Notices by Christopher Trottier (atomicpoet@firefish.city), page 2

The US inflation rate is now at 2.6%, which is near the yearly target of 2%.

That's great news for the economy!

Believe me when I say this. The Sora iOS client fixes most issues with discoverability on the Fediverse.

The client has a local (not cloud!) algorithm that sorts what you’re likely to find interesting. If you want, you can manually decide which factors are most important in your timelines. And yes, there are multiple timelines to choose from.

I use it with my Pleroma server, and it practically turns it into a whole new service.

@liztai@hachyderm.io I don’t know why, but I always thought Turkish soap operas would find an audience in Malaysia.

For everyone decrying these "off-brand" Mickey Mouse works in 2024, too bad. Disney had their turn milking that cartoon for whatever it's worth, and now everyone else has a chance to play with it. Public domain is great, and I'm excited to see more classic films finally become available to everyone!

Disney only is what they are now because they took advantage of the public domain. It's time for them to pay it forward.

Now that Mickey Mouse is in public domain, a new video game starring Mickey Mouse is being released -- and it's definitely not approved by Disney.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/mickey-mouse-must-be-exterminated-in-new-horror-game-infestation-88/1100-6520070/

Multiple people have asked me to respond to this post by @panos@catodon.social. We have never worked together since I was never a part of the dev team, but I appreciate all they’ve done for Firefish.

I, myself, had a big hand in the growth of Firefish. I was one of the project’s biggest donators, having provided ~$2,000 in funding over the course of a year. I also helped administer firefish.social, and advised on several community and marketing initiatives. I further spoke to several instance admins in back channels hoping to build strong relationships.

But as you see, I’m not sending this message from firefish.social, and that’s because of severe performance issues with it. To Kainoa’s credit, they did try to work and fix these issues to the best of their ability.

However, I have not spoken to Kainoa since October, and I don’t know the status of the project. Suffice it to say, I have not been working on Firefish for quite awhile.

Despite many people thinking I was a core member of the Firefish team, I never have been—and I always made that very clear. Instead, I saw my role primarily as empowering the project both financially and with other resources when needed.

As demonstrated by the fact I committed large amounts of time and money to the project, I genuinely have wanted Firefish to succeed. I still do, even if it’s with a successor project.

Working on any open source project is hard, and I commend anyone who attempts to do it.

RE: https://catodon.social/notes/9nvp68a5a10zrdi2

Last time I was in Mexico, I heard an acoustic cover of The Clash's song "Spanish Bombs". It was almost as good as -- perhaps better than -- the original. I remember three things about it: a woman sang it, it was slow, and had some accordion in it.

For years, that version of Spanish Bombs has been living rent free in my head, and I can't find it anywhere on the Internet. It's been haunting me like a ghost.

If someone from Latin America or Spain knows about that song, please let me know who makes it. I need to hear it again!

I prefer using adblockers not because I dislike ads, but because they help me protect against potential abuse. You see, most of the malicious and abusive experiences I come across on the Internet are actually through ads.

They often try to steal my bandwidth, take up valuable screen space, or even take control of my browser. Some ads have even tried to install software without my consent, which is downright alarming. Honestly, browsing the Internet can sometimes feel like a battle against the ad industry's hostility. So until the ad industry starts behaving better, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon, I'll continue relying on adblockers to ensure a safer browsing experience.

STOP WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING—IT’S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! 🎄🎅

URKEL SAVES SANTA IS ACTUALLY COMING OUT!!!

That’s the STEVE URKEL animated Christmas movie 😮😳🤯

And yes! Urkel is voiced by Jaleel White!!!

I MUST buy this movie!

https://youtu.be/2sCsA_2Kwws?si=3lWVHRvfgSzPRGfS

Chat-GPT literally just told me that it’s unethical for an older woman to be date a younger adult man.

I asked it to explain how that is unethical. It simply told me that an older woman dating a younger man is socially unconventional.

If an older woman dating a younger man is somehow “socially unconventional”—and thus, unethical—I shudder to think about how actual socially unconventional relationships get judged by Chat-GPT.

Just like Apple and Microsoft, Sony has recently decided to drop support for X (formerly Twitter).

What does this mean? Well, X won't be integrated into PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles anymore. So, starting from November 13, 2023, it's gonna be the last day you can send a post to X.

It's like a chain reaction, right? More dominoes are falling!

https://www.polygon.com/23949334/playstation-twitter-x-ps4-ps5-ps-app

According to a post by @arstechnica@mastodon.social, there are researchers who have decided to put a halt to their tracking of hate speech and misinformation on X (formerly known as Twitter). Their reason for this pause is the concern over potential lawsuits from Elon Musk.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/11/100-researchers-say-they-stopped-studying-x-fearing-elon-musk-might-sue-them

I actually watched the entire Joe Rogan interview with Elon Musk, so you won't have to.

Elon Musk touched on a topic he calls the "woke mind virus" and expressed concern about its impact on humanity. However, he didn't provide a clear explanation of what this virus is, other than mentioning his negative views on San Francisco.

In addition, he made a statement about Twitter being influenced by the "liberal" US government, despite the fact that the most followed account on Twitter belonged to Donald Trump. It is worth noting that Twitter played a significant role in Donald Trump's election. If Elon Musk believed Twitter was as intolerantly "liberal" as he claimed, then why wasn't Donald Trump banned prior to his announcement to run for president?

However, Elon Musk also advocated for the idea that all opinions should be allowed on Twitter. Yet, he himself has banned several journalists who were simply doing their job. For example, he banned a teenage boy for tracking his private jet and banned any mention of Mastodon.

One aspect that Elon Musk didn't consider was the existence of alternative social networks. If having access to social media is so important, why can't the far right establish their own platforms? In reality, they have already done so with platforms like Parler, Rumble, Gettr, Gab, and most notably, Truth Social which is partially owned by Donald Trump.

It seems that Elon Musk doesn't want to acknowledge the possibility of using social media without relying on Twitter, as that would undermine his aspirations of creating an American version of WeChat.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=N8Nf56srwcA

It has taken some time for them to discover the existence of the Fediverse, but now that AdAge has written about it and marketers feel compelled to join, we can see that the hype train is starting to build up.

I'm not stating whether this is positive or negative, but it is certainly something worth noting.

Whenever there is a buzz, opportunistic individuals tend to emerge, and that's simply the way things are.

However, what truly matters once everything settles down is whether the Fediverse is genuinely successful in preventing any one entity from monopolizing social media.

https://adage.com/article/digital-marketing-ad-tech-news/fediverse-everything-marketers-need-know-about-decentralized-social-media/2525801

Awesome guide by @geekmom@twit.social on "Getting Started With Mastodon and the Fediverse"!

Unlike other guides out there that simply focus on the registration process, she goes the extra mile by providing tips on finding interesting people to follow and discovering fresh new content.

https://geekmom.com/2023/10/getting-started-with-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/

For the record, the original post was in plain text, not markdown. I changed the format to markdown and used fenced code blocks so people would know that the intent was for people to see the HTML and JavaScript code.

I now understand why people use fenced code blocks in Markdown. It’s because if you don’t, people will think they’re seeing code as a result of an error in their webpage rendering.

This possibility never occurred to me until someone complained that a post of mine was “unreadable”. They thought they weren’t supposed to see the HTML.

Hey, check out this graph! Take a moment to look at it because, honestly, it's pretty amazing. The growth of WordPress on the Fediverse is truly impressive.

In Q4 2022, there were 924,888 posts, and fast forward to Q4 2023, we're seeing a whopping 2,998,430 posts. Can you believe that? It's a 324% increase year over year!

I've always had a hunch that ActivityPub-enabled WordPress would make a big splash, and if this chart keeps going up, it looks like my prediction might just come true!

SOURCE: https://fedidb.org/current-events/wordpress

@fediversenews@venera.social

Someone recently expressed their displeasure at the idea of preserving Flash media. They believe that everything should have its time and that preservation is offensive.

Well, let me share something interesting with you. The act of preserving things has actually led to the discovery of numerous exceptional works. Take Robert Johnson, for example, whose music reached only a few during his lifetime. Vincent Van Gogh tragically died without receiving recognition for his paintings. And Emily Dickinson was often dismissed as a recluse until someone stepped in and preserved her poetry.

Flash has been responsible for producing incredible art. Many genius creative minds have utilized Flash to create amazing media that is yet to be fully appreciated by critics. Some of these brilliant creators are no longer with us, which is why it is up to us to uncover and rediscover their extraordinary works.

I have been contemplating this idea for a while now and I actually have a really exciting plan. I would love to create a special server on the Fediverse for my extended family. I've noticed that none of them have joined the Fediverse yet, so I think it would be a great solution to have our own dedicated Trottier Family & Friends server. This way, we can easily share news, family photos, and organize events in one place.

I think it's important to mention that the design of this Fediverse server would be more like Facebook rather than Twitter. I know that most of my family and friends are more familiar with Facebook and would feel more comfortable in a cozier environment.

Now, you might be wondering why I don't just join Facebook. Well, if you know me, you can probably guess my reasoning behind this decision: I am not a fan of being controlled by Big Social and I don't want to give Facebook my personal data ever again.

Believe me, I am really excited about starting up my Trottier Family & Friends server and I can't wait to get it up and running!

RE: https://spacehost.team/users/spacehost/statuses/111264469746830850