Improbable Island @ImprobableIsland@mastodon.social

our memories are fuzzy, but we have access to a tool that lets us reach for any event as if it just happened. this means any given person with an internet history becomes permanently branded with their mistakes, which NORMALLY get absorbed into growing as a person, but has been used online in order to "make examples" of people - pressuring/intimidating people into acting in self-serving ways. it's frustrating to witness over and over

FOSS is free as in toilet

Excellent statement, absolutely true

@slackz Organising on Facebook is handing a nicely formatted list of all activists, all their contacts, friends and family, their 24/7 location data, browsing history, and a list of how to manipulate them to the authorities.

It doesn't matter how many people are there, it's not worth it.

If people truly care about an issue they'll go to the extreme inconvenience of typing a different URL into their browser to visit a safer site with less surveillance built in.

hey play this game because it fucking rules
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RT @KrisLigman@twitter.com
Hey I just published my new game, You Are Jeff Bezos. It is a game where you are Jeff Bezos and your only goal is to spend all his fucking money https://direkris.itch.io/you-are-jeff-bezos
https://twitter.com/KrisLigman/status/1053435599581933568

The big reason I rail against the myth of an indiepocalypse or too many games is that it's a fairy story made up by people to cover up the fact that what they preached for a long time was absolutely not the experience of 99.9999% of people trying to make their way in games.

They sold their fortunate experiences as objective truth and when even the faintest whiff of everyone else's experience caught up with them, they made up a disaster event.

Read this. This article pretty summarizes what I see every day. And when I criticize it, half of the audience doesn't understand my point. They are simply to young and grew up with smart phones and fast lines.

"Software disenchantment": http://tonsky.me/blog/disenchantment/ via kurtm@bsd.network

Programming is 99% plumbing, 1% really hard mathematics. When those who excel at the 1% build the remaining 99% also, you usually end up with systems that have unnecessarily-complicated plumbing.

I made another RPG this month, this time about faerie lords who were exiled from the fey realm (possibly because you destroyed it).

Now you are a creepy nightmare reature wandering the desert, using magic bells to lure victims I to the sand wastes so you can slaughter them and steal their memories.

http://nickwedig.libraryofhighmoon.com/2018/08/monthly-monster-the-lands-within-the-wind/

Blindlysocial.masto.host exists.

Netizen @Aaron_h2002 and @fireborn are building an instance for the visually impaired and the blind.

Follow them, and please help them get this off the ground, I look forward to what they bring to the fediverse.

@bstacey That is a great idea!

@ImprobableIsland @ajroach42 Don’t know how he came up with the idea. Did it while in the after session childcare after a STEM day camp. Usually they just play games or watch videos. This wasn’t part of the camp itself.

I know all of this has been said before, but probably not in conjunction and not in as much detail, so please bear with me, I'm working hard on being concise ...it's just not very effective.

The toots I've seen about this were mostly:
• avoid rage and toxicity
• toot about positive things
• you don't need to put on fake smiles, though

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_Avoid Rage and Toxicity_

Avoiding toxicity pretty much bears mentioning, you might think. Racist, sexist, ableist and classist slurs/hate speech/argumentation, body-shaming, transphobia, homophobia...
I'll just name the most common things and leave it to you to extrapolate or ask, respectively listen to someone who tries to explain to you why one of your toots may be toxic. It happens. It happened to me and still might in the future. Some things are obvious, some aren't; perhaps because of a way we were raised and came to view something as normal. For many of us there is still room to grow, and that's okay as long as we keep an open mind and learn from the community around us.

Rage is much more difficult to avoid. News headlines that get to us, injustice we want to fight but don't know how...
Things like these are bound to make us angry. It's natural. Other social media have exploited that and fed our fear, turning anger into wrath we unleashed to sow and reap yet more fear, hate and anger. So we're asking you, before you might engage in old habits, please exhale and take in a fresh breath and a moment to think.

What would your action lead to? Are you about to @ people that might not want to be dragged into this? Are you about to boost un-CW'd content that you know makes others uncomfortable? Are you about to toot something that might lead to an escalation and/or toxic behaviour?

If the answer is yes to any of these, maybe try looking through some other answers to that toot. You might find a way to contribute something constructive instead, a good idea to spread, someone to reach out to with comfort or a new perspective on things that might help you (and others) calm down a bit, perhaps organise and get something done about it. Even if not or if you just stepped back from your computer, you would have avoided adding to the outrage and that's good.

_Post Something Positive_

This is a great way to engage with a community. Share something about your child, pet, partner*s, the bird that visited your garden, your favourite tree in the park, the interruption of your morning routine, the joke you found funny...
Possibilities are endless.
Positive things don't need to amaze people. They can be small and unspectacular and still spread smiles over your followers' faces. I'm all here for this! 😸

_No Need to Put On Fake Smiles_

This is the most important part. It's about genuineness and vulnerability. Both are welcome here, both are encouraged.
It's true, Mastodon and the fediverse aren't perfect. Not everyone feels like this is a safe space to be genuinely themselves and share freely what they are struggling with. Yet many are doing it and receiving support, validation and good advice (when asked for).

Positivity is also not supposed to be a veneer for shortcomings of any kind. We want to hear your voice, telling us what makes you feel unwelcome or makes parts of your fediverse experience frustrating or inaccessible. Engage in (CW'd) Meta discussion/Discourse and tell us what you need.

This is the kind of community many here want to build. So be yourself, reach out to others with consideration and kindness. It works!
When it doesn't you have tools that can actually do something about it. Toxic users can be reported, toxic instances can be banned or abandoned. When you need to migrate you can take all the people you're following with you. As for your followers, just give them a shout and put something up in your bio, you can make it a followers only post and pin it, even.

Before I get into rambling: the hashtags #Community #MastoTips and #GetOnOurLawn hold valuable info on how things work here and How YOU Can Make them Work For You! For everything else, feel free to ask your followers, your admin or just #AskMastodon !

I hope we can all share a good experience here and work together on creating a community that truly lives up to this designation.
#MastodonPositivity