J. Nathan Matias @natematias@octodon.social
Building public interest, independent research on online safety & fairness. PhD Candidate, MIT Media Lab. Harvard BKC. http://civilservant.io natematias.com
A baby squirrel found its way into our apartment building today and climbed through the radiator into my room.
After failing to coax it out with peanut butter and extra Easter candy, I finally managed to attract it with a brightly colored sock and bright red bag.
The squirrel wouldn't leave by the window but did allow me to carry it (in the bag) out to a park with beautiful trees, bushes, and flowers. I last saw it hopping among the grass and tulips at the base of a large oak.
Had a great time at the Boston March for Science. Here's the sign we made.
https://mastodon.social/media/-Z2wscDPCIVOkKuaxBA https://mastodon.social/media/N6HIb5jmKehTekgWcLA
Me and my geologist wife prepping for today's march for science.
Submitted the dissertation for realz. Now time to get back to supporting online communities with moderation questions.
Looking for a good explainer on the details of mastodon federation.
Can I remote follow someone on an instance not federated with my instance? Can I boost them on my instance? Can my instance block other users/instances from being boosted?
Robinson Meyer with today's winning title and subtitle
Outside, people are running the Boston marathon. Inside, I'm running the my dissertation marathon
Video on high-performance paper airplane designs, from the Maker Faire in 2014
Hello, Octodonners. It looks like Alice's patreon in support of our chosen instance has plateaued. Please do what you can to help our friendly neighborhood cyberpunk queen, @CobaltVelvet
Donating is grand; boosting this, even, will be helpful, to get the message around.
Oooh. On the list for after the dissertation. Via Nnedi Okorafor
"Etabo dreams of being a camel racer. One day he might even beat his older brother when they race"
https://www.lantanapublishing.com/shop/books/wooden-camel/ https://octodon.social/media/u6xqHYjxc19hhBnzDrQ
Me right now:
Finishing the hat. How you have to finish the hat.
How you watch the rest of the world from a window... while you finish the hat.
Mapping out a sky. What you feel like planning a sky. What you feel when voices that come through the window go until they distance and die, until there's nothing but sky.
...
Studying the hat. Entering the world of the hat. Reaching of the world of the hat like a window...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uf-PikY4mQ&feature=youtu.be&t=1m23s
It may be a good time to ask that: does anyone here want to be moderator?
Here it would just mean going through reports, and maybe watching local timelines to rule and help people.
It's not for now, I'll just start making a list for that day.
Hi everyone. I'm a Guatemalan-American who likes reading, making music, sailing, cycling, and trying to help people be less terrible to each other on the internet. I'm a few days away from finishing my PhD at MIT on the topic. Back to writing!
just wanna re-iterate that if any people of color have requests for things the dev team can address to make Mastodon better for people of color then you always have an open eat with me and I will do my best to make it happen, so long as it is feasible within the OStatus protocol.
Heartened to see Tim Berners-Lee receive the Turing Award:
http://awards.acm.org/about/2016-turing
While the Web is ubiquitous, the gracious style of timbl's contribution remains notable and laudable.
Thinking about using links to other people's threads rather than boosting them, to add friction for others who want to add on.
On reddit, we have a convention of respecting other people's conversations by replacing "www" with "np" so people who follow the link have extra friction before they can comment or vote.
Thoughtful Mastodon thread started by @andybaio: "Prediction: Mastodon will likely outlast Twitter"
Prediction: Mastodon will likely outlast Twitter.
Historically, decentralized, open-source platforms and protocols with any adoption run forever, even if they rarely reach the popularity or cultural relevance of centralized platforms.
It seems likely to me that when Twitter eventually shuts down, people will still be running Mastodon instances.
Did you know Diaspora has 328 active nodes and 17k users? Hell, there are 3,652 active FidoNet nodes, and that started in 1984!
So... am I wrong?
woke up to #caturday, mood seriously lifted :)
Rule of Mastodition #17 : No one really understands (the) federation they only pretend to. So don't pay good latinum to somehow who says they can spread your toots.
