Graham Downs

"Yes, English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though." #English #jokes

All my followers who want to be found by more people, edit your bio and include some hashtags you want to be known for[*], and also the hashtag #fedi22. Then go to https://fediverse.info/people scroll to the bottom of the page, and add yourself there. [*] You can also visit that page first and try typing in a few topics to get some inspiration. #Fediverse

@libreoffice@fosstodon.org To be fair, odt is significantly larger than docx. Which I guess makes sense, since docx is zipped. I found this out when someone sent me a docx yesterday, and I made changes to it, and then saved it as an odt before sending it back to him (because I want to start exposing more people to odt, and MS Word opens those fine). I was shocked at the file size difference. So as an experiment, I saved my edits as a docx too, and confirmed it: the docx was like 20kb smaller than the odt. :/

Incidentally, I'm also the sort to always tick the box to send usage data to the developers for apps I use. I figure the more information they have on how real users actually use their software, the better they'll be able to make that software. As a developer, I really enjoy seeing those sort of metrics from my users too, so it'd be hypocritical of me to not agree to give it to others. :-)

@JustinDerrick@mstdn.ca @chroma@raccoonisland.social Yeah, I get that. And I get that it's a much bigger discussion. A lot of people don't WANT millions and millions of users on the Fediverse in general. And then there's the fact that some smaller instances couldn't sustain millions and millions of users. To me, I want the millions and the hundreds of millions and the billions. I want all the celebs to come. All the big brands to come. I want to see this place being the next Facebook or X or.... Even if that means trolls. I want us to go mainstream. With the exception, of course, that smaller instances wouldn't be able to handle it because it would just explode their overheads. For that, though, I think we need to ability for those to remain small if they want to. And we... almost do already, because you can block and defederate with other instances if you want. And you can open and close registrations if you want too, but I think we need a way to automate that process. Like IRC servers, where you can tell it, "don't allow more than 500 concurrent users in a server", we need a way to tell Mastodon to only accept a maximum of xxxx total users on a server, before automatically closing registrations. So you don't wake up tomorrow morning and suddenly see 100k new users having signed up overnight. That way a potential user could see something like, "Sorry, this server is already at capacity, so registration is closed. Please find a different server to join." :)

@jerry@infosec.exchange As in, who got breached this time and how could they be so stupid? :)

@chroma@raccoonisland.social The thing is, because there's a way to extract (monetary) value from them, those corporations can therefore justify investing capital into marketing, to make sure that more people know about them and how easy they are to use. And that's the point: marketing. Nobody's prepared to throw money at large-scale marketing campaigns for the Fediverse or IRC, because they have no way of making that money back. "If you build it, they will come" is no longer enough. You need to tell people about it. At scale. Not just one or two of your friends here and there, once in a blue moon, but thousands or hundreds of thousands of people at a time, constantly, so that it's always at the top of their minds. Neither the Fediverse nor IRC are particular difficult to get into. But people perceive them as difficult because there's a certain friction, a certain mental block, involved in the idea of selecting a server, and the for-profit networks take advantage of that by advertising the fact that THEIR platform is simple whereas the non-commercial ones are not. If we all banded together and each put some money down to start a massive, global, continuous marketing campaign for a month, I'm sure our platform would explode: I'm talking triple, maybe even quadruple, the MAU by the end of that month. But it has to be a constant, multi-platform campaign. I'm talking TV, radio, Google ads, X ads, Facebook ads, billboards, the lot. The average person should not be able to look anywhere for that month without being reminded of the Fediverse. We can do it. :-)

@oldrawgabbit@mastodon.world I mean... there's no shame in it anymore. You don't have to stay in the closet. I certainly won't judge you. :-D

@dansup@mastodon.social Ooh. New name and avatar. So *formal*! :-)

@dansup@mastodon.social I shiver with antici.... :D

@rolle@mementomori.social Aaah! OK, that makes sense. :)

@dansup@mastodon.social No worries. Just making sure. :)

@dansup@mastodon.social So with the People Directory, are you saying it only picks up hashtags in the bio, when determining topics? So... a) It won't pick up hashtags used in posts and rank them, so if most of my most recent posts contain wordle, it will list me under wordle, for example? b) It MUST be a hashtag in my bio, so because I have the words "Christian" and "Author" in my bio, I won't show up under those topics on fediverse.info unless I explicitly hashtag those words?

@dansup@mastodon.social OK, fair enough. Although one might argue that if you explicitly opt-in to the people directory, you're fine with having your (public) posts crawled. But better safe than sorry. :-) That other thing you're talking about, allowing people to manage their own listings, would be super cool!

@solar_chase@mastodon.green But BST is UTC+1. It is known. UTC is UTC; it never changes.

@solar_chase@mastodon.green Here in South Africa, panels are relatively cheap, and we get really good sun, but the bottleneck are batteries and inverters. We only have 6kW inverter and a 4.8kWh battery, which is nowhere near enough to run aircon. So while many middle-class homes here have solar, we still need to be quite selective about what we choose to run off the inverter vs what still goes directly off the grid. Do most people with solar where you're from run their entire house off solar, or is it a similar situation there, where people have to be conscious about the size of their inverter?

@dansup@mastodon.social thank you! 😊

@Gargron@mastodon.social "Remove Follow" is something I didn't know about. And over the years many of my followers have migrated to different instances, so I'm still followed by the old, inactive account. And they're clogging my list and falsly inflating my follower count. Now I get to remove those followers. Yippee! :-)

@Gargron@mastodon.social OK, interesting. I've just discovered that you cannot remove someone from your follows, if you're following them back. You need to unfollow them first.

@evan It depends on the goal, I guess. In Mozilla's case, the goal is probably to keep growing the business, so... probably not. Wikipedia is ostensibly not concerned with making profit at all; all they need to do is keep the lights on. Which they've traditionally done by asking their regular members and supporters for donations once a year. The amount of people willing to donate has probably gone down, but hopefully the ones that remain are just as passionate as ever. :/

Shorter attention spans are a boon for hackers: https://gadget.co.za/tiktokbrain74w/?utm_source=MastodonAfrica #infosec #CyberSecurity

@dgoosens@phpc.social Isn't that the whole message behind The American Dream(tm), though? That whoever you are, no matter where you are, or what you are, or anything like that, in America, you can make all your dreams come true? That essentially, in America, it truly *is* possible to become a millionaire? Ergo, if you're in America, and you're not yet a millionaire, you will be eventually, provided you're prepared to put in the work and never give up. Which, in principle, is a very good attitude to have, if you ask me. As opposed to Socialism, which essentially tells you that you will *always* need to depend on other people for your own survival, livelihood, and happiness. Don't get me wrong, there's truth in that too, what with ubuntu ("I am because we are"), but ultimately, I prefer not to have to depend on anyone else to get where I want to be. :/

@dgoosens@phpc.social

keeping people miserable is the best way to keep them docile, no matter what ideology

On that we definitely agree. And it's possible to do that regardless of the ideology too. :(

@dansup@mastodon.social How often do you re-check profiles for added or removed hashtags? Because I added a few hashtags to my bio yesterday, but I'm not searchable under any of them yet....

@batworx@mastodon.africa Morning, Gavin. I hope you have a wonderful day! :-)

@batworx@mastodon.africa Morning, Gavin. Have a great day! :-)

@hayesstw@c.im No. But I can't drive at all due to my visual disability. So perhaps I shouldn't have voted, because now I think of it, you probably intended it for people who can drive in general. :-) Maybe delete and re-do the poll with an "I can't drive at all" option?

@dansup@mastodon.social Ah, good point. So I don't have to remove myself first, right? Just re-add my handle?

This year, GirlCode runs from 15-16 August in South Africa; Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda from 5-6 September; and Ghana from 11-12 September: https://gadget.co.za/girlcodehackathon15m/?utm_source=MastodonAfrica #Women #SoftwareDevelopment #SouthAfrica

@solar_chase@mastodon.green Wow. I actually didn't realise they used so little. I was expecting 3-4kW at least. I don't have an aircon, and never have. They're not all that common in private homes here, so my only real experience with them is in office buildings. I have practically my whole house running through the inverter, but not the geyser, dishwasher, stove/oven, electric kettle, or microwave. My pool pump hasn't yet started for the day (it will in about 30 minutes from now), and right now I'm consuming a little over 500W. The pool pump alone takes around 1000W, so theoretically, that would still leave lots of room, until people start watching TV. In the afternoon, with everything running, I can be consuming a little over 2000W. Then you put the toaster on and it gets to 3000W. :-) Which is still all well and good, but the kettle alone pulls 2000W, and even though that runs very briefly, it could still trip if I have all the other appliances on, and someone decides to run the microwave and boil the kettle at the same time, while the washing machine's running. :D And, of course, at that point, the battery capacity would become an issue, because we don't actually have enough panels to run more than around 2500W, best case, in the middle of the day. I saved about two years to buy my current inverter. They're pretty expensive here. To put it in perspective, I could buy 7 or 8 panels for what it cost for my inverter alone. And the battery costs about the same again as the inverter.

@dansup@mastodon.social Only hashtag topics, and only in your bio? (i.e. it won't periodically scrape your posts and compile a list of hashtags based on those?)

@solar_chase@mastodon.green My geyser has a 3kWh element, so that's bit even an option. But I have a solar geyser anyway (separate to the inverter and rest of the house), so it heats while the sun is shining, and I run it maybe an hour a day off grid power -- or not at all in the middle of summer. :-)

Hmm, so somebody from a publishing company just emailed me about picking up my book. Their email contains impeccable editing and shows (on the surface) a deep understanding of the book, its niche, and what reviewers have said. As if they've done a lot of research and at least read the free sample. But their email address is .hodder@gmail.com. Seems legit... ;-P Seriously, authors, be careful out there. I get 2-3 similar emails every day. #AI #scam

@libreture@mastodon.social Yay, Smashwords is there. That's my jam! My (indie and completely DRM-free, of course!) books are in their annual summer/winter sale: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/grahamdowns?utm_source=Mastodon 😁 @Tattooed_Mummy@beige.party

@hayesstw@c.im Fair enough :)

@jerry@infosec.exchange Oh wow. Yeah, that would be cool. I'm sure there's no shortage of material! :)

@batworx@mastodon.africa Morning, Gavin. Have an awesome day, and a wonderful week! :-)

@dansup@mastodon.social Do the hashtags have to be in the text of the bio itself, or does it respect Featured Hashtags?

@rolle@mementomori.social "Does not require membership"? ... Oh, membership as distinct from registration, I guess. Because naturally, you have to register in order to be able to participate. But it doesn't cost anything to do so, and nobody is excluded from being able to do so. That's the distinction, right? Anyway, well done. That's amazing!! :)

@dansup@mastodon.social You're aiming too low with that. If you want to tackle Insta, you need to be aiming for at least 2.99 *billion* more. :)

@dgoosens@phpc.social Yip. And there will always be *someone* "in charge". Even if it doesn't start out that way, and despite the best of intentions at the outset, it is human nature to want to rule over other humans. And that person will inevitably become corrupt, because power corrupts, has always corrupted, and will always corrupt. :(