@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

whitneymcn

@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz

Have enjoyed making and doing stuff on the majority of the webs thus far. Now working on web-related stuff for a book publisher. I like music. Brooklyn gardener. May or may not be notable.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

whitneymcn, to random
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

Making new friends in my early 50s feels as stressful as dating in my teens/20s was, plus everybody's partners and children ALSO have to get along, too.

There should have been a reality show about this, it could have been great.

CultureDesk, (edited ) to books
@CultureDesk@flipboard.social avatar

Until high school, Kate Feiffer believed that her mother Judy's novel, "A Hot Property," was about real estate. Then a boyfriend plucked the book from the shelves, started reading passages aloud, and revealed it was a piece of 1970s erotica. From then until just a few years ago, Kate considered "A Hot Property" to be her literary Waterloo โ€” the book she'd hoped to conquer but never been able to. But after her mother's death, she picked up the novel and โ€” between bouts of screaming and cringing โ€” found something more thoughtful and reflective than she was expecting. Here's what she wrote for LitHub.

https://flip.it/cbERa2

#Books @bookstodon #Family #Lifestyle #Bookstodon

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@CultureDesk @bookstodon When you look into it, an impressive number of people -- otherwise famous and not -- wrote '70s erotica under pen names.

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@CultureDesk Agreed, but my understanding is that the money was relatively good compared to the effort involved, so it's tough to know.

DrTCombs, to random
@DrTCombs@transportation.social avatar

That blissful sweet spot between 'we don't need to pay for childcare anymore' and 'competitive youth soccer costs HOW MUCH???!!!" did not last nearly as long as I hoped it would

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@DrTCombs I was literally just thinking about this today.

But a variant, I guess, to be fair: "it's awesome that we don't have to pay for lessons or summer camp for the big kids anymore," and "oh, wait, college. Right, okay."

ajroach42, to random
@ajroach42@retro.social avatar

The problem with federated alternatives to centralized services (and also one of the main problems with centralized services which lead people to look for an alternative) is Discovery.

Etsy and Twitch and YouTube provide an audience, supposedly. With the right pitch (and the right advertising dollars) you can get your own slice of that audience. (For as long as the algorithm graces you, and as long as you're willing to stomach the other things your viewers will be algorithmically suggested.)

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@djsundog @ajroach42 Webrings? ๐Ÿ˜‰

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@djsundog @ajroach42 And I'm only partially joking.

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@djsundog @ajroach42 Yeah, I see webrings as social/topical groups that might require approval of members, where a directory aims broader (though moderation, at least, would be necessary).

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@djsundog @ajroach42 We're at a point where these things can [still, maybe for the moment] be operated at human-manageable costs, which wasn't really the case before.

I only had websites in the 90s because a friend had a server colocated in his company's data center, and his company didn't ask a lot of questions.

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@djsundog @ajroach42 The human time/effort is still the big issue, but maybe that's okay.

I tend to think of this area as the "human-scale" web, but maybe it's equally accurate to think about it as a return to the "hobbyist" web.

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@djsundog @ajroach42 Pete Seeger once said "normally Iโ€™m against big things. I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things."

I think about that a lot these days.

evan, (edited ) to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

How long has it been since your last subway ride?

#EvanPoll #poll

https://evanp.me/pollfaq#never

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@evan Seems like the results to this are going to be weird, since it's only a relative handful of cities, globally, that even have subways.

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@evan Weird in the sense of a lot of people likely answering "I just don't have subways where I live, so rarely/never" which seems like it's just confirming that most people don't have access to subways, rather than anything about people's inclination to ride subways.

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@evan It feels to me a bit like asking "how recently have you been to the 30th floor or higher in a building?"

Most people just don't have the opportunity to do so regularly.

skinnylatte, to random
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io avatar

literally everything i do today for work and money comes directly from 'me dabbling at random stuff at a computer 20 years ago that no one else around me understood' so i truly feel sorry for kids of helicopter parents who are like 'no screens'

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@skinnylatte I think kids today even have it a bit harder, because "screen time" doesn't necessarily include/allow "view source" time today, much less "I'll just pop the case off and look at the guts" time.

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

If you listen to F1 on your phone cranked to max in public places (e.g. airports) you are a fucking war criminal and you are going to Hell for ten billion years when you die.

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@pluralistic s/F1/anything/

Lotje, to random
@Lotje@pancakesontuesday.com avatar

Nice day in New York! :D

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@Lotje Welcome, and enjoy!

whitneymcn, to random
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

I'm still baffled and disappointed that Joan Armatrading didn't get a huge revival in the late 2000s.

revengeday, to random
@revengeday@corteximplant.com avatar

This cat has spread spaghetti all over the kitchen floor.

He loves spaghetti more than anything.

It's his favorite โ€žtoyโ€œ.

I forgot to close the pot with the spaghetti.

Here is a picture of him.

I can't be mad at him.

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@revengeday

I have spread
the spaghetti
on the floor
and some other places

even though
you were probably
expecting
to eat it tonight

I don't ask forgiveness
because I am
so cute
and so fuzzy

autisticbookshop, to actuallyautistic
@autisticbookshop@autistics.life avatar

Hereโ€™s a challenge for all of you this month! How many of you have read books by autistic authors/containing autistic leads? Which of those books have you loved?

@bookstodon
@actuallyautistic

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@autisticbookshop @bookstodon @actuallyautistic Excellent question, and for me the answer is few to none -- could you share some that you love?

MagentaRocks, to books
@MagentaRocks@mastodon.coffee avatar

This never occurred to me. I read anytime throughout the day - whenever it strikes the mood. I think reading is good for you, no matter the time of day.

Anybody else feel the same as the writer of the opinion piece?

@bookstodon

Opinion
Iโ€™m retired, and I still wonโ€™t let myself read in the daytime. Why not?

Gift Link:

https://wapo.st/4aG52cI

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@MagentaRocks @bookstodon "Why is the act of reading in the daytime considered so disruptive..."

Who the actual fuck does the author of this essay -- A WRITER -- spend time with in their normal life to give them the impression that reading on the daytime is controversial?

liaizon, (edited ) to random
@liaizon@wake.st avatar

Meta/Threads/Facebook/Instagram has made their own symbol for the fediverse, so we better have a good argument for why this is not representative of us because we are quickly gonna see a lot of this icon...

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@chillicampari @djsundog @Rairii @liaizon I guess every generation on the internet must find their own goatse?

whitneymcn, to Bloomscrolling
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

I'm not a huge fan of tulips (team daylily here), but I potted up some bulbs last fall to give them another shot.

Got to say I'm pretty happy so far.

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@amart We've got plenty of gardening challenges in Brooklyn, but wild deer aren't one of them. ๐Ÿ˜€

RickiTarr, (edited ) to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

This is probably my worst poll, but I'm curious, for science:

I have/had:

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@RickiTarr I'll go with "really good parents, but mostly emotionally accessible in complicated ways."

But many decades into this I'm still figuring out what part of that was them and what part was me.

whitneymcn, to bookstodon
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@bookstodon I've burned through all of the Brother Cadfael books in the past couple of months, and I have a question: I've Googled this a bunch, but I still can't find anybody online who is connecting the dots to prove that Cadfael himself was the reason that there were so many murders in a relatively few years, in this tiny 12th century English town.

That kind of analysis HAS to be a thing, doesn't it?

whitneymcn,
@whitneymcn@mastodon.xyz avatar

@lunalein @bookstodon Exactly so.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • โ€ข
  • provamag3
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • ethstaker
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • ngwrru68w68
  • Youngstown
  • everett
  • slotface
  • rosin
  • khanakhh
  • GTA5RPClips
  • PowerRangers
  • anitta
  • thenastyranch
  • Durango
  • cubers
  • tester
  • vwfavf
  • mdbf
  • cisconetworking
  • tacticalgear
  • modclub
  • normalnudes
  • osvaldo12
  • Leos
  • megavids
  • All magazines
    •