Notices by Ethan Schoonover (ethanschoonover@mastodon.social), page 2

I'm going to break down why Bluesky is beating Threads. It comes down to one thing: ATTITUDE about what the Internet IS. Threads management, Mosseri Zuck et al, have a fundamentally LOW OPINION of what the internet can be and of their network's participants.
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The techno-utopianism of the early Internet was naïve and often misguided but we shouldn't throw out the principles and aspirations wholesale out of cynicism. Threads, IG, and Facebook are the HEART AND SOUL of cynicism.
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Mastodon, and Twitter of yore, have a fundamentally different attitude toward content and users. Users are PARTICIPANTS and on equal footing. They are deemed and viewed as a true part of a CONVERSATION, not just eyeballs on the reality-tv2.0-feed.
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I am at that precarious moment of every beard owner where the length is good but if I don't trim it WITHIN THE NEXT 12 HOURS I will immediately look like I have written a conspiracy manifesto.

How I taught my kids to check their email:

(this is a regular email I send with slight variability on timing, this time leveling things up to include proper format challenge and some friendly sib rivalry)

Did you know that #AppleReminders is sort of a secret power tool for projects and todos?

It even has a kanban view.

And clicking any one of those icons on the reminders shown? Opens the project note in #AppleNotes. Easy. Simple built in tools.

Apple Reminders > View Menu > as Columns (you can make new columns which show up as sections in list view)

Running an " email over #hamradio " station from a #Seattle Fire Dept. battalion station for this morning's earthquake response exercise. Part of my volunteer work with https://www.seattleacs.org

(simulating a quake and internet outage and assisting to coordinate incident response)

every time I log on to a discord server with too many channels

Someone gave us a towel with our cat's photo on it and now she sleeps exclusively on top of it like some sort of degenerate narcissist 1970s movie star.

@chargrille @bhawthorne It's always amazing to me how blue Wisconsin was when I was kid vs now (am in WA now). Unions, progressive policies. All feels very much washed away. My hippie WI parents are still out there canvasing for progressive causes though.

@chargrille @bhawthorne junior high for me in Wisconsin in the 80s. All students took both home-ec and woodshop.

@bhawthorne @chargrille Yeah agree. I've actually taught some of these (some of the home repair stuff and spreadsheets) as part of other classes to middle schoolers and I think that's the better age.

Classes I'd like to teach to high schoolers:

CHAOS MITIGATION: Stay organized, fight digital & physical entropy (replaces home-ec 101)

THE BOX YOU LIVE IN: Wire outlets, unclog drains, fixit stuff (replaces woodshop)

SPREADSHEETS: Before code learn this (replaces any intro class teaching Java)

My lower back just wrote me a letter

The story of the internet is never let the money guys in

Running my MacBook pro off one of my DeWalt power tool batteries. There are USB-C adapters for most major tool battery brands out there, many of which (like this one) will both power devices and charge the tool battery from a standard USB-C power plug. YMMV in terms of quality/safety (this is the official dewalt adapter which works great).

Great for power redundancy, etc. A no brainer if you already have the batteries for tools.

The cat just went over to the HomePod mini on my desk, meowed at it, and Siri said "sure here is some music for you" and the cat perched on the window sill listening to Garbage and Elliott Smith.

I just want to know how long this has been going on.

My wife decided to learn #Python and, with absolute deadpan seriousness, refers to curly brackets exclusively as "squirrelly brackets".

Not only do I not correct her, I have now adopted this term as canonical.

A corporate "digital ethics consultant" taking a firm stance against... personal privacy. Got it.

Next up: A big-oil "environmental consultant" explains why that pipeline spill is actually a net environmental positive.

1980 Computers are for nerds
1990 Computers are for everyone

1995 The internet is for nerds
2005 The internet is for everyone

2005 Smartphones are for nerds
2015 Smartphones are for everyone

2006 Twittr is for nerds
2016 Twitter is for everyone

2022 Mastodon is for nerds