Phil Gyford @philgyford@mastodon.social

Ugh, washing machines have such incomprehensible icons, so impossible to use!

It's been 1 year and 1 month and the City of London still hasn't removed this graffiti I reported (which happens to be by Banksy).

Just noticed the Docker logos in this WeWork office. Maybe I'll come and hold up an "I HAVE QUESTIONS" sign when I'm next stuck.

Share Your Moments

There are exceptions, but the rule is: t-shirts untucked, dress shirts tucked in. Presenting at an Apple keynote is not one of the exceptions. Thank you for your attention.

Thinks: "I should work out how to use Docker to do development on my Django sites".

Googles.

Thinks: "Oh dear, this is like everything else: a bazillion tutorials, of varying, erm, quality, none of which agree on how to do this."

Googles courses on whittling spoons again.

The Festival of Maintenance looks like a nice one-day conference, in London on Saturday 22 September so I'm going. https://festivalofmaintenance.wordpress.com Also, it is very reasonably priced.

But I suppose it's quite realistic, the way some people continue to fail upwards into positions of power.

A bit terrified to discover that in ‘Bodyguard’ Stewart Pearson off of 'The Thick of It' is now Minister of State for Counter Terrorism.

'Top of the Pops' 1985: a studio full of girls in pastel-coloured outfits and Princess Di hair-dos gently dancing to the sound of Divine growling 'Walk Like a Man'. Very odd.

It's a shame the ActivityPub protocol's name also describes a pub full of drunken office workers "bonding" over ping-pong or axe throwing.

This scanner claims it can take a maximum of 10 sheets of paper at once and yet I successfully fed it 12… How can that work?! I'm a monster! What are facts? Don't look at me! What even is truth? Are numbers? Is? Am?

I'm not 100% sure why I currently have this set up to require me to approve new followers, but I do. I'm bemused by people who request to follow a stranger having added no description, links, toots, or even a full name to their account...

I mean, there's no way to verify anyone is who they say they are but still, it would at least be nice to know *something* about you. Or about who you're pretending to be.

2018: Still trying to persuade people that clickable/tappable things on web pages should *look* like they're clickable/tappable.

We bought a Beko washing machine from the Co-op and the process was not as smooth as one might hope, which I have detailed here https://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2018/08/15/washing-machine/ This is still the content you’ve signed up for.

Samuel Pepys is now here as @samuelpepys . Currently tooting 1665's events in real time, as he does on Twitter. He just won eight shillings at billiards.

Maybe if you're on an instance of lots of friendly people you could have an account on which you only allow approved followers, and usually post followers-only toots. Like a private Twitter account.

But then you can also make individual toots public. Which on a big instance I assume won't be seen by many people. But on a cosy one I imagine it's more like a chatroom/Slack and others would see it. They're more like followers of a public Twitter account. Maybe?

I thought Mastodon's different privacy model might obviate the "need" for having both private and public accounts. But I think I was mistaken.

You can't both be followed by anyone who wants to follow you and toot publicly (like a public Twitter account) and, sometimes, only toot so a select group of followers can see (like a private Twitter account).

Unless I've missed something? Not a criticism of Mastodon, just realising my misunderstanding.

:looks at the 23,483 tracks in iTunes that I've given ratings to.

"Hmm, I'm not sure I've got this right. I think I've made ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ too broad."

>.<

What fun to have another round of "let's join Mastodon". I hope one of these orbits generates enough momentum for the journey to continue, but I'm not sure we have the velocity yet.