Notices by Ari does not comply (arisummerland@beige.party)

@AllysonShaw @PhoenixSerenity I love that perspective, of Meta mediating everybody's relationships. I am going to start bringing that up in conversations when people bring up Facebook and what they've seen on Facebook etc. that is a very important perspective, I think. Thank you!

@AllysonShaw @PhoenixSerenity "Sinister" is a good word for it! It feels greasy and horrible, especially if you have not been immersing yourself in that environment constantly.

I still go on there sometimes -- lately because I'm trying to promote a friend of mine's contest that he's in. The only way people can vote for him is on Facebook. I hate that!

The whole experience feels abhorrent to me.

I will try scrolling to get information or updates about real people and the ratio is about seven ads/bots/promoted posts to every one post from somebody I actually know.

When FB first started out, and when I was on it originally in 2009, it was amazing. A diary site that a number of people and I wrote on had imploded, and we all made an exodus to Facebook to stay in touch. I would see those people's posts, I would see people that I knew, my best friend and I would chat, those days were glorious!

Now, this is glorious. I just don't have a whole lot of people whom I know in real life here. I'm trying to get them over here.

Instagram started getting as bad a couple of years ago as well. I opened a new account to promote a foster dog that I thought I was going to get, but didn't really populate it because I didn't get the dog.

Since I was only following like six people on the new accounte, everything else I saw was ads. 🤬

I've missed out on information about people dying, funerals, celebrations of life, and also good things like weddings, concerts, etc. (Though I do not go places where there are crowds anymore because of the pandemic.) Yet so rarely do any of those folks remember to reach out and go, Ari might want to do this thing, too!

@PhoenixSerenity Well-said.

I hear the same 99.9% of the time. "it's the only way I can stay connected with people" etc. (BS, I say! It is a choice, and it is a detrimental one.)

I experienced, in real time, the precipitous drop in "social" connection when I purposefully stepped away from Facebook and Instagram.

Fortunately, two years out now, some people whom I cherish have started realizing that I'm not around there, and are reaching out in other ways.

Those are real friends.

I love your term "slow time"!

I am going to start including it in my communications with people.

Hey, do you want to go hang out in slow time? 🥰

@VulpineAmethyst Ohhh, 100%. A group that I'm associated with had a repeating event a year or two ago that was exactly this: only open to women and "non-binary" people? Not cool! A large portion of the queer minority in said group is actually transmasc. Zero percent of us would've felt comfortable.

Quick question for #Tech Fedi and those of you who work in offices and have to do this kind of thing:

A group that is just starting to organize needs an online way to post documents, chat, etc., and I would like it to stay away from Google if it all possible.

Google groups doesn't work with people who don't have Gmail addresses, so I need something that is inclusive of Gmail addresses and other domains.

A text chain won't cut it because we need to be able to invite new people and we all need to see the documents, notes and be able to change a workflow document/spreadsheet as well.

I was going to suggest Slack, but I haven't used that enough at this point to know if it would suit our purposes for messaging and sharing documents.

I have no idea what hashtags will work here, so boosts and suggestions for hashtags are appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

@nat thank you also for posting alt text for all of these!

@akamran @timixretroplays 100%. I was actually so excited to go get out my calipers and do this…

@Infoseepage Yes, it was a disappointing amount of beast!

You won't believe it... but I am watching #Snowbeast, the #RiffTrax version, tonight -- with guest commentators who seem to be British.

#Monsterdon toots were actually funnier!

Still, since it's tough really to see the movie when we are tooting it at the same time, it's kinda fun to see the bits I missed.

There sure is a lot of skiing and snowmobiling. 🙄

Hey, everybody for whom 2025 has already started... is it going OK so far?

*peeks furtively around the corner while holding a baseball bat and a glass of wine, not knowing which I'll need*

#NewYear #NewYear2025

When I first joined the Fediverse (on a now long-unused account) after being put in Facebook jail for saying I wanted to punch a Nazi in the face, I didn't know if I would be able to get the kind of information that sustains me and keeps me abreast of what's going on in the world.

But guess what? As it turns out, sometimes I'm the first person in my local human group to know about something in the world because of you all. It could be big world news, it could be cute sheep in a pasture in England, it could be a beautiful sunset, it could be your adorable dog, it could be some dumb internet trend that makes me laugh out loud.

It's glorious not having to wade through targeted posts, flashing ads, algorithmic suggestions, and utter bullshit to find real news and people.

I chalk it up to the infrastructure of this place, as well as our fabulous and tireless admins -- plus all y'all who come here every day to post all kinds of stuff.

Learning how to use hashtags was also a great way to find the information I wanted without having to see things I didn't want to see.

Yes, it can be a little bit of a walled garden here. But it doesn't mean I don't peek up over the wall every now and then.

I'm especially happy to have found my monster movie friends, my soccer friends, my fellow autistics, and even a couple of really cool local people on here who don't yet seem creeped out by being acquainted online with someone who lives geographically close to them.

It's not quite the same camaradarie as my old blogging communities, but there are a few of you that I feel I would not be axe murdered by if we met in person.

In one of those communities, we would drive across country to meet each other (hell, one of my friends from New Zealand came to meet me!), stay at each other's houses, host parties together, and some folks even got married, having met while blogging! Those were the more innocent days of the internet, I think. (To this day I'm still friends with many of those people even though that site is long gone.)

Anyway, thank you. Please just keep being your weird, glorious selves. All my love to all of you as this stupid year draws to a close and the unknown horror dawns. Stay strong.

I've been subscribed to this newsletter since at least 2017 and am now able to support it every month. It's one of the news aggregators that has helped keep me informed and relatively sane. We're going to need services and people like this who do the tireless work of sifting through all of the garbage to find out what's really going on and report on it. It's been one of the most valuable tools for me in our recent political climate. Please consider subscribing, and if you have the means, supporting.

From: @wtfjht
https://bird.makeup/users/wtfjht/statuses/1864443525779062868

@blogdiva oh my gosh I actually thought the OP post was a joke post. He actually said this? HOW GROSS!!!

I would like to remind everybody where viruses mutate.

I feel like Dr. Seuss when I say: Do they mutate in the air? Do they mutate everywhere? Do they mutate on the ground? Do they mutate all around?

No.

They mutate within living creatures.

The host.

You are a living creature.

You are a host.

When you contract #Covid, you are potentially a Petri dish for such mutations.

It mutates a lot. It's a virus. That's its job; to survive and infect hosts.

You, yes you, are potentially a vector for transmission of a mutated version of the virus every time you get it.

This is the piece that nobody cares to understand.

These new variants come from people who get infected and spread it. They don't magically come from Narnia or a different dimension or trees. They come from people.

You are people.

If you get sick, you are potentially cooking up a mutation of the virus that will then go on and harm another person. Maybe dozens. Maybe thousands.

Is that fucking simple, but nobody pays attention to this. Nobody cares.

Yes, the only ways to stop transmission of this current virus includes doing things that you don't like to do:

Wear a well-fitted #N95 or higher respirator in the presence of others.

Ventilate and clean indoor air.

Monitor CO2.

Avoid potential super-spreader events.

Don't go out when you're possibly sick without wearing a good mask.

Don't assume you don't have the virus if you think or know you've been exposed. (Asymptomatic transmission is at least half of transmission these days.)

Don't be a petri dish. Please. Just don't.

#CovidIsNotOver #MaskUp #Ventilate

@mekkaokereke THANK YOU. A lot of people I'm talking to and hugging are reminding me to just be out and joyful. To create community, find connection, and not be afraid. Because the haters want us to be afraid. Not gonna comply.

I may have mentioned this somewhere else. My friend George (of blessed memory) used to say that life was 80% maintenance.

I realize now, many years later, that for me, this is wrong. George, bless him, may have experienced this, because he actually had some down time in his daily life, and hung out with friends and family often to do fun and meaningful things. He had some unspoken white male privilege that we just took as read.

None of us seem to have time, money, or energy to do fun or nice things anymore. The group of friends really fell apart after he died.

Life, for me, is about 117% maintenance on any given day right now. I'm serious. I know 117% is impossible, but it's what it feels like. Everything is maintenance. And on mornings like this when I'm having insomnia, it hits even harder.

I was talking with an old friend on Sunday about the monetization of everything, the transactional nature of everything, and he was telling me how a lot of that stems from Christianity. I was trying to wrap my head around the transactional nature of believing in Jesus Christ as the savior. Not having been raised Christian, it's not easy for me to understand, but I'm starting to get it, which means I'm starting to understand this undercurrent in American culture. I'm sure it's similar in other countries.

I mentioned how there are no free spaces to be in anymore. Everything is monetized. The culture of the coffee shop means that you have to spend money to be somewhere. The culture of micro-transactions and monetizing every last bit of your daily life means that there are not free public spaces in which people gather to do things that are not monetized and controlled. One of the last bastions of this freedom is the public library.

It's been a gradual creep, this pay-to-play culture. It's been an intentional creep, apparently as well. Monetizing our every minute has become glorified and captured in the grind. Money and having lots of it is still considered neutral/good rather than the old idea of "the root of all evil", and monetizing every action is considered to be entrepreneurial or savvy or... whatever.

It's not healthy.

Neither is having a life where 117% of it is maintenance and negative however many percent of it is relaxation and fun and actual personal interaction, growth, rest, and enjoyment.

In spite of attempting to step out of grind culture, apparently I am still strongly affected by it. And I have a shit ton of privilege!!! I'm housed, I have a fairly stable income for now, and I have access to good food. I have relative health atm and I am able to invest in that.

But I don't have the same social structure I had when George was alive. There's very little true relaxation. There's very little relaxed interaction with other human beings. And I definitely don't do crowds or parties anymore because of the pandemic.

I miss George. Being around him was relaxing. We got to do fun things like drum circles and seasonal celebrations with our intentional group that we had. We even traveled all together to festivals now and again! I know I lived a very stressed out, insecure life when he was around, but getting to have breaks for fun with him and friends was really good. Maybe my life was only 95% maintenance then. 🤷🏽

Watch the creep, my friends. Watch the creep of monetization and taking away your time. Intentionally resist where you can. Carve out spaces where things are not monetized if at all possible. Make those spaces for other people if you have the means. We're still all in this together, regardless of what lies we hear in popular media or from other people.

George did not lie about maintenance. He did the maintenance he needed to do, and he worked right up to at least 80% of it. Maybe it was part of his own resistance to take that 20% back for himself and enjoy being with his family and friends. Maybe I need to push for that in my own life? 20% would seem pretty damn spacious to me right now.

Hey, everyone, I've got a #computer question!

Can I convert a 2014 #MacBook Air into... something else, like some kind of #Linux... ummm... thingy?

Or is it best just wiped and recycled somewhere? ☹️

I know. I'm setting myself up for reply guys, trolls being called a noob or worse, etc. But I really want to know if it's possible to do something useful with it besides yeet it into the sun.

I also know this place is rife with Linux users.

Do not worry! I have newer computers (2022ish), but... I loathe throwing stuff away, especially after #Apple has stopped supporting it (thus, the 1997 1400 CS sitting in my garage for which I bought a "new" motherboard recently…).

Anyway, I'm just gonna leave this here and come back tomorrow to see if there are any useful replies. Have fun!

@RickiTarr also: