Hurricanes, elections, Mastodon

david wolfpaw

Issue # 🤷

9 Nov 2022

Reading time:

5 mins

Another hurricane hitting Florida this week! It looks like it will be both minor and not a direct hit, but it does stop me from getting out of the house some for the next two days.

Yesterday was Election Day, and dang, Florida wasn’t even a close race this year, was it? I’m happy that we re-elected our state house rep, and got to elect the first zoomer congressperson. Otherwise, I’m pretty disheartened but not surprised.

I don’t really want to share the many articles about Twitter that I’ve read over the past two weeks. There’s just been so much news, mainly extremely negative, concerning changes to the internet.

The one thing that I will say positively is that a lot of positive (and yes, some negative) interest has been turned toward Mastodon. We’ve had so many new signups on our instance and every other.

The only downside to this is that things started running very slowly. Bottleneck after bottleneck appeared, showing us where people are having issues with growth.

Thankfully, with the technical support expertise of @tessaracht@kitty.town and the new financial support of patrons on Patreon, I was able to upgrade our server, last updated when musk suggested buying Twitter back in April. It’s now costing 3x what it was before, but almost everything is running so smoothly now!

📚

Swamp Boy – Kris Newby, Now This

I liked the article depth, that the illustrations that match the topic, and the idea of animations. But man, this site sucks to navigate, especially if you toggle away and come back.

I told my partner I wanted to try being polyamorous. It’s changed how we coparent, and how I view our relationship. – Sage Agee, Insider

My partner and I are polyamorous. I’m also a queer, gender confused individual. Opening up a bit more about one has opened a lot more about the other too.

Excluding non-binary people by design: How sign-up forms can lead to discrimination – Sarah L. Fossheim

I love their site, first of all. But second, this is a good article showcasing why some simple design choices can have both obvious and non-obvious knock-on effects.

Video Games Are Giving Up On The Idea That We Can Save The World – Michael Lee, Kotaku

I never really noticed this, but now I want more positive future video game stories.

📽

Is Web3 bullshit? | Molly White at Web Summit 2022

I’d like to attend Web Summit some day, because it feels a lot more like an event where people who have thoughts about the future of platforms for communities and individuals can have as much of a say as those peddling marketing.

It’s Ok to be Mentally Ill.

“I am not broken. I am not a sinner. I am not degenerate. I am not a failure.”

Why Sign Language Was Banned in America | Otherwords

Any time the solution is assimilation, I reflexively recoil.

Monster Hunt 5: Horror Comic Creatures

I’m liking that Night Mind is slowly being more openly queer and furry in relation to their interesting videos. This one has a custom comic to match the topic!

Why is Gaming STILL so Toxic? | Salari

One of the many reasons that I don’t do online gaming.

The Deadly Basement of a 4chan Doomer (Documentary)

This is bizarre and sad

🎧

TWRP – The Eve of the War (feat. Dan Avidan)

New TWRP coming!

Victoria Woodhull – Respect The Dead

It’s nice that every once in a while the team at Respect The Dead want to turn our attention to someone who they actually do respect. It gives me some kind of weird hope.

What is the ‘Internet Hate Machine?’

A new show from Bridget Todd that I want to highlight, focusing around the time period of GamgerGate and how bad actors got savvy on social media.

If you made it this far, why not share this newsletter with a friend? Or share with me some of the things that you found that you liked this week. Either way, I’m thrilled!