Notices by Wary Jerry (jerry@infosec.exchange)

Old and busted: Nicole the fediverse chick ❌
New hotness: Mastodon Administrator ✅

is anyone aware of metrics about the longevity of Fediverse instances by size? I read a diatribe today about how Lemmy/threadiverse is too centralized, lobbying for people to participate in communities on smaller instances. It’s also a common bit of advice given on places like Reddit that people should join small mastodon instances or self host. I think at some level the mastodon guidance has disenfranchised a lot of people who ended up on instances that went belly up, many of which were smaller. But not exclusively so. I think it’s a lot more problematic in the threadiverse for a few reasons: first, most of the software does not permit account migration; second, when the instance that a community resides on goes away, that community effectively goes away along with the future ability to participate in it. Said another way, I think threadiverse users have a vested interest in picking both instances and communities hosted on instances that have some staying power, at least with how things work today. Perhaps there are better ways to structure things so there is much less reliance on an instance, but that clearly is not the case today.

I have this intuition that small instances tend to be set up as somewhat noncommittal hobby projects. Now I’m not advocating that things should be more centralized, just that the way things are seem to create a lot of challenges for the lay person who just wants to use the threadiverse and have it just work.

Anyhow, that’s just today’s shower thought.

Hug your cats for me today.

I really don’t understand the push to for a computer replicate what goes on in the human brain. I mean, I know what goes on in mine and it just seems ill advised for a computer to be thinking those thoughts.

Fireworks shouldn’t be the only thing exploding this independence Day! Don’t forget to push your code to prod on your way out the door for the long weekend.

@Viss this is making me bleed out of my eyes

My (semi-viral) video from the Braves game last night… note: the tarp was the best thing on the field for the Braves.

I don’t mean to brag, but I’m gonna be kind of a big deal

@OvertonDoors I should set up a buy me a coffee link - I have a few options already here on the about page here: https://infosec.exchange/about - I'll go create the buy my a coffee link - didn't know about that one (or just forgot)

Hi all. It's been a while since I've asked, but I'm here again asking for you to support your local fediverse instance. I know many instance operators struggle to make ends meet each month, and there does seem to be a downward trend on donations across the board. If you love this place and are in a position to and your instance supports it, please consider supporting them.

Thank you!

Coping with the heat

@simonzerafa @scott you know, it’s funny. Years ago, they were three unwritten rules of the fediverse: no searching posts; no quote posts; and no, keeping track of which instances blocked which other instances. Since the first two have fallen away, perhaps the third one can now as well.

I get to visit the building of a company that builds elevators to ride an elevator built by the company to the top of the elevator company building.

OMG we are getting a new Naked Gun?!?!?

@blenderdumbass I'll run a poll to see if there is interest in that - the community here doesn't seem to be shy about asking for alternatives, which is how I ended up with patreon, liberapay, and ko-fi

@blenderdumbass no worries - I misunderstood. I have never had anyone ask for a way to donate like that.

@blenderdumbass sure. it seems like I've caused some chaos and misunderstandings. I am about to step out for the night but can reply tomorrow, if that works for you

@blenderdumbass that works for me.

@blenderdumbass In 8 years, I think I had one person ask if I would accept crypto currency for donations. I really should set that up, but it's actually not been an issue for me.

On this Friday the 13th, let us not forget the sacred lesson that Salt ‘N Peppa, the grand visionary of DevOps, taught us so many years ago: “push it! Push it real good!“