The guy who runs the instance I’m on sends out a statement every month, detailing how much he’s received in donations, what everything has cost, and how much there is leftover. Accounting for a small buffer to allow for emergencies, he donates the excess to Alzheimer’s research. We’re a Pritchett focus instance, so everyone’s happy with that.

I’ve paid far more to my Masto admin than I ever did to Twitter.

Mint on my ancient MacBook because I didn’t really know any better and it’s working just nice for me, and Asahi/Fedora on my M1 mini, because it’s the only option.

Oh man, Harambe even died in the good timeline?

gets sick out sadly

I’ve been on there two years now, so 🤷🏽‍♀️

Meanwhile, I’m technologically thick as shit and have no trouble using Mastodon at all. If I know someone is on there I’ll find their profile and follow them. Done.

It ain’t that complicated.

Also; tribalism.

Did you switch to it from Android or iOS? Because as someone who’s only used iOS since 2010, I imagine it’ll be one hell of a shock.

I’ve take to using yt-dlp to download things I want to watch to a Plex folder, just so I can watch on Apple TV without having to tolerate a barrage of cunty adverts.

It’s kind of a pain, but it does mean that I’m spending far less time idly scrolling through YouTube.

I’m currently in a weird thing with Apple. I’ve been using Macs since ‘07 and iPhones since ‘10, and while they make absolutely incredible hardware, I’m sick of how much they rip off their customers, and I’m sick of being able to see the ways in which they adapt software to push you towards the thing that makes them the most money.

As a result I have an M2 MacBook which is the best laptop I’ve ever owned, and I’m close to putting Asahi on it to see if I can use that flavour of Linux as a daily driver. Come February, when my iPhone 13 mini is due for upgrade, I’m giving serious consideration to picking up a used Pixel 8 so I can use Graphene instead.

Cool, you crack on using Twitter then.

I have no strawman. I had a wickerman, but, well, it’s awkward.

It’s not that weird, given that they’re both examples of Fediverse software that can (in theory, though not well in practice) interact with each other.

As for Masto being separate instances; I’ve never really had a problem with that. Follow a bunch of people from different servers and you’ll soon begin to federate and link up with other people.

I see folks posting on Mastodon, griping that it’s failing, that it’ll never be as popular as Bluesky and Threads because of X and Y, and I’m like, I’m over there chatting to people all day, having a fine time, following new people, picking up new followers, and generally enjoying it more than I ever really enjoyed Twitter.

I don’t really understand why those folks want it to be more than it is.

“Oh, but there are no journalists!”

Good? I don’t want endless ragebait posted in my feeds. I just wanna be chill, share music recommendations, and enjoy more people interacting with my radio show than ever did on Twitter.

I think you mean Jeb!

You know this thing is tiny, right? It’ll be shockingly easy to pick up and press the button. Even with cables hanging out of it.

I use a 2014 mini with all cables hanging out the back, and it’s really easy to pick up.

It’s literally just the same body as the OG Magic Mouse, which had a bay for a pair of AAs underneath. All they did was remove the bay, put a rechargeable battery in there, and a socket to charge it. It takes a couple of minutes to give it 9 hours of juice.

There’s no grand conspiracy.

My MacBook has just two USB-C sockets. When I bought it I picked up a couple of A adapters on Amazon for a few quid each. It’s never been an issue. Even less so with a desktop, as you’re able to leave the adapters in all the time.

The power draw of these things when sleeping is negligible. They’re basically off, so there’s no real need to shut them down with any regularity.

I can use my MacBook for a whole day and still have half the battery left. Their power efficiency is genuinely remarkable.

Have you thought about using Arch?

I use Arch, btw.

The other day I got to pondering whether people who work for ad serving companies have ad blockers on their work computers.