I’m working on Mastodon even more this week!
Howdy [subscriber:firstname | default:yall],
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I’m doing a 366 Day Challenge, and am 296 days in! You can follow along on my PixelFed account.
Over the past few weeks I’ve talked about Mastodon a bit, and the new instance that I’m setting up to go along with tech.lgbt, my LGBTQIA+ technology focused instance (but secretly it’s all furries now basically).
I’ve finally got one setup on the Mastodon fork glitch-soc, and have been making some code modifications to get it to where I want it before opening invites a bit more. It’s called puppy.cafe, and actually isn’t meant to be totally furry, that’s just who I get to help me vote on names, so I deserve it 😂
I’m not skilled in Ruby so it’s probably going slower than it should. I am making it an invite only instance that uses an allowlist instead of a blocklist, to try to keep it away from some of the frustrating parts of social media. I’m sending an invite out to my Patreon members when ready but if you want in, send me an email reply!
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Novelist, futurist, podcaster, and more Charlie Jane Anders has been publishing a new book on tor.com, one chapter at a time. The book is called Never Say You Can’t Survive, and it is full of useful information on building worlds and characters. More important, it talks about ways that you can flesh out characters of varying groups, and how to distinguish between appropriation and representation.
If you want to write some fiction, I highly recommend this series.
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It’s not like politics has never been not weird, but we’re getting to the point now that our most popular politicians are Very Online People. Joe Biden’s team putting out an Animal Crossing island that voters can visit. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar played Among Us on Twitch to record numbers, and at least one person was overjoyed at the honor of being murdered by AOC in game.
We’re only going to get more bonkers in the future. For 2024 I can definitely see more engagement in this way, whether it is useful or just something to fill the news cycle.
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Why Facebook Can’t Fix Itself – Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker
Do you need more answers to this question? I doubt it, but here’s a longform on why anyway.
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Can you use a Gameboy Camera as a webcam for Zoom calls? Of course you can, albeit with a convoluted and pricey setup. I’m sure that someone will turn this into a filter for your video meeting software soon. The reason why they wanted to answer this question in the first place is golden.
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Rights for music are weird. Even when a band like Anamanaguchi wants fans to be able to stream their music on Twitch streams. Or when their own streams get muted and get automated DMCA takedown notices for their music playing during them.
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Animaniacs is back! Animaniacs is back!
It’s Bedtime – NSP
New NSP album is out and yes, it is good. The latest video is probably my favorite, at least until The Mystic Crystal is released!
The Origins of the Zombie, from Haiti to the U.S. | Monstrum
Monstrum is putting out a weekly series on zombies for spoopy month. The first video is on the origins of zombies, and this week’s video is on George Romero changing the popular perception of zombies. Both offer nice deep dives into the topic, and the final installment comes out next week, so catch up now.
Hey look, the weekend! Make a bit of time for yourself where you can 💝
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