mick

Gargron, 2 months ago to random

Oh, today is my 8th anniversary of working on Mastodon. I was 23 when I started, finishing my last year of university, still living at my parent's place. I had no idea what I was getting myself into or that it would consume the next 8 years of my life almost completely.

mick, 2 months ago to random

Didn’t we already try Fascism and Measles and decide we were better off without them?

mick, 7 months ago to fediverse

This, from @pluralistic, is absolutely on point.

This is why I’m here, and why I am helping to build #CoSocialCa

#Fediverse #Mastodon #Meta #Twitter

mick, 5 months ago to twitter

Brands finally starting to get the message.

If you wouldn’t advertise on Parler, Gab or Truth Social, you shouldn’t be advertising on #Twitter.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-brands-advertising-x-extremism-1.7055823

mick, 29 days ago to gaming

Sopwith is 40 years old! I can’t even guess at how many hours I spent playing this when I was a kid.

https://fragglet.github.io/sdl-sopwith/40years.html

#Sopwith #Gaming #RetroComputing

mick, 1 year ago to mastodon

By way of #introduction , I’m Mick, and I am old enough to remember when the Internet was made up of small communities built and supported by their members - before the phrases “attention economy” and “surveillance advertising” were a thing.

I have been missing the fun, chaos and collaborative spirit of that early ‘Net, and I think #Mastodon is a way to reclaim the space that was taken from us.

Volunteer member of #CoSocialTechOps hoping to be at least a little bit useful around here.

mick, 10 months ago to random

mick, 10 months ago to random

There was a period a month or two at the start of the #COVID #Pandemic where it really seemed like we were all pulling together; looking out for one another.

People banging pots and pans at night to honour doctors and nurses.

Random acts of kindness for the retail workers keeping us fed.

Messages like this started popping up on sidewalks, windows, and painted rocks planted in gardens.

A too-brief glimpse of what “community” could mean.

Things really took a turn, didn’t they?

mick, 1 month ago to random

The train station in Port Hope, Ontario, was built in 1856 and was refurbished in 1881. It was restored in 1985 and here’s what it looks like today.

No staff on site. If not for the announcement board I might have mistaken it for abandoned.

Old train station.
Old train station.

mick, 7 months ago to random

Etsy used to be a place where you could reliably find one-of-kind items and directly support the artists that created them.

As it has traversed the classic #enshittification cycle, Etsy has become more “buyer-focused,” and less useful to artisans, who are being crowded out by mass-produced goods and paying higher fees.

As elsewhere, (ahem, #CoSocialCa) dissatisfaction with the corporatization of this space is prompting people to try something new:

https://artisans.coop/pages/about-us

mick, 9 months ago to PostgreSQL

Anyone out there have success with a #DigitalOcean Managed PostgreSQL 15 live DB migration?

I can not get the thing to work at all and oh boy have I tried.

#CoSocialTechOps #PostgreSQL #Sysadmin #NeedAStiffDrink

mick, 10 months ago to mastodon

A few months in and my verdict is that #Mastodon is pretty swell.

On the other place, I found I was mostly tuning in to see what everyone was outraged about.

There’s no shortage of that here, but the overall experience is more like: “let’s see what cool shit the people I keep in my pocket are getting up to today.”

Thank-you, pocket people.

mick, 9 months ago to climate

“The time has come to voice our fears and be honest with wider society. Current net zero policies will not keep warming to within 1.5°C because they were never intended to. They were and still are driven by a need to protect business as usual, not the climate. If we want to keep people safe then large and sustained cuts to carbon emissions need to happen now.”

#ClimateEmergency https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368

mick, 5 months ago to random

As an experiment, I asked DALL-E 3 to “give me some logo ideas for a Canadian co-operative that runs a mastodon server.”

It’s pretty neat! None are great, but some of the ideas are interesting.

Here are a few that it came up with - I've put the prompts it generated in the alt text. 🤯

1. "A logo that combines the iconic Canadian maple leaf with the silhouette of a Mastodon. The leaf could have digital circuit lines running through it to symbolize the server aspect.”

#CoSocialLogoDesign

mick, 6 months ago to climate

TIL: The IPCC integrated assessment models are based on an economic model that seems fatally flawed.

Response to the #ClimateEmergency is based on the assumption that we can overshoot the 1.5 - 2 C warming limit and ride out 2.7 to 3.5 C of warming while the global economy "optimizes.”

The model assumes (among other incredibly daft things) that about 90% of GDP will be unaffected by climate change - because it happens indoors. 🤯

https://theintercept.com/2023/10/29/william-nordhaus-climate-economics/

mick, 6 months ago to random

Even among all the craziness and chaos of the Trump administration, this story stands out as particularly bonkers.

"Q: Is it typical for the Presidential Personnel Office to draft orders concerning troop withdrawal?

McEntee: Probably not typical, no.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/the-inside-story-of-how-trumps-body-guy-tried-to-order-a-massive-military-withdrawal

mick, 4 months ago to mastodon

Just out here blastedon #Mastodon.

mick, 4 months ago to fediverse

Well, that's a wrap!

I just put up a post looking at some of what the Technology and Operations crew got up to in 2023:

https://members.cosocial.ca/t/blog-technology-and-operations-2023-in-review/214

Thanks to all the volunteers who have helped to make our first year a success!

#CoSocialCa #CoSocialTechOps #MastoAdmin #Fediverse

mick, 4 months ago to random

Learned again why we don’t change our passwords right before taking time off…

mick, 3 months ago to Canada

The Government of #Canada is accepting input on a “Regulatory Framework for an Oil and Gas Sector Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cap” until February 5th at midnight.

The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment have set up a one-click letter to make it easy to let your representative know that the cap must be strong and fair, quickly implemented, and free from loopholes favoured by the oil and gas industry.

https://act.cape.ca/newmode_emissions_cap_framework_feedback

#ClimateJustice #ClimateEmergency #CanPoli

mick, 5 months ago to random

😁

mick, 2 months ago to random

Just finished listening to “The Bezzle” from @pluralistic - and it’s great!

Cory has now managed to write two thoroughly entertaining, gripping thrillers featuring a forensic accountant as the main protagonist.

Seriously! No spoilers, but this book features exciting spreadsheets!

Looking forward to more Martin Hench.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

mick, 3 months ago to animals

I guess it’s a bit chilly in here this morning.

#dogsofmastodon

SteveThompson, 3 months ago to Israel

Not seeing any of these concerned 'protesters' posting their horror about the slaughter of innocent Israeli women and children. But the West is supposed to be all gooey and distressed when Hamas propaganda is blindly pushed our way.

"Yazan Abu Jama, 5: Bedouin family’s only son slain by rocket"

https://www.timesofisrael.com/yazan-abu-jama-5-bedouin-familys-only-son-slain-by-rocket/

"Killed by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Ar’ara on October 7"

#hamas #murderers #Israel #Oct7 #Gaza #Palestine

mick, 5 months ago to random

I try to consume news from a variety of sources, which will occasionally include some stuff from #PostMedia papers. They have some journalists and freelancers who do good work from time to time.

But the columnists given space in the National Post are an absolute clownshow. Just desperately, pathetically aping the grievance vibe of the Murdoch papers.

The headlines just try so hard. 😂

Today's specimen: