter how many times I block them, as long as there are more and more instances hosting those communities? I don’t want to sound unimpressed by this new technology or ungrateful for the amazing service you all are building, but this feels like either a pretty big flaw in the federated user experience or a pretty big gap in my knowledge of how to work the platform. I’m entirely receptive to the idea I may just be doing something wrong.

    Just curious. Thank you for everything you do.


  • Writing and drawing aren’t lost arts, yet ;)

    There’s strong evidence, by the by, that writing things down by hand works different parts of your brain than typing does. This can be great for somebody like me, with untreated attention issues, as writing things down by hand can help me remember them better. It takes longer to do, so your mind is on it longer, and particularly when I’m journaling, it seems to help me parse through what feels like a jumble of chaotic, circular thoughts by laying them down one word, one letter at a time on paper.

    And since I write pretty much everyday, whether it’s notes at work, the occasional journal entry, or little notes for later in a nice Moleskine pocket notebook, I’d like that experience to be as nice as possible, in the same way a typist might invest in a mechanical keyboard (with just the right feeling and sound for their tastes) or anybody who can afford to will invest in a quality mattress, etc.

    If you ever do give handwriting a shot, or if you get into art someday, you might check out some of the pencil and pen recommendations in the responses to this post. They can be a real treat when compared against, like, a standard no. 2 pencil you got in a box of 50 for $2.







  • Sometimes I open up the home page to see what’s up, then I see what’s up is less interesting than it used to be and less interesting than what’s happening here. And I close it pretty quickly. I’m still using it as part of my Google searches when I need quick human answers. It’s gonna continue to be a historical resource in that regard. No getting around that. But my account only exists so that I can access those resources without too much fuss. It’s not something I use to post or contribute. I used the Sign In With Apple feature to just generate a throwaway anonymous account after I deleted my 11 year old account.



  • I’m warming up to it. Actually, I was never not warm to it, but the learning curve is real. I am on the website right now because the iOS app MLem, which is in beta, doesn’t (as far as I can tell) have a way to search for other communities. But I want to shout that creator out, because I think it’s difficult, thankless work, and I really appreciate their effort. The fact there is an app for iOS at all is a wonderful start. Who knows how solid it will be a year from now?


  • I can hardly even remember. I think I was just curious to write in a way that was a little classier than disposables. I’m a Blackwing pencil convert, and I decided over the years that if you’re going to enjoy doing something (or have to do it), you might as well do it right. The same way they get you to spend big bucks on a mattress, I suppose, but a $20-30 fountain pen has a much lower barrier of entry. It has its shortcomings, but I always come back to my first one, which was a Picasso pen…a 902, maybe? Its nib is a little fat for my tastes, and the cap slips off in my pocket, threatening my pants every day I take it out with me, but that same chubby nib flows over paper like silk. I’ve got other pens whose caps stay better, or whose nibs are finer, but I always end up using this one because at the end of the day, improved writing experience was why I went down this road in the first place.